Friday, September 26th, 2025 02:26 pm
Latex drinks, all very sociable and an excellent opportunity to show off something I picked up in New York. (Madame Zoie identified the maker, Polymorphe, while I was blanking on their name.) Sadly, the season of needing heat lamps in outdoor spaces has begun in Seattle, at least if you're wearing latex, which doesn't insulate. Le sigh. And that cutie who looked age-appropriate? Very poly and as far as I know het. Le sigh redux.

Oh, and speaking of things I picked up in New York, a piece of information: The Deschamps-Braly clinic in San Francisco does excellent facial feminization surgery. I've since learned that their lead times are actually reasonable. I, uh, pulled the trigger: I put down a deposit and scheduled an in-person consultation down there. Gosh, what kind of trouble can I get into on a Wednesday night in San Francisco, and with whom? (Folks, I have a pretty good idea of the answers to these questions.)
Thursday, September 25th, 2025 06:21 am
TL;DR: I have replaced my upstairs smoke detector.

Epic saga: the old unit was made by Kidde. I took a bus ride to my favorite hardware store, only to learn that they didn't carry anything by Kidde, but switching manufacturers is just a simple matter of installing new mounting hardware and wiring. I noped out of that.

Yes, it's quesionable to go with the same manufacturer again given that the first unit died way before its time, but this has dragged on long enough. Besides, turning the power off to mess with wiring upstairs means I lose internet, which means my son might perish from lack of internet.

Who sells Kidde? Home Depot, which is Trumpy. Amazon, which is... less Trumpy? I went with Amazon.

Oh by the way, Kidde has switched power connectors between the old unit and the new one. At least the adapters are cheap.


Anyhoo, in my loft I finally have one (1) smoke & carbon monoxide detector securely placed in the old mounting bracket (whose color doesn't quite match) with a happy little green light powered by the mains of the Devil Girl House. It feels like a bigger deal than it is, which is why I'm writing so much.
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Wednesday, September 24th, 2025 08:41 am

A couple of days ago, I wrote about writing Disney a letter – a physical, paper letter, with an ENVELOPE and a STAMP – and went into why those are so. damned. scary. to companies, particularly these days.

Tonight, I’m writing a letter – a physical, paper letter, with an envelope and a stamp – to the local Sinclair propaganda outlet, KOMO-4, over their continued blockade against Kimmel.

I’m not telling them I’m going to boycott them, no. They’re a free/over-the-air station. I don’t pay them. I don’t pay them a dime, why would they care if I boycott them?

Obviously, they wouldn’t.

So instead, I’m telling them I’m going to boycott their local sponsors, and I’m going to write those local sponsors a physical, paper letter, one with an ENVELOPE and a STAMP, and make sure those local sponsors know why.

For every obvious reason, I (and 50501 Seattle) encourage you to do the same. If you’re not in KOMO’s range, that’s fine, find your local Sinclair station and write them, instead.

Business-format letter to Sinclair and KOMO telling them this isn't how this goes, with a ruler covering my signature and an envelope covering my address. I'd paste the letter's text in, but there's not enough room in this alt-text box. Hopefully OCR can read it for you.

(But write your own letter, don’t copy mine. They check for that.)

KOMO received enough protest calls today – Tuesday, September 23rd, as I write this – that they shut down their phone system. They went dark.

They can turn off their phones. They can delete their voicemail. And they have, and they did.

So write ’em a gods. damned. letter.

CONTACT KOMOADDRESS:KOMO News/KUNS Suite 370 (Monday - Friday)140 4th Ave. N.Seattle, WA 98109BUSINESS HOURS: 8:00 AM - 5:00 PMMAIN PHONE: 206.404.4000 MAIN FAX:206.706.2603NEWS TIPLINE: 877.397.5666NEWS DIRECTOR:206.404.4000GENERAL SALES:206.404.4353GENERAL MANAGER:206.404.4000KOMO TV NEWSROOM:206.404.4145PROBLEM SOLVERS TIP LINE:888.774.8477KOMO 4 INVESTIGATORS:206.404.4444

Let’s see ’em shut off USPS delivery.

(Spoiler: they can’t. 😀 )

(eta: Here’s a very good resource thread on Reddit – advertisers, responses, more)

Posted via Solarbird{y|z|yz}, Collected.

