So last week I posted my brilliant idea of what I would do the next time someone came to me in White Plains begging for money… that was, make them work for it. If they wanted money, I’d give it to them, if and only if they sand or danced on camera. In fact the same man returned, the one I was referring to in that post, again asking for dollars. And thus began my evening in White Plains yesterday.

Dollar man was looking for a dollar, and I said that I would give him one if he danced or sang. I even pulled the dollar out of my pocket. I later said that I’d give it for doing just about anything, including telling a joke. So I turned on the camera, and told him to tell his joke. But he got shy, pulled his hat over his eyes. I said oh well, turned off the camera, and put the dollar back in my pocket.

Certainly by now everyone in the train station was watching this exchange between the man and my friends and I. So the man tried a different tact: “Miss? Did I say that you look very pretty?” Unfortunately I wasn’t giving out dollars for compliments, but it certainly got the room to burst into laughter. But of course, he wanted that dollar bad. And so he finally agreed to “tell a joke” on camera. I put that in quotes because he claimed that he said something funny, but I certainly didn’t hear it. But I told him I was feeling generous and that he could have the dollar. After all, I did get something semi-amusing to write about.

Later on before I got on my train, the man, who told me his name was John, wanted to thank me and shook my hand. He also wanted to know what my name was, and if I was single. In retrospect the idea of asking beggars to perform on camera was rather amusing. In practice however, I don’t think I’ll be doing it again. Either way though, I am probably going to hell.

Some people might be completely oblivious to the fact that elections are going on tomorrow. If you ride the train though, it is highly unlikely that you are one of those people. In the past week alone most train riders have been given handouts equal to our own weight. In fact, the janitors at all stations are probably putting in overtime, necessary to carry out the trash of all the handouts that the train riders are discarding.

In order to help out all our readers for tomorrow’s big vote, I’ve found all of the handouts and politicians from the past few days, plus some old favorites.

In the race for District Attorney, we have two strong candidates. Janet DiFiore, who may or may not have been on Law and Order, and Dan “The Pirate” Schorr!

Competing for Worst Halloween Costume are Beth “Goth Chick” Smayda and Tony “Batman” Castro

Best Halloween Costume is a toss-up between Charley “Superman” Wood, Tom “Cowboy” Roach, and Bill “Rooster” Ryan

Competing in the race for People That Make the Same Face in Every Picture are Tim Idoni and Bill Hyland

And lastly, we have our delightful contest for Lookalikes.

Leonard Lolis and Saddam Hussein

Rob Astorino and Vladimir Putin

Seriously though, go out and vote. Oh, and please remember to recycle.

Train stations are packed this week full of various politicians making their rounds, passing out flyers, and trying to earn your vote on November 3. I was sitting upstairs in the waiting room in White Plains today, and it was just a hilarious procession… Step one: Politician hands you a flyer, Step two: walk down the hallway, Step three: throw flyer into the trash bin, Step four: continue on your way.

Why is it that so many people don’t refuse the flyers? Even if they don’t want them. The majority of folks take it and throw it out. I on the other hand, hold onto them and do different things… Let’s just say I don’t think that Tony Castro and Bill Ryan are my biggest fans.

That was about all that was interesting at the train station this morning… though we did have a guy who was begging for coins, he claimed that he missed his train and he needed fifty cents to call his boss to say he was going to be late to work. One of the folks I ride the shuttle bus with gave him the money, then he walked away. Right past the phone booths. So I shouted out to him, “Hey, the phones are over there!” With everyone staring at him now, he pretended to make a call. Quite terribly though, because he didn’t put that money in the phone. What a surprise.

When I started out this blog, it was sort of just a portion of my own personal website. It had the same layout as my site, and was fairly integrated. I have been thinking for quite a while now though, this blog has really taken off in another direction, and is pretty much standing well on it’s own. So I felt that in order to reflect that new identity, the site needed a little bit of change in the aesthetics department. Enjoy the new layout that I’ve made, which I’ll probably be tweaking for a little while now that it is up. I’m not much of an illustrator, but I did want to try doing a little sketch for the title, with the Sky Ceiling in Grand Central in the background.

So what else is changing? Next week brings new schedules to the MTA, and conductors will be changing around their jobs… so you may see some new faces on your trains. I’m quite bummed that all the conductors on my train all got bumped off and had to take jobs on other trains.

Conductor winter wear will also make it’s comeback… though my proposed new hat for MTA conductors was denied.

If you do like changes though, especially changes in the leaves, you must check out the Fall Foliage Rail Excursion, over on the Hudson Line, which will be happening on the 24th. You can find more information about that tour here.

Lastly, if you missed October’s Mileposts, you may have missed some nice deals. When buying tickets for Cirque Du Soleil’s Wintuk, and the Radio City Christmas Spectacular, you can save ten dollars, and get a free round trip train ticket. Just be sure to use the promo code METRO.

