Given how their parliament occasionally carries-on, I wonder if the Taiwanese politicians campaigned on how good they are at hand-to-hand combat?

That level crossing smash near Geelong is tragic, and the government should do more on improving crossing conditions. But one radio jock was almost making excuses for the car driver, not just missing the Stop sign, the Railway Crossing sign and the rumble strips, but also not noticing the express train roaring down the line. Would the same apply if it had been a road intersection, rather than a level crossing, and the car had smashed into a B-double?

Fancy a bit of gaming on a Thursday night? Turns out you can present a valid Metcard at ACMI’s Game On (which I’m telling you, is excellent), and get in for the concession rate of $10.

I frequently use lifts that have two lights above the doors, one on top of the other. How is it that so many visitors to that building can’t figure out that when the top light goes on, the arriving lift is going up, and when the bottom light goes on, it’s going down?

Maybe I need to re-arrange the cards in my wallet. I’m concerned that the garish black and gold of my ATM card may be clashing with the green and yellow of my Medicare card.

When they first arrived in Australia, my mum used to call 7-11 “4-7-11″, because the TV jingle went “Thank heaven… for Seven Eleven!”

In Swanston Street, just a few doors down from the 7-11 on the corner of Flinders Lane, is a fake 7-11: the 24-7 Cafe, with a colour scheme that is similar, but not identical to, a real 7-11. I wonder how many people walk into the 24-7 without looking carefully, and assuming it’s a 7-11?

• Wikipedia: 7-Eleven — wow, they’ve been going since the 1920s, with the name first being used in 1946.
• Memories of the 7-11

PS. Everything I said last year about petrol prices at Easter still applies.

Things to love about going to the pool

• Perfect cool-down on a hot day
• The kids have fun splashing around
• Inexpensive and close to home
• Secure belongings in a locker; don’t have to hide keys in shoes
• The cool wave pool… just like the beach, only cleaner (no jellyfish, for a start)

Things to hate about going to the pool

• Hot day = crowded
• Little kids splashing you accidentally
• Wrinkly skin and chlorine in your eyes
• Have to take the car to get there… no parks in the shade
• $3 for a lousy cup of chips… and I found I only had $2.80 in cash with me

In the spirit of Overheard in Melbourne, this one heard the other day at Victoria Gardens shopping centre while on an Ikea run:

“If you don’t behave, I’ll take you to the police station!”

Puh-lease, talk about an empty threat. Unless the mum thought the kid was guilty of terrorism charges or something. As I’ve said before, lying to your kids doesn’t work.

Maybe things haven’t changed all that much in the last 119 years.

And in place of lowing cattle, I can hear the fiendish rattle
Of the tramways and the buses making hurry down the street,
And the language uninviting of the gutter children fighting,
Comes fitfully and faintly through the ceaseless tramp of feet.

– from Clancy of the Overflow — Banjo Patterson, 1889

Why is it that some oldsters seem determined to jaywalk?

In fact it could be my imagination, but it sometimes seems the less agile they are, the more likely they are to jaywalk. The other evening in Glenhuntly I saw a lady who was struggling to merely push a shopping trolley, and she decided to try and get it across Glenhuntly Road (a mere 100 metres from the traffic lights), and then down a sidestreet… not on the footpath mind you, but along the roadway.

On Centre Road and on Jasper Road I regularly see the oldsters crossing a few metres from the traffic lights. Sure, they don’t usually have shopping trolleys, but they often seem to be less fleet of foot than most.

Maybe it’s just what they’ve done for the past X decades, and they haven’t quite registered that the once quiet road is now chocka with cars.

Certainly I can understand the frustration of waiting for traffic lights. Some of them have been designed by traffic engineers who were determined to waste as much pedestrian time as possible. And I can understand why sometimes you want to be taking the most direct route across a road, especially if it’s a quiet one and you don’t walk very fast.

But in busy traffic, and if you’re not as nimble as you once were, why do it? Unless you have a death wish, use the freaking crossing, that’s what it’s there for!

As for this guy who drives his motorised wheelchair down the Nepean Highway — well it’s not actually the first time. I saw someone doing the same a couple of years ago, and called Triple-0. I wonder if it was the same guy.

Now I’ve seen everything. On the 8:05pm to Werribee last night…

PS. Sunday 7:45pm. Post title modified. Yes, he was a real hairdresser.

(With apologies to Bargearse.)