Adrian and Peter turned 100 today. To be precise, their birthdays are both today. Adrian (my sister’s husband) turned 38, and Peter (my step-father) turned 62. To celebrate the occasion, they’re having a joint birthday party on Saturday. So, happy 100th birthday, Adrian and Peter! (I do have a great aunt who turned 100 last ... [More]
A number of traffic lights used for crossing the “little” streets in central Melbourne don’t have green/red men. Some do, however, particularly along Swanston Street where there are heavy pedestrian flows and — I suspect — more people likely to be just following everyone else like sheep, and not looking for cars before they cross ... [More]
I was in the supermarket with an unnamed person. They spotted a packet near the cash register: Mentos, *Special edition*. Some weird-arse flavour not normally available. Picked it up and appeared to seriously consider buying it. Not because it was Mentos, which they don’t normally buy, but because it was a *Special edition*. That, ladies ... [More]
I got to have a short ride in the new X’Trapolis train introduced into service today. The government calls it “Train 2”, however the journos prefer call it after the month it was meant to be in service, eg “The January train”. For all the consternation about a reduction in seats, seeing it in the ... [More]
Sometime last year one of the magazines that came with The Sunday Age, Sunday Life, changed its formula. I used to find at least something interesting while flicking through it. Since the change, nothing. I was thinking that it had turned into a women’s magazine. One only has to look at the author names of ... [More]
For $1.35 billion, you’d hope there would be some benefits to Myki. Here’s one: if you take a little care, it can be used from within a wallet. So you need never take it out, unless an inspector needs to see it. At least once this has enabled me to validate and jump on a ... [More]
I’ve got a spare Myki card that I’m testing online topups with. $1 at a time, to see how long they take to come through. How it should work is this: You make a payment via the web site The web site and central database sends out a message to all the Myki vending machines ... [More]
What’s so special about King Street, in Melbourne’s Central Business District? Well, it’s the only main street in the Hoddle Grid which has absolutely no scheduled public transport running along it. So you might think, given the rhetoric is to help people get onto PT, especially for trips into the CBD, that they’d avoid giving ... [More]
Star Trek TNG — We started watching them all about a year ago, and are so far up to season 6. I wonder if in remastering for DVD, they changed the framing of some shots — it’s surprising how often we spot a boom mike in shot. (Reminds me: Must watch the “Car Pool” interview ... [More]
The Metlink Revenue Protection Plan published by The Age on Saturday had some interesting points. Some notes I made while looking through it (some of which were not included in the article): Page 12 seems to accept that in most cases, more staff will reduce most types of evasion. Can’t argue with that — most ... [More]
On Friday night at my sister’s place, we were were swapping war stories of head pains. She had a read of the Wikipedia article on cluster headaches and, noting the description, the illustration by J.D.Fletcher, and nickname “suicide headache”, she had to admit they piss all over her puny migraines. “Cluster headache is probably the ... [More]
Seems some people can’t see the trees for the forest. A HIGH school has banned bicycles because it has no bike shed and it doesn’t want to encourage students who refuse to wear helmets. Hume Central Secondary College’s policy has puzzled health and cycling groups amid growing concern about childhood obesity. … In the same ... [More]
You’re meant to park at least one metre away from other cars, I guess so they have a chance of getting out of their parking spot: If parking bays are not marked, you must leave at least one metre between your vehicle and those in front and behind. — VicRoads But how does anybody get ... [More]
Every 3-4 years I’ll buy a new computer. Here’s the latest, a reconditioned (with warranty) HP Pavilion a6760a, to be called “Haddock”. For the record (because often years later I come back and compare what I got for how much) the specs are: Intel Core 2 Duo E7400 (2.8 GHz), 2Gb RAM, 500 Gb hard ... [More]
There was a bloke on the train covering his eyes. A picture of him could be captioned: Don’t blink! But it would be wrong to publish such a photo without his permission. Instead I give you this, found in a street in Footscray. Let’s hope it’s bigger on the inside. And it was nice to ... [More]
It just took almost two and a half hours to drive from Glen Huntly to Footscray. Here’s why. Glen Huntly. The hail was bouncing off the cars. …and the gutters quickly flooded… …but that was nothing to Caulfield North… …and St Kilda Road. Kingsway wasn’t pretty — much under water, traffic lights out, and lots ... [More]