Your fingers renamed your daughter, Sox!

not exactly. one of her nicknames... courtesy of DH.

well the idea is that smaller and more localized grocery stores would open up again if gas went up enough. Also cities of all sizes would invest more into public transportation systems.

I think this too, and I wish it were so. You would be surprised at the shock of people here in a small city that I take public transportation. I have had more than one person say "I would rather walk 10 miles from my house than ever set foot on a bus". The perception of public transportation here is that only poor, low-class people and criminals take the bus and no one in their right minds would take it. Now it is true that a lot of people take the bus because they are poor, but there is quite a wide range of personalities, social types, and scariness levels. I get on my stop in the morning with a secretary for our city school district and a mom who is a nurse taking her son to daycare.

I am also in a city where poverty, crime, etc are rampant and fill almost all of the city proper. There are some better areas, but by and large there is a huge amount of urban decay. Most of the money is in the suburbs, and even further out, where people communte 1 -2 hours by car to get to their jobs.

AND, people are scared of the poor people and want to kick them out of Downtown, which is terribly, terribly empty and decayed. Our city has a spoke and wheel system and almost everyone changes buses downtown, and there is no grocery store, there is 1 drugstore that closes at five, and one dollar general. There is no coffee shop or stand Everything else is empty. Everyone is told that all the businesses had to close because the people taking the bus stole too much, and they couldn't afford to keep their business open.

It is crazy here!

Living in a small town on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, people thought I was nuts not to own a car. But I lived in the center of town and could walk to work. Plus, renting a car every other weekend from Friday to Monday cost about $100/month (with insurance).

I just ate an orange so juicy that it misted as I peeled it.

Work almost accidentally subsidises my bus rides in. I suspect I take the bus more than most, but I live pretty convenient to the whole thing.

I miss public transportation. I paid 120 a month in Boston for my T pass, which was unlimited rides on buses, trains, and the ferry.

Right now I pay 160 a month in gas, 120 in insurance, and 220 in a car payment. So there's 500, but add in oil changes and car washes, and it's more like 525.

4 bucks a gallon. Eesh. I should just move to Pasadena. But right now I'm hovering over Colin's place like a vulture.

Huh. I actually have a shred of respect for McCain. He appeared at a rally in Cincy yesterday* and his warm-up act was a local talk-radio host who is a total douchebag who proceeded to insult Obama, Hillary and Bill Clinton, and the media in general. The crowd, of course, loved it.

McCain, however, actually went to the press corps after his own speech was over, and apologized for what the douchebag said. Although I don't think McCain used the word "douchebag." (Possibly "choad.")

*(Yeah, McCain had 500 people yesterday; on Monday, Obama had 13,000. That's not a typo.)

I paid 120 a month in Boston for my T pass, which was unlimited rides on buses, trains, and the ferry.

I think that's gone up at a radical clip. Actually, maybe not; the monthly base rate is now $59, but includes all buses as well as T. (You can't separate them any longer.) I don't know about ferry.

The nice part about living a bit farther from the city is that my car insurance has dropped like a stone. The not-nice part about same is that driving is unavoidable for some tasks. E.g., my bank doesn't have a branch except in the next town over.

McCain, however, actually went to the press corps after his own speech was over, and apologized for what the douchebag said.

Did he say anything to the crowd?

I would consider taking public transportation to work if it wouldn't take me an hour and a half each way.

That was the situation at my old place. It was bus to train to shuttle (or walk), and took at least double the time of driving. I leave work between 6 and 7, I couldn't handle that at night.