Sydney for a day

A few weeks ago when I was home sick from work (bad sun burn) I heard an ad on the radio for charity mystery flights for the Good Friday appeal. So after asking mum if she wanted to go I rang up and booked. 3 hours latter I checked my email and found out we were going to Sydney. Mystery solved.

View of Sydney across the harbour from Watsons Bay.

Last Sunday was the day and we had a good one. Before we left we decided to go to Watsons Bay for Doyles Fish and chips, but we also managed to squeeze in a train ride across the Sydney Harbour Bridge and a ferry ride to Darling harbour via Balmain and Birchgrove.

Cliffs at The Gap

At Watson's bay I showed mum "The Gap" and the view across the Sydney Heads. Mum said she had no idea there would be so many people here, thinking we would be the only one's on the ferry. As to the fish and chips, I think they are some of the best fish and chips I've ever had, and one of the reasons I was keen to go back.

Watsons Bay Ferry

I dunno how but all our public transport connections worked pretty well, the longest we had to wait all day was about 20 minutes for our Watsons bay Ferry from Circular Quay. It was quite expensive though, but still good value. I was prepared for $16 day tripper ticket, but a return gate pass for the airport station alone cost me $14. Mum being a pensioner got away with the $10 pensioner special (normally costs $2.50 without the airport included).

Luna Park in Sydney

One other observation was the verdant green grass everywhere, something not seen in Melbourne (except the Fitzroy Gardens which come close). It's amazing what a bit(lot) of rain does.

I don't need to tell you what's in this photo.

It was a big day for different modes of transport, in all we caught 4 trains, 3 ferries and 2 planes, and drove 1 car. Speaking of planes, I just can't express how much better Qantas is than Virgin Blue. In most cases it's marginally more expensive, but that is made up for in better aircraft, better comfort, better service (had a really nice Japanese flight attendant on the way up, she went out of her way to make small talk with the passengers) and better food. Fly QANTAS.

On the way home

The Edge

A few weeks ago (actually about 6 now) my weekend wanderings took me down City Rd to photograph this phenomena. I think people were wondering what I was looking at.

Edge goes out.

Edge goes in.

This is full size un-rotated crop of "Edge goes out", if I'm not mistaken that is a star right there in the middle. There are one or two more visible in this photo, and in "Edge goes in" as well, but in the latter they are quite faint. Not bad for 2-3 pm in the afternoon.

Also if you look closely you can see right up that girls skirt...

You Tube - Tourism

Lately I think I've nearly been watching more You Tube videos than TV. Today I happened across quite a few interesting short films. One film of these that I watched was Misguided Tour.



Misguided Tour led me on to some legitimate tourism ads for Melbourne, such as, Run Rabbit Run for the Yarra Valley, the ball of string one, and what passed for a tourism ad in 1985. The last one shows just how far we have come in the last 20 odd years, replacing sport (it's nearly all sport) and nubile young young women with more abstract concepts of what Melbourne has to offer the potential tourist. Was greyhound racing at Olympic Park really a tourist attraction in 1985?

Then again who knows what people will think of the ball of string in 20 years time?

Librarial and other matters

Today I thought I'd go and have a nose around the City Library after work. After turning the corner from Degraves Street into Flinders Lane I was greeted by a sea of people and some flashing blue and red lights. Turns out the police were arresting a couple of drunk and disorderly types, there was a lot of arm twisting going on. I was surprised at the number of people just standing there watching. I didn't stop to watch though, I just kept going in to the library.

Once I was up the stairs and in the Library I turned right towards the catalogue computers only to find they had vanished. There was a paper sign stuck to the wall saying they had moved them to the pillars next to the stairs in the foyer. Sure enough they were there. What a bad idea though, talk about un-ergonomic. Although the screens swivel up and down to adjust for height, I would imagine these computers are pretty uncomfortable for anyone other than average height like myself to use. Not only that but the network in there is so slow, it took minutes to load up the page after hitting search, or clicking on a selection (couldn't help but notice that they had upgraded to Internet Explorer 7). I just gave up and went searching manually for what I wanted.

This led to my second qualm, which was the fact that there seemed to be more books sitting around on trolleys waiting to be put on the shelves than there were books on the shelves. This made finding what I wanted extra difficult, as if they were sorted in some sort of order, someone else like myself had come along looking for something and mixed them all up. I just gave up on the whole library thing at that point.

For the first time in my life I felt like I had to complain about something, so I went and found the suggestions box and sheets (at least I could find them) and spent a good 10 minutes writing out my complaints (in doing so I used the desk that used to house the catalogue PCs).

On my way out it seemed the police were still there, although there is a police station right opposite where the arrests were happening so I guess that is natural. I then took a tram up Collins Street to Spring Street where I was going to change to a train at Parliament, but decided instead to walk across the Treasury and Fitzroy gardens to Jolimont Station.

On the way I noticed how much cooler it was in the gardens. It was almost as if the coolness was radiating off the nice green lawns. This reminded me about something I was reading a few weeks ago about green roofs in cities and how they help to keep temperatures down. On a day like today at 39-40 degrees outside any relief would be welcome, not to mention the benefit of somewhat cleaner air and more public open space the rest of the year.

Greener pastures

I know how boring, another computer post. I promise this is the last computer post I will make for a long time (unless something goes horribly wrong).

