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new mods what are your positions on long probation reasons like this : Was in your city for AB this weekend, and while I had a pretty decent time like the previous years I've been here, I needed an obligatory reminder that Boston is a city with a terrible subway system. What kind of subway system has contactless smartcards for fares, and countdown clocks in every station, but shuts down service at 1am when you're just getting your party on a Saturday night, or trying to get back from AB? Had to walk an hour and a half back to my hotel (the DoubleTree Bayside over by JFK/UMass) when I missed the last train by like 5 minutes after walking to Copley from Hynes to have a better chance of catching a train, and I didn't want to spring for a taxi and had no smartphone to call an Uber, like the goddamn hotel concierge recommended because their shuttle bus driver had gone home for the night... Even asked as I was leaving the Hynes and the goddamn security told me the trains would still likely be running. Nope, locked. Same at Arlington. Missed the last one at Boylston by like 3 minutes after I already swiped in... And the transit workers there didn't bother to tell us that the trains were no longer running until like 10 minutes of a bunch of people waiting around on a platform for a train that would never come. Tried walking to Park Street for the Red Line direct to UMass after that, only to find that they locked the access to the Red Line platforms, so I decided to do the walk. Went through Chinatown via Washington, a walk that I remembered from last year going to and from PAX from the Omni Parker House when I was crashing with fellow Enforcer friends from New York (Basically NYCC Crew who became Enforcers as well), then over to South Station, then heading south along the highway. Got to Broadway ok after cutting around Chinatown, when I should've gone straight south from South Station instead. Had to leg it over a bridge to Southie over the parked Red Line trains instead after going through the area where the Ink Block condos are or something? Good thing Boston has so many maps around downtown and on bike racks, otherwise I would've gotten so lost, especially without a smartphone, and my dumbphone was already out of battery... Ran into an MBTA cop over on Dorchester as I was heading south from Broadway, who pointed me in the right direction to get to Andrew Square, but not any way to get to UMass Boston/JFK after that, besides some general directions (go down Boston Street or over a bridge on Southampton and I'll pass the hotel). Oh course he had to get in some NYC bashing in to make the directions as simple as possible so I could understand them when I told him I was from the city, though I guess he laid off a bit after I told him to lay it on me, since I walked around LA a lot when I was there for Jeopardy. Made it Andrew Square ok after walking through some dark industrial Southie neighborhoods, but got hopelessly lost after that. Asked a cab driver who was stopped in that area on Boston Street for directions, and he was nice enough to give me a ride back to the hotel and tell me that I would've needed to walk another half hour or so around the highway to make it back on foot. Really nice dude, gotta make sure to pay it forward next time. Dude has family in eastern Queens too, so small world. Total walking time from Hynes to Andrew Square and then some, minus 10 minutes waiting around for a Green Line train that would never come at Boylston? An hour and a half. My feet hurt and I almost fell a couple times on Southie's uneven sidewalks. My Boston friend told me the next morning that I had really gone out of my way towards downtown in order to catch that train that would never come, and I could've taken a more direct route that would've cut 30 minutes out of my walk. She also kept saying that she warned me I should've left earlier... Looking up the route on Google later, she was right. Man, my feet still hurt from that walk, even after a night's sleep. Blargh. Man, in the 6 or so times I've come up to Boston, I've always had some sort of transportation related nightmare. First time for AB 2007, I miss my Megabus back to the city on Monday from Back Bay (because Megabus wasn't stopping at South Station back then) because I didn't know that Back Bay was within immediate walking distance from Copley on the Green Line, so I did a roundabout transfer to the Orange Line Back Bay Station like an idiot. I don't think Megabus allowed changing buses for a fee back then. And this was after crashing at a computer lab on the BU campus because my cousin who went to the school had a friend who had access to the lab over Spring Break and let us stay there, showering at one of his friend's walk-up dorms off of the river. I also wound up missing the last train for the first time and walk the wrong way down Boylston towards downtown instead of BU, but a caught a cab back once I realized where I was going wrong around Boston Common... Managed to catch a last minute Chinatown bus (Fung Wah was still running back then, bless their cheap rear end tickets) on a non-Fung Wah liveried Fung Wah bus with my cousin, and made it back to Manhattan Chinatown that night, albeit with my out of battery phone blowing up with voicemails and missed calls from my family who were expecting me back hours