From: bc@Apple.COM (bill coderre)
Newsgroups: talk.bizarre
Subject: Re: Rictus Hep confesses an inadequacy
Date: 13 Oct 92 06:52:34 GMT
Organization: Apple Computer Inc., Cupertino, CA

mathew:
|Well, there are some places even in the US where you can get by without a
|car.  My impression was that using the T beats driving in Boston any day.

There is a famous book called "Car Free in Boston." It makes all kinds
of arguments that owning a car in Our Fair City is stupid.

Well, just so you know straight from the source: they are wrong. 
Sure, it's fun to ride the T, and hideously stupid to attempt to park
in Kenmore Square during a Red Sox game. Any fool knows that.

But it is far more fun to play Sumner Roulette[1], and surely hideously
stupid to bet your source of income on the punctuality -- nay
predictability! -- of the Red Line.[2]

Let's put it this way: Dukakis[3] doesn't drive. Ralph Nader[4]
doesn't drive. mathew doesn't drive.

Need I go on? Need I explain the sheer joy of relativistic street
unidirectionality theory?[5]

Sidewalk turnarounds? [6]

Parking points? [7]

mr HEINOUS
boston driver no matter where he is

[1] The Sumner Tunnel leads from Logan Airport to Boston, and merges 8
toll booth lanes down to 2 lanes, one of which is demarcated as a
right-turn-only lane at the end of the tunnel. Lane changes in the
tunnel are *theoretically* verboten, so according to the *rules*,
99.2% of the traffic would like to enter the tunnel in the left lane.
Of course, any cabby will laugh to hear any professed belief in these
rules. 

[2] The Red Line is a famous subway line. What is famous about it is
its predicatable unpredicatability. Travellers often explained
lateness of up to three hours by merely saying "Oh, the Red Line..."
and waiting for the recipient of the excuse to profess sympathy.

[3] Michael Dukakis, former governor of Massachusetts, who lost the
presidential race to George Bush in 1988 by having not only a scandal
more interesting than him, and not only having a running mate more
interesting than him, but having EYEBROWS more interesting than
anything he had to say. Even Bush couldn't be more boring than Mikey,
and thus the election turned.

[4] Ralph Nader, famed "consumer advocate," earned his reputation by
destroying that of the Chevy Corvair. Most of his complaints about the
dangers of its design centered on its unusual "four wheel independent
suspension." The facts that the drawings in his book are considered
distorted enough to be considered libellous, that the US Government
spent a substantial amount of money disproving his claims, and that
the "treacherous" Corvair suspension was nearly identical to other
cars available at the same time, and indeed is now considered to be a
common design used by dozens of high-performance cars and trucks, have
not impeded his crusade to make America safer by imposing no-fault
automobile insurance. Why, exactly, Mr Nader is so proud of these
achievements, and yet simultaneously proud of the fact that he has
never driven a car, eludes this commentator.

[5] It is claimed that if you are going fast enough, it doesn't matter
what direction the arrow is pointing on the one-way signs, that some
form of relativistic contractional effect shrinks the signs beyond
recognizability.

[6] In dire emergencies, such as the discovery that one's car is
proceeding away from a parking space rather than towards, one may use
the concrete lane commonly referred to as "the sidewalk" as an
Approved Auxiliary Temporary Travel Lane for a distance no greater
than 60 (sixty) feet, or until parking is acheived. If the space is
gone despite your heroic efforts, you may park on the sidewalk (in
Allston, only).

[7] The theory of parking points has been elucidated at length by this
author in a previous treatise, quo vadis.
Newsgroups: talk.bizarre