I’ve been using Glenhuntly Station for about fifteen years, since when I first moved to the suburb. I still go there even though I live in Bentleigh, on days when I’ve dropped off the kids at school. In that time, about the only thing that’s changed is that there used to be a booking office ... [More]
I wrote about this ages ago, but it hasn’t changed, as it still works the same way on my newish Nokia N95 phone: The predictive text, which usually works really well, reckons if you press 752737, the most likely word you want is slaves. I always want plates. So if I’m not careful to change ... [More]
I was in the barber shop last week getting a hair cut. I’ve been going there for something like fifteen years, and things have changed little over that time. One thing that used to be different is they had ash-trays in the waiting area to accomodate smokers. Those disappeared some years ago. But now for ... [More]
Pre-state budget, there were strategic leaks of various initiatives. One that got a lot of press is the bike hire scheme. It’s a $5 million dollar scheme to have a bunch of inner-city bike stations where people can hire a bike. Obviously there’s some detail to come out here. Where will they put them? How ... [More]
Ever tried to do a press conference at Southern Cross station and compete with a locomotive for the microphone? Don’t try. Locos 1. Me 0. — Kevin Rudd PM on Twitter Amusing. It occurred to me that there’s not very many people who would be qualified to reply in the affirmative to that, so even ... [More]
If you’re wondering, yes, the Lasoo.com.au banner advert is due to a sponsorship deal. I was quite pleased to see they produced a graphic that fits in well with the blog — in a similar vein to my post last week on contextual advertising. Lasoo is a web site that compiles and indexes retail catalogues ... [More]
Us Bowens occasionally get an upset stomach, something we have dubbed Bowen Belly. Recently it’s been less frequent for me, thankfully. But on Monday I was foolish. I was passing through the supermarket and bought one of those instant noodle meals. I wanted a quick cheap easy meal. I must have temporarily forgotten about “tasty” ... [More]
Here’s a list of all the places I’ve lived. Some of the info from my early years is a bit vague. I suppose I could ask my mum for more details, but I’m not sure it’s that critical. 1970: A flat somewhere in Sydney — for a short time after my birth 1971ish: A flat ... [More]
These two are dizygotic twins. That is, non-identical. They used to be identical. How did it happen? Here’s the potted history. These Comeng trains were built during the 80s. As part of privatisation, the then-two operators M>Train and Connex took half each, and refurbished them (via EDI and Alstom, respectively). Added CCTV, automated announcements and ... [More]
Around the inner and middle suburbs, there are plenty of semi-detached houses, many in pairs, I’m guessing built around the 1920s and 30s. They look like a single big house if you don’t look too closely, but have two front doors and so on, and a thick dividing wall down the middle. I actually tried ... [More]
Listening to Radio National (The Music Show I think) and they mention a couple of people my Dad knows (or knew) well, and talks about often — David Malouf and Barry Jones. A couple of minutes later my sister rings up to discuss visiting Dad. Pure coincidence. Watching Billy Connolly’s Journey to the Edge of ... [More]
Online it’s all about contextual advertising — figuring out what the viewer is interested in, then showing them ads they’ll hopefully like. It frequently doesn’t work of course; Facebook knows everything about virtually everybody, but still manages to show me adverts for things I have no interest in. In the offline world, contextual advertising is ... [More]
A letter from Lola Jones in this morning’s Age has this quote: We don’t have to save the world. The world is big enough to look after itself. What we have to be concerned about is whether or not the world we live in will be capable of sustaining us in it. — Douglas Adams, ... [More]
Computer: I like it when computers reach the point at which a good upgrade is cheap, quick and cheerful. In this case on my two-year-old box, tripling the RAM cost me $45, tripling the hard disk space cost $130. And as the new disk is faster than the old one, I’ll take the opportunity to ... [More]
I don’t know if you’ve ever had to deal with someone who is profoundly hard-of-hearing, and, for whatever reason, has no hearing aid. It’s not their fault. They didn’t want it that way. But trying to hold a simple conversation, especially on the telephone, can be extremely frustrating, and can delve into the farcical. I ... [More]
The new 903 Smartbus runs from Mordialloc to Altona, every 8-15 minutes in peak hour, 15 minutes off-peak, 30 minutes evenings and weekends. I don’t for a moment believe anybody in their right mind will catch it from end to end, but it feeds into most of the city’s rail lines, connects major shopping centres ... [More]