Burning rage.

This is what I feel towards the Pittsburgh bus system.

Jenn and I had plans to go see "The Curse of the Jade Scorpion" last night. (Good movie - highly recommended to Woody Allen fans, moderately recommended to all others.) Originally, Katie was supposed to drive us, but there was some miscommunication, so at the last minute we had to run to catch the bus.

The bus we caught (with a few minutes to spare) was the 59U, which, the website assured us, stopped at the Loews' Theater on the Waterfront, the only theater in town showing the movie. We caught it at 8:15. The movie started at 9:00.

"An 8:15 bus for a 9:00 movie!" you exclaim. "But the bus is scheduled to stop at the theater at 8:24! 36 minutes before the movie starts! Surely this is madness!" Patience, gentle reader.

The bus passes the turn-off for the theater. "That's okay," we reason. "It's going around to the other side first."

But the bus continues to drive away from the theater. After a few stops, a girl walks up from the back of the bus and asks the driver, "Are you going to stop at the theater?"

"No," replies the driver. "They don't want us stopping there any more."

Overhearing this, every single person on the bus stands up and gets off the bus.

Now, let's put aside for now the formidable stupidity of the theater requesting that the bus stop which inevitably brings them a good amount of college-student business be eliminated.

It would have taken them maybe 15 minutes to update their website. The change would have taken effect immediately.

It would have taken them slightly longer to put a sign on the bus saying "NO STOP AT LOEWS'".

But surely, when a high-traffic stop is removed from a bus route, there should be some indication of this somewhere along the way. What about the movie theater employees who took the bus to work?

So we ended up having to walk about half a mile from where we finally got off the bus to the theater. Fortunately, since we'd allowed ourselves so much extra time, we didn't miss any of the movie.

Yesterday's discussion got me thinking. Consider:

• Bands named after continents (Europe, Asia) or states (Kansas) tend to be art-rock bands.

• Bands named after cities (Chicago) tend to be soft-rock bands.

• Bands named after countries (America, U.K.) are split evenly.

If you can think of any supporting examples, or counterexamples, please sign the guestbook.