The Herald Sun reports today that Metro punctuality figures have improved markedly in the last 12 months, including the figure on the Frankston line jumping from 68.4% to 87.1%. Certainly this is due to some changes in the way the trains are run. The question is, are these changes good, or bad? Good: Departing platform ... [More]
Ah, the fascinating world of manhole covers. For you youngsters, the MMTB (Melbourne and Metropolitan Tramways Board) ran the tram system from 1919 to 1983 when it was merged into “The Met”. NTS (New Ticketing System) was the working name for Myki. It still shows up in internal literature, and in things like URLs on ... [More]
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People are such damn slobs
City of Melbourne have announced a change to the fines for littering smokers, with the fine going up to $234 for throwing away a lit cigarette. Smokers or non-smokers, it just staggers me that some people are such slobs. Regularly, I see footy-goers at the Parkside Edgewater oval (Maribyrnong) rock up to watch a local ... [More]
As part of my conversion to a cheapskate, I was comparing low-fat milks. For a while I’d been buying Pura Light Start or Rev. The supermarket brands are a lot cheaper, and maybe my taste buds are AWOL, but I can’t really detect a huge difference in taste. But how do they stackup on nutrition? ... [More]
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Tomorrow’s news tonight
Sometimes I’m up late. Sometimes it’s close to midnight. And sometimes, I decide to stay up just that little bit longer, to midnight, to check tomorrow’s newspaper. Because The Age usually pushes its new stories onto their web site at midnight. The front page may not be updated, but the National news page is. I ... [More]
I pick up catch-phrases from various places. One is “Shimasu!”, which I use as a kind of Japanese expletive, when struggling to wake up in the morning, or when exerting myself in some extraordinary way. shimasu.mp3 (MP3 format; 2 seconds; 9Kb) Said the right way, it sounds like something they might have said on one ... [More]
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SuperScrabble
I’ve been playing Scrabble a bit. The word that got me winning the last game was “zebra”, on a triple word score. 48 points, thank you very much… I think I had been trailing before that. My sister is the demon Scrabble player from hell. Or so her reputation says. I don’t know if I’ve ... [More]
My award-winning photo. This was a very well contested competition and difficult to judge. The winning pic (No. 6) is very well done with great exposure and colour and perfect movement to suit the comp theme exactly. Whilst I think it could have been cropped a little tighter on the top (to remove the screen ... [More]
If you’re driving around and you see a white Mercedes C180, licence plate NCC 395, keep your distance. This woman drives at 20 below the speed limit, and obviously having indicators fitted to the car is a waste in her case. Maybe she thinks being a member of Star Fleet means she doesn’t have to ... [More]
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Diary of an early-bird
4:47am. Argh, it’s stupidly early to be awake. I’m still waking up. 5:15am. Shower woke me up all right. On the bright side, all being well I can go home early. And I bet I get a seat on the 5:27 train… on the 8:21 there’s never any. 5:30am. The suburb is shrouded in darkness. ... [More]