Not a good idea, parts 1 and 2

This afternoon, I was exiting the subway at the west exit of the Bloor-Danforth subway platform. This is the exit that bypasses the Yonge-University line and goes straight up to Yonge Street. Because this exit isn't used much, you use a revolving gate instead of a turnstile to exit.

If you're not familiar with the TTC's revolving gates, let me see if I can describe one to you: it's like a revolving door, except that it has horizontal metal bars instead of glass panels, and there's a barrier to keep people from revolving all the way around and back into the station. The basic idea is that it lets people out but doesn't allow people in. Got it? A friend of mine used to call these gates "people strainers".

When I got to the exit gate, a man was just getting through it. After he left, he felt compelled to put the gate back in the condition he found it, so he abruptly stopped its motion as I was about to enter. He wasn't being malicious - it was just an instinctive act of tidying up. But I have no idea what he was thinking. Had I been in the gate, I probably would have been somewhat injured, as I would have been people-strained.

I looked at him, politely but questioningly, as if to say, "Dude - what the?" He looked startled, and then rueful. And then he realized that this exit didn't lead to the Yonge subway, and slunk back in. Just another day on earth...


I was surfing the net tonight, and ran across a site claiming to list the bird courses offered by Canadian universities. (Of course, "bird" in this context means "easy".) I looked up the list for my alma mater, the University of Waterloo, and discovered that the data there is not entirely reliable: CS 452 - Introduction To Real-Time Programming is listed as a bird course. As the recommendation puts it, "Easiest course ever! Earning credits for playing around with trains, how easy is that!?"

When I was in school, taking this course meant that you had no life for four months, as you were doomed to spend all your time in the lab. I avoided it like the plague.