Hall of Wien

For whatever reason, Wien has been on my mind today. I suppose it's simply Wien being pronounced ween and the last syllable of today's holiday, coupled with my childish amusement concerning speculation as to residents call themselves Wieners. I mean, they're either Wieners or losers, right?

And speaking of losers, we've definitely got Ventra. As I mentioned in the past and as you might have noticed if you were a Chicago transit user, the system is performing rather abysmally. And it's tough for the employees of the CTA, many of whom I have interacted with over the years, and many of whom I like. People get pretty frustrated with the service already and there's a tendency to take it out on someone wearing the logo. Throw in another wrench with Ventra and I worry about the remaining hair on the already one-third bald head of a man at my nearby station.

CTA's pretty aware of just how unenthused riders are with the crap service — though not aware enough to have considered not implementing the unnecessary "upgrade" in the first place. Alas, profits [for someone]. The result is that the stop I get off at every morning has recently acquired a new jovial man to greet everyone and to tell us all to have a wonderful day. I know why he suddenly appeared and I'm sure other riders do too, but that doesn't stop me liking the guy. Using such a tactic only makes me dislike the CTA even more, but hey, I'm transported most of the way to work without having to do anything but stand there. That can be a little more difficult at rush hours, but hey, other people want to travel most of the way to and from their destination without having to do anything but stand there too. Some of them even sit.

In the spirit of Halloween, Kind was giving out bars this morning. I could have sworn when these launched they were nothing but natural ingredients but now they've got the soy lecithin and the soy protein isolate of every other "bar." Or perhaps they were always loaded with these artificial goodies and now they just choose to report it. Either way, doesn't seem so kind to me. What I mean is they're not the kind of thing I want to be putting in my body. Not at a premium cost, and [almost] not for free. But not eating free things that aren't good for you wouldn't be following the spirit of the day. Sometimes you gotta give into the spirit.

A Happy Halloween to one and all.