I’m a fly girl on a shoestring budget. This week’s review:
The Chinatown Bus

I was wary as hell when my dear friend Miss H. suggested that we take the Chinatown bus rather than the train from DC to New York. My Amtrak ticket would have been $45 bucks, but her round trip ticket would have been $90. Since she and her friends have partaken of this particular mode of transportation in the past, I was a little more comfortable, but still not very.

We traveled on the Today bus line since that was the one that LaShaya had taken before. There are plenty more choices: the Fung Wah, Dragon Coach, Apex. We took the 9:30 that was supposed to arrive in Manhattan at 2:30. There’s no proper “bus station,” we just saw a bus parked in an alley parking lot between two buildings and spotted the “Today Bus” sign above a stoop and went from there. Rather than purchase advance tickets, we just paid our way once we boarded the bus. My fare should have been $17, but the guy didn’t give me back change out of my $20… I was still a little scared of the whole situation, so I didn’t say anything. LaShaya used exact change for her tickets so I didn’t have a comparison.

The bus was a comfortable and clean charter bus with a bathroom in the back and television screens to watch DVDs and tapes of the driver’s choosing. The passengers were a hodgepodge of ages and races, the same as you would find on any other mode of transportation, but there were plenty of young people. We both each had a bag for underbus storage and one to carry on. I’m not sure if there is a luggage limit but we had more than enough space under the seats an in overhead racks for our carryons. Some girl brought a tiny dog wrapped up in a blanket and I’m not sure if she hid it or not; I would reccomend checking their pet policy before trying that out. We left promptly at 9:30 and stopped once more to pick up more passengers in Baltimore; until then my friend and I each had a seat to ourselves. The bus was never overly crowded. There was one 15-minute stop at a rest area midway through the trip for food and bathroom breaks, and we arrived in Manhattan well before the posted time; the driver gave us the option to disembark in front of Madison Square Garden instead Chinatown, which we took since we had to make our way to Grand Central Station.

I didn’t catch the bus on the return trip, but according to LaShaya is was just as prompt and convenient. I was dropped off at the airport before she made it to the bus stop and she made it to DC before my flight made it to Charlotte. She had a little problem finding the bus and I think that it was a little more crowded on that trip, but her return was on a Sunday night as opposed to our initial trip on a Monday morning.

All in all, I give the Today Bus 5 out of 5 stars. I traveled comfortably from DC to New York City in standard driving time for about the same price as it cost me to get from New Rochelle to Manhattan and back just once. The Chinatown Bus officially = the new heat.

Sam Jackson cures a nymphomaniac Christina Ricci of her sex addiction. Forget Snakes on a Plane. I wanna see Black Snake Moan.

Between this job, this school, and my lack of self-transport skills, I am slowly dying inside. Seriously. Oh, there went my spleen.

Someone asked me the other day why I stopped writing my blog. Honestly, I don’t have much to write about anymore. Everything is either job related and I can’t talk about it, sorority related and I can’t publicly talk about it, or school related and you don’t really want me to talk about it. I have finally become what I never, ever wanted to be: boring. At some point I feared I might be boring but knew deep down that I really wasn’t. Now, I know I am. Truly. I have, however, had some interesting experiences as of late.

Yay for Me!
First was the agony and ecstasy that was seeing Dave Chappelle and the Block Party All Stars at Oven’s auditorium last month. Agony: the show selling out in 20 minutes and my having balcony seats despite being in line at the box office and on line at Ticketmaster.com since 9:50 AM. Ecstasy: the seats being not all that bad and the show being AWESOME! I wasn’t old enough to attend the 25-and-up afterparty, nor was I bright enough to guess that Dave would do a surprise aftershow at the Comedy Zone, so the only pictures I have are screenshots from the dozens of minutes of illegitimate video shot on my wonderful (and now broken, which is another story) digital camera, which I will, out of respect of copyright law and the code of the streets, not distribute to the public. Kweli rocked it, Erykah ripped it, and Dave… Dave is just fucking classic, is all.

I went to see the Block Party movie instead of the stepshow during CIAA weekend, and that might have been the best and only good reason for avoiding social engagement that I’ve had in a long time. There were all of 8 people in the theater, counting the people who came in late. I thought this might have been because all the black people were CIAAing it up, but apparenly this continued across the country and the following weeks. That’s a dissapointment, but an understandable one… if it had been a standup special, the theaters would have been packed. The movie was WONDERFUL and only solidified my standing belief that that concert would have been one of the standout experiences of my life and would probably have made up for my not getting to see the Roots/Fugees show in Charlotte when I was in the 9th grade (but that is yet another story). Maybe there’ll be a Block Party II? Some weekend when I can ditch school and work? Maybe I’ll have friends by then? Who knows? That last one is only half rhetorical.

*This is the closest approximation I can think of to that sound Prince always makes. You know the one.

This is becoming a regular thing. You like? Thanks to Courtney S. for putting me on to this song in the first place.

Toni Braxton: Take This Ring

It used to be a point of consternation, but I love the way Toni Braxton comes out with one hot song every two years or so and then dips back out of the spotlight. What is she up to, like 17 albums? Anyway, that’s better than glutting the radio with a bunch of half-assed material and burning out because people hate you. Ashanti, are you listening?

I’m not quite sure why Rich Harrison decided to use the same go-go beat from Amerie’s One Thing, but if it works, work it. It’s got a nice beat. You can dance to it. I give it an 8.

My infatuation with Aaron McGruder nonwithstanding, the Boondocks on Adult Swim was actually really funny. Something seems off about Grandad’s voice, but he is funny as hell. I was also questioning the animation style, but I think it might grow on me.

This was one occasion where the promo editing really didn’t do the program justice, because I was a little dissapointed by what I had seen; but through either bad editing or clever marketing the funniest moments were completely surprising. I guess next week will determine whether I was just pleasantly surprised or whether the show is actually as hilarious as I found it.

Quote of the week:
“Gay? No, I’m not gay. I mean, I think a man looks good if he got good hair and a ponytail, but I’m not gay.” © Grandad

Today also wrapped up the 48-hour What’s Happenin’ marathon. Has a better character than Rerun ever graced the small screen? If anyone knows the new regular airtime on TV Land, let me know.