I wrote a review for the ultra-cheap bus company, Bolt Bus for my Boston/Emerson blog, the 1880. I thought I’d post it here. I took the Bolt Bus from Boston to New York City and here is a diary as to what went down.

The Bolt Bus in South Station in all its glory

Boston -> New York

2:30 PM
In South Station. Only one person in line. A little bit of me is afraid that I will have the same driver from last time.

3:00 PM
Well, I just boarded the one-and-only Bolt Bus (I’m using their wi-fi as I write this!). I mentioned it in a previous post, and now I’m on my way to New York City.

The line was short until about 10 minutes before, when a bunch more people joined in the line. I paid $1.00 for my ticket, and I think it’s already been worth it. The bus is brand new (it has that new… bus smell) and the driver, Daniel, is fresh and excited to drive (complete with a playful welcome). I was able to join the (read: free) Wi-Fi right away, and the first thing I did was take a speed test. 317 kbps down, 133kbps up. Better than I was expecting.

4:40 PM
All’s well on the bus. The wireless has been very consistent save for one connection drop for about two minutes. It’s been great to browse craigslist and IM and what not. Sent a couple photos (including the one in this post) over the wireless without worry. Passing through Hartford– traffic seems decent and I’m assuming I’ll get into NYC at the scheduled time (7PM).

I’ve noticed the power plugs, on the back of the aisle seat, are a little awkwardly placed. Luckily there’s nobody sitting next to me, so I can let the power cable dangle as much as I want. Whatever the awkwardness, it’s worth it to have some juice.

7:32 PM
We arrived 32 minutes late due to traffic (not due to BoltBus, of course). As we got into the city, our driver Daniel was honking like a maniac at a bunch of different intersections. Not sure how much I liked that (again… one dollar.). Our drop-off point was outside as I expected, right by Penn Station. As we pulled in, some guy in the seats said “let’s have a round of applause for the driver for the best dollar we’ve ever spent,” and everybody clapped. I felt awkward joining in… I guess this is what separates bus travel from all others. Besides, he’s getting paid a flat hourly rate– he has nothing to do with the dollar fare.

New York -> Boston, 3 days later

The dismal “bus stop” from within the bus

9:10AM
“We treat everyone as first class citizens,” says our driver, Kenny. The bus is about 10 minutes late, and I can see how they save a lot of their overhead– their stop in NYC is on the side of the road. And that’s pretty shitty when it’s rainy and wet outside (i.e. NOW). While I was waiting I met with an older couple who had also already taken the bus and asked what I paid for my ticket. $7 I told her. She paid $10. Right before we get on the bus as it arrives, she lets me know about MegaBus and their $1 service (nevermind their creepy-looking mascot). There are not many people on the early Monday bus– there are a few empty rows. Kenny is just as excited as the last driver. He’s explained that they picked the best drivers from both Peter Pan and Greyhound. “We know that Greyhound has a bad reputation. There’s no yelling,” he says, “unless you’re disrupting others on the bus!” He laughs. Yeah, I’ve had a bad experience on the bus before. The wi-fi works right away (as I write this), and we’re off.

1:40PM
We’ve arrived back in South Station. We’re 40 minutes late, but that’s because of the crappy weather and the quick stop (that I was thankful for) 3/4 of the way through.

Conclusion
All in all, I feel like the experience I’ve had with Bolt Bus has been a positive one. They have brand new buses, excited drivers, free wifi & outlets, and very competitive pricing. However, it should be noted that having an actual spot in Port Authority in New York City instead of outside on a street corner would be nice, but this I’m sure would increase the ticket price.

What also sucks is that if you go to their website to buy tickets, you can find that almost every weekend (Fri-Mon) ticket through August is at least $7, and usually $10. Looks like it’s going to be hard to pick up that elusive $1 after all; it would be nice if they didn’t sell their tickets so far in advance so that people could actually have a chance of getting them. I wouldn’t be surprised if one person just went through and grabbed every Fri-Mon $1 ticket through August. After all, it would only cost them 24 dollars.