I have given up on the 8800 GT dream, I have since found out that there are ways to make it work, but I can't be bothered any more. So today I went and bought a cheap little 256 MB nvidia 8400 GS from ASUS for $52 (in case you were wondering that's a photo of it at the top of this post). Maybe I am easily pleased, but I'm impressed with it. I tried it out on MSTS, and I can now run it at full detail levels for the first time ever. I tried out Far Cry too, which runs pretty well at moderate resolution and detail. It certainly beats the integrated graphics I've been used to until now.

As you can see by the games I've tested so far I'm not much of a gamer, which is why I think this card will do fine. One other game I am interested in is the oddly named (yet totally obvious when you see it on the shelf in the shop) The Orange Box, which is really a compilation of games. I have heard good things about it, and know a few people who have it, so I want to play too. This card will run it fine.

I would never have thought such a cheap video card could perform so well if it weren't for the videos I found on You Tube. Most of the videos were of people playing games supposedly running on this card, I believed them, and I think it paid off. I have come to realise that You Tube could be a big help in purchasing decisions from now on. Of course some of the videos were a bit painful to sit through, but I usually go to another when boredom starts to kick in. I'm starting to really like You Tube actually

Roadblocked on the Boulevard of Crappy Motherboards and Incompatible Video Cards

So I fronted up to MSY on Friday after work and bought a generic (actually xpert vision) branded 512mb nvidia 8800gt for the low low price of $240. When I got home I realised that the 350 watt power supply in my computer wouldn't cut it. So on Saturday I went to CPL to pick up a nice new Coolermaster extreme 500 watt power supply.

When I got home I installed the power supply and tested it, everything worked fine. Then I installed the video card and changed the BIOS to use the PCIe slot instead of the onboard video card. When I powered it up I got nothing. I checked the BIOS settings and again nothing.

After checking the internet my worst fears were realised, my crappy motherboard does not support the latest video cards. The question is what to do now. Do I replace the motherboard or just buy a cheaper, older video card?

At this stage I am leaning towards the later, as I don't really feel like ripping the guts out of my computer. I would be willing to spend up to about $100 on a cheaper video card, something like a Radeon 2400 or 2600, I'm not sure about the nvidia 8600, or the 9600 in terms of compatibility I doubt it. Actually thinking about it, if I could sell the 8800 I could buy a new motherboard and cheaper video card with the proceeds and not be out of pocket at all (much).

Anyone want to buy a new in opened box xpert vision 8800GT 512 MB video card? $200 sounds pretty reasonable to me.

Bloggers block

I just wrote two posts they make no sense at all. Saved as drafts and filed away forever. hopefully I'll come up something meaningful this month.

The time is nigh

...for a new video card.

When I got my new computer I mentioned getting a video card to replace the not so good graphics it came with. Until today I thought I would get an Nvidia 8800GT when the prices get pretty reasonable.

Well, today I did my weekly check of prices at MSY (the website is really crap but this is the place to go to get computer hardware, plus it's around the corner from work) to find that you can get a generic branded 8800 card for about $260 and a Gigabyte branded one for $290, which to me is pretty reasonable. What I also discovered was that the new 9600GT has been introduced. Going by price (about $240) it would sits between the 8600 (which it is a direct replacement of) and the 8800. Reading a review it would seem to be right in the sweet spot for me. The 9600 is based on the 8800s technology, but has some features and processing power missing, but it's cheaper, and better than an 8600. Sounds good to me.

Whether I get one or not is another issue. Thinking about going on Monday after work if I can wait, otherwise it's off to a swapmeet this weekend.

No idea

Can't think of anything else to blog about

Ooh just got distracted for several minutes by the fireworks out the back... The finale of a Defence force school of music concert. You should hear it when they do the 1810 overture...

Patriotism

Ah yes. I happened to read a certain blog on The Age website today at work. It is about flag-cape wearing yobs using patriotism as an excuse to be rude and obnoxious those they deem as "un-Australian". The writer of the original blog post was over generalising (again), but I guess that is his job in order to create a discussion. I dislike the racist under(0ver)tones. I've seen a few of the "Lovie it or leave it" stickers on cars, usually a hotted up Toyota Hilux with a massive bullbar, 400 gigawatts of lighting, a Conargo pub sticker, and some other sticker about pig shooting.

I guess some of the comments were correct in that harmless symbols become associated with certain groups over time that everyone else tries to disassociate themselves from. The example of the man who had a swastika tattoo before the Nazi's adopted it as a symbol was a good one. I quite literally cringe very time I see a youth (I feel old now, but it's apt description) with a flag as a cape. Like tonight on the way through Richmond station, they were everywhere.

On the topic of the flag itself, I don't really care about it. I don't mind the one we have, and I understand the meaning behind the parts of it. If it were to change , it would have to be a good design, so far I haven't really liked any of the proposals over the years. I guess I could get used to it if it were to change, I'm not a total stick in the mud.

Sunburn: The Saga Continues

In other news, my face has just about stopped falling off after Sunday's major sunburn incident. I think I've gained some insight into why it's rude to stare at people who don't quite look "normal". It may be that I'm a bit sensitive or delusional, but it's damn annoying having people looking at you all the time. I feel like telling them it's highly contagious.

