Blogging The Telecommute

So, Day Two of the great New York City Transit Strike and we're tired already. We'd have liked to have posted last night, but were too dog tired from the walk back to say anything. Moreover, we wanted to take a picture of the Manhattan skyline at night - one of our favourite views - ringed by stalled traffic, but the batteries on the old camera had given up.

Still, what was a pretty invigorating yesterday, at least when paired with an industrial-size hangover, is now a dull ache in the legs. 9.5 miles we walked yesterday, with a side order of alcohol-induced cramp in the legs. Nice! Still, the 80-odd minutes it took back was much less than the poor sods in buses on the Manhattan Bridge. Plus, no Marty or New York Times reporters!

Plenty of people writing about the strike this morning, so there's not much more to add. Well there could be, if, as many of the people scooped up by Technorati do, we were to rely on the Wall Street Journal and Fox News for coverage. Then, you'd almost feel the forth and spittle coming off the page.

For what it's worth, we're still finding it hard to hate the TWU local 100, even if the strike forces us to shop in the vile Ratner mall at the end of the road rather than the mighty J&R. Right or wrong, the union's going on strike in part because of how badly they've been treated the last few years. The money's OK, but labour relations down below have rarely been pleasant. Could be the pensions, could be the training, but most of them have just had enough.

Quick update on the graffiti at DeKalb we caught yesterday. In a pleasing bit of symmetry, as we were walking back through downtown Brooklyn, some kind of motley band of blackleg labour was taking it down very slowly. Who they were, and whether they were paid using twenties doled out by Big Transit, we cannot tell. But we are pleased to have the moment for perpetuity. Got quite a few Boingboing-induced hits on our flickr page, as well.

In other news, we have a new Republican hero to replace creaking hack John McCain. Judge Jones, who is in fact a real one rather then those ones who crop up on UPN at 10am, has shot down this intelligent design business ("why do we exist? Who can tell? Maybe the aliens they seeded our brains with THE CODE") rather decisively. He also included a pleasingly gratuitous dig at the nonsense's proponents:

"It is ironic that several of these individuals, who so staunchly and proudly touted their religious convictions in public, would time and again lie to cover their tracks and disguise the true purpose behind the ID Policy."

Class, not quite profile picture calibre, even if it did not involve displeasing the mighty Zod. But good nonetheless. You shall have some space until we post again.

[UPDATE: Hey, 'landgrab types. I would like to point out that I did not ultimately visit said Circuit City. I decided to walk to work in Union Square, tried the Circuit City there, and finally settled on a less crowded PC Richards. You can see some of the pictures above. Not that I wouldn't visit the stupid mall if Armageddon came.]