Star Wars episode seven is officially out today on DVD and Blu-ray, but I managed to buy it yesterday — some shops with a name starting with Big and ending in W jumped the gun, as did some with the initials J and B, apparently, though the large W establishment is selling it for $23 ... [More]
Category: Culture
TV, movies, music, that kind of thing
Let’s see if I can go a whole week without writing a blog post about level crossings. Video shops are dead. For a while there was one (or more) in every suburb. Where I live now in Bentleigh there were at least two. Even Glenhuntly, where I lived in the late-90s, had two. They were ... [More]
Ten years ago this month Melbourne was in the grip of the Commonwealth Games. As I noted at the time, it was a good excuse to Blame The Games for any delay or anything else going wrong. (Including crowded trains.) But it was also a lot of fun. These photos are from the baton relay ... [More]
Ocean Colour Scene played last night at Max Watt’s (formerly known as the HiFi bar — I assume the current name is a pun about loud music, rather than being named after a person). As I mentioned a few weeks ago, I’ve wanted to see them play live for decades, but this is their first ... [More]
Liberal Caulfield MP David Southwick has a campaign running to get the Glen Huntly level crossing grade separated. I somewhat cringe at the “Blame Labor” rhetoric, but the rest of it I agree with completely. A 2014 report by VicRoads found the Glen Huntly Rd level crossing to be of the highest priority for removal ... [More]
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Blog template
After the mess of the last attempt, and noting the large number of people reading on mobile devices (phones 39%, tablet 10%), I’ve switched to a plain but hopefully more mobile-friendly blog template. Here is a photo of some people doing geeky things to test the pictures. I’ll probably do some tweaking, but any feedback ... [More]
Not to pre-empt anything, but this year I expect to have two film and television students in the house. For this, I’m considering upgrading my Internet. We’re currently on iiNet Naked ADSL2+ costing $69.99 per month (for 1000 Gb of data, of which, to my surprise, we’re using about a quarter). Actually I’m paying an ... [More]
Categories
Some blog stats for 2015
Here are a few blog stats from 2015… Posts: 166 — more than I thought, but I suppose there’s been a post every few days. Comments: 1,692 Top ten commenters: Daniel 176 (seems I still like commenting on my own posts) Roger 132 TranzitJim 69 Llib 52 David Stosser 48 Andrew 47 enno 45 John ... [More]
Back in the day I watched the 1998 movie Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, and liked it. Then I watched the 2001 TV spin-off Lock Stock which was okay I guess (it was notable for having Martin Freeman in a couple of episodes, in one of his early roles). But what really grabbed me ... [More]
Sunday! And so we get to the main excuse reason for the trip to Sydney on this specific weekend: the Doctor Who Festival. I’ve been to Comic-Con in Melbourne twice, but this was a different beast: 98% dedicated to Doctor Who, with little bit of Sherlock (which has many of the same producers/writers/crew members/fans!) getting ... [More]
Categories
It’s okay
I don’t know if anybody’s done this before, but… It’s from The West Wing, the finale of season 1, a signal the staff work out to indicate that the Space Shuttle has resolved an issue while on a mission. The show is known for infusing humour into the drama — in this case, the Shuttle ... [More]
Warning! No transport content! If you only want to see transport blog posts, you can use this URL, or sign up to the email alerts! My first recollection of the ABC Shop in Melbourne was a small space in their then Lonsdale Street radio HQ, which was where the County Court is now — on ... [More]
I’m always interested to see portrayals of public transport in popular culture. I’ve been watching the Netflix series Sense8 — I’m a bit over halfway through it. (And I just realised the Wikipedia article includes spoilers, so watch your step if you’re planning to watch it). It’s pretty good — at least, I’m intrigued enough ... [More]
Science fiction and fantasy conventions used to be a homespun affair, run by the local clubs, featuring broadcasts of rare episodes and out-takes (before it all got released on DVD) and fan films. If there were guest artists, often they would appear only if they happened to be in the country at the time, and ... [More]
Here’s another in my series of ten year old photos. Arise Lord Vader — episode 3 got a lot of promotion. Or, as I joked at the time: Connex was aligned with the Dark Side. The Dungeon: platform 13 at Flinders Street. The screens have been replaced with a flat model, and an escalator was ... [More]
I’m aware that my blog has evolved… these days most of the posts are about transport, reflecting my current interests. I wonder if this is a bit dull for those who have been on the old Toxic Custard mailing list, which is the descendant of the humour-based email list I started while at uni. Yet ... [More]