earlier... Was still out my Megabus fare though... Second time in Boston for AB 2014, I was crashing at another cousin's place in the North End by the Paul Revere House. Coming back from Hynes, I got the same problem with the trains shutting down so drat early, so I had to walk back to his place. Kinda a theme for me in Boston, walking down Boylston and then through Boston Common late at night, getting lost around the State House, then making it through Government Center and then to Haymarket and back to my cousin's. His roommate was amazed that I walked back and didn't just take a taxi or an Uber, but again, I wanted to save money and didn't have a smartphone. Next month I go up again with a bunch of NYCC Crew friends to Enforce for the first time at PAX East 2014. My cousin is out of town, back at his parents' place in Jersey, so I crash with other NYCC dudes I know at the Seaport Hotel, which is really nice, but with like 5 guys there in the room, it was rough. Walked around the convention center area on Saturday in search of cheaper food in the area, and wind up seeing quite a bit more of Southie than I was expecting when I just wanted to go to Broadway for eats... Met a bunch of goons and an old friend from high school at the Giant Bomb panel, plus other dudes I know from college back here in the city, which was cool. Leaving on Sunday, I forget my Jeopardy baseball cap in my friend's room as they're rushing me out the door (I wanted to stay to watch Game of Thrones, since it was the Purple Wedding episode and watching Joffrey choke on that poisoned wine would've been great, but we would've gotten back to the city even later), and I have to wait until I see him again (at the XMen Days of Future Past worldwide premiere event at the Javits Center a month and a half later) to get it back, and when I did, it was all sorts of beat up. Didn't get back home on Staten Island in the city until 5am because we had to drop everyone else off first since they were on our way to my place, which is what I get for living on Staten Island. AB 2015 has me getting into Boston at 5am because the Chinatown buses (Lucky Star this time) were all sold out for Easter weekend and I had to grab a cab up to the Megabus stop instead after getting a last minute midnight ticket after leaving my house so late because of arguing with people online over the results of the Friday night Jeopardy episode, specifically Final Jeopardy. Get into South Station late because of fog so the bus can't go as fast as it should've been. Get on the train to UMass, and just as I start making the 5 minute walk to the hotel from there, it starts pouring and I get soaked. Drenched like a wet cat as I check into the hotel, which sucked rear end. Had to get back to NY on Sunday for a family thing too, so I took a 12:30am Lucky Star bus back to Manhattan Chinatown, and got like 2 hours of decent sleep back on Staten Island after getting back to the city and getting home before my cousin came to pick me up for a graveyard visit for my deceased relatives over in Queens... PAX East 2015 a couple weeks later has me leaving New York in my NYCC friend's van in the middle of a snowstorm, then hitting rush hour traffic trying to get downtown to check into our hotel. Miss the exit we were supposed to take, wind up going across a bridge and then down Storrow Drive and around a loop of downtown before getting to the Omni Parker House because of lovely GPS directions and getting lost and stuff. Miss Enforcer check in by half an hour after having dinner in Chinatown and have to wait for the next day to get our shirts and badges, despite PRD (the Enforcer coordinator) not having left yet, but all the paperwork guys gone. Hung out in the Hilton for a while with NYCC Crew buddies though, so that was cool. Also managed to take everyone to Winsor Dim Sum in Chinatown on Sunday night after con is over, which was great, but my last act as an Enforcer as they prune the rolls later that year and I don't have the seniority to remain Enforcing. Oh well, two years was a good run. Still, I won't miss being crammed into a room like that, I think we had 7 of us in that room at one point just before we left. Had to grab a Chinatown bus back too, since there wasn't enough room in my friend's van and he was leaving later on Monday when I had to be back on Monday morning. Still, Boston is a nice enough place to visit, I guess. Wish I had more time (and money) to look around and spend on food and stuff. Would've loved to wander around the Pru a lot more, but by that time my feet were already killing me. Had a Boston friend show me around for some decent and cheap food in the Hynes area too, so that was cool. Saw a bunch of AB friends that I only see like once a year. I wanted some dim sum at Winsor before I left, especially since the South Station bus terminal is like a couple of blocks from Chinatown, and I had a couple of hours to kill before my bus left last night. But my friend wanted to do pho instead, and since she was paying... And that wasn't a bad choice either. Maybe I'll be back next year, since I can't do PAX East this year, as I'm not Enforcing anymore. User loses posting privileges for 6 hours. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Apr 20, 2022 22:58
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| # ¿ May 14, 2024 08:57 |
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