Oxford Circus in London has just opened its new scramble crossing. The Brits seem suitably amazed by the whole concept. [Mayor of London, Boris] Johnson said the crossing, controlled by traffic lights, was “a triumph for British engineering, Japanese innovation and good old fashioned common sense”. — BBC News Online While it beats me how ... [More]
I was going to write a blog post about yesterday’s Metcard kerfuffle, in particular pointing out that despite my initial speculation, the Transport Act only requires passengers to make a reasonable attempt to buy and validate your ticket. It doesn’t require you to buy another ticket if yours doesn’t work, carry spare change, plead with ... [More]
I haven’t been well for the last couple of days. It kicked-off on Monday night, when a slight stomach pain, which I tried to quell with my usual remedy, a glass of lemonade. Because burping helps. Really. It didn’t help — instead it set off a flurry of up-chucking, joined later in the night from ... [More]
It’s not hard to see why some of the Footscray and Maribyrnong residents nearby to Flemington aren’t that keen on the big race days. These pictures are from Derby Day: Sorry, I missed the pic of the drunk guys walking up the middle of the road, goading motorists, and the couple arguing in the back ... [More]
I said in May I had my doubts about the bike hire scheme for central Melbourne. Well, it’s been announced that the RACV will run it, and it’ll involve 600 bikes across 50 sites in the City of Melbourne. There’s some irony to RACV running a bike hire scheme. I guess it’s another thing to ... [More]
Red Dwarf – once upon a time, the ABC thought it belonged on the Sunday afternoon arts show.
Teaching kids to cross the road safely is a matter of laying out the basic rules, and continual practice. I’d thought over the years it might be easier if the Hector The Cat song was still run on TV, as the lyrics helps make it easy to remember what to do. Happily, thanks to YouTube, ... [More]
Here’s a draft of a bulletin I’ll send out at some stage after I’ve taken over as Grand Emperor of the World and established my benevolent dictatorship. Dear owners of stupid grunty noisy cars, I hereby decree that you have three choices for your stupid grunty noisy cars: 1. You may, at your expense, have ... [More]
Came across this business. They have two branches. They have a Chadstone branch, which is actually in Hughesdale, and they have a Bentleigh branch, which I’ll grudgingly admit is technically in Bentleigh, but is actually on Patterson Road, right next to Patterson station. As I’ve noted before, Hampton East now stretches right the way to ... [More]
This was a number 96 tram in Bourke Street on Friday afternoon: Similar scenes are seen in morning peak around much of the tram network, during the lunchtime rush in the CBD, as well as the evening peak, as well as weekends. Now imagine it with Myki: everyone touching-on and off their cards as they ... [More]
“That is right, 38 new trains, pity they are only 3 carriages long instead of 6 like our current trains. I guess that means we paid double.” — Comment on the Herald Sun web site Seriously, where do people get these ideas? It’s complete garbage. “Thirty eight X’Trapolis six-car sets will be rolled-out from late ... [More]
My name’s really Daniel, but if you like you can call me Bruce. More fun with Google translations of a Chinese media article: … Victorian government has not yet determined when to start full operation ultra-budget Myki ticketing system, it was originally promised in 2007 and spent 130 million on the operation of the system, ... [More]
Toothpaste. There’s a bewildering number of varieties in just the Colgate brand. This is what the Safeway Homeshop site lists, excluding things like Pump packs and size variations: Colgate Toothpaste 2in1 Gel Whitening Colgate Toothpaste 2in1 Liquid Gel Icy Blast Colgate Toothpaste 2in1 Max Fresh Cool Mint Colgate Toothpaste Advanced Whitening Colgate Toothpaste Baking Soda ... [More]
Back in uni, we had a Unix server which (unlike the faculty machines) was available for use by any student. Its name was yoyo, and it was invaluable back when internet access was hard to come by, and official university access was only granted to students studying IT subjects. Why “yoyo”? There was a hope ... [More]
From time to time you’ll see someone having a whinge that they got on a tram and nobody bought a ticket or validated one, and therefore they must all be freeloaders. For example these comments on the Herald Sun web site: On every tram i board, only one person out of the 30 on there ... [More]
Speaking of shopping for cheap alternatives, but preferring locally-made goods: initially I avoided buying the Aldi cling wrap because it was made in China. Then I noticed all the brands of cling wrap are now made in China, including OSO and Multix, and the one that’s in common use as the generic term, Glad Wrap. ... [More]