Two of the biggest local media outlets are going great guns encouraging citizen media: The Age and Channel 7, joining in a trend increasingly seen worldwide. Both have been increasingly encouraging contributions in the past couple of years, from web and phone polls to running footage or photos taken by members of the public.

Of course they’ve always accepted good material for stories. Channel 7 won a Quill award for the 2003/04 New Year’s Eve transport debacle story, based on amateur (PTUA) footage. It’s recognition that not only can the mass-media not be everywhere, but with the proliferation of cheap and cheerful digital cameras and camera phones, as well as CCTV footage, no event in the urban parts of the western world is far from somebody’s camera.

Most people would be happy to see “their” event shown to the world. But keep in mind the smallprint. As The Age/Fairfax digital says: you agree, in submitting content to grant to Fairfax Digital to a perpetual, royalty-free, non-exclusive, unrestricted world-wide licence to use, and license others to use, your content.

They can and will make money off your hard work, and all you’ll get is a picture credit and a bill from your SMS provider.

Despite petrol at record prices and traffic congestion, most people still don’t use public transport. Its share of the market sits stagnant at about 8% or so.

Why? Because most people will only choose PT over driving when it’s convenient: when it goes where you want to go, and when it’s frequent. How frequent is Melbourne’s PT? Here are the figures for the number of routes running every 15 minutes or better:

Say, for example, you want to go out at the weekend, and you don’t want to have to wait around too long, and you don’t want to check a timetable and time your trip to match the services. Well you’d better hope your trip is along one of the few routes that are running frequently:

All those spaces beyond the marked spots on the map are filled with suburbs: houses, shops, people. But no PT frequent enough to be competitive with driving.

This is why most people drive everywhere. It’s no wonder the roads are so congested… even on weekends.

See all the figures and maps.

Memo to self (and anybody else listening): Only put rugs with rubber backing onto wooden floors.

They’re extremely slippery otherwise, as I discovered this morning, when getting ready for work. I was in a bit of a rush and attempted to run to go turn off the computer. I had shoes on, and my grip on the floor was no problem. Neither was my grip on the rug. But as I turned the corner on the rug, it became apparent that the rug’s grip on the floor was going to be an issue.

It flew out from under me. I (quite spectacularly I suspect) flew through the air, then went down, flat on the floor, landing with a resounding thump.

Sprawled on the floorboards, I ran an internal human diagnostic. All limbs present and operative. My teeth hadn’t quite hit the floor, and appeared intact. My lip may have made contact, and if it looks slightly fat today I wouldn’t be surprised.

So, I think it’s time to get rid of that ol’ slippery Ikea rug and get something nicer. Oh, and maybe I shouldn’t run inside the house.

I was tagged for a literary meme.

1. One book that changed your life

I’m struggling a bit to think of anything, but if I had to nominate something, I’d probably say Ben Elton’s Gridlock. It’s not an earthshattering philosophical work, but I think it (subconsciously) triggered a lot of my thinking about issues I’m now actively involved in campaigning on. (Where I talked about it previously)

2. One book you have read more than once.

Douglas Adams’ Hitchhikers books.

3. One book you’d want on a desert island.

Something long, engrossing, and thought-provoking.

4. One book that made you giddy?

Christopher Koch’s Year of Living Dangerously. There’s nothing like reading a well-regarded text and realising that what you’ve been told is true — one of the characters really is based on your own father. (My review)

5. One book that you wish had been written

I’d love to read a history of my family on my father’s side. Okay, so it’s very personal, but I think it’s sad that so few people know the personal details of their own ancestors. (There’s already been a history written of mum’s side.) I think my uncle is working on something, though I don’t know how much detail there’ll be. It leaves me wanting to ensure that what I write in this blog is kept for my descendants to read.

6. One book that wracked you with sobs?

I’ve read some moving books, but I don’t recall any that had that effect on me. Unlike, say, the Father’s Day episode of Doctor Who the first time I saw it. As its author, Paul Cornell recently wrote: Drama isn’t your puppy, it’s a tiger. It’s not meant to make you comfortable. It’s meant to make you feel alive. Something applicable to books as well as TV, I reckon.

7. One book you wish had never been written

Having sampled , I can honestly say the world would be no worse off if Dan Brown hadn’t bothered. (My review)

8. One book you’re currently reading

Doug Grant’s Incompetance. It’s amusing enough, but there’s little thought-provoking or devastatingly intelligent about it.

I’ve just read the bit with the railway station that was served by no trains. As ridiculous as it sounds, in outer-SE Melbourne there’s a hospital with a bus stop which is served by no buses. (They’re fixing it sometime soon.)

9. One book you’ve been meaning to read.

Three books really: Neal Stephenson’s Baroque trilogy is high on my list.

10. Now tag five bloggers

I’ll go for (hopefully) a variety of reading tastes: My lovely Marita. Beth. Tony. Konrad. Erm.. one more… one more… who else wants to have a go?

Heinz Big’n'Chunky Beef and Vegetable Soup. I like a can of soup on a cold night when I’m feeling too lazy to cook properly. But this reminded me just a little too much of the aroma of dog food.

Oh what a tricky language we use.

• grammer — how come so many people make this (almost ironic) mistake? grammar dammit, grammar!
• peninsular — actually this is a grammatical error. Peninsular is the adjective describing a body of land surrounded on three sides by water. But so many people seem to think it’s the noun. No. It’s Mornington Peninsula — noun. The local paper down that way is the Peninsular Leader — adjective.
• calender — it’s AR on the end. At one stage on the work computers we had a shared calendar called XYZ Calender.
• acquarium — the other week the kids pointed out to me that there’s no C in aquarium. As in aqua. Okay, so maybe it’s only me that gets that one wrong.
• I thought artifact was a typo, but apparently it’s a valid alternative to artefact.
• seperate — nup, sepArate.

There’s lots of others, of course, but those are some that I see quite often. Maybe the world needs more spelling checkers. Or better education.

And don’t get me started on apostrophes.

Interesting mix… Italian and Indian cuisine.

Anybody fancy some Spaghetti Vindaloo? How about Tandoori macaroni?

When I lived in Hawthorn, up the end of the street was an Indian/Vegetarian/Fish’n'Chip shop.

And in fact, I have made something approxiamating spaghetti Tandoori chicken once when I was scrounging around in the kitchen for leftovers. It was… well, not outstanding to be honest.

I’ve mentioned before how I hate the expression “I’ll let you go”. It just tells me in the most thinly-veiled way that the person talking to me is sick of me, and has more important things to do.

Last week I overheard a work colleague who had evidently rung someone he didn’t want to talk to as much as the person wanted to talk to him. He said “I’ll let you go” about four times before the conversation finally ended.