The two days I took off work earlier this week did me some good though. And I know sunburn sounds like a weak excuse, but on Monday I think I would have struggled more than usual for a Monday, I was quite sore. Tuesday I was less sore but all the same, felt it best to rest. I did end up playing some backyard cricket with my nephew though, first ball and he belts it over the fence. The neighbours have given up and just allow him to go in and out of the back yard at will, and leave the ladder permanently up against the house for when a ball goes on the roof.

On Wednesday I thought I'd better go to work. after 5 minutes in the dry air conditioned air on the train my face started cracking up and flaking everywhere, and continued for the rest of the day in the air conditioning at work. I did take my Aloe Vera, which did help, but only lasted for a about an hour after I put it on before it started again. Thankfully on Thursday it stopped hurting so much, but I had a major "face-dandruff" problem. This morning most of the redness went away, but the shedding continues. My forehead, nose and chin are clear now but my right cheek (face!), ear and neck are having a go now. In general though, I feel a lot better.

Like a beetroot

Yesterday I went to the Point Cook air pageant. It wasn't a hot day at all, it was quite cloudy for most of the time. I had a jumper on all day, there was a lot of sun glare though. Lucky for me I had my sun glasses. On the way home I could tell my face was sun burnt, but it didn't feel too bad. I get home and look in the mirror and my face is beetroot red, the rest of my body is white, including the area shaded by my sunglasses. I treated it with ice and aloe vera, it still hurt. I wake up this morning feeling sorry for myself, and decide to take the day off work. My face is still red and sore. I'm not very happy with myself.

Why didn't I even consider putting sun screen on?! The thought didn't even cross my mind before I left home. At the air show I thought about it but dismissed it, it was cool and cloudy, I wouldn't get burnt. I feel so stupid.

I don't know if I can show my face at work tomorrow either. I think I'll lay low until it goes away. My new mantra is to just put on sunscreen before leaving the house, saves a lot of bother that way...

HD DVD RIP

No doubt you've heard about the official death of HD DVD, with this weeks withdrawal of support from the formats major backer, Toshiba. It's been pretty clear for quite a while now that Blu-Ray was the leader of the race. Blu-Ray had most (now all) Hollywood studios on board (the porn industry went HD DVD I believe, not sure), sold the most players (mostly SONY Play Station 3 consoles), and I suppose most importantly sold the most discs due to the wider range of titles available. It is good that the race is over, but people are rightly worried about pricing policies.

None of this matters to me, or to anyone really as "SD" DVD is still the most widespread format. To me DVDs just look and sound brilliant. Even if you happen to have a HD capable display an up-scaling DVD player can boost image resolution to near HD. Ironically it is said (on the DTV forum anyway) that the best up-scaling DVD player is/was the Toshiba XE1 HD DVD player (BD and players do it too, but not as well as this one).

At the moment I'm looking at a DVD player. The basic features I'm looking for are that it does all the usual things such as playing DVDs (a no brainer) and viewing photos. But what I'm really looking for is a player that plays DivX and XviD encoded videos and has a USB port. The reason I want DivX is just because it will come in handy from time to time. For me it's the USB port where things get interesting. Instead of burning mp3s and photos to DVD, it is much easier to just put them on a USB drive, the DivX videos are also playable from the USB port. Strangely enough it seems that the only models that have these features are up-scaling players, but that is of little use to me as I only have a CRT TV. At the moment it looks like the player I will get is the the Pioneer DV-400. I was looking at the more expensive DV-600, but I can't seem to find any.

On the train one day

This is a comment I made on one of High Riser's posts, and thought that it is worthy of it's own post.

One day on a train I sat down on the middle seat of group of three, someone was already at the window seat. Instantly I decided I was a bit cramped so I moved across to the aisle seat for more leg room. It was then that the person at the window spoke up and said, "it's OK I won't bite". I looked up, and he was an African man. I then realised that a few of the people in the surrounding seats were looking at me. I remember feeling quite embarrassed.

The comment was made in good humour, and I don't think he actually took offence at me moving seats. My action certainly wasn't made because of his skin colour, but I doubt a white or Asian person would make a comment such as this. I still think about this incident frequently when I'm on public transport. It is quite funny looking back at it.

I guess the point is that everything comes down to intent and perception. You're never going to get both to agree 100% of the time.

Smokey

So I am sitting here eating my breakfast and all I can smell is smoke. I look outside and the sky is that murky smoke colour that you get during bush fire. It's not far away either. I haven't worked out which way the wind is going. I suspect that it will be the bushland along the Plenty River.

Last Saturday morning the Chemist shop in Main Street Greensborough was gutted by fire, saw it only a few hours after, but before the clean up had begun. The windows were smashed and the inside was black. By Monday the front was covered in sheet metal and what was left of the destroyed awning at the front had been removed so it was now safe to walk past on the footpath, the smell remained. Don't know if it was deliberately lit or not.

It is also the 25th anniversary of the Ash Wednesday bush fires that ravaged large areas of Victoria and South Australia.


EDIT 10:27 AM: just heard on the radio that the smoke is coming from a fire near Mathoura in south western NSW.

Update 2: Random day out

It was Saturday the 2nd February. I resolved to go to a computer swap meet at Bundoora RMIT just to have a look at prices and stuff like that. At 9:30 I left the house and walked down to the bus stop to get the 9:38 513 to Greensborough. From there I intended to get a 566 to Plenty Road in Mill Park. I had no idea of the timetable for this route, and was prepaired to wait. As it turned out a bus was due shortly before 10 AM so I had relatively short wait. After 10-15 minute bus ride I was at my destination.

