On a completely different note (sort of), do people use the word "agita"?

I use it all the time!

I've never used the public transit here, despite living right by a station. It just doesn't go sensibly near where I'm going.

Public transit here is pretty stupid. People (at old job who didn't know b'more) were asking if I would be taking it to work and I had to explain how maybe there was a bus that went this way but otherwise I'd have to take light rail and a water taxi and it would take a good long time and cost quite a bit of money.

I will try to bike here sometime soon though.

The problem with talking to people is that sometimes they talk back. I'd much prefer a shoving match.

I saw a really scary shoving match the other day -- scary because it was on the stairs. Somehow the guy going down didn't completely wipe out.

Agita is a very useful word - I don't really use it, but I'm familiar with it.

I could write volumes on heinous behavior on public transit. The guys - and it is usually a man - who insist on taking up more than one seat. Last weekend I tried to sit next to a man who was aggravated that I was expecting him to content himself with two seats rather than three. The ones who take up two seats and most of the aisle to stretch their legs. The people - all ages, genders, who will occupy the preferential seating and refuse to let elderly people or those with an obvious physical problem sit there. The worst I saw was a woman who insisted on standing right at the front and refused to move, even when she was blocking a man in a wheelchair who wanted to get out. bleah. We also get tourons ... lots and lots of them, many of whom seem to have never: ridden on any kind of public transit; been in a city; used an escalator; crossed a busy street. argh.

Public transit here is pretty stupid.

Yup. It's too bad, though, that it doesn't make sense to have a water taxi ride in your commute. That'd be neat! Well, except in gusty weather.

I use agita, but ISTR Bob asking me what it meant recently. So I guess I don't use it enough.

I hate riding the Red Line past Wrigley if it's before or after a Cubs game. Lots of people who never take public transit, who won't move to the center of the train so others can get on. And they're often drunk. I recall the loud shriek and laughter of the drunk woman who was leaning against the doors when they opened....

I use "agita" all the time. It has sort of replaced "tsurris" in my vocabulary.

When I worked downtown (my first job out of college), I never once drove to work. The first four months, I took Metra from Joliet (and either walked from the LaSalle Street station to the office on Grand and Dearborn, where Spago's is at now, or took the bus), and then the rest of the year I worked there I took the Green Line from River Forest to the Clark/Lake stop.

If I could have, I would have taken public transit from Oak Park/Forest Park up here to Riverwoods, but the one time I had to do that (damn Denver boot), it took me three hours to get the 35 miles.

Mmmm. I'm eating a big free corporate cookie right now. I don't know if they over-ordered for a meeting or were just feeling generous but this is a serious chocolate chip cookie.