Myer will close stores in Victoria and New South Wales and shrink surviving stores in response to the two-speed economy and online shopping. — Myer to close or shrink stores as retail malaise bites Remembering that Myer Melbourne has already shrunk in size by about half, this isn’t a huge surprise. Sounds like some of ... [More]
Apparently there were some delays in getting these decorations up, but now they’re in place, I do think they look rather splendid, don’t you? (Click here to view bigger) Anybody know if this lights up at night? Myki news In today’s news, the Herald Sun reports that from January, Myki cards are to be reduced ... [More]
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Records, cassettes, CDs, iTunes
Back in 1995, I wrote as part of my History Of The World: 1964 Beatlemania sweeps the world. Shortly afterwards, electronics companies devise a fifty year plan to get people to buy all their favourite music many times over, by introducing new recorded music technology every decade. This works until the 1990s, when, due to ... [More]
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Myki’s “headless” mode
This is Myki’s “headless mode”. It’s the Myki driver console, but temporarily shifted into a spot out of the way, while tram and bus drivers (in Melbourne) continue to use the Metcard consoles instead. (You can just see the old console at the top of the picture.) It means drivers currently have no interaction with ... [More]
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Crime and punishment
The barber the other day was having a rant about crime (as well as a number of other issues), and claimed that white-collar criminals almost always get caught (specifically, he reckoned they get caught 95% of the time), but muggers and others who commit crimes against the person almost never get caught (he reckoned 95% ... [More]
Music industry legend Molly Meldrum has undergone surgery overnight to relieve swelling on his brain after he fell from the roof while putting up Christmas decorations at his Richmond home. — Bedside vigil as Meldrum fights for life I reckon for most Australian Gen-Xers with an interest in music, Molly Meldrum is just someone who’s ... [More]
Thanks to the miracle of advertising, we have a bank on a tram… …a tram on a bank… …and a bus stop on a bus stop. If you’re curious, the bus stop picture is portraying the 811/812 route on “Main Street”. Unfortunately the bus stop in the picture doesn’t appear to have another advert with ... [More]
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Maribyrnong’s underwater park: an update
Do you remember the pics of the brand new Maribyrnong playground from a couple of weeks ago, showing severe drainage problems? On Saturday night there was heavy rain in the area, but evidently the City of Maribyrnong’s drainage experts have been busy, because on Sunday morning the park was almost dry — and certainly not ... [More]
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Spotted at Minotaur
I’ve shopped at Minotaur Books for decades. I first found it in the early 80s when it was at the top end of Swanston Street. Then it moved to a multi-level shop in Bourke Street. Then to its current home in Elizabeth Street. It’s always had way more cool stuff than I could afford to ... [More]
Last week the first of the new Swanston Street tram superstops opened. On Monday I went down at lunchtime to have a look, and came across Lord Mayor Robert Doyle, City of Melbourne planner Rob Adams, and Yarra Trams’ Michel Masson all down there having a look, and talking to the media about it. Robert ... [More]
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Beating the Metcard/Myki fare rise
As feared, the government will go ahead with the 5% plus inflation public transport fare rise in January, for a total of 8.6%. (It’s unclear if they’ll go ahead with the second one that Labor planned, in January 2013.) Metlink has posted the full list of metropolitan fares for 2012, as well as regional fares. ... [More]
This afternoon I heard steam train whistles, and after some digging, discovered it was R-class R707 headed down to Frankston, and that it would be coming back a little later. Happy to take a break from the sorting out of paperwork that I’d been doing, I took a punt at the time it would pass ... [More]
The Age last Friday released its liveability survey of Melbourne suburbs. Top five were pretty predictable: South Yarra, East Melbourne, Armadale, Hawthorn East, and Toorak. From what I can tell, it’s an update to a survey done in 2005, using the same methodology. This time however they didn’t put out the full breakdown of figures, ... [More]
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Bye bye Movember
I’ve got through Movember. I shaved the mo’ off. Ultimately, it was always going to go after the month was up. By week three I thought I’d got used to it, but in the final week, the itching seemed to get worse. Maybe I was conscious that it was about to come off. It’s certainly ... [More]
For some time I’ve had my doubts about the competence of the City of Maribyrnong engineering department, specifically the people who design and manage drainage. This is because in the eight years I’ve known Marita, the section of street in front of her house has always flooded at the merest hint of rain. These doubts ... [More]
Last Wednesday the Ombudsman/Auditor General report into government ICT (Information & Communications Technology) projects was released. Included in the list of projects gone bad that it investigated was our old favourite Myki, with some interesting findings on the timings and costings: The TTA business case dated 27 April 2004 had forecast total expenditure of $741.9 ... [More]