Wednesday, September 24th, 2025 06:38 am
After I unpacked, I got a wild hair and went to the open decks night at the Blue Moon. Some great tunes, some less great tunes. Dawgs. Stickers. Ravers. Happiness.

But then I got tired from my cross-country trip and headed for the bus. When I got to the stop, there was an older White woman talking at a younger Black man. He was irritated enough to leave the bus shelter and walk past me a few steps. But the old lady followed him. At some point she said blah blah "you people" blah blah, and that's when I spun around to look. I thought that it might be a come-get-your-girl moment.

The young man looked me in the eye and gestured for me to stay out of it. I gestured to him that I couldn't even hear her over the four lanes of traffic right behind me.

Shallow fashion details, because they're germane: I was wearing a 1950s-inspired dress with a rose-and-spider-web print, and the steel necklace that my mother gave me that looks like pearls, and MAC Ruby Woo lipstick. I was dolled up a little because that's how I roll.

The old lady turned to me and said something like, "Her people don't even give a shit. Do you even know what the NAACP is?"
"Yes," I said. I didn't interrogate her about who "her people" are.
The old lady went back to the bus shelter.
"Are you OK?" the young man asked.
"I'm fine. What about you?"

The bus arrived mercifully soon after that. I got on first and the old lady said, "Get on the bus first, Miss Bitch!" I hadn't noticed that she was shuffling a bit, and the doors had opened right in front of me.

Fun fact: the old lady got off in the middle of Wallingford. That's at least the second time I've seen an elderly transit pest get off there. Coincidence? I hope so for the sake of Wallingford residents.

Y'know, I just spent a week riding transit all over the New York city area and I didn't encounter anyone like this on transit, even after midnight. I come home and it happens within two hours of walking out my front door. Christ on a pogo stick. Having been until recently the daughter of someone like that, I'm still not sure what to do about them: the really irritating, possibly partially functioning ones.
Wednesday, September 24th, 2025 05:52 am
Greetings from the Devil Girl House!

Monday was largely about the eetz: on a tip from [personal profile] neurosismancer I went to Xi'an Famous Foods in Chelsea and had the lamb noodles. Fan-damn-tastic! Yeah, they're cheap eats, but they're great cheap eats.

I took a recommendation that I got Saturday night and jumped on the L train to Brooklyn, just to see what I could see. It was reassuringly normal at Graham Ave, a neighborhood with no skyscrapers; pedestrians of all ages; a high fraction of residential property, most of it from before this century; and businesses some of which sell stuff that people need. There was a big mural of one woman pouring coffee for another woman. The former wore a necklace reading "Boricua"* and the other one wore one reading "Italiana". That was the vibe I got.

From the Dept. of Mystery: what's up with the popularity of Union Square station on the L train? A whole lot of people either get off there coming from Brooklyn, or get on there going to Brooklyn. I even checked for large employers nearby, but I didn't see any. Sure, it's a transfer stop, but there are a lot of transfer stops in lower Manhattan.

Got pierogis at Veselka — another restaurant tip from [personal profile] neurosismancer — over in the east village and conveniently close to the L train. Honestly, I think I should have ordered them fried instead of boiled. But Veselka is a pretty big place with tasty food and fast service in a neighborhood settled by east Europeans. The have borscht and deserts I'd never heard of.

I allotted more time than I needed to get to JFK. Maybe it's just as well that my subway ride from midtown Manhattan to outer Queens was mellow: I got conflicting information about where my A train was going**. The conductor*** settled the matter over the train's PA. The glory of the subway is that it resulted in only a seven-minute delay somewhere underneath Brooklyn.

Farewell, New York. Too much is just about right.



*A Puerto Rican. I'm pretty sure only Puerto Ricans use that word.
**To get to JFK, you want the A train to Far Rockaway, not Lefferts Blvd. AKA Ozone Park. The A forks like London's Northern line.
***Most of the recorded subway announcements don't have a New York accent. Real live MTA employees, however, do.
Monday, September 22nd, 2025 09:58 am
I think I found the way to zen out in New York: sitting on a bench in Madison Square Park around 11:00 in the shade of trees, listening to a busker play sax across the park, and peeking up at the top of the Flatiron building.