Navigating the grounds of RMIT to the sports centre was no mean feat, but I eventually found my way. As with every other computer swap meet I've ever been to I came out more confused than I was when I went in. It took me a few minutes to get my thoughts in order I walked back across the grounds to Plenty Road and over to the University Hill development.

After walking around the small, but considerably well used shopping area (considering most of the development is still under construction or in planning stages) I made my way to the tram stop and caught a number 86 tram towards the city. I hadn't been on this tram for a while, so it was interesting seeing what had and hadn't changed along the way. The corner of High Street (route 29)and Clarendon Street in Thornbury is still more or less unchanged from 16 years ago, when my nana lived there (in Clarendon Street). I can see that Thornbury, like Northcote before it is undergoing a "trendification" as the later becomes more expensive. Halal butchers are still the norm in both suburbs though.

The tram passed through the uber-hip (anyone know how to type an umlaut?) Westgarth (aka vegan/organic central) and crossed the Merri Creek into Queens Parade through Clifton Hill and North Fitzroy before turning south into Smith Street Collingwood. Smith Street is still very much rough around the edges. It's an intriguing mixture actually, as you've junkies rubbing shoulders with bargain hunters at the factory outlets. It was interesting to note that there are two Kathmandu factory outlets in Smith Street. One at the northern end and one at the southern end.

Along Gertrude Street and into Nicholson Street. I got off the tram at the intersection at Albert/Lonsdale Streets near the northern entrance to Parliament station and walked along Lonsdale to QV. Oporto for lunch at QV, and an obligatory trip into Big W, where for some reason I tried on a couple of pairs of shoes, Dunlop Volleys no less and some sort of skate shoe that didn't come in my size.

I wandered on along Lonsdale Street, stopping in a hobby shop and JB HiFi. It was here that I decided to just have a look at the computer shops in the Lonsdale/Queen Street area. The story goes that this particular shop had a large order, but the client wasn't ready to take delivery of the assembled PC's. So rather than have them sitting around the office they would rather sell them at cost price (I didn't buy that one for a minute). Apparently what I got was an upgraded version of the standard model they advertise (sort of, they advertise in every Tuesdays MX too). OK sounds good. I haggled a bit, took a few options out of the package (no monitor, kb, mouse etc) and within 15 minutes of walking in, I was walking out the door a brand new computer. I spent about what I thought I would, and got around about what I wanted. I'm still not sure if I got a good deal though. Doesn't matter now anyway.

I had to carry the computer to Melbourne Central where I stopped in the food court for water and a sit down. This computer buying and carrying business was thirsty, tiring, and not to mention awkward work. Feeling revived I went down to the station and soon boarded a train home. Thankfully I arranged a ride for the 1.6km trip from the station home. I've carried mice, keyboards, routers and monitors (LCD) that distance, but I don't think I could have made it with an actual computer.

In sumary:

walk-bus-bus-walk-swap_meet-walk-tram-walk-eat-walk-
computer-walk-drink-walk-train-car

Update 3: New Computer

I don't care if I'm posting these updates out of order. This is the easiest one to do...

Last Saturday during my random day out (see Update 2), I happened apon a computer shop and bought a new computer, just like that. It's big and black and very noisy because of all the fans. In comparison my old computer was silent. It's not a top of the line gaming rig but it serves my purposes very well. Did I mention it is fast, I like it.

Oh yeah the specs well lets see

CPU: Intel Core 2 Duo 4500 2.2GHz
Motherboard: MSI P4M900M3. - That's a Via chipset not Intel or nVidia possibly the major weak spot in the system, but we'll see...
RAM: 2 GB of 667 DDR2 ram of some generic flavour.
HDD: 250 GB SATAII Maxtor.
Optical: LG DVD burner -Lifes Good!
Case: In Win EA002

Notice I didn't mention graphics? Being a cheap computer it's got an integrated chipset. Believe it or not it's an S3 chipset, which I thought went out in the stoneage, Pentium 1 with Windows 95 and all that. Thankfully (or not) Via has decided to re-release an all new graphics chipset under the brand Via Chrome. I plan to replace it believe me. A guy at work was trying to talk me into an NVidia 8800GT, but I'm not sure if the motherboard would take it. We'll see.

As far as operating systems go I opted for Windows XP home. It's OK I guess. My old PC had Windows 2000, which is basically XP without all the eye candy. It's pretty similar except everything got moved around and I'm still finding my way around. Now this may shock people, but after using Vista on my laptop, and then XP on this computer, I'm thoroughly convinced that Vista is actually an improvement. Sure things look nicer but I think it is a better operating system, or will be once all the bugs get ironed out. Hopefully Vista SP1 fixes them. I actually wish I had gone for Vista Home Premium, and I still might.

It took me a week to get all my music, files, email and photos transfered over as my old computer has an ancient very slow network card (complete with a co-axial BNC connector), but as of yesterday this is now my main computer.

Now all it needs is a name...

Update 1: Down the bay

The Pier at Flinders. Philip Island and "The Nobbies"
can be seen in the background.

The 'straya day long weekend saw me tripping around the Mornington Peninsula on the Monday with my Mum. We went to Flinders and had fish and chips for lunch in the park overlooking the Jetty. After that we headed over to Rosebud. While there we went and had a look at my grandparents former home. My grandfather actually designed this house, he was an electrical engineer so he was pretty good at this sort of thing. A lady was out the front washing her car (Are the Mornington Peninsula on lesser water restrictions?) As is typical of houses of this vintage, it is constructed from fibro cement sheeting. To it seems as if most of Rosebud is constructed of Fibro.

