The more observant amongst you may have noticed the Twitter Updates thingy on the right hand side of the web page.

Yes, I’m dabbling in micro-blogging. I’m not totally convinced it’s worth the trouble, but having seen examples where it’s shown its uses, I thought I’d give it a go, particularly when I found the Twitter Tools plug-in for Wordpress, which can show my Twitter updates here.

(I also experimented with relaying updates onto Facebook, which I’ve also dabbled with. Then I found Facebook specifically prohibits this kind of thing… Oh well. See the details. They can keep their fancy-schmanzy walled garden.)

It’s handy in that you can post a brief update from virtually anywhere; via IM, web, or from a mobile phone (though the latter costs me 50 cents a pop in international SMS fees). So like they say, it’s handy for brief — but hopefully mildly interesting — stuff that happens through the day that wouldn’t be worthy of a full blog post.

So I’ll give it a go, and see if it inspires. And if it quietly disappears again, you’ll know it didn’t.

• Twitter

I really pity the people of Sydney who have had to be in the CBD during APEC. (But then, at least most Sydneysiders get the day off, whereas I have to drag myself into work.)

NSW Transport Minister John Watkins said yesterday “Between 3 pm and 7.30 pm today, there will be 92 motorcade movements around the city.” This must be very carefully planned. Normally people in motorcades get all green lights. But what if two of the motorcades intersect somewhere? Do they have a pecking order to decide which world leader gets to go first? Or would they divert one of them around the block to avoid it? Sounds like the good basis for a video game. “Motorcade Simulator.”

Will have to watch The Chaser next week: two of them were arrested trying to drive a fake motorcade into the exclusion zone. Police minister says he “did not see the funny side at all.” Apparently the day before, some of the team had dressed up as a police horse.

Still no answers on the APEC dressups, but Peter Walker posting in the Guardian Blog noted my blog entry about it recently, and thinks The Age’s suspicions of Driza-bones and Akubras is on the money.

Update Monday morning: So it turned out to be Driza-bones and Akubras… and The Chaser’s escapades made the news worldwide: Google News / Video from BBC and Fox, as well as the Chaser’s own raw footage.

I think I would have enjoyed We Can Be Heroes. I heard good things about it, and the clips I caught were funny.

The sequel, Summer Heights High looks good as well… I suspect both are cleverer and funnier views of Australian society than Kath & Kim are… which has got rather dull in its latest outing, if the episode I saw was anything to go by.

But you know what? I’ve gone off TV. Last night was the first episode of Summer Heights High (and new Chaser episodes which I know I enjoy, and I couldn’t be bothered going to turn it on. (It’s available for download for a week. Maybe I’ll watch it online.)

I used to love TV, but I barely watch anything now. Just a few shows a week. Is it just me?

Tragic events involving crocodiles seemed to co-incide yesterday. As the media noted the first anniversary of Steve Irwin’s death, they were also reporting the death of a girl in PNG, dragged from her village by a crocodile. Awful stuff.

If that wasn’t enough, the night before, the new Mythbusters series started on SBS, with the first episode covering the Hindenburg, and… how to escape from crocodiles.

Two thoughts spring to mind:

A couple of months after Irwin’s death, I was chatting to a journo who had spent a fair bit of time with him over a few days. He said he really was the larger-than-life, full of enthusiasm person he appeared to be on TV. You can poke fun at him and the whole Australia Zoo phenomenon, but he does appear to have been a genuinely nice person who loved life, his work, and his family.

When it all comes down to it, most of us in the western world have pretty cushy lives. Okay, so some of us are facing health issues or homelessness or other things like that. But most of us have it easy. We might never have all the money we’d like, or all the stuff we’d like, but we’re not going to starve to death, be sent to work into factories among noxious chemicals, die in senseless violence, or be dragged from our homes by crocodiles.

All in all, we’ve got nothing to complain about.

So cheer up.

It’s now just over ten years since Princess Diana died. One thing I didn’t mention in my blog post at the time was that when I got home, I found my VCR, which had been set to tape an obscure Sunday morning TV programme (the rather amusing look at the parables of Jesus, Wrestling With The Big One, with Tony Robinson), had picked up a news bulletin of the accident, from before her death had been announced. It’s kind of erie watching it today.