And why was I in the neighborhood? To go to the Museum of Sex. I’m sorry to say that I don’t think it’s worth the ticket price, even if it does a fairly good job of showing how messed up the past was. I can only hope that things are better for future generations.

Then, much napping because of Saturday night.

After dinner, I made a pilgrimage: the Stonewall Inn, where the (modern, effective) queer rights movement started with a riot on June 28th, 1969. There’s a tiny, triangular park with life-size statues of gay activists talking about what to do next after the riots. There was also a memorial to a trans girl who’d been recently murdered by a family member. Outside the gate stood a bored-looking policewoman. Trust New York to produce some unsubtle visual metaphors.

The bar itself? Seems perfectly normal. It’s mostly men, natch, but they’re not clones. Yes, it’s a bit of a tourist trap, but not obnoxiously so.

Today’s plan: good eetz and Brooklyn.
Saturday, September 20th, 2025 09:57 am
I tried to take it easy yesterday in an attempt to let my feet heal. Read on to see how successful I was.

I took the subway to 86th & Central Park West with every intention of walking straight across the park to be at the Met (the art museum, not the opera house). The thing is, Central Park was designed to facilitate relaxation via meandering paths. So I got turned around in the park a couple of times, thereby exploring way more of it than I meant to. Favorite part: the big, OTT fountain where you can row boats. Less favorite part: serious cyclists hauling ass on what, it must be said, are well-engineered paths for them. They wanna ride, I get it, but the laws of physics demand caution from pedestrians.

But on to the Met! Which is gigantic! And the same price as MoMA! Navigation wasn’t easy for me: I ended up going up, over, and down to get to the Man Ray exhibit, nomming sushi along the way. During that wander I learned that a French artist in the 1870’s got grief from critics because the women in his painting weren’t pretty enough; most of the models were his sisters.

So yeah, the intensity of the “fuck you” that the early twentieth century art movements delivered to the art establishment makes a lot of sense in that context. And who better than Man Ray, MKA Emanuel Radnitzky, an outsider even to the Paris art scene where he flourished, to mess with things? He moved from painting to airbrushing, then basically invented contact prints (“rayographs”), made experimental short films, and made everyone from his artist friends to an Italian countess love looking weird in his photos. Yeah, he was clearly a het dude, but.

Here’s why you should always read the blurb: you might not immediately notice that the 16th-century Dutch print you’re looking at is porn. And at least when it came to ceramics, the Greeks got their act together less than 200 years after the Bronze Age collapse, in the so-called geometric period.

Recovered in my hotel room for a couple of hours. Had a fancy BBQ sandwich down the street. (I’ll be getting to restaurant recommendations today.) Then crashed at a reasonable hour in this time zone. Je ne regrette rien.
Friday, September 19th, 2025 10:45 am
I was at the Museum of Modern Art, MoMA, from opening to closing yesterday. Duh, I loved it! You know how my favorite piece at SFMOMA is a big Rosenquist? Well, MoMA has a Rosenquist that fills an entire room: “F-111”, from 1964, with a pointed juxtaposition of consumerism and the military-industrial complex. Pity Rosenquist died back in ‘17; we could use more of that.

And the macrame craze of the ‘70s? Apparently got its start in downtown lofts here a decade earlier. And op art? Got a big boost from MoMA itself back in the day. Clearly, I love this stuff. My only regret is that I didn’t leave enough time for the gift shop.

I couldn’t help noticing the abundance of attractive women at MoMA, some of whom were gothed up. Sure, everyone knows sexxy deth chix are into art, as well as hot normal chicks, but they were surprisingly numerous.

As you might expect, the MoMA cafe has healthier, artier sandwiches than the Guggenheim. Not that the Guggenheim sando was bad.

Speaking of eats, I had a seriously mediocre dinner last night. I need to do more research about eats.

I also did something that locals tell tourists not to do: I took the subway during the evening rush. But the downtown E wasn’t bad; I’ve ridden worse on BART. I did see a packed A zip by, though. (The A is the 8th Avenue express. It zips by a lot of stations.)

After a two-hour break to let my feet recover, I got on a commuter train bound for Newark to check out QXT’s, the recommend local goth joint. But let me say that as tolerable as the subway was earlier, the last train to Newark was packed. Notable among the passengers were young delivery men with bicycles, who needed lots of space.

