And tourists? STAND RIGHT, WALK LEFT!

I am not above a pleasant, yet booming, "Standing on the right, walking on the left, please!"

Every single time I do it, some local thanks me.

I am not above a pleasant, yet booming, "Standing on the right, walking on the left, please!"

I wish people did that in Chicago.

Maybe if I yell at two people for standing on the left, they'll yell at two people, and they'll yell at two people, and so on and so on....

Maybe if I yell at two people for standing on the left, they'll yell at two people, and they'll yell at two people, and so on and so on....

...and that's how the riot starts.

Congrats Hil!

Locals don't understand escalator etiquette here either. My train station has one (not all do, because it's light rail) and I can't tell you the number of times I've just missed my train because people are just standing around all willy nilly texting, listening to their iPods, or what have you. They also don't understand waiting for people to get off the train before trying to get on.

For some reason the bus people have at least figured that one out.

And I'm thinking of all the people who did not mail in their Census questionnaires as providing work for me! It's almost patriotic, their inaction, really.

Once again, today's patriotic Census duty involves sitting in a nice cafe waiting for nice people to bring me forms while I surf the web. I'd much rather do the web developer job I just interviewed for, but this has asking 'if you want fries with that?' beat to all hell.

They also don't understand waiting for people to get off the train before trying to get on.

At least most people do here. Once I got in a shoving match with a woman as I was trying to exit a train and she was trying to get on. I did loudly explain how things were supposed to work to her.

Once again, today's patriotic Census duty involves sitting in a nice cafe waiting for nice people to bring me forms while I surf the web.

Very nice!

People in this building haven't mastered not trying to get on the elevator before people get off. I understand if it's first thing in the morning and you're getting on on the ground floor--you don't expect people to be leaving then. The rest of the day? People travel. The magic metal boxes aren't at your exclusive beck and call. Falling back and forming a people wall isn't much help either.

I'm scared to talk to my boss now, in case I hallucinated the whole thing.

I don't have my rational pants on today.

If I ever decide to kill myself, I think I'm going to iHop and eating a bunch of this:

"Pancake Stackers": IHOP Doubles Down (PHOTO)

IHOP's "Pancake Stackers" will be a limited-time offering through June 20, and consist of: a layer of cheesecake sandwiched between two pancakes, available in strawberry, blueberry, or cinnamon apple, all topped with whipped cream. They will be available a la carte or as part of a combo meal, with eggs, hash browns, plus bacon, porks sausage links, or ham, which will tally up to 1,250 calories -- over twice that of a 540-calorie KFC Double Down.

I don't have my rational pants on today.

What pants are you wearing? Pi pants? Square root of 2?