One of the things the nurse said at the workplace health check a couple of weeks ago was about including a variety of fruit and vegetable in my diet. And she said “Even beans on toast.” You beauty! That there is an official recommendation to cook one of the laziest, least effort meals known to ... [More]
I did a double-take last night when a Cranbourne train was announced as running “express from Dandenong to Merinda Park”, not just on the automatic announcement, but also on the screen. There is no station between Dandenong and Merinda Park. There eventually will be, at Lynbrook, but construction hasn’t even begun yet. In fact tenders ... [More]
You know when you have some of the information, and the brain tries to fill in the blanks? Many times I seemed to be watching Lateline, and a report from Norman Hermant would come on, often from Iraq or elsewhere in the Middle East. He works for the ABC, but has an American accent. For ... [More]
The new timetables started yesterday, but this morning is the first big test of the peak hour changes. As I’ve already noted, while most lines get a tweak, the Caulfield lines get a big shake-up, especially Frankston. As the number of trains running has increased, more have had to bypass the four CBD loop tunnels. ... [More]
I would love a new TV, but can’t afford it. That is, the cost/benefit ratio isn’t there to replace my 68cm Loewe CRT television just yet. So while I’d love to get a high-definition flat screen with digital tuner, the prices will have to drop a bit more before that becomes viable, especially with the ... [More]
Lonsdale House, pictured in early February. Check the tower. Isn’t that great? Here’s how the site looks now it’s gone. Okay, it wasn’t real art deco, it was just an art deco facade on a Victorian building. See comments But it does seem a shame that at least the facade couldn’t have been kept with ... [More]
A dream from the other night. (I can’t normally remember them.) I was on a bus; a big articulated bus. It stopped somewhere in St Kilda, and the driver got out to go to the toilet, but forgot to put the handbrake on. We were on a slight incline, and the bus started to roll ... [More]
Melbourne’s bike share scheme is meant to start today, and the bike stations have been going in. I found this one at Federation Square, evidently almost ready to go, the only thing missing is the bikes: Curiously, just across the road outside St Paul’s Cathedral is another one. I wonder what the bogans who often ... [More]
City of Melbourne have announced a change to the fines for littering smokers, with the fine going up to $234 for throwing away a lit cigarette. Smokers or non-smokers, it just staggers me that some people are such slobs. Regularly, I see footy-goers at the Parkside Edgewater oval (Maribyrnong) rock up to watch a local ... [More]
One of the selling points of Myki is that ‘Myki Money’ will charge you the best daily fare, if you touch-on and touch-off on every trip. It turns out not to be always true. There’s at least one specific set of circumstances where it doesn’t. The PTUA got asked a while back about travel around ... [More]
Apparently there have been some alarming results from the workplace health checks underway at the moment. Victorian workers have been given a scare by a State Government-run health program which has found a high percentage donât exercise enough with a number of people asked to see a doctor within 24 hours. We’ve had ours on ... [More]
At the local Safeway, the renovation (and eventual transition to “Woolworths”) is underway, and the self-service checkouts are now operating. There’s five of them, compared to three express checkouts, and eight “normal” checkouts. From memory there used to be more normal checkouts, though as at most supermarkets, I don’t ever recall all of them being ... [More]
Found this on a train this afternoon: I’m guessing a bookmark that’s been sitting inside someone’s book for fifteen years and they decided to re-read the book, and subsequently left it behind on a seat. These scratch tickets were used before Metcard was introduced in the late-90s, and were notorious for fare evasion. They didn’t ... [More]
I was following a link in a comment on The Australian’s amusing story about a Federal government media adviser accidently leaving an email trail on a media release (reminds me of the Windsor affair), which led me a document with some interesting factoids about the arrival of asylum seekers from 1976 to the present: Boat ... [More]
Next Thursday marks 25 years since the completion of the City Loop. Flagstaff Station was the last loop station to open — on the 27th of May 1985. It’s the only station in Melbourne that is closed on weekends — being in the middle of the legal precinct, it’s a bit quiet around there on ... [More]
(Let’s see if I can make all this week’s posts nostalgia-based.) My uni course (Bachelor of Computing — Information Systems) included some business-oriented subjects, and I remember studying and practicing public speaking. I don’t remember specifically what lessons I learnt from it, though I suspect like much in the course, the knowledge sifted into my ... [More]