Edited to add: don’t be a mook like me and get on a PATH train at Penn Station if you’re going to Newark, because you’ll have to transfer in New Jersey where a bunch of arrival boards don’t work. Get on at the World Trade Center.

But anyway, how’s Newark? Kinda normal, and not in a bad way. People drive faster. It’s quiet after 2100. It’s America.

How’s QXT’s? Let me preface this by saying I knew I was going on a burlesque night. I would have gone Saturday, but I have (ahem) something else planned then. QXT’s is friendly, but the drinks and the sound are better at all of the west coast goth joints I’ve been to: the Mercury, the Coffin Club (PDX), the Cat Club (SFO), and a couple of defunct places in Seattle.

How was the burlesque? Not bad! There was an angle grinder involved, which reminded me of [personal profile] leenerella. Chatted with the MC during her smoke break.

Took a Lyft back to Manhattan, which was less expensive and more educational than I expected.

TL;DR: success.
Thursday, September 18th, 2025 06:07 pm

I would like to wish all the people who fought with me and sneered at me about how Joe Biden and then Kamala Harris were no better than Donald Trump and sat out the election and encouraged others to do the same a very happy DRINK SOME FUCKING BLEACH:

FBI Readies New War on Trans People
“We’re looking at the entire web”
Ken Klippenstein
Sep 18, 2025

The Trump administration is preparing to designate transgender people as “violent extremists” in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s murder, two national security officials tell me.

…

Under the plan being discussed, the FBI would treat transgender suspects as a subset of the Bureau’s new threat category, “Nihilistic Violent Extremists” (NVEs).

This is, yes, OBVIOUSLY, a duplication of Putin’s moves to designate target groups as “extremist organisations,” whether there’s an organisation or not, as “LGBT” was designated a couple of years ago, leading to the de facto re-illegialisation of LGBT people and large scale prosecutions.

Every other kind of queer is probably gonna be next.

Posted via Solarbird{y|z|yz}, Collected.

Thursday, September 18th, 2025 10:41 am

I do not believe it’s a minor thing that Greg “let’s reclaim the word Nazi” Gutfield is repurposing Hitler’s “Jewish hypnotism” libel against trans people to transfer guilt from a cis white boy from a conservative family:

“[The shooter] was a patsy. He was under the hypnotic spell of a direct to consumer nihilism – the trans cult.”

Greg Gutfield on Fox

There are plenty of other full-on-fascist declarations in this rant, too, not the least of which being the open declaration that they “don’t care” about “what-abouts,” which is to say, the overwhelming share of violence being from the right, or, in this case, the literal assassination of two Democratic state officials earlier this summer by a MAGA supporter with an extended list of targets. Those don’t count, because Democrats. Only MAGA are people, only MAGA have rights, only Trump can be king.

But it’s still important, and the one I think people may miss. This is, again, literally Hitler libel from a many who proposed “reclaiming” the word “Nazi” this summer.

If he wants the word so much, let’s apply it to him.

Greg Gutfield is a Nazi.

Posted via Solarbird{y|z|yz}, Collected.

Thursday, September 18th, 2025 08:18 am

The grim times we’ve been expecting are here.

Congressman Ronny Jackson (R-TX) calls trans people a virus and a cancer that must be censored, isolated, and imprisoned en masse. It’s a call for genocide, or – as they said during the election – for “eradication.”

Laura Loomer, an important Trump confidante and aide, calls for a Trump dictatorship and mass arrests and prosecution of “leftists” (which for her absolutely includes liberals):

Laura Loomer on X:"I was thinking about this over the last few nights while I couldn't sleep.I have to say, I do want President Trump to be the 'dictator' the Left thinks he is, and I want the right to be as devoted to locking up and silencing our violent political enemies as they pretend we are.I've had enough of the Left only thinking we will defund them, prosecute them, lock them up and dismantle their power for generations to come.It just needs to happen."7:23AM - September 13, 2025

Trump and MAGA are following Putin’s playbook on the media, pushing it either into the hands of ideological compatriots or into silence:

Senator Adam Schiff on X:"Kimmel. Colbert. Suits against the New York TImes, Wall Street Journal, and 60 minutes. Extorting settlements from CBS, ABC, and others. Blocking the AP's access to the White House. This administration is responsible for the most blatant attacks on the free press in American history. What will be left of the First Amendment when he's done?"

