Plenty has been written about this before, but I’ll put my oar in.

Facebook knows lots about you. Most users key in a bunch of stuff about their hobbies, favourite music, TV shows, all that kind of stuff. They know (roughly) where you live, how old you are, often your marital status, your interests.

So why are their adverts so hit-and-miss?

Sometimes they’re spot-on. I’ve seen Life On Mars t-shirts advertised, with pictures of Gene Hunt proclaiming some particularly amusing line from the show, such as “You’re surrounded by armed bastards!”. I’ve clicked through, and seriously considered ordering one. Well, until I saw the price.

But most of the adverts are useless. Hold ‘em poker — is there anything in my profile that suggests I’d be interested? Meet hot singles — Facebook knows I’ve been in a relationship for almost five years. Surely it isn’t predicting some kind of seven year itch coming up? Earn money from surveys — did I click on a “I need cash” option somewhere in my profile?

Snoring keeps her awake — uhh, no comment.

If computer systems are going to store a bunch of personal data about you, you’d think they’d at least make the effort to use it in a sensible way — not to mention if they get it right, they can make more money.

Or maybe I shouldn’t complain. At least the way things stand, I can happily ignore most of the ads that appear.

It was only at the third petrol station yesterday that I found a pump [air] that was working.

Found three ATMs in close proximity all out of order at lunchtime.

Was anybody else listening to the ABC 774 (3LO) news this morning at 7:45am when somebody pressed the wrong button and The Twilight Zone music and Rod Serling’s introduction played over it? Or did I imagine it?

Actually the revamped ABC Melbourne web site is a bit like the Twilight Zone. Can’t find anything anymore.

It’s true, I was incredulous that Myki executive Vivian Miners got a $140K bonus.

They’ve almost finished re-paving Centre Road. I’m not totally convinced it’s an improvement, and who knows how much it’s costing. Evidently red brick is out of vogue, and asphalt with coloured bits is the “Now” look in streetscapes. I do like the plants though.

PS. Clarified, the not working pumps were air, not petrol.

How’s this for a scheme?

1. Buy discounted Kit Kat Chunky chocolate bars for $1.29 at Safeway. (On special only until closing time tonight; normal price $1.88)

2. Eat bar.

3. Use code inside wrapper that gets me a $1.69 song from iTunes.

4. Profit!

I like chocolate, and I already have an iTunes account.

And in fact I’d been planning to buy a few songs, such as a couple of those David Bowie tunes used on Life On Mars (wasn’t the ending utterly brilliant!) including the title track, and Starman, also used to good effect on Torchwood. It’s cheaper to buy once-off songs for $1.69 than splash out and buy whole CDs full of other tracks I don’t really want. (How come the David Bowie best-of I already have didn’t include these two anyway?!) Even cheaper at minus 40 cents.

So what’s the catch here?

• According to the terms and conditions, you can only do this up to 5 times per iTunes account. Damn.
• They’re Nestle bars. I’ve long boycotted Nestle. But the costs of the discount and the promotion are likely to be borne by the manufacturer, which hopefully means they’re earning nothing at all, or even losing money on the deal.
• I have to eat the chocolate. Bummer. (I’ll pace myself.)

Life On Mars trivia: Sam Tyler was named after Rose Tyler from Doctor Who.

I’m sure anybody who drives a particular trip regularly has in their mind their thoughts on optimising it: which route to take, which lane to be in when, best time to set out, alternate routes available if there’s a major snarl — like there was on Wednesday.

What about PT users? Do they think this process through as well, or do they always stick with the same trip?

My primary commute is by train: from either Bentleigh or Glenhuntly into the city, depending on the day. Because I’m me, I’ve thought probably way too much about how to make it — at least in theory — as smooth as possible. (As it happens, when Wednesday’s chaos hit, I needed to head for home on the Sandringham line, not the Frankston, which was disrupted.)

Inbound:

• Avoid the 8:21 from Glenhuntly like the plague. It was crowded 10 years ago, and is packed most days now. There used to be another train within 5 minutes, but it got converted into an express in the late-90s.
• The 8:36 and 8:52 are quieter, as they originate at Cheltenham. With luck, get a seat. Slower ride through.
• The 8:21 is the 8:15 from Bentleigh. Avoid it there too — there’s an 8:17 express that overtakes it.
• If getting on-board at Bentleigh, the trains sometimes leave a minute or so early, which is a problem I’m delayed by a train crossing the other way.
• I can catch the train to Flinders Street, where I have a 5 minute walk, or Parliament where I have a 10 minute walk. The latter is good on a dry cool day for some exercise and fresh air.
• If going to Parliament, I aim for the last carriage, as that’s closest to the exit I want. Especially important outside peak hour to get onto the escalators and walking up before the off-peak people, unaware of the etiquette, fill up the right hand side.
• If going to Flinders Street, I aim for the 4th carriage, as that gets me close to the interchange subway at Richmond, where I can see where/when the next direct Flinders Street train is from. If it’s too long to wait, I’ll sometimes go to Parliament instead.
• On a direct train to Flinders Street, I aim for the 2nd carriage, as it gets me close to the Degraves Street subway… unless the train lands in the dungeon (platforms 12/13) in which case it gets me close to the main exit.

