An article the other day revealed the latest passenger counts on trains show that overcrowding during peak hour has dropped slightly. I don’t have those figures to hand, but I do have these graphs from 2007 handy, and I thought it might be interesting for people to see how the various lines compare. Patronage has ... [More]
I assume Glen Eira council put this graph of forecast revenue from parking in their propaganda sheet newsletter because they’re pleased about it. I was going to point out that plenty of people park in stupid places, and I’d prefer they got stung with tickets if at all possible, so they can subsidise my council ... [More]
The deniers like Steve Fielding would say climate change can’t be real. (An ultra-conservative “becoming” a climate-change skeptic — who saw THAT coming?!) After all, to take a simplistic view, if the planet were starting to heat up, we’d be seeing record low rainfall… Melbourne has recorded its driest first six months of the year ... [More]
I was playing around with the Wii Weather Channel. If you zoom out, then hold down the button as you flick the controller just so, you can send the Earth spinning around wildly. Anyway, if one looks around southern Australia, various prominent cities and towns are highlighted. One caught my eye: Keith. Keith? I’d never ... [More]
Yesterday we headed up for our semi-annual (?) trip to the snow. With Mt Donna Buang (the closest) looking a little lean in the snow department this weekend, we opted for Lake Mountain: myself, Isaac, Jeremy, my nephew Leo and his dad Adrian (driving). As we headed up the Maroondah Highway, we could see the ... [More]
Almost hidden away in the bottom of The Nicholas Building is the Cathedral Arcade. I can’t say I frequent the quaint shops in there — I just use it as a shortcut — but that ceiling is quite amazing.
Sometimes memes are just irritating. For instance that “25 things you may not know about me” one. A few friends have done it. I’m not going to. You already got seven things out of me, and fer chrissake there’s 15 years of blog posts people can read if they want to find more. I did ... [More]
On my day off yesterday we sauntered down to Jaycar in Cheltenham for electronic gadget goodness. I noticed looking at the map beforehand that a bunch of the streets are named after newspapers: Argus St, Herald St, Age St, Times St. No Sun St that I could see. There are plenty of clusters of street ... [More]
When I’m out walking, I actively (but not foolishly, I hope) defend my rights as a pedestrian. If I have an opportunity to walk safely and legally before a car goes, I will take it. The main rules are not difficult to comprehend, but some motorists just don’t seem to understand them. [Page references are ... [More]
I had a dream last night that hundreds of new TV channels showed up on digital TV tuners. Weird. I haven’t yet upgraded to digital TV. I’m in the unfortunate position of: (a) having bought a 4:3 CRT TV at precisely the wrong time, about 7 years ago, just before the prices plummeted when widescreen ... [More]
I don’t have a post for you this morning, so here’s something I prepared earlier. This morning I had a chat to the people at 3CR about PT issues, and it reminded me of this recording from Joy FM back in April. I think they’d been intending to post the podcast themselves, but haven’t… so ... [More]
So, both Connex and TransdevTSL (operating as Yarra Trams) are being shown into the departure lounge, with MTM (MTR) and Keolis to replace them. I don’t think the former is a surprise, though the latter is. Some are celebrating. I know this for a fact, as yesterday morning at the station I heard one man ... [More]
The big announcement may well come in the next few days: who will take over running Melbourne’s trams and trains from November? Anybody want to put their predictions on the table? Leave a comment! Your choices: Trains: Connex (Veolia, incumbent) or MTM (Hong Kong MTR consortium) or Keolis Trams: Yarra Trams (TransdevTSL, incumbent) or Keolis ... [More]
Victoria’s Chief Health Officer is Doctor John Carnie. So I’m wondering… Where is he? I’m sure acting CHO Rosemary Lester is doing a fabbo job, but if the state has a WHO-recognised pandemic on its hands, shouldn’t the actual CHO turn up? Shouldn’t it be all hands on deck?
The other week, in one night, I had a trio of ridiculous dreams. So ridiculous that you half know it’s a dream, and it’s a ridiculous situation, but you keep on dreaming it anyway. I’ve forgotten the first. In the second, someone was knocking at my front door and trying to look through the frosted ... [More]
I’ve had few real idols; people of whom I could genuinely say “I want to be like them.” In my early-to-mid 20s, Ben Elton was one of them. Amazingly funny, both on stage and in his writing. I wanted to write stuff that was half as good as his books, but never quite managed to ... [More]