Trip home last night in the pouring rain was interesting. Train was very slow going between Hawksburn and Malvern, as much of the rail line in the cutting was underwater. As the train departed Ormond, we saw the subway was flooded. On arriving at Bentleigh we waited about 20 minutes for the rain to subside. ... [More]
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IP (v4) addresses have run out
In the 90s, phone numbers were going to run out if we didn’t take the plunge and switch from nine digit 0x-xxx-xxxx numbers to ten digit 0x-xxxx-xxxx numbers. The telecommunications industry (led by… was it Austel?) got everybody switched over okay. (In the US, they decided not to expand the number of digits for local ... [More]
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New Wii tennis?
Wow, they’ve really improved the graphics on Wii tennis.
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PT on Lonsdale Street
In central Melbourne, if you want to travel a reasonable distance east-west, it’s easy to do so on most of the streets by hopping on a tram. Flinders Street, Collins Street, Bourke Street and Latrobe Street all have multiple routes serving them, making for reasonably frequent services most of the day. Not so Lonsdale Street. ... [More]
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Just another Myki stuff-up
VICTORIA’S beleaguered myki ticketing system has hit another snag, with 20,000 seniors posted a new smartcard that does not give them the travel benefits they are entitled to, including free weekend travel and discounted weekday fares. — Age: New bungle hits myki Peter of Murrumbeena, a regular commenter on this blog, is one of those ... [More]
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The new Myer
The inside of the new Myer in Bourke Street is quite spectacular. They’ve managed to create a very impressive light-filled atrium that goes all the way up to the roof.
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Spam-flavoured macadamias
My kids were in Hawaii over Christmas with their mum for a family get together. They looked for something uniquely Hawaiian to bring me back, and settled on this. I love getting a souvenir that is truly unique to a place. It’s just as is labelled on the can. They’re macadamias, but they’re spam-flavoured. Who ... [More]
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Getting rid of old TVs
Seems like half of Melbourne has got a new flat screen TV or computer monitor, judging from the number of CRTs left around the streets. In my view, you shouldn’t just dump them on the nature strip. Assuming it’s working, ask around to see if a charity somewhere wants it. Or list it on Freecycle ... [More]
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Butterfly ball (Love is all)
My recollection is this clip used to pop up on the ABC when they had five minutes to fill. Nowadays they’d probably just run a bunch of promos and adverts for the ABC Shop. The song is actually called “Love Is All”, from The Butterfly Ball and the Grasshopper’s Feast. I can’t make it along, ... [More]
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The last Metcard
I was an early adopter of Myki, if only to see the problems it’s had first hand. But since I started using it, I’ve still carried a Metcard in my wallet. The last Metcard. A 10×2 hour zone 2, for my occasional forays into zone 2 — used on days I was only going into ... [More]
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Aussie Aussie Aussie
Go on then, name me something more Aussie than kangaroo sausages on the barbecue? To be honest I haven’t previously been that keen on the kanga bangers when grilled or fried. But BBQ makes everything taste better… right? Update 4pm. Amusingly given Tony’s comment, I flipped on the TV while I was eating and found ... [More]
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Double awesome!
Damn! Double the awesomeness, and I missed it. Seems like specifying the suburb name was an afterthought… and I wonder if there was a re-scheduling.
It appears I was the first person to successfully use the Myki vending machine at Bentleigh station, back on the first of last year. Hardly surprising as few people in Melbourne had a card at that point. And this afternoon I got Sales Transaction ID number 3370, when I dumped a bunch of change onto ... [More]
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Cheese slices
Kath Lockett found some old adverts, including this one: We sometimes had these cheese slices when I was a kid. It must have been my early computer-geek (binary) mind at work, but I would eat them by folding them in half, so one half broke off, eating that, then repeating with the half that was ... [More]
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New timetables in May
A few details have come out about the next lot of Metro train timetables, and there’s some big changes for some lines, as the process of completely re-writing them continues. Here is a summary based on some notes I saw the other day, and my initial thoughts. My assumption is these notes apply on weekdays ... [More]
Spotted around the RACV centre in Bourke Street… I’m not sure what these things are called. They’re from the days before traffic lights — before my time. The only problem with these ones is that two directions are getting a green signal at once, which would result in a crash. This street sign looks a ... [More]