My home internet connection has cut out. Knowing that it takes about 5 days, on Monday I requested the ADSL connection be moved. If I’d thought about it a bit more (and taken advice from friends) I would have ordered a brand-spanking new connection from somebody else, rather than relocate my Netspace one, so there’d be an overlap period, like there is with other essential services like the phone, gas, water, power etc. But hey, Netspace have been pretty good, and I get to avoid the red tape of going with a new provider.

So this morning sometime during breakfast, it got disconnected, and no doubt my new empty house now has hot running broadband.

I could use the dialup service, designed for emergencies or when on holiday. But do I even know where my old dialup modem is now? Nup.

PS. 9am Friday. Hmmm. On second thoughts, it must have been a temporary glitch, because this morning it’s working. Today I’m at home, not feeling well. Some kind of flashback to the last time I moved???

From MX, Melbourne’s free afternoon commuter newspaper, 19/10/2005 page 1:

Trains in an instant

Inga Gilchrist

Trains would run every 10 minutes during peak hour on all lines under a radical plan to boost Melbourne’s public transport.

The Public Transport Users Association today called for a massive lift in train frequency to ease overcrowding in carriages and on the city’s roads.

As part of the group’s five-year plan for public transport, trains would also run every 15 minutes after peak hour until 9pm, including weekends. Services would then run every 20 minutes until midnight.

Some lines, including Upfield, Williamstown, Werribee and Cranbourne, only have trains every 20 minutes in peak hour.

PTUA president Daniel Bowen said most extra non-peak services could be run now.

But he said lines with single-track sections, such as Werribee, Epping and Hurstbridge, would need upgrades.

Bowen said the timetable changes would cost about $25 million a year, offset by extra fare revenue.

But Transport Minister Peter Batchelor rejected the plan, branding it a well-meaning budget buster.

He said the scheme would affect express services from the outer suburbs, with little benefit to passengers during non-peak times.

“Their costing assumptions are unrealistic,” Batchelor said today.

“And outside of peak hours there is already spare capacity to carry many more people on the rail network.”

Opposition Transport spokesman Terry Mulder said the scheme could see Melbourne echo the success of Perth’s 15-minute service on all lines.

“We think it’s an excellent idea. The only down side is some extra drivers would be needed and there will be some increased maintenance costs,” he said.

“The experience in Perth shows that if you have good connections between services people love to use them, because a pet hate is waiting around for connections.”

The full plan will be unveiled next week.

Naturally, lines already having peak services more frequent than 10 minutes would retain them. Good to see Terry Mulder come out in support of the idea, noting Perth’s success in improving its rail service.

Unfortunately Peter Batchelor misses the point. Lines that have expresses wouldn’t be affected, because they mostly already have peak services every 10 minutes or better. And to claim it wouldn’t help outside peak hours is to ignore the current overcrowded services (due in part to use of short trains on many lines). But in any case the purpose of more frequent off-peak/evening/weekend services would be to attract more users, not alleviate overcrowding.

The idea is to move the rail system towards the “just turn up, there’s a train within a few minutes” model seen in so many cities across the world, to make trains a “mode-of-choice” for more trips and encourage people out of their cars.

Not exactly rocket-science, I’d have thought. Nor that radical either.

Our mission yesterday: to take the bicycles to the new house.

Why? Because it’s a tradition (well, we’ve done it once before, in 2003). Because it was good exercise. To avoid the hassle of moving them in the truck on moving day. And because it was a nice day… so why not?

I’d taken yesterday off to pack boxes and clear stuff out. I packed 4 boxes, and threw probably 3 boxes worth of things out. Probably should have got more done, but at least it’s progress.

After school the kids and I got on the bikes and headed off. According to WhereIs’s directions, it’s about 4.5km. Not a hugely long ride, but not a trivial one either, especially as Jeremy’s still on training wheels. I’ve been trying to talk him into ditching them, but he hasn’t been convinced yet.

We set out along the footpath, Jeremy in front with orders to watch for cars in driveways, followed by me, and Isaac at the rear. I was pondering if I’d have to explain to any cranky old ladies along the way that it’s legal for kids under 12 to ride on the footpath; and also adults like me if they are accompanying said children.

We reached the halfway point without too much trouble. A bit further down the road we got to a milkbar about two-thirds of the way, and decided to stop for an icecream.