Correct commentary from Mastodon:

Kimmel is about as controversial as a goldfish here. They aren’t serious about it being a problem; the whole •point• is that it’s obviously •not• a problem.

They are using something extremely benign to test the waters of government repression of speech, to see just how much they can get away with — and ABC caved like 3rd-grade toothpick bridge.

It’s relevant that there are mergers in process and it’s clear that Trump would fuck with them if they didn’t pull Kimmel down:

Nexstar Media Group, which is seeking FCC approval for a multi-billion-dollar merger with Tegna, said its ABC affiliates would not air Kimmel’s show before ABC announced its own decision.

Even Karl fucking Rove thinks they’ve gone too far, but that won’t stop them, or even slow them down:

‘They’ Didn’t Kill Charlie Kirk. It insults his memory to blame political opponents for one man’s heinous act.

Meanwhile, Trump demands federal investigations into ‘organized’ Trump protesters – this is also out of Putin’s playbook:

Earlier this week, responding to a conservative reporter who said that anti-war protesters near the White House “still have their First Amendment right,” Trump replied, “Yeah, well, I’m not so sure.”

It’s against this backdrop that Politico reported [that] the Justice Department’s No. 2 official said Tuesday that people noisily protesting President Donald Trump could face investigation if they’re part of broader networks organizing such activities.

Worth reading: Keep An Eye on What We Know (And Don’t) – 15 September 2025 – TPM:

In the current environment I think it’s fair to say there’s really no reason to believe anything we’re hearing from federal law enforcement, either formally or on background to reporters.

Worth reading: Charlie Kirk, Redeemed: A Political Class Finds Its Lost Cause – 16 September 2025 – Vanity Fair / Ta-Nehisi Coates:

It is not just, for instance, that Kirk held disagreeable views—that he was pro-life, that he believed in public executions, or that he rejected the separation of church and state. It’s that Kirk reveled in open bigotry.

Finally, an article and a concept that’s been gaining traction: It’s Time for Americans to Start Talking About “Soft Secession”:

Not the violent rupture of 1861, but something else entirely. Blue states building parallel systems, withholding cooperation, and creating facts on the ground that render federal authority meaningless within their borders.

See also: In the disunited states, conflict and uncertainty rule, which also brings up “Soft Secession,” and I’ve seen people holding signs up about it at protests since the original column came out.

I feel I don’t really have to say, “shit’s bad, folks,” but, well – shit’s bad, folks. If there’s a protest near you, find it, and join it.

They can’t arrest literally everyone, and Trump does chicken out – the only response you can have to him is push back as hard as you can, every time.

And that means right now.

Posted via Solarbird{y|z|yz}, Collected.

Thursday, September 18th, 2025 09:37 am
First, a small surprise: there are some subway stations, usually the less busy ones, that won’t let you double back without exiting. So it’s good to be sure which train you need in advance, and for that, the MTA is clearer than Google.

I’m glad I’m a Florida girl who likes to dress lightly: the subway stations are warm and humid.

On to Central Park! Such mellow. Very exercise. Dawgz. Also a park bench dedicated to a late FDNY chief admonishing people to “check your smoke detectors or you’ll end up sleeping here.” Truly a New York moment.

But I had a destination on the far side of the park: the Guggenheim Museum, whose building, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, features an iconic spiral ramp around a central rotunda.

The building does indeed kick butt, with the permanent collection in side galleries that branch discreetly off the spiral ramp. Another New York moment: the Guggenheim’s curators mince no words about Gaugin’s gross attitudes.

The artist featured on the main ramp was Rashid Johnson, who I’d never heard of. He’s what was once called a race man: his work is full of allusions to Black and West African culture and history. I dug some of it.

There was a trans docent talking to a group at the top of the ramp. Go us!

On the way back through the park, I saw the obelisk from a distance, but I didn’t check it out because my feet were trashed. Two hours of horizontal time ensued.

After dinner, I took a C downtown to the west Village, wherein lies the most adorable and compact lesbian bar I’ve ever seen, the Cubby Hole. I ended up chatting with a trans woman who (of course) works for Google. We talked about trans things, boy howdy.

