Our communications from Metro are usually quite calm and serious – construction notices, community meeting agendas and the like. Â But this week, things took a much more entertaining turn.
A new series of 30-second public service safety ads, featuring yellow and black stick figures who live in mythical “Safetyville,” show what happens when common-sense transit safety precautions aren’t followed.  Sound dull?  Not with titles like “Careful or Crushed?,” “Dismount or Dismenbered?,” and “Present or Pulverized?”  (Warning:  don’t watch if you object to extreme violence to stick figures.)
The ads – loosely inspired by Australia’s notorious “Dumb Ways to Die” – have proven so popular, they’ve been featured on the Today Show, The Daily News, and Buzzfeed.
But even better (at least to poetry fans like the Buzz) was a Twitter war that broke out between Metro and San Francisco’s BART about a week ago…conducted entirely in haiku.  Hard to explain, but the full (delightfully snarky) exchange, recounted at the link above, is priceless.  And it ends with a challenge from BART to do the next round in Shakespearean sonnets.  Metro’s response:  “It Beith On!” We can’t wait.