After heading down to Rye we decided to turn back to Melbourne. We decided to stop at Rosebud for afternoon tea. We ended up at what is named the "New" Rosebud Bakery. While the service was pretty good, the chocolate milkshake I had was not so good. The best milkshakes are the ones where you get the tin cup with another glass or two worth of shake in reserve, sadly this was missing and my glass was empty all too soon.

Our refreshments done away with we drove to the Rosebud Pier across the road. It was a warm day, and this was the place to be. There were a lot of people on what little beach there was due to a high tide. What I've always found quite amusing about this part of the bay is how you can wade out for 100 metres, and the water goes no higher than your knees, and that's at high tide. On the pier there were lots of kids and teenagers jumping off and splashing around. Strangest of all some young girls were even sunbathing, strange given all the warnings of danger of this activity.

A ship passing Rosebud Pier

At both Flinders and Rosebud the colour of the water was unreal (as seen in the photos), I don't recall seeing water this colour before in Melbourne. Also on the pier there were a few people fishing. No one caught anything while we were there, but on the way back I saw a school of some reasonably sized fish. All this brought home to me the uncertain effects of the channel deepening dredging and eventual blasting of the heads that was due to begin in the next week or so after we were there. I have no idea, what will happen, but I suspect that the Port of Melbourne Corporation probably got the environmental effects statement they wanted.

Arthur's Seat from the Pier. The water really was that
clear, and that colour!

The road home lay ahead, taking us along the bay via Dromana, Mount Martha, Mornington and Farnkston to Edithvale where we headed up Springvale road and Westall Road home. Getting closer to home it was nearing dinner time so we stopped at Hungry Jacks at Forest Hill for a bite to eat. Why is it that the air conditioning in these places is always so cold?

Plenty of ideas

Ok, so I have plenty of blog ideas, but when it comes to actually getting them on the screen I seem to forget them.

Why not start with what I've been up to in the last few weeks?

OK good idea. Posts coming soon...

When "The Lot" is not actually "The Lot"

Why is it that my local fish and chip shop charges extra for pineapple on all it's hamburgers, including the "Hamburger with The Lot"? Obviously if you have to pay 60 cents extra for something you are not actually getting "The Lot". I don't know if this happens at other Fish and Chip shops, I'll have to take note next time.

Food for thought...

Plane Spotting

Spent some time this afternoon at the airport. First of all we parked around on the Sunbury Road under the approach to the north-south runway (runway 16). The first thing that struck me, wasn't a Boeing 777, but the apparent turf war going on between two ice cream vans. With the cool weather we're currently having (an icy 22 degrees C) business can't be too good, but two vans in the one spot must be professional suicide for purveyors of fine ice confectionery.

Gelati Turf War in the carpark

In the short time we were there a number of aircraft flew over, mostly Virgin and Qantas 737s, one Jetstar A320, and a Qantaslink (Qantas' regional brand) Dash 8.

Virgin Blue 737 on approach to Melbourne Airport
The winglets (upright bits on wing tips) are available
as a factory option, but I believe that Virgin Blue have
fitted a lot of their fleet with after market versions.

"When I grow up I want to be a Boeing 787 dreamliner"
Qantaslink Dash 8 coming from somewhere like Devonport,
Mildura or Canberra "shudder".

After a short drive to Sunbury and back we made our way back past the terminal, and around to the opposite side of the airfield near the control tower. Along the way we passed the new expanded long term car park, the taxi holding area complete with prayer room, numerous parts of airport land that are being sold off and developed (goodbye extra runways!) and the maintenance hangers at the southern end of the airfield.

Joining the throng in the car park (not an ice cream van to be seen!) along side the north south runway which sees most of the action we settled in for our afternoons entertainment. The car park is situated almost directly opposite the terminal buildings. It started off pretty quiet, with the odd departure or arrival, but things soon began heat up with the afternoon rush hour. While probably not busy compared to what goes in other places there was a fair bit of action. The highlights for me were Singapore and Qantas 747-400s, the Thai 777, and my first sightings of the rare Tiger A320s. Special mention must go to the Skywest Fokker F100. Skywest only recently began direct flights between Kalgoorlie and Melbourne.

A Qantas 767-300 leaps into the air

Singapore Airlines 747-400 rotates as a Qantas aircraft
of the same model taxis to the runway.

Now it is Qantas' turn, also flying to Singapore, but its
ultimate destination is London's Heathrow airport.

Confucius say that man who go through airport metal
detector sideways is going to Bangkok, as are the
passengers on board this Thai Airways
Boeing 777-300.

The tale of the bent bike

This morning before I got up I was lying in bed thinking about something that happened probably 7 or even 8 years ago.

I was out riding my bike one day and I decided to stop at a local service station to refill the tyres. The service station was an old fashioned independent service station (actually I think it was a Liberty at the time) that serviced cars in a mechanics workshop. At the side was a sort of ramp/driveway that went up to a parking area on an upper level (it may have been the roof) where they stored the cars they weren't working on.