Would I ride on it again? Sure. Is it better than the train? It’s not as on-time or comfortable, but they do have onboard wi-fi, and that’s a BIG plus. Will they eventually lose exciting and friendly service and get worn down just like the other bus lines? Probably, but $1 is inexpensive enough to double check down the road.

I’ve been interviewed about ten times from all sorts of different media outlets, including local Boston television, radio, and newspaper media, The New York Post, and a few others (which haven’t gotten anywhere).

However, none of them really seem to paint the exact picture I made. So, I thought, since the media can’t really get a full grasp as to what happened, I thought I’d explain a little. So, here goes.

In response to…

…the situation on the bus.
The way this whole thing got started was when I posted the very same e-mail I sent Peter Pan about my experience. What I said in there I believed to have happened and included my feelings about the situation. I never felt physically threatened but instead just felt annoyed and cheated out of an early ride home. He was punishing an entire busload of passengers because of one of them who happened to complain about his driving. While this is very immature, it wasn’t some sort of act of kidnapping or terrorism or any shit like that, in my opinion. A lot of what he’s said in the media he didn’t inform us (I.E. the stop he could’ve made and didn’t). The driver in question was actually relatively nice to me as he suggested I get on his bus which was leaving a good half an hour earlier than my original bus.

…the swing of the media.
In all of the interviews I’ve given, I’ve told all that I can remember from the event. Of course, they ask me what I think about the situation, and I think they’re disappointed when they find that I didn’t feel physically threatened. When they take the things I’ve told them, they take only the parts that interest them out. For example, today I was interviewed by Channel 7 WHDH Boston, and they asked me a series of questions. Repeated three times was the question “how did you feel about the situation?” as though the answer I had given wasn’t interesting enough. They asked me what I felt should happen to the driver, and I basically said what I’ve said here a few times: He was being silly and immature, but I didn’t feel threatened really. They (or whomever) can interpret that as they may and do what they think is necessary.

…the possibility of the bus driver being fired.
This is one of the top things people either question or tell me their opinion about. “What do you think should happen to the driver?” In response to this question, I leave it completely up to the bus company. I feel what he did was wrong, but I personally don’t believe this is something to lose his job on. In The Boston Globe recently, they stated that “Bryant said the story of the bus ride, which has been reported by other media outlets, has unfairly characterized him as a ‘monster.’ ” I really couldn’t agree more. Again, was he in the wrong? Yes. Was he being immature? Yes. Should he be fired? It’s up to Peter Pan.

…the picture in the Boston Globe.

Let’s not talk about that.

Peter Pan: The People Professionals

To whom it may concern,

While normally I take the Amtrak train between Boston and New York, I decided this last weekend that I’d take the Greyhound bus. I purchased my ticket online and proceeded to the gate. My bus out to New York last Friday was 2 hours late, but the traffic was bad, so this wasn’t my biggest gripe.

However, my 1:00PM ride back on Sunday to Boston on the Peter Pan bus line was an absolutely terrible experience.

When we arrived at our only stop along the ride in Framingham, MA at 4:35 PM, about 20 minutes away from Boston, the people who had gotten their tickets to Framingham walked off of the bus. I was surprised and delighted to see that we were about 25 minutes ahead of schedule and that we would arrive in Boston ahead of time– something I was looking forward to after my previous trip. However, after the bus driver stood outside for 5 minutes to smoke a cigarette, he came back inside the bus and made an announcement:

“Usually,” he said, “on Sundays, I leave right after I drop off the passengers. You’d be about thirty minutes early. However, on the way here, I was told on my radio, ‘are you alright?’ I said, ‘yeah I’m fine,’ and they had told me that someone on this bus had called in and said that I was swerving all over the road and falling asleep.’”

I personally noticed this a bit along the way.

“And, since someone said this, and aggravated me, I’m going to aggravate you. We aren’t going to leave until 5 o’clock [25 minutes from then]. And no, you can’t go out and smoke.”

The driver kept us captive on the bus. Some people voiced their opinions, some even apologizing for whomever called the company that he was swerving. One person said, “I don’t know why you’re punishing all of us for something one person said,” and he replied, “one apple spoils all of the rest.” A woman asked if he could continue “because of the baby.” He said, “What baby?” The woman replied, “my baby,” picked up her child and showed it to him. “No way,” he said, and stood there, staring at us.

