Wow. Following up from frivolous calls after Melbourne’s earth tremor a couple of weeks ago, and just in time for yesterday afternoon’s tremor, Victoria Police put out a press release that reveals how many clueless people there are, who dial the Triple Zero emergency number for stupid reasons. January 2009 – Caller telephones 000 to ... [More]
Attention: Whoever has tried to initiate a password change for the Gmail address “danielbowen”: It’s not working for you because it’s not your email address. It’s mine. That’s why the password assistance message keeps coming through to me. If you’ve received this mail in error, it’s likely that another user entered your email address by ... [More]
This post has been superseded by this one from 2015, which used far better statistics For all the prominence given to issues around railway station car parks, the number of people using them is only a fraction of the total numbers of people using the trains. Source: Total users — Connex figure of 360,000. P+R ... [More]
From a blog on the Australian Jewish News web site: Recently I was on a bus and a young man got on in front of me wearing very low-slung jeans, so low in fact that his gutkes showed above the jeans. I was sure that his jeans were going to fall off and I was ... [More]
For those who missed it, last Thursday night’s Daily Show was a corker. Jon Stewart took on TV financial advisor Jim Cramer in one of the best TV debates I’ve seen in a while. The interview was one of those classic television moments that crystallised the public mood in the credit crisis. Stewart articulated the ... [More]
No straps to hold onto / Standing in the doorways is easiest Connex has a proposal to reduce the number of seats in some trains, as well as other internal carriage changes, including changing the doorways, and putting in more handholds. …Flashback… Almost six years ago, I took my newly purchased Canon A70 digital camera ... [More]
Every so often you realise a clear out is in order. When I realised yesterday there were a thousand items in my Gmail inbox, I decided I had to do something. So I started at the bottom of it, and started clearing and filing. I’m about halfway through it. In the process I found some ... [More]
Apparently I’m a militant. [Myki] has been slagged by public transport militant Daniel Bowen by reference to the hideous early 1980’s hit ‘Hey Mickey’ recently revived in cheerleader films of dubious repute. — Vexnews — news for patriots (?!) Hmmmmm. Interesting that they linked to a blog post where I thought I was quite impartial ... [More]
A while back I tried kangaroo sausages (“kanga bangas”). Can’t say I really liked them. But in the past week, I’ve tried kangaroo mince, in two recipes: spag bol, and chilli. Perhaps it’s because the taste is partially hidden amongst a mass of tomato and other ingredients, but both these were hits — little difference ... [More]
Some members of my family will regularly read the Herald Sun birth notices looking for amusing names. Often they raise a smile. Here’s one they noticed the other day. Now, I’ve met people called Damon before. Damon is evidently an Irish name meaning Tame. But Daemon? I know the people who read and comment here ... [More]
Here’s something for those that read the article Rudd’s nephew clashes with Connex in the Sunday Age this morning online, without the benefit of the photos in the paper edition. Unlike Jen I’m a frequent user of the Degraves St Subway/Campbell Arcade, the quick non-traffic-lighted way out of Flinders Street Station. The Platform group displays ... [More]
It was just before 9pm last night. I thought at first it was a ruddy big truck moving down my street. Or a really strong gust of wind. But the whole house was shaking. It passed after a few seconds. Nothing had cracked or fallen. I looked outside. Silence. No thunder, no wind. Twitter and ... [More]
Informative The driver I got during last Monday week’s afternoon mess on the Dandenong and Frankston lines was jovial, frank, and informative. I’m paraphrasing here: “There’s another train broken down at Southern Cross, so we’re being changed to run directly to Richmond… as soon as I can get to the other end of the train.” ... [More]
A great little video (about 10 minutes long), illustrating in a very Hitch Hiker’s-like style how the financial system (in the US particularly) got into such deep do-do. The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo. Making-of information
There’s now proof that the introduction of Myki will actually slow down trams. The Libs FOI’d the test figures, which found that: …if 20 passengers join a tram and another 20 alight at the same stop, the predicted average time a tram would be stationary was 38 seconds under the new myki smartcard compared to ... [More]
My Yearly Metcard is almost up for renewal, and I was pondering if I can somehow organise to stagger it and my other biggish expenses for the year? Yearly ticket — $1065. Mine expires in April, so if I want the cheap price I need to order in early-March — about now. If I pay ... [More]