Monday, January 14, 2013

CTA Fare Hike

I typically don't ride the train or bus often but once in a blue moon I take it and I know how expensive it is just to ride downtown for half the day. I know people that take the train or bus everyday because that's their only means of transportation to get to work. I have no choice but to drive to work since there is no route from my house to get there. Now I'm glad I drive to work because they are increasing prices to take the train or bus. CTA riders will have to spend a hefty penny to ride, starting today!

A day pass cost $10 instead of $5.75, 3 day pass cost $20 instead of $14, weekly passes cost $28 instead of $23 and 1 month passes cost a whopping $100 instead of $86 that was originally priced. Blue line riders that are traveling from the O'Hare International Airport will have to pay the one-way fare price of $5 instead of the $2.25. The fare hike will generate about $65 million in revenue. Illinois is already raised prices at the Toll booths, parking meters, red light enforcer, license plate stickers, sales taxes to name a few.

It's getting too expensive to live here and not to mention the crime rate here is horrible. I'm waiting for my time to get out of Illinois, it's getting outrageous with the prices, high unemployment rate and the crime. It's not worth living here anymore.





Sources:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/13/cta-pass-hike-begins-mond_n_2467619.html
http://gridchicago.com/2013/first-cta-fare-hike-in-four-years-begins-today/

Thursday, January 10, 2013

Taft High School Shooting

A shooting took place at Taft Union High School in Taft, California at around 9am today. A 16 year old male student armed with a shotgun walked into class shot one student, fire at another and missed. The student that was shot is in critical but stable condition. This all took place in the science building on the other side of the campus. The interesting part about this story is that the gunman had a specific target or targets. A teacher and a staff member convince the gunman to put the gun down, he told the teacher he didn't want to shoot them but named the person he wanted to shoot.

As I suspected, the 16 year old gunman was bullied so maybe he snapped. Many people that know the gunman said he was teased a lot by many because of his stature, even the victim teased the gunman at one point. Nobody knows where he got the shotgun but it reminded me of what happened in my high school ages ago. A young man was being bullied a lot at my school, he was very quiet, smart and tended to himself. He used to walk home by himself everyday, I felt so bad for him. One day I heard the police searched his locker because someone overheard that he was going to shoot up the auditorium where the school dance was going to take place at.

Well unfortunately they found a shotgun in his locker, I don't know what happen after that or to the young man but it was so surreal. I couldn't believe that could happen in my school or anywhere else. I'm glad that no one was killed and the police got the gunman.



Sources:
http://www.sfgate.com/news/crime/article/Shooting-reported-at-high-school-in-Taft-Calif-4183357.php
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2013/01/taft-union-school-shooting-student.html

Friday, January 4, 2013

Pinkberry Gingerbread Frozen Yogurt Review


I know I'm a little too late on reviewing this flavor but it will be leaving soon. When I first sampled this frozen yogurt I was like, hmmm! I wasn't sure I liked it or not. So I got a cup of it, the flavor was sweet with a little hint of spice. But it tasted like it was a little too sweet and spicy, maybe too heavy on the combination. They had a sale on the Gingerbread frozen yogurt, buy a take home of the Gingerbread for $5 bucks versus the $11.50 they normally charge. That's a good deal but I couldn't handle the flavor to buy the deal. My boyfriend ended up getting half Gingerbread and half of another flavor, I tried it again and I was coughing a lot after eating it. Strange!

All in all, I wouldn't try this flavor again but if you are a big fan of Gingerbread then I would recommend this.


Source:
Image: www.pinkberry.com

Stereotyped

There are numerous stereotypes based on age, gender, race etc. The reason why I'm writing about this type of topic is because something was said, well, something was said a few times to me regarding my race. I'm going to tell a little of my background, I grew up in the inner city where there was drugs, gangs and prostitution down the street from my house. I even went to a really bad high school, they had mental detectors there everyday. The gang members would go into random classes and sit and the teachers would be too scared to say anything.

So I grew up the opposite of a lot of my friends, I would say that I spoke with articulation, I was reserved and quiet. A lot of my friends were loud, rude, ignorant and always wanting to start some trouble. Some of my friends would talk slang that I wouldn't understand. Even being around people with different cultures never made me think of them as those stereotypes. I actually like being around people of different cultural backgrounds because I can learn from them, learn their language, food and heritage.

I was always accepting of people because I always wanted to be accepted by society. Long story short, I was at work and I was asking a co-worker (A) a question, "hey are you okay?" I asked that because he was extra silly today. The other co-worker (B) jumped in and said, "he is crunk" I asked, "what is crunk?" he said, "are you serious?" of course I said, "yes I'm serious". This co-worker (B) said, "I'm not telling you, you have to be on the cool people's list" I ask, can you give me a hint?" he proceed to add me to the IM chat with another co-worker (C) that tends to joke around a little too much. (sorry about the letters I can't display real people's names).

Co-worker (B) told co-worker (C) that I didn't know what the word means, and co-worker (C) ask me, "are you sure you are black?" it struck a nerve with me because he assumed I supposed to know what that word means because quote, I'm black! I didn't know I supposed to know every slang word in the universe because the color of my skin, how naive of me. This isn't the first time this happened, I was called "white" by a so called friend of mine because I had some articulation in my conversation with him.

Also another so called friend was really shocked because I didn't speak slang or Ebonics. He assumed that since I grew up in the inner city I supposed to be ghetto and talk slang all the time. It's already hard enough to make a living in this economy let alone being judged on the color of my skin and be put into this huge stereotype.

Sure stereotype will probably never go away but come on, don't expect people to be the same, there are no two people that are exactly the same.

Wednesday, January 2, 2013

The Collection Review


I seen this movie not too long ago because I have "The Collector" on DVD and I loved it. The first movie left me wanting more because it didn't really end. So when I saw the preview for this movie I had to go see it. This movie left off when the main character (Arkin) played by Josh Stewart got kidnapped by The Collector played by Randall Archer in the first movie in 2009.

Arkin was able to escape from the crazy mastermind killer during a rave party and was finally going to live a normal life until he was blackmailed into saving a wealthy father's daughter (Alena) played by Emma Fitzpatrick from the killer's booby-trapped warehouse.

This movie have some crazy scenes with torture and ways the booby-trap finishes people. I won't add any spoiler alerts here because I don't want to ruin it for people that didn't see the movie. Go see this movie if you like movies that are similar to the Saw movies, horror, and sadistic movies. I'm getting this movie on DVD when it comes out to add to my collection.



Source:
Image: http://www.movieweb.com/news/the-collection-poster