I’m not quite sure why I’m neither hung over nor crippled. I figured goddess wants me to go to MoMA as soon as I pay for breakfast.
Wednesday, September 17th, 2025 09:12 am
Getting on the plane was easy peasy, lemon squeezy. Props to my adopted hometown for getting its airport act together.

But next, a gripe: Alaska Airlines by default doesn’t really feed you on a five-hour flight.

I have taken the A train, famed in song. About an hour from JFK through most of Queens and all of Brooklyn to midtown, which isn’t bad at all. I got on at 2030, and it didn’t really get crowded until Manhattan.

And let me tell you, Times Square is bananas even at 2130 on a Tuesday. Times Square is also Blade Runner: everyone knows about the Jumbotrons everywhere, but even 15 floors up my room is behind two of them. I can see the access and support structures and some AC units. I may be a replicant.

I’m glad I’m staying at the W, though: everything works, and it’s convenient to everything. I let them upsell me because they have a deal with the Guggenheim Museum, and it’s definitely on my to-do list.
Monday, September 15th, 2025 06:32 am
It's a good thing I went to bed early last night, because my smoke alarm started screaming just after midnight, having given it a rest for more than a day. And this time, I couldn't fan it into silence.

I pushed and held the big button, but it only gave me an hour's respite. So I flipped the breaker after gracefully shutting down my work computer.

I discovered this morning that the circuit for the loft, where the offending smoke detector is, is the same circuit where the router is plugged in on the far side of the living room.

The good news is that pulling hard enough on the smoke detector unplugged it from its wired-in power connector, which doesn't look damaged. I have no intention of replacing the smoke detector until I get back from vacation. Good thing my son doesn't like using my gas stove.
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Monday, September 15th, 2025 03:20 am
In my prior post, I listed some of the conditions which make you eligible for the COVID booster this year, given the new FDA rules.

Siderea has posted more in-depth about the "At Least One Underlying Condition" requirement for people under the age of 65 in the U.S. to be eligible. She explains how given the large list of conditions, you are most likely eligible. Having a BMI >= 20 (not just >= 25 as was listed in the CVS website), may make you eligible. Current and former smokers are eligible. One estimate is that 75% of Americans are eligible. So don't be put off by the underlying condition requirement without checking the list.

In the comment section there is also discussion that the Trump administration may be intending to de-authorize or completely ban the vaccines. All the more reason to get it soon if you want it and haven't yet, I think.
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Sunday, September 14th, 2025 01:46 pm
I spent a long and lovely night in with Tacoma Girl last night. She regaled me with tales of her trip to Amsterdam with her mom. I regaled her with plans for New York. I was astounded that she'd never heard "Take the A Train", so I found the Duke Ellington version on Youtube. She was dismayed that I'd never heard the Who's LP Quadrophenia, and partially remedied that.

Happiness.
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Sunday, September 14th, 2025 02:36 pm
I have not been watching Abbott Elementary, but I love some of their trailers:



Video title: Abbott Elementary Season 5 Teaser (HD) comedy series
Posted by: TV Promos
Date posted: 2025-09-06
Saturday, September 13th, 2025 09:26 am
I had a lovely dinner at the Gainesbourg with [profile] ack_yeahright, one of my very first Burner buddies. I didn't even realize she was still living in the area until a few weeks ago; I thought she'd moved to Oregon as planned.

Nope. And what's more, she's on better terms with her ex. He's... not a great guy in several ways, but as long as [profile] ack_yeahright keeps him at arm's length as she seems to be doing, it's not cause for alarm.

We talked about the playa, natch, and plans to return. Her mobility is reduced enough these days that that would be a major logistical undertaking for her. Even more major, that is, than Burning Man is for everyone else. If it happens, it happens, but if it doesn't, I won't be too surprised.

The one dark spot to all this was talking about a certain vile, transphobic ex. She couldn't quite believe that he's as vile as he is, but I've seen the receipts and I told her about them.

OK, there was another dark spot: I lost my ORCA, the Seattle area-transit pass. I shut it down online right after I said my goodbyes and installed the Transit Go app. The trouble with the latter, though, is that you can't use it for inter-system transfers. I do those all the time from (King County Metro) bus to (Sound Transit) light rail or occasional long-haul bus. This means I need to schlep to another neighborhood to buy another ORCA. Le sigh.
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