Word: busful
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...been the greatest change...in my life. Shit is way bigger now. I’ve grown comfortable taking it out in most situations and retail environments, which before I was a little timid about. D.A.: I don’t know, I mean we live on a bus now, which is a fairly extreme lifestyle switch. But other than that I mean, we live in our mom’s houses. In the cities we grew up in. We still don’t know how to cook very well. Yeah. Oh also, we now have millions of dollars...
...these marketgoers, pedal them to their hotels and return with pockets full of foreign currency - a lucrative cycle drivers can repeat dozens of times a day. In recent months, though, the Silk Street Market's once reliable bustle has thinned dramatically. "I haven't seen a single tour bus pulling into the market this morning," says Lao Qian, a 49-year-old rickshaw driver taking a long lunch break. "And I've had a total of three customers since yesterday...
...with vivid colors mixed into a wild collage of seemingly unrelated landscapes, images and figures - everything from Jiminy Cricket to Adolf Hitler. Many drivers also adorn their buses with artistic tributes to their girlfriends or wives, ranging from conservative head portraits to provocative bikini pinups. One driver adorned his bus with a woman dressed in loincloth slaying a grizzly bear with a knife, raising questions about his home life that no one dares ask (as if to make the point, a painted sign on the inside of the bus reminds passengers not to bother the bus driver...
Panamanian sociologist Raul Leis says the red devils represent "popular expression and color" of individual ownership in a privatized transportation system. However, he continues, with time the bus system has fallen into the "vice" of concentrated ownership and inefficient service. Today, Leis says, the red devils represent "a form of hell" that pose more of a hazard than public service to the 800,000 low-income Panamanians who depend on them every day for a ride to work or school...
...devils, despite their terrors, have sentimental value to the locals. "Look at the city, it looks like Miami," says bus user Agustin Romero, 26, as he leans against the window and points up at the shimmering glass towers of downtown Panama. "But you don't see these buses in Miami." And getting rid of the demon buses has become an infernal task for the government. The current administration's plan to indemnify bus owners $25,000 each to remove their buses from the road and replace them with modern new buses got tangled up in conflicts of interests that made...