I put my bike on the ground at the air hose and began to fill up the tyres. I had probably only filled one tyre when someone over near the door to the shop yelled out to get my attention. They wanted directions to somewhere or other local, which I gave to them. On the way back to my bike I watched in slow motion as a car reversed out of the driveway at the side of the service station and over my bike. It was one of the mechanics from the service station moving a car to be worked on. Luckily he only got the rear wheel, which was crushed and bent. I can't recall exactly what was said, but the man was not very interested in paying for the damage, he was pretty blase about the fact that he had ran over my bike full stop. Not being very confrontational I let it go and wheeled/carried my bike to the bike shop, which just happened to be located in the group of shops next door (right next to my then Dentist).

I think the new wheel and tyre ended up costing maybe $60 or something like that including a service to the bike, which at the time was a lot of money for me. If it happened now I would make more of a noise and get the service station to pay. Needless to say I never went back to that service station again. I think I eventually got my revenge as the service station has since closed and become part of the car yard next door. Karma?

I still have the bike. I hate it with a passion. The main problem is the quick release on the seat is defective and as a result the seat never stays up in a comfortable position. The other major problem is that it is just so damn heavy. After riding my brother's bike a few months ago, which is a newer model of the same bike, I'm now convinced that this bike is the reason I don't ride much. Ironically I bought my bike from my brother's wife's brother when he moved overseas.

I would like to buy a new bike.

Filmage

Over the Christmas/New Year period I've been to see two films, the first was The Darjeeling Limited, and the second was Death at a Funeral. I highly recommend both.

The Darjeeling Limited (Trailer on YouTube) was great, although the beginning was confusing, but that was explained after snooping around on imdb for a while. It is about the reuniting of three estranged brothers on a train in India after not seeing each other since the death of their father a year earlier. Directed by Wes Anderson, to me it seemed less off the wall than his previous film, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. I really liked it. One particular scene made me cry, not because it was sad, it was, but it was just really beuatiful, not many films do that to me. I should also mention the great soundtrack mainly consisting of famous Bollywood music along with some Kinks ,Rolling Stones and classical.

Death at a Funeral I also really liked. It is nothing but a classic British farce. Just go along for the ride, and do be prepared for some toilet humour. I can honestly say this is the first film I've been to where the whole (almost full) theatre has been in uncontrollable fits of laughter. Go see it.

Back to normal

Well my brother and his girls departed for the sunny climes of NSW this morning. He moved back in to our place after 2 or 3 nights away. Their time away did everyone the world of good, stress levels were non existent for the last few days. We didn't do much together, which probably helped a lot.

We had a cheap and cheerful meal with the whole family at La Porchetta on Thursday evening, it was good, although the kids really started to gang up on me, kids can be so cruel. It was sort of a parting of ways, as my Melbourne based brother and family were off to a beach in Northern NSW the next morning. Three weeks of sitting around in a caravan waiting for the rain to stop is going to be fun, not...

It's very quiet around here now, although at least I can get a go on the Wii or the computer. Back to work on Monday too.

Christmas with the cranky brother

After a short unplanned break from this blog, and pretty much the Internet in general, I'm back.

Had a pretty good Christmas - new year period with family. My oldest brother stayed with us for about a week, so I had my nieces to entertain. I spent a few days with all three nieces and nephew doing various things. Christmas day was great. New years eve was pretty good too, sitting around with both brothers and mum until 3am reliving the old days, most of which seemed to occur before I was born. We all found out a few things we didn't know.

Probably the biggest downer was on Sunday with me loosing my temper at my oldest brother and unleashing an ill chosen barrage of swear words. We were in the car so I had to walk the rest of the way home (not far). Although it was a petty argument, the tension had been building inside of me for a few days and I blew my top. After this he claimed he couldn't stand staying with me at mum's house any longer, so moved to our other brother's house (just the excuse he was looking for I suspect). I appologised, but he's still a bit cold with me, which is nothing unusual, the moody bastard. I have yet to appologise to my neices who witnessed this though, but picking the right time with my other niece and nephew around is a bit hard as they won't leave their cousins alone for 5 seconds. They head back north in the next few days, so I'd better hurry up and do it.

Even though things went a bit sour it's been good to have all the family together.

Festivus for the rest of us

George (Jason Alexander) and Frank (Jerry Stiller) Costanza at their best.

What is Festivus?

Functions

As is usual for this time of year it's all about attending functions, mostly to do with work. For the record I did not attend the work Christmas party. The main reason for my absence was the fact that I am a contractor and therefore had to pay $120 for the privilege of attending, and an extra $120 if I'd asked someone to come along. Of course I could have gone as a guest of or in place of a permanent (the term rusted on comes to mind) employee, but it's the principal of the thing.

There have been a few more functions at work this week including a breakfast on Wednesday and a lunch (rather well and truly rained out) on Friday. After work on Friday I went to the London Tavern in Richmond with some co workers. Had a great time and got to know some people at work a bit better (the department I work in is a bit anti-social compared to others).

The family stuff is saved for Christmas day. We will be having lunch with the extended family at my cousin's house, followed by dinner at my brother's house.

Now with Video

A couple of posts back I uploaded a rather crude video taken with my phone. That gave me some inspiration to upload some bits and pieces to YouTube.

So far I've just uploaded a few short clips of trains and trams. Expect more over the next few days as I go through my collection of videos I've shot with my digital camera. nothing fantastic, go take a look:

http://au.youtube.com/user/ben7k

Strange Behaviour

Are you are wondering why you get a download prompt when you click on an image in a blogger blog? I am too. At first I thought it was my computer misbehaving, but on checking some other sites with images the behavior seems confined to Blogger.