Outbound:

• On the way home, I go to Flinders Street. Direct trains to Richmond generally go from platforms 6 and 12/13, and even though I have to change, it can still save about 7-8 minutes.
• Alternately I can catch a train direct to Parliament, and then change onto the Frankston train — that might save 5 minutes, though it invariably involves an acrobatic sprint up the escalators at Parliament.
• If it’s really hot or a long time between trains or the Frankston train is likely to be crowded, I’m happy to go around the loop.
• Occasionally if one misses a stopping-all-stations Frankston train, you can get a Dandenong train that will overtake it, but it doesn’t usually pay off — expresses between South Yarra and Caulfield only gain 3-4 minutes over stoppers, and you lose some of that getting through the crowds and changing platforms at Caulfield.
• Alternate routes in the event of major disruption: train to Caulfield, then 624 bus to Glenhuntly (or at a pinch, walk); Sandringham train to Elsternwick then 67 tram to Glenhuntly; Sandringham train to Middle Brighton then 703 bus to Bentleigh (zone 2 fare extra)
• Aim for the first carriage when going to Bentleigh; the last carriage for Glenhuntly. Though everybody else does this too, so there’s often more space in the second-last/second.
• At Glenhuntly, my path out of the station crosses the track to the city, and trains there go excruciatingly slowly. So I’ll look at Caulfield to the platform 1 Next Train indicator. If it’s less than 4 minutes away, it will have left Glenhuntly by the time I get there. 5 minutes I’ll probably have to wait for it before being able to cross. 6-8 minutes means I should alight and exit the station as quickly as possible to get across before the gates close.

Maybe I just think about these things too much? Reading back that last point, I think the answer is a definite Yes.

But there is a lesson here: if you’re a regular PT user, it makes sense to know, before something like Wednesday’s mess happens, what your alternative routes are. Parallel train lines and connecting bus/trams, that kind of thing. It can save you a lot of heartache when disaster strikes.

Reminder to self: Yearly ticket ran out on March 29th. I’ve already got the new one (PTUA discount price $1015 per year for zone 1 — order yours today), but I’m using up the compensation Dailies I’ve claimed from Connex in the past year.

Reminder to everybody else: Hold onto your monthly/yearly ticket (used or validated this month) and be ready to claim compensation at the end of this month. Apparently with Wednesday’s mess, they’ve almost hit the compensation threshold already.

More tips for PT users

I don’t mean to gloat or anything, but I’m rather pleased I locked-in my mortgage interest rate last year. It’s locked-in for 5 years (the maximum) which may or may not have been a good idea — only time will tell — but it certainly looks pretty good right now. Mine’s locked-in at 7.85%, whereas my bank’s standard variable rate is now 9.47%.

Meanwhile, interest on savings has also been creeping up, of course. The savings account I have now has 7% interest… which leaves me wondering if it’ll climb so high that it’s above my mortgage rate. If that happens, it’ll be better for me to keep money in the savings account than the mortgage offset account. Weird. (Though now I think about it, I get charged tax on interest earned.)

Some are predicting rates will start to drop again this year. So any advantage I have now may be shortlived.

Oh dear. That’s not meant to happen.

But look on the bright side… there were no ambulances on the scene!

(Collins St near Russell St, approx 1:55pm today. There are points there; it looks like the two halves of the tram decided to go different ways.)

One of those frantic days.

E Day — the Eddington report came out. Age story. In summary: do we really want to blow $20 billion on tunnels, when one (the road tunnel) appears to serve no purpose (hardly anybody drives NE to W) and the other (the rail tunnel) tries to solve a capacity problem that shouldn’t exist if we run the infrastructure we’ve got properly?

Spending all that money means nothing left for the new rail lines we need to Doncaster, Rowville, Melton… And the report appears to include some major flaws which follow the old “predict and provide” road-supply formula: predict lots of traffic, then build the roads to make sure it happens. Never a good idea.

The crazy weather meant a thing at ABC radio that should have been just after 5pm got bumped to about 5:40. After that I headed home, and having just missed a tram, ended up getting a tad lost in Southbank walking to Flinders Street Station. It’s a pretty big building to lose, but in that area there seem to be zero signs directing pedestrians to points of interest, and the streets are so curvy there’s no line of sight more than a few hundred metres.

Found it eventually, got on a train… and it sat there for a bit. In the rear cab we could hear a Connex bloke on a radio talking about something being wrong, and noting that it was “full of people” and agonising over what was going to happen. Sure enough they kicked us all off (by announcing it initially on the platform, not on the train.. umm.. good one) and we changed platforms, got onto a working train, and headed off.

Not that any of this was as bad as on some lines: the Ringwood, Alamein, Glen Waverley, Frankston and Craigieburn lines all had problems with power and/or falling trees. At the radio station I’d heard John Rees at Connex, also agonising.

Got to my car and found on the way back that police were at one set of traffic lights, which had broken down, directing traffic through slowly.

Eventually got home, to find a tree branch in the front garden had (almost) broken off in the wind. At least we hadn’t lost power though.

Ah, one of those days.

PS. Thursday 9pm. ABC Opinion article: An unhealthy dose of bitumen for Melbourne

Proposal for a Yarra car ferry.

Google Australia introduces predictive web searching, which can show you how the Web will look tomorrow.

Google USA and Virgin have combined to form Virgle: sending a human colony to Mars.

Andrew Bolt to run for parliament in Peter Costello’s seat.

A bunch of stories: SCG stand to be named after Warrick Capper; Beijing Olympics women’s events to be run two weeks after the men’s; Virgin Blue offers half-price air fares for those willing to stand.

It was Fossil Fools Day.

NZ radio station cancels this morning’s Foo Fighters gig.

And Sanitarium are going to stop manufacturing Weetbix. At least, that’s what I told my kids at breakfast this morning. For a few seconds they believed it.