The bus driver continued to stand at the front of the bus, glaring at us, the passengers.

Finally, about ten minutes into the wait, one gentleman stood up and said he wanted to get off of the bus and asked the driver if he could get his bags. “No, you can’t,” he said.

He then asked again politely for the driver to get his bags. He still wouldn’t let him. The driver asked if he was going to Framingham, and the gentleman replied that he wasn’t, and he said that he couldn’t let him off of the bus, making up some excuse as to why. He argued for another five minutes to no avail. He was letting no passengers off of the bus.

This kind of behavior by an attendant is absolutely unacceptable. Peter Pan’s slogan is “The People Professionals,” but clearly this is not the case.

While I understand that a bus usually has to wait for the specific time to leave, he explicitly stated that he didn’t need to. But, most disturbingly, he would not let any passenger off of the bus. The mother with her child were forced to stay on the bus until they left, the gentleman wanting to leave wasn’t allowed to, and he stated in the beginning that nobody could leave to smoke at all.

When we left the Framingham station, I was seriously worried about the situation. He didn’t refer to anything he had said and left without saying a word.

No matter what situation happens, the customer should be considered important, whether that means not telling the driver that someone had called, or properly training these drivers to not react in this way to words of complaint. Even if he wasn’t swerving, this type of behavior is absolutely, no doubt, unacceptable for a professional company.

My experience was absolutely disturbing and I plan on never taking the Greyhound or Peter Pan bus in the future, opting to spend more money on the Amtrak lines because of this awful occurrence.

Sincerely,

Brian Moore
brian [at] brianmooremedia.com

Back in the day, me and my buds used to spend almost every summer afternoon playing a little-known game: Half-Life. A first-person shooter, HL was awesome not only because it had quick and interesting gameplay with little need for an amazing computer, but because it was so moddable. What that meant was that people could take the original came and build upon it to essentially make an entirely separate game that was equally as fun.

One of those mods was Team Fortress. In this game, you got to run around as one of (I believe) eight different types of characters, doing things such as building sentry guns, dropping mines, using rocket launchers, and disguising yourself as the opposite team so you could sneak in, grab their flag, and bring it back to your base.

Now, almost 10 years later, Team Fortress 2 is being released, and boy does it look like fun. It’s styled not unlike a redneck comic book, and what I’ve seen from the videos, it looks absolutely hysterically fun. For their advertising campaign, they’ve decided to do something called “Meet the ______,” where they take the different classes of characters (the ones I explained earlier) and give them a little backstory to keep you interested. Check them out. It’s worth it:

Continue reading A Video Game I’m Actually Excited For: Team Fortress II »

I think I know what I want for Christmas.

And by Christmas I mean saving up to get it when it comes out. Wowza.

I’m always skeptical when someone tells me how much they love a TV show. Not because I have anything against TV shows (I’ve been addicted to The Office ever since it aired), but because of the tight following and the whole “you’d love it just like I do” feeling. It’s the same that goes for movies (I haven’t seen a few classics just because everybody says “you’d love it,” making me think the movie would be ruined… it’s an issue). For example, my friend Sam always talks about House. He says how great it is and how addicted he’s become with it. From the surface, it just seems like any other medical/drama/comedy, but I really have no idea.

The moral of this story is, don’t judge a book by its cover. Instead of clenching my armrest on my flight between Chicago and Seattle earlier in the summer, I was watching 30 Rock on the in-air flight screen. It was hysterical! And no, it’s not just because Tina Fey is cute. Too many people take that easy way out. It’s catchy and funny, with a different feeling from all of those other comedy shows. Believe me, I do love me some Office, but 30 Rock might’ve edged out as a winner. About that different feeling: instead of being obviously funny, it has that sort of “inside joke” feel to it, but anybody who’s watching it gets it. I could easily see Tina Fey writing down every line in this show, and it truly is a lot of fun.

In the end, I think it’s the best comedy I’ve seen since Mission Hill. And that’s saying a lot.