It takes a special kind of cunning to first nobble the National Broadband Network, that if fully implemented might have been able to reliably deliver realtime high-definition video into homes… …and then cancel community television licences, and demand those stations go online instead. This seems like a bad idea in many ways, not the least ... [More]
Category: Toxic Custard newsletter
Appears in the weekly Toxic Custard newsletter
I can’t help noticing that when traffic is relatively light, this sign on Kings Way always it’s 4 minutes to Williamstown Road. This seems as optimistically unlikely as those old Citylink travel time promises. Google Maps reckons it’s 7.7 kilometres, and estimates a travel time without traffic of 6 minutes. The speed limit along the ... [More]
There’s some big news on the East West Link today, with Labor saying that if the Supreme Court agrees with the Cities of Moreland and Yarra that the planning approval was invalid, they will rip up the contracts if elected. Read all about it here in The Age. But meanwhile… Lots of ads for the ... [More]
I was talking to my friend Andrew about this, and realised I never posted photos. In Clayton South (The Grange, Osborne Avenue) there’s a playground with a UFO theme, to mark the day in 1966 where a large group of students at nearby schools spotted an unidentified flying object in the sky, seen landing and ... [More]
I post this picture to make two brief points: Even at 3pm, there are a reasonable number of people heading home. It’s before the school and uni loads really hit — and remembering that there’s only 10 minutes between services on this line. Frequent all-day services help people who can be flexible with their travel ... [More]
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The new toy
In Parks and Recreation they celebrate an annual Treat Yo’self day. Mine was last week. I took my birthday and the next day off work. After much pondering, I bought a new home theatre setup. I’d spent way too much time pondering what I was going to buy. For a while I considered buying into ... [More]
A shout-out to a good shop which doesn’t have a web site of its own: About once every decade I buy a belt. They last that long — I get them from a place in Elsternwick called Stockdale Stockade Leather (552 Glen Huntly Road), which I’m amazed is still in business because their stuff is ... [More]
This is an old pic, but a classic. I thought I’d lost it, but it showed-up while sorting through some old files on the computer. I did once ask someone at Ventura about it — he said one of their staff had taken the photo, and from memory also said there had been no serious ... [More]
Here’s a graph of my home loan, which I got just over nine years ago. The loan was approved in August 2005, but only took effect in October that year (the huge leap on the left). In the first year or so I was able to pay it down a bit. It only took me ... [More]
This is near the entrance to one of the local supermarkets. I understand what it is — it wraps your umbrella in plastic — I just don’t understand why such a thing is needed. While it’s nice to see them catering for pedestrians (since I’d assume few people coming from a parked car would bother ... [More]
One of my long-term objectives is to update my sound system. My current system is a mix of devices collected over many years. The horrible old brown Sanyo speakers I’ve had since I was a teenager, which originally came with a Sanyo DC J3K receiver and turntable (click through for some photos of what this ... [More]
It’s not uncommon to see trams stopped at traffic lights along Bourke Street, sometimes in queues, at locations where there is no stop. If you’ve wondered why your tram journey is start-stop, it won’t surprise you to learn that the lights are all over the place. With the handy-dandy stopwatch function on my mobile phone, ... [More]