According to this (Post from Tuesday December 4), blogger knows about the error and say that they fixed it. My blog images are still broken.

7 Balloons

One morning all the way back in February I was eating breakfast and happened to see a few balloons. I went out on to the deck to get a better view and there were 7 of them, so I grabbed my camera. I can't remember if they were taking off or landing, but they would be around about over Westerfolds Park in Templestowe, which is sometimes used.

Bunnings Fan

Noticed these massive fans at Bunnings today. They look really lethal, but do a great job of cooling down the place.

freedom from religion

Religious Artefacts

I'm not sure what happened today, but I seemed to be followed by religious fanatics everywhere I went.

First off at about 10:30AM I was sitting watching a DVD when there was a knock at the door. I opened the door and standing there were two men in suits, uh oh alarm bells started ringing in my head. The one nearest the door then said "we represent a different government" at which point I became confused. It was only when he said "We represent the government of Jehovah" that the alarm bells became louder. I usually just freeze up when these guys come knocking, today was no different. I don't really want to listen to them (definitely not join them), and yet I don't want to be rude to them either. So I nodded, answered a few questions about the meaning of life, listened to a short verse of the bible and then they left me with two "Watchtower" magazines. It took no more than about 1 minute or so and I was soon back to watching my DVD.

Latter on I had just left JB HiFi in Bourke Street and I was approached by a Hare Krishna girl welding a couple of books. We had a good chat about how our souls are our true identity and our bodies are merely a projection of our soul, she showed me a picture in the book to illustrate the point. I even managed to ask her why her head wasn't shaved, apparently only men need to do that. Soon enough I found myself giving her a $2 coin, for which I got a book in exchange . I'm pretty sure that I have spoken to this girl before in Swanston Street. In the next 2 minutes I was approached twice more by Hare Krishnas, one of whom gave me a "smile" sticker when I told her I'd already donated.

I quite like the Hare Krishnas, especially when they go for their lunchtime song and dance up and down Swanston Street. I've also heard good things about their restaurant in Swanston Street, one day I'm going to eat lunch there.

Many Happy (Tax) Returns

Finally got my tax return back this week. Yes, I only submitted it in the last week of October.

Today I'm off to buy a Wii.

Australia's biggest sausage sizzle

The deed is done. My name has been checked off, ballot papers marked and deposited in the ballot boxes.

All the parties were represented except the Democrats and CEC.

I did not stop to buy a sausage in bread. I wish I did though, as I'm hungry now...

Appologies

Ugh, that last post is so lame. I'm not taking it down, but I wish I didn't post it.

Election 07 - Ideals

I don't want to vote for either of the "L" parties, they are different yet are too much the same. I don't want big business to own me, I don't want the unions to own me either. I don't need work choices, I need basic rights at work that have been available for over 100 years. I need climate change and the environment to be taken seriously. I don't need nuclear power plants, I need sustainable energy generation. I don't need more freeways , but I do need improved and expanded public transport. I need fewer trucks on the highways and more trains on the rails. I don't need corruption. I don't need an American style health system, I need a health system like the one that is slowly turning into an American style health system improved to be cheaper and more equitable. I need shelter and food. I need a shower. I need freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of association, freedom to do lawful activities without being arrested on suspicion of being a terrorist, freedom of protest (with out the rent a crowd knobs). I don't need an American style presidential campaign. I need federal members of parliament who have vision, who are practical, who are trustworthy and who are accountable to those who voted for them. I need this election to be over and done with.

What do I really need?

More than anything, I need a holiday.

Election 07 - The contenders

After a "gentle" prodding from Andrew (see post called "voting day"), I thought I'd better get to know who the rest of the candidates in my electorate are apart from the sitting member for Labor, Jenny Macklin. Her face (an older photo, she looks nothing like her photo in real life) is on every corner, and we get mail outs from her about three times a week. Of the other candidates, only the Liberal guy sent some stuff out in the first week after the election was called. I sense that the other parties don't expect a win around here.

Anyway, my electorate is Jagajaga (ABC profile) in Melbourne's north, and after a bit of research these are the candidates:

• Jenny Macklin, ALP - personal website - APH site
• Conrad D'Souza, Lib
• Lisa Hodgson, Green
• Jason Graham, Dem

There are also Family First and Australian Electoral Council candidates, but both these parties are so fucking nuts and out of touch with reality that they are hardly worth mentioning.

Some useful sites:

• ABC 2007 election
  
• Oz Elections
• Australian Electoral Commission
• Google
• Crikey!
  

Cup Day in Nagambie (and Murchison)

As is customary for cup day in my household we took off to the country for the day. This year we ended up at Nagambie in the Goulburn Valley.

The grassy lake front at Nagambie.

The drive up was fast, only taking about 1.5hrs, I was surprised to see that the 2 lane Goulburn Valley Highway has been replaced by freeway all the way from the turnoff near Seymour to just outside Nagambie. First stop was a small cafe by the lake front lunch. As they had sold out of pies we opted for home made hamburgers with the lot. These were pretty good and very filling.

Yep, that's the lake, big isn't it?
Oh and check out the Simpson's clouds

Absolute waterfront property, something of a rarity in Victoria.