If nothing else, her death should serve as a reminder to always wear your seatbelt.

(I had thought that crash survivor Trevor Rees-Jones, the bodyguard, was wearing his, but apparently not. But crash analysis did conclude that the injuries would have been minor if the car’s occupants had been wearing theirs.)

I’ve only ever been in one car accident. I was a kid, in the back of the babysitter’s car, when it hit the back of a tray truck at low speed outside our flat in Hotham Street. The tray came through the windscreen. No injuries, but shock.

Thankfully that’s all I’ve ever been involved in, with the exception of a minor carpark bump or two. But it still sticks in my mind.

Perhaps it’s one of the reasons I prefer not to travel by car when there are alternatives.

Went to the school concert last week, which was at Monash. Mucho traffic congestion on Wellington Road due to roadworks. Some people who you’d think could figure out a simple row/seat ticketing system seemed to be very puzzled. Some toddler sitting behind me yapped through much of it. A mad woman (probably someone’s grandmother) started shouting towards the end. “Shut up! Shut up! Get out!” But all in all, quite enjoyable.

And then Paul Kelly at Hamer Hall on Friday night, a birthday present from Marita. (Almost forgot to take the tickets.) Great show. The entire new album in order, followed by loads of hits, including some oldies like Under The Sun. Sadly the audience was a bit staid. I was bopping around to the music, wondering why those around me who had paid for these good seats weren’t moving.

In a very clever move, they recorded the show for release next week as a download at liveband.com.au. They promoted it by handing out CD slipcovers. Neato, I’ll be coughing up.

Even the support act was bearable (sadly sometimes they’re not).

The show finished about 11:30 and we got to the station to catch the 11:45 train home. All went well until we got to Ormond, when a drunk man in a suit, looking quite green, decided to block the doors so he could spit. He did this a couple of times, and before we knew it, the doors wouldn’t close. Siemens’ fine workmanship strikes again.

The driver came down to take a look. With help from passengers inside, he tried to push the doors closed from the outside. No luck. He went back to his cabin, while the drunk man tried to look inconspicuous.

A couple of minutes later the driver came back with his radio. After conferring with some distant colleagues, he gave the doors an almighty kick. (If you’ve seen the train doors in question, they move inwards as the final part of sliding closed). Still no luck. He went back to his cabin.

His weary voice came over the PA. Sorry. If the train doors won’t close, we can’t carry passengers. You’re all going to have to get off and wait for the next one. Collective groans all round. We disembarked.

Two policemen wandered into the station, wondering why the North Road crossing gates had been down for 10+ minutes.

The station PA cracked to life. The following train was at Caulfield, just 5 minutes away. Not too bad. The empty train moved off (with the doors now looking suspiciously snug), as did the policemen.

We could see the lights from the next train in the distance. The automatic announcement piped up to tell us of its imminent arrival.

Then there were gasps. Another drunk man had fallen onto the tracks further along the platform. While someone hit the platform “red button” to call for help, a bystander (who I shall henceforce refer to as The Hero) leapt down to help him. I was trying to run along the platform to signal the driver to stop, but couldn’t get past all the people.

With help from those on the platform, The Hero got the drunk man back up off the tracks. But he was running out of time before the train got to him, so he ran to the other platform and jumped up. He was okay, but had injured his knee. We shouted to him to run via the underpass back up to our platform to catch the train.

The train came in and The Hero appeared coming up the ramp, limping a bit. He got on board.

With everybody aboard, the doors closed and we moved off. Someone started clapping, and before long our half of the train were all applauding The Hero. “Onya mate!”

We got home without further incident, apart from muttering under collective breaths about Siemens, drunken businessmen on late-night trains, and telling a Martin Merton poster at Bentleigh Station to go away.

Train travel is normally relatively uneventful. It’s the one-in-a-hundred trip that you remember, and that no doubt several hundred people have been telling their friends all about over the weekend.

And it leaves questions. There’s meant to be TravelSafe staff on trains after 9pm. Where were they? How can a door so easily go out of commission?

And if Paul Kelly had been there, would he write a song about it?