Steam to Hurstbridge

Once again it was Wattle Festival time in Hurstbridge last Sunday(26/08/07), and as usual a steam train special operated by Steamrail took visitors to the festival from Flinders Street. The train operated by , which had a K class locomotive at either end ran shuttles between Hurstbridge and Diamond Creek for most of the day, before returning to Flinders Street in the evening. I managed to catch up with the train near Alendale road between Eltham and Diamond Creek on the down journey from Flinders Street in the morning. The consist of the train from the Hurstbridge end was K153- W cars-K190. I'm quite pleased with these photos actually.

Steamrail are running more suburban steam shuttles between Camberwell and Mitcham on Sunday the 16th of Septmber.

Too late, weekend stuff and a red hot moon.

I really need to go to bed earlier. I need to go to bed now. This morning I slept in until 7, when idealy I should be going out the door at this time. At least it's starting to get lighter in the morning now. The spring weather we've been having the last few days has been great. I like temperatures in the high teens, low twenties are better, but you've got to build up to it, otherwise it actually feels hot, especially at this time of year. Some more rain would be nice.

I've got a few pent up postings in the pipeline too, mostly about what I did on the weekend. This included geocaching, football, steam trains and waterfalls. I might get around to it next weekend. Maybe I should take my laptop on the train and do it there.

As for last night all I can say is that blood red moons are creepy (when there is no cloud in the way that is). I remember the last total lunar eclipse like it was yesterday. I couldn't believe it was all the way back in 2000. Seeing the moon this colour reminded me of the song Red Hot Moon by Rancid, not the song itself, just the title. (I would embed but I cant be bothered)

Flying Toasters!

They're back! The classic screen saver from the early 90's, part of the After Dark series is back. Download from here for PC and Mac.

Tetris Dreams

Recently in a post Daniel mentioned that one of his friends used to have dreams about playing Tetris. I've had them too, usually after playing the game for extended periods of time before going to sleep. I no longer have them though as I don't play games all that often. At the time I did a bit of research, and found out it is a recognised phenomenon. A friend of mine said he has experienced similar dreams with other games. I just did another bit of research , but didn't come up with much except an old article from the Scientific American. Interesting stuff really.

Blogs of Influence

So today as I went past my old seconday school, I thought to myself "There's the old educational establishment". Straight after I thought this I came to wonder where I got such a phrase from. I quickly remembered that it is a term that Anne Marie frequently uses in her blog.

Wierd, huh?

Nice Beaver! - In the air Part 3

De Haviland Canada DHC-2 Beaver

Operated by Sydney Sea Planes, taken from Watsons Bay, Sydney back in February. More info on this model at Wikipedia.

Post title provided by Leslie Nielsen in one of the Naked Gun movies.

Edit: Interestingly the Sydney Sea Planes "About Us" page claims that they operate three Beavers and two more built by Cessna, but the CASA civil aircraft register has them as owning four Beavers and one Cessna, I wonder who is right?

False Alarm - disaster averted

My ADSL connection got approved today. I'm in a happier mood now. I like the idea of always on internet, even better is that the phone will no longer be tied up(I've already tested with my mobile to make sure) and certain siblings and in laws won't have cause to make me feel guilty for it.

Technical Dificulties

No broadband for me I'm afraid. While it is technically possible for me to have ADSL connected, it appears that ADSL is so popular in my area that there are no ports available at the telephone exchange, and apparently Telstra have no plans to install any more until 2011 or something. So after my old dial up account dried up I signed up to cheaper plan for the time being with Beagle Internet.

I'm not really sure what I'm going to do now. As far as I can tell I have two options ADSL 2 and cable, in both cases supplied by Optus. Although on consultation of the Optus website it would appear that only cable is available at my address. $49 a month for measly 2gb worth of downloads is a bit hard to swallow though, so for now I stay on dial up, and remain on the waiting list for ADSL as ports become available at the local exchange.

Third world telecommunications and monopoly at work...