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.
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Significant Other
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]
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Street name clusters
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]
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My rights as a pedestrian
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]
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Digital TV
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]
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Who will it be?
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]
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Doctor Where?
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]
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Geek Idol
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]
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Phoenix changing
When I visited Phoenix, Arizona in 1996, it appeared to be the archetypal car-dominated city. I was told pretty much the only PT was buses once an hour. The freeways were packed at rush hour. Nobody walked anywhere. The downtown area was (especially on weekends) so deserted that they had to have signs saying “Welcome ... [More]
Was just watching the footy and noticed that the Sydney Swans have the initials of their old name — SMFC — on their jumpers near the back of the neck. Had previously noticed that the Bulldogs also have this — FFC. Collingwood doesn’t seem to have it. How many other teams do? Is it a ... [More]
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Attn: Melbourne City Council
On Thursday I noticed a Melbourne City Council City Of Melbourne worker wandering around Collins Street with a street sign under his arm, apparently puzzled as to where to put it up. Today I noticed it had gone up. In the wrong place. There is no way through to Howey Place there. If you follow ... [More]
The most efficient way of moving people is using their own two feet. Here’s the statistical measure: (Graph from Teufel, D, 1989, âDie Zukunft des Autoverkehrsâ (The future of car traffic), Umwelt und Prognose Institut, Heidelberg — and used more recently in PTUA’s Response to Australiaâs Future Tax System Consultation Paper. Here’s another representation of ... [More]
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I am danielbowen. danielbowen I am.
Every so often, some new online service will present itself. Some turn out to be duds, but some turn out to be pretty compelling. As most of them are free, it’s often handy to grab your name early on while it’s available, in case it becomes useful later. In the prehistoric days of the net, ... [More]