Notice anything weird about this Metro video I took just yesterday? Watch and listen carefully! That’s right, there are still a few Metrorail train cars out there which use the old door chime and voice! Can you believe it’s been two and a half years since Randi Miller was picked to tell us that the doors are closing and that we should move to the center of the car? After so much time the old voice sounds so… drained, lackluster, the chimes rung as if by a halfhearted station manager who has just climbed two sets of out-of-service escalators. “Dooors clooosinnngg BIIINNNGGG BOOONNNGG.” I think what we have today is a definite improvement, happy xylophone code and all.

Paulo Ordoveza

Roving Asian mendicant, can occasionally be seen wandering the streets of downtown Washington, muttering unintelligible gibberish to passers-by while pushing a “bag lady” shopping cart full of old blankets, American flags, soda cans, and healthy secondhand snacks from organic food shop dumpsters. Used to live in a cardboard box at 16th and K but the rent was too expensive.