It’s a demographic,

demographic,

demographic,

demographic world.

I’m back on the train to NYC today, after driving home from Herndon last night. It feels like I’m back home; the woman at the Cookie Cafe in Thirtieth Street Station said “Where have you been? I haven’t seen you!”, and one of the familiar faces on the train (a stockbrocker who commutes in from Downingtown several days a week) gave me an invaluable tip about the ride home: you can take the 5:09 train from Penn Station, then transfer to Keystone train 653 in Philly, which gives me half-an-hour more at my desk in the afternoon, and will keep me away from the giant crush of Princeton Junction commuters squeezing on to my train with NJ Transit tickets.

Also, my motorcycle hasn’t been towed from the Septa parking lot where I’ve had to leave it for a week, due to never having my helmet in the car at the right time when Kate and I are close to the Exton train station, so it’s a pretty good morning, overall. Also, Amtrak put a Business Class car on my train: BC cars have folding tables at each end, and I’m spread out in the lap of luxury with my wireless antenna up and my force-feedback mouse attached. Laptop without mouse:Laptop with mouse::Slivers of bamboo under your fingernails:something much better than that. So, all in all, a good morning.

Amtrak carries a great deal of third-class bulk mail for the US Post Office, and there are usually a large number of cardboard shipping palettes down at the end of track 4, where I switch to train 180. Sometimes, the palettes are tightly wrapped and nondescript, but today the magazines were loosely bundled and piled in aluminum carts, so you could read the covers, the destinations, and the tare weights. Today, there was 1450 pounds of Vanity Fair magazine going to an army base in Bear Mountain. Also, there were three carts of brightly colored “TVyNovi[something]des” magazine going to Flushing and Queens. You couldn’t read the [something], as a latin soap star had her frosted hair in front of it. Two carts of “Star Wars Insider: Creature Feature II!” were going to Michaels and Johns in Hicksville and Teaneck, and one palette of “Outside” magazine was going to guys named Craig in Manhattan.

So, to review the two samples I recorded of each magazines: