Short takes

[magid]

question
For T-pass wielders: do you sign the back of your pass?
(The informal poll of two orkers in the elevator was 50% each way.)
ETA: A quick scan of the T website yielded no information about signing passes.
Not that it's relevant or anything, but the February passes are navy and gold.

mini food review
I tried Emerald brand Butter Toffee Glazed Walnuts, and they're rather nice, little pieces that have some salt and some bitter (from the nuts) to balance the sweet, and the toffee part is small enough that it isn't making a land grab for my fillings. The odd part is that having more than a couple of bits makes my tongue start to numb, rather in the way biting a clove does. Which is disturbing enough that I'm unlikely to buy these.

Monday
Most of the highlights: lazing around the house, making beef soup and flavored flatbreads, gaming, looking at snow and frost patterns, and finishing the first roll of film, also extracting it from the camera (non-trivial). What I did not do: laundry, shovel out the car (with the attendant cheese-retrieval), go to the gym, unpack my suitcase. Perhaps today...

weather
This year the local high school is using a different brand of ice melt, which turns the snow turquoise. It's a bit disturbing.

I'm enjoying walking around (other than the turquoise), the paths feeling rather like picking my way through almost-tunnels. More of an adventure to get to my destination, winding around drifts higher than my head, the cleared paths sometimes barely wide enough for me, sometimes spacious, two snowblower-widths wide.

The snow on my porch is melting already; the top pane of the French doors is almost completely clear.

Comments

[treacle-well.livejournal.com]

do you sign the back of your pass?

No.

[queue.livejournal.com]

do you sign the back of your pass?

My first thought: why the hell would I do that?

Then I got my pass out. Weird.

[pinkfish.livejournal.com]

I haven't had a pass in years, but back in the day, I never signed it. I don't remember there being a spot to sign.


Food review review

Those sound like they might make a good addition to ice cream. Do they have chocolate?

(I like the idea of mini food reviews, and would encourage you to do more)

[magid.livejournal.com]

I suppose it theoretically keeps people from using someone else's pass, plus it might make its way back to you if you lose it.

[magid.livejournal.com]

There's a small line on the back you can sign, now, anyway. it's not long, and close to the top of the pass (ie awkward to sign), plus the pass itself is some kind of flexible plastic; I don't know if only certain writing implements would work (I'm in the never-bothered-to-sign crowd too).

No chocolate at all. The ingredient list includes walnuts, sugar, corn syrup, natural and artificial flavors (I assume whatever it is that numbs the tongue is one of these. Oh, and it's not just me; two other people noticed it too.), canola oil, brown sugar, salt, vanilla, soy lecithin, and citric acid.

And of course there's the obligatory "manufactured in a facility that processes other tree nuts and peanuts" (It makes me laugh, on a tree nut product), which ends with a warning that it may contain shell pieces.

(Thank you. Hopefully there will be other interesting foods coming my way that will call out for mini reviews.)

[magid.livejournal.com]

Just out of further nosiness, before this did you know that there's a place for a signature on the back?

[queue.livejournal.com]

I would bet that at least 75% of people have an illegible signature.

And can you imagine the T positioning people at every turnstile, checking I.D. against the signature on the back of the card?

[treacle-well.livejournal.com]

Yes.

[majes.livejournal.com]

gaming

I'm quite curious to read your interpretation of your visions.

[magid.livejournal.com]

100% employment, here we come!

Of course, T passes would cost double what they do now, and it would take twice as long to get anywhere. But it would be a safe system, totally secure. And that's what our country's all about, right?

[magid.livejournal.com]

Nudging noted.

(So many options for interpretation; also considering that I asked about two things and got answers to only one....)

[hrafn.livejournal.com]

I do not sign my T pass. It seems like a rather silly thing to expect people to do.

[magid.livejournal.com]

I agree. Most signatures are unreadable (as Queue pointed out), so it's not likely to get back to you if you lose it. And they don't check IDs at the entrances (see: illegibility of signatures again; would you need some other ID with a signature to compare?).

[jaq.livejournal.com]

Do you have photos with T passes?

[magid.livejournal.com]

[LJ ate the first copy of this; apologies if you get it twice, somehow.]

No. The passes are flexible plastic with a magnetic stripe, and I get a new one monthly. The only photo IDs I have are my driver's license, passport, and gym ID (strangely enough).

[jaq.livejournal.com]

That's interesting, I was just looking up about mine, and apparently I no longer need a photocard...

[magid.livejournal.com]

A photocard is the transit pass, or a photocard to get the transit pass?

[ruthling.livejournal.com]

I have signed them once or twice in the past. It helped when I had T-pass enabled roommates. Plus, it's kinda fun. I haven't signed one in years.

[magid.livejournal.com]

OK, I could see signing it to distinguish among roommates' passes, if they happened to get out of your purse/wallet/pocket/backpack at home. Though putting a silly sticker or a doodle on it would work equally well.

[queue.livejournal.com]

Of course, as long as everyone gets a pass, it doesn't matter who has which one.

[magid.livejournal.com]

Unless some are subway, some bus, some combo, and someone's not paying attention to which they grab when they're in a hurry.

[queue.livejournal.com]

If someone's not paying attention to which type they grab, they're certainly not going to pay attention to the signature on the back.

[magid.livejournal.com]

True 'nuff.

[surrealestate.livejournal.com]

I knew there was a place to sign (I do read, after all :) and might have signed it once or twice, but generally no, did not bother. I never particularly saw the point but at the same time always hoped for the small possibility that someday someone would actually want to check the signature, and what might stem from that.

[magid.livejournal.com]

I hope that there will never be a time someone will check the signature; it's far too Big Brother-ish for me.

[jaq.livejournal.com]

Some of the passes need a photocard with them to be valid. So you have to have one to get the pass, as they put the photocard number on it, but it's a seperate card. But apparently irrelevant now :-)

[cellio]

Remember, boys and girls: don't eat the blue snow. :-)

The idea of signing a transit pass is utterly foreign to me.

[magid.livejournal.com]

I was thinking about what kind of large blue dog might've done it :-).

And yeah, it doesn't seem to serve any purpose (other than filling up the back of the card with more stuff).