Observations on the Bus

Three out of five days a week I get the bus home from work. For some reason it's quicker or just as quick to get two trains to work as it is to get the train and a bus. And that's going all the way into the Flinders Street (or Southern Cross or Parliament) and out to work. Going home it's a different story, I can save up to half an hour by getting the bus and train. It depends what I'm doing, which way I go.

Anyway the point of this post was to list some observations I've made while travelling on this particular bus route.

- Mum pushing fully laiden pram across road in front of bus. Pram fully laiden with shopping. Toddler walking along holding mum's hand.

- Blind woman with guide dog always (although not recently) seems to get the same bus as me.

-Most people get off at major shopping centre along route, some people get on. People get off gradually until only three or four people (including myself) are left at final stop. On more than one occasion I was the only person left, which is puzzling given destination is a majorish railway station.

-Blonde glasses girl and friend always get on at first stop, they always get off at previously mentioned shopping centre and wait for another bus to somewhere else.

-Sometimes girls with very attractive necks sit in the seat in front of me. Perhaps I'm a bit of a repressed vampire? Ears sometimes attractive, when combined with nice neck and hair. Girl today had a nice neck and ear. Girl today also had the softest most beautiful hair, colour light brown with blondi highlights (very subdued) in a shortish cut, some of which was pulled back into a slight pig tail. I thought it was cute. Oh how I wanted to touch hair...

(OK well that last one was creepy, but that is what I was thinking at the time)

-Next stop buzzer on bus annoying.

-Radio station on bus annoying.

-MP3 player, custom music good.

-Old buses, noisy and slow. Best seat the facing seats in the rear section, either side of bus. Stretch out legs.

-New buses sometimes noisy, but never slow. Best seat, first up the rear step on the left.

-Stopped at major shopping centre for shopping related purposes today, got first bus there (3 routes to choose from). On continuation of journey I walked onto bus and straight into favourite seat. Was a new-new bus, blue instead of yellow, seat very hard, engine vibrate.

-Bus only traffic light shorten journey. What used to take two or three traffic light cycles now only takes one.

-Me Tarzan...

None the wiser...

Now I know how a teething baby feels. Today I've been having some minor discomfort in my lower left gum due to a wisdom tooth breaking through. It doesn't really hurt, it's just irritating. This is my fourth wisdom tooth actually, they've been surfacing for years. I got my first two a couple of years apart, these are upper left and lower right, both are fully grown. The third, I've probably had for a year is not quite fully grown, and is still covered by a bit of gum.

For many people wisdom teeth are a big problem. Personally they haven't been a problem at all due to having quite a bit space left over after having a few teeth out when I had braces as a teenager. The only side effect is a slight change to my bite, and the odd cheek biting moment (which is nothing compared to what improperly trimmed sharp bits of wire do to the inside of your cheek, ouch!). The dentist certainly wasn't concerned on my last checkup.

This is why I nearly burnt the rice last night.

This is, and yet isn't me, well as close as you can get in a Southpark style. Most of the featurs are correct and the clothes are the same colours that I was wearing at the time. Although my T-Shirt was plain minus the Rammstien logo, but a Rammstien T-Shirt would be cool. It could be me on the way to work, listening to my MP3 player... Who knows really?

Try it yourself at Southpark Studio.

Lazy Saturday

I've had a great day today.

I got up at about 9 am, made myself some cheese and vegemite toasted sandwhiches and sat down to watch an episode of Dr Who I taped two weeks ago. Then I had a shower, got dressed and put my clothes in the washing machine. While that was happening I watched Back to the Future. I bought the trilogy box set a few weeks ago. After that I made some hotdogs for lunch and watched a Back to the Future making of feature that's on the DVD. Sometime in the not to distant future I intend to watch Back to the Future parts II and III. Back to the Future II is one of my all time favourite films.

Somewhere in the above paragraph I paused the film and put my clothes on the washing line.

Then I watched the end of King Solomons Mines on channel 9, starring Stuart Granger and Deborah Kerr, and made in 1950. It was interesting to compare it to a more recent version which was on TV a few weeks ago. It always amazes me in these African Safari type movies how they manage to take everything but the kitchen sink along with them, and yet their native "guides" never seem to carry anywhere near that much stuff. I mean the tents were friging huge and they even had tables and chairs and luxuries like that. The whole thing was very cliched including the customary stampede scene, snake in tent scene, and natives refusing to go any further scene.

After that film I think I moved onto the computer and surfed the net until around 6:30 when I started to cook some rice and papadams for our take away indian curry. I forgot all about the rice and nearly burnt it (because I was busy doing this, which I found on Semaphore Junction). Luckilly it only burnt a bit on the sides and I was able to empty and wash the saucepan and start cooking the rice again. Strangely enough the rice was fine, not too dry and not too wet as ofen happens when for some reason you need to add more water. It didn't even have a burnt taste. As usual the curry was great, we had Beef Madras and Malai Kofta (vegetarian), which I enjoyed while watching tonights episode of Doctor Who.

Speaking of Doctor Who, I reckon this season has been great. I like the new new Doctor (David Tennant) too. And the episodes that had Rose Tyler (Billy Piper) running around in a maids uniform were something to behold, she could come around here dressed like that any day. One thing that does get me though is her eyebrows, they just look wrong, obviously she is a bottle blonde, and they are always a funny shape. Anyway the new Doctor Who is good.

This evening we sat down to watch a movie called "Gone Fishin'" staring Danny Glover and Joe Pesci. It was funny, and yet it lacked something, but it was not a bad way to spend a few hours. This film was enjoyed in the company of a mini Magnum ice cream...

So that's my day. Believe it or not I can barely keep my eyes open, which means it is time for me to go to bed....

Good Night.

P.S. I hope I didn't start too many sentences with "Then...".

STOP PRESS

I was just looking at the Nintendo Australia website. According to the news page it seems that the jet black version of the Nintendo DS Lite will go on sale on September 21. So I've got three weeks to go. I think I might buy a game or two (er probably New Super Mario Brothers and Big Brain Academy) next week so I'll have something to play come September 21. In hindsight I'm glad I didn't cave in yesterday afternoon and buy a white one (as nice as they are).

Ka-ching!

Well not really but, having an income is great. At the moment inflow is greater than outflow, which is good.

Having said that, a number of times I've come close to blowing some of it on a Nintendo DS Lite(or here if like me you never seem to have the correct version of shockwave installed). At the moment the DS only comes in white, but I'm holding off for a while (that's what I'm going to tell you now at least) until they hopefully release some of the colours available in Japan. I bags the jet black, oh yes. I can hear New Super Mario Brothers calling me...

If I do get a DS my five year old nephew will be jealous. Over the past few weeks he has become seriously addicted to the original Super Mario Brothers on the NES and Super Mario World on the SNES. His older sister plays a bit too, but this kid is dedicated, and he's getting good at it too. Although for some reason if I'm around he wants me to finish the game for him.

I suspect his parents blame me for his Mario addiction. It started whenever the kids would come to my place and play Super Mario Brothers on my old NES, which over the last year or so has had a new lease on life after being locked away in the cupboard. The first thing the kids ask when they come over is of course "can we play mario?". About Christmas last year I got the bright idea of setting up a SNES emulator on their computer with some game roms for them to play.

Mind you it took him six or seven months to really get into it. But now he has got into it he apparently spends every waking moment playing the thing (parents have been known to exagerate such things). It's not like he'll turn into a couch potato though as he's got a lot of energy to burn and then some.

But yes a Nintendo DS is very much on the cards for me at the moment.