Refreshed, we were just setting off for the rest of the trip when one of Jeremy’s training wheels broke. It was like a supermarket trolley wheel — loose, obstructive, and unable to be fixed on the spot without tools. Jeremy soldiered-on regardless for a bit, leaning the bike onto the other training wheel, but eventually it proved too much and we ended up walking the last kilometre or so.

We got to the house about an hour after we’d set out, so overall we did it at about walking pace.

Mission accomplished. Three less things to move.

Updated 6pm: Then we caught the train home.

I got into something of a lather over the weekend, when I noted that my washing machine appeared to be about 65cm wide, wider than the space for the washing machine in the new house, which is about 60cm wide. This caused something of a panic, since if it couldn’t fit in that space, it would create real problems in the laundry.

But what to do? I spoke to Adrian, who being a hard-working, professional architect, knows about such things. He said it would be a smallish job, but I’d need to find a plumber. But neither he nor Peter (who does odd-jobs, and I assumed would know such people) could recommend one. Could I find a plumber who could do the job in the week left before moving day?

Adrian also remarked that it seemed like a very wide washing machine to be that big. So I went back and double-checked my measurements. The washing machine is, in fact, only 57cm wide.

It would appear that I don’t need a plumber; I need someone who can properly use a tape measure.

According to The Independent, next year there’ll be a spin-off series from Doctor Who, called Torchwood. It’ll be more adult, described as “The X-Files meets This Life” and will star John Barrowman as “Captain” Jack Harkness, part of a team investigating alien activity on Earth.

• BBC announcement
• BBC has registered torchwood.org.uk

Three Dollars — It was an okay movie. Perhaps a bit close to the bone for me; I’ve seen some of those issues come up in the dim dark past of my life. I was watching out for various Melbourne locations… a few shots of Fed Square, and Flinders Street — where two Bad Things are shown happening on (shudder) platform 13. It had its good points, such as time spent with the tramps, which I found interesting. But the movie is so long it drags on a bit, and sadly fails my “Would I watch it again?” test.

Real estate agents earn a fair amount when they get a sale. Often they’ll give a gift of some kind when the sale is complete. When I picked up the keys on Thursday, they gave me a gift, just a token of their appreciation, they said.

I wasn’t expecting anything. What was it? Not a hamper of goodies, like Justine & Marita got. Not a big bunch of flowers. Not Gold Class tickets. (I already have some of those I need to use by December.)

No, unwittingly, they gave me something I quite definitely appreciate, and will get plenty of use out of. They probably couldn’t have done better if they knew me well.

A brand spanking new Melway.

At least now I’ll have no problems finding my way to the new house.

As of 2pm yesterday, I own a house. Well, apart from the bit the bank owns, which is most of it. Yesterday on my internet banking, a cute little house icon appeared in my list of accounts, with a scarily high number for the balance figure.

The new phone number will be connected today (so I can sort out ADSL in advance of moving). Ditto the ‘lectricity. Gas and water next week. I collected the keys last night and had a look around. It looks good. Hopefully it’ll still look good when all my stuff is inside it!

With the prospect of termites where I’m living now (9 days until I move out), I was asked if I’d checked for them in the new place. Fair question. I haven’t, because the place was bought in so much of a hurry (to beat the other buyers). But I’ll certainly be getting all that kind of thing checked out.

I noticed slaters on the (rental house) bathroom wall yesterday. I wonder if they interact with the ants and the suspected termites? Do they get along with the possums? What about the cats that go hunting through my garden?

All around our homes there are various species, mostly unseen, living their lives right under our noses.

And they’re not even paying rent.

• Countdown to the dishwasher
• New house pictures

Chicken parma, Metropolitan Hotel, North Melbourne — How could one resist a meal touted as “Fat arse chook parma”? I certainly couldn’t. And yes, it was huge. A fellow diner commented that no part of a chicken is that big, and the waiter agreed. Perhaps it was really turkey parma, or ostrich parma? It was pretty tasty, too. Sadly, the connoisseurs at superparma.com haven’t found this one, but they have recently awarded the crown for best parma to the nearby Leveson Hotel, also in North Melbourne. Still, this one must get full marks for size… I’ll point them to it. $16 well spent.

Million Dollar Baby — Another of Hollywood’s best, most thought-provoking movies from Clint Eastwood. What starts as a reasonably straightforward, but far from mindless, engaging drama, then takes an almighty twist as the characters agonise over what is an important and topical issue. A great film, marred only by way-too-obvious advertising for Everlast.

Over on Geekrant, I’ve been re-living my past geek-glory writing computer games.