Merry Christmas
I don’t care if it’s the same lot of decorations as last year — I like ‘em. They look rather good at night.
And you know what? Their location helps cement Flinders Street Station’s cultural importance to our city — perhaps never moreso than now, with public transport patronage increasing, and rail patronage in particular hitting record highs.
We had our family Christmas lunch early — on Saturday — because a bunch of us won’t be in town on Christmas day.
Hope all the readers of my blog have a very Merry Christmas.
It must be Christmas time
In the city tonight…
Pics from last week
You can tell I don’t have a good blog post ready to go when I post a bunch of pictures. Here’s a few from last week (that you may have seen if you follow me on Twitter).
Mer Chri! — This was on Thursday night — by Friday they’d put up the other letters. Below the picture they’d put in supports earlier in the week — you can see the full set in this picture from last year. They must keep all the letters in a depot somewhere for the rest of the year.
Preparing to bring Thursday night’s train chaos into your livingroom — this is Andrew Lund from Channel 9, wired-up and about to report live from Flinders Street Station
The robots are coming! — Alan Kohler always likes a one-liner in his financial graphs.
Jack’s having a rest — Jack knows in an open paddock, sometimes the only shade is underneath the ute. Meanwhile, I had to continually pick grass seeds off my socks.
Christmas pics
Here’s a pic of some fools taking a shopping trolley on the escalator at Highpoint, where Marita and I managed to do a surgical strike for last-minute presents, and be back on the tram to her place within 30 minutes, before it got stupidly busy this morning.
Here’s some wrapping paper I bought last week…
…and here, with the brightness and contrast adjusted, is kinda what the wrapping paper looks like when in a darkened room. Hmmm.
And finally, here’s my experimental office Christmas photography…
Merry Christmas, everyone.
If Myer went totally online, would the Christmas Windows turn into a web site?
Myer will close stores in Victoria and New South Wales and shrink surviving stores in response to the two-speed economy and online shopping.
– Myer to close or shrink stores as retail malaise bites
Remembering that Myer Melbourne has already shrunk in size by about half, this isn’t a huge surprise. Sounds like some of the smaller stores will be closed.
I can’t see it happening, but I suppose if Myer went totally online, the Christmas Windows would be transitioned into a web site. Some kind of Flash animation, a Youtube clip or a Flickr slideshow?
I like shopping in person, seeing things up close, and the instant gratification of avoiding delivery times. But I also like online shopping — the flexibility of hours, the wide variety of products, and the generally better prices. This year my Christmas shopping has been a mix of both.
The Bourke Street Mall has been packed this week, especially from lunchtime onwards. It’ll be interesting to see how the retailers have gone this Christmas.
Christmas is over
Christmas must be over. Reason 1: Dead Christmas trees on the nature strip
Reason 2: Hot cross buns in the supermarket… just in time, only four three and a half months before Easter.
Speaking of the supermarket, it does seem like trolley retention rates are increasing since they started wanting a gold coin deposit… so much so that yesterday they were clogging up the entrance.
Merry Christmas
Quieter than usual due to my boys being away in Hawaii, but I chatted with them on Skype this evening.
Presents are easier now all the adults in the family have switched to (non-anonymous) Kris Kringle… and of course we stuffed ourselves full of heaps of food. The only downer was being locked-out of my sister’s house for a little while, and I managed to get the wrong thing for my niece’s dolls house. Whoops. (Yes, I have the receipt.)
But overall, a good day. Hope the rest of you had a good one.
Perfect for a train-spotter
Looking for a last-minute Christmas gift for a train-spotter? Got a budget of hundreds of thousands of dollars?
Then splurge and buy them a home in this new development in Caulfield East.
Urban Art Apartments is an artistic, inspired residential development in Caulfield East which is surrounded by lush greenery and designer art pieces. The development will feature a range of 34 architect designed 1, 2 and 2 plus study bedroom apartments. Each apartment will include European stainless steel appliances, split system heating/cooling and acoustically treated. The large, beautifully landscaped communal courtyard garden is an ideal place for all residents to enjoy the sun or you can gather with friends in your own private terrace. Visitor bike parking in basement and on ground level. All apartments have one car space.
It sounds good… until you realise the precise location, which is smack bang in the middle of the junction between the Frankston and Dandenong train lines.
I suspect that even with the best sound-proofing in the world, that is a location only a train-spotter could love.
Update 25/12/2010: Bonus photo:
(Anybody else thinking of that scene in the Blues Brothers in the flat where the trains rumble by every few seconds? Yup.)
Have a Merry Christmas everybody.