When it comes to crazy people, White Plains station has no shortage of them. From now on I think I will officially dub the man which I’ve talked about a few times as Mr. Chicago, as he always seems to be talking about Chicago. This morning I was sitting waiting for the shuttle, and he sat down next to me. He was having a long conversation with himself, parts of which sounded like they were complete gibberish. He also described a fat woman that looked like Johnny Damon, and about how he would have beaten someone up, had he not been “drugged into submission.” I imagine this guy knows all about being drugged.

I never got around to mentioning it, but a few weeks back White Plains got some new signage. The old signage had a black stripe on the top, not the blue stripe consistent with the rest of the Harlem Line stations. Here is a delightful photo I took of an M7a coming into the station, you can see the new sign over on the other side of the tracks.

Unfortunately, the schedule board signs around the station have not been working too well. If anyone was curious, they are apparently run on Windows XP:

Though it would have been a little bit more amusing had it been like this:

Usually they work pretty well, and I’ve certainly talked about how I liked them before… of course I only like them when they are working properly.

And for no apparent reason, here is a picture of Peggy, my favorite one-legged pigeon.

This week has been rather hot. The trains have been hot. Some of the air conditioners are not working properly. As conductor Guy said, “It is so hot you could cook brownies in here.”

Inevitably what happens in the heat? People sweat. If you are some of the great people who hang out in the train station of White Plains, sweating doesn’t stop you from wearing your clothes many days in a row… as I doubt you have an entire collection of shirts that say: “My imaginary friend says you have severe mental problems.”

The Chicago-obsessed, taxi screaming, crazy man also wears the same clothing over again. I saw him over by the telephone last night and saw he had some sort of nametag or ticket in the transparent side pocket of his bag. So I walked past him to see what exactly it was. It looked like some sort of train ticket that actually said Chicago on it. It looked nothing like this ticket, but it would be certainly amusing if it had. And if this guy had photoshop skillz, no doubt it would have been like this, instead of a fake computer print-out.

On the other hand, at least these people stay away from me… and they aren’t this guy:

That’s real nice dude, as if putting your feet up on the seats wasn’t nice enough, he decided to take off his dirty, smelly sandals. And then proceeded to pick his feet. Thankfully conductor Peter came around and at least he stopped the feet picking, and put his shoes back on. Is this National Nail Week or something like that? With all the people I’ve seen picking, clipping and painting their nails, you’d think it was. You know what else is good? Showering, and changing your clothes every now and again.

Did anyone notice the delightful little flyer that was left on our trains yesterday? The one in the shape of a footprint, that said “Wiggle Your toes in the grass…” and on the back had safety tips? Well, I didn’t think it was very convincing, so I designed a new flyer for Metro North. This new one is oh so much more professional, and it has pictures! Doesn’t everyone just LOVE pictures?

While riding the train I always see a lot of people drinking beer after work. I wonder if some people solely ride the train just because they can drink and ride, instead of getting arrested for drinking and driving. I also notice that just about every single person who drinks beer, leaves their empty beer bottles and cans on the train when they get off. You know, just so everyone sees how cool they are that they drink and ride. Everybody know you gotta show off like dat, yo.

Some people get started early…

And others enjoy the beginning of the weekend…

Either way, you’re just not cool if you aren’t drinking beer on the train.

Hey, maybe Metro North could even do a promotion, touting the best reason to ride the train! Completely ignore the fact that the majority of people do actually have to drive their cars home after getting off at the train station. Replace those boring train advertisements, and do a little something like this:

Coming down the steps from the platform this morning at White Plains, I saw some rather odd guy running around wrapped in a white bed comforter… hmm, is it nappy time? Perhaps another homeless guy I don’t recall seeing before… but it did look like it was a nice comforter… almost like the down one I have on my own bed. Hmm…

In other news, there is yet another White Plains taxi driver that isn’t trying very hard… Here is another artist rendition. Yeah, because the first turned out *so* well…

Here are some good past memories of Greyhound, after reminiscing with my friend and travel companion:

Does Greyhound even sell 30 day bus passes any more???

It has always been my opinion that the taxis in White Plains have some really weird names. As you leave the station there is a long lane for taxis, and they all line up waiting for people in need of their services. Each taxi has a name on the left door, and the name of the town where it is from. Some of them try and sound professional: Executive Taxi. Some are just generic: Central Taxi, Westchester Taxi. Others are more out there, but still believable: Flamingo Taxi. Others, well, I just don’t know. One example was a taxi I saw today. The name was “Desire of Nation Tax” apparently there was not enough space on the door of the taxi to fit all that, so the last few letters were written up the side. And since there was no room for the “i”, it was left off. Come on guys, you’re not even trying…

Apparently the New York Times has written an article about the various names of the White Plains taxis. Desire of Nation comes from a church quarterly.

Since I was unable to capture a photo of the taxi, I commissioned an artist (myself) to make a rendition of what the taxicab looked like.