The iconic water tower in Nagambie sits
proudly in the median strip of the main street

After stretching our legs a bit on the grassy lake shore we decided to keep going, our last minute ultimate destination was the small town of Murchison on the banks of the Goulburn River. Yet more new freeway was found on the other side of Nagambie, and according to the Vicroads Directory continues nearly all the way to Shepparton, with proposed by-passes for both Nagambie and Shepparton. As a result of the freeway, Murchison is now well off the beaten track, even more than it was when the highway passed through Murchison East.

Goulburn River at Murchison.

Murchison itself is a tiny town, and one of the oldest in the district. It's origins go back to it being the site of a river crossing on the route between the Bendigo and Beechworth diggings way back in the gold rush era. There's not much there, just a few shops and a pub, and a bit out of the town is a small caravan park on the banks of the river. At Murchison we parked at the park in the main street and listened to the Melbourne Cup on the car radio. I was surprised that we could still receive AM radio from Melbourne there.

After the race we had a bit of a wander around the main street, and the park.

Murchison, Main Street

I wanted a photo of the sign and this church just happened to walk past.
err, well actually...

Murchison, smarter than the average bear.

Ant.

There were a few fiberglass cows which were interesting.

Don't have a cow man!

How now red swirly cow?

Moo?

Take the bull by the horns...

...for world peace?

Also in the park was the local historical (hysterical?) society, who had this contraption proudly in place outside. I think it's a pump.

Pump it baby!

Of interest was this sign seen in several locations in both Murchison and Nagambie. I guess they do have a whopping great lake with heaps of water in it to draw from, but stage 1 water restrictions? I thought most country towns were on stage 3 or 4? (Goulburn Valley Water Agree) The lucky people get to water their gardens (the green lawns in these towns are a dead give away) and wash cars the old fashioned way.

What the?

After a quick drive around town we drove back towards Nagambie.

Back in Nagambie, it was ice cream time. Sitting at a small table on the footpath outside one of the many take away stores in the main street it became obvious why the locals want a bypass (there were several notices in the shop windows about meetings to debate the idea) as the number of trucks that pass through the town is amazing. Many of these I would guess had come from as far away as Brisbane via the Newell Highway (the continuation of the Goulburn Valley Highway in NSW), and were nearly all B doubles. They are noisy, smelly and make the ground shake, not a nice environment at all.

I took over the driving for the return portion of the trip and we arrived home shortly after 6:30pm. All in all a good days outing really.

Rain

As I write it is raining again, it rained nearly all night. When I went to bed we were in the middle of a thunder storm, when I woke up some time after 7 am it was pissing down. I went back to sleep and got up at nearly 11 am, when i looked outside the ground was soaked. On checking the BOM site we had had nearly 28mm since about 7pm yesterday. The largest rainfalls occurred in the Otway Ranges, and as I write the radio news has said that police are warning of dangerous rock falls on the Great Ocean Road and that a man was killed by a branch falling on his tent at Lorne. My brother, his wife and kids are in their brand new caravan at Anglesea, they called to say they are OK. Apparently this is th largest singe rainfall weve had in 21 months, that is nearly two years, I beleive it too.

Edit: I did have a radar image at the top of this post, which I "uploaded" using the URL of the original image. I thought it would make a copy and save it to my blogger account, turns out it keeps using th live image at the url I typed in. So I took it down. The image at the time was pretty impressive, I assure you.

Computer Updates

About a month ago I made a post about my laptop not receiving Windows updates. I haven't done anything about it since. Until today when I came up with an article that simply solved it. What was it? Turn off the windows firewall and then hit "look for udates".

So easy.

After the updates install and the computer restarts turn the firewall back on, and it should work from then on. So far so good.

Lesson learned.

On the way to work

Only half way there. Taken last week, that's my train approaching at the other end of the platform.

Orange Clouds

This was the colour of the sky on Sunday evening, I bet the sunset that was providing the light show was even better.

(Theres my 7 posts per month minimum maintained!)

All Hallow's Even

This is a jack-o lantern that my niece and nephew made. I think it looks pretty good. They are right in to Halloween this year, I'm guessing mostly for the lollies. Tonight they were going trick or treating.

Apart from movies and TV I grew up without even thinking of Halloween. My only real experience was in 1994 in Washington D.C. We went to a neighbourhood known as Dupont Circle and everyone was out in costume trick or treating and at parties. Basically it looked like a lot of fun. What a freakshow.

Kevin 07

...interviews himself.

Bridgewater Bulldog

http://gallery118301.fotopic.net/p44303566.html

Follow the link to view the photo. Former Victorian Railways locomotives S300, T377, T373 hauling a ballast train across the Loddon River at Bridgwater in Northern Victoria. I like this photo. In fact I recommend a look at some of the other photos in this guys gallery.

Saturday in Melbourne Town

Who says there is nothing to do in Melbourne when the football season is over.

...not that I really care about whether or not it is the football season.

Shoppers crossing Swanston Street at Bourke Street. If I didn't know better I'd swear that horse on the left is whispering something in the other horses ear.

There are those horses again. I think I've interrupted the conversation...

Trams in Flinders Street. I love these new LED destos currently being fitted to the A class trams. Although I think the air conditioning pods ruin the looks of the tram, I'm sure the drivers welcome their presence. I know I hate it when the air-con at my workplace stops working, I'm sure it would not be nice in a stinking hot tram full of sweaty bodies.

Just to illustrate the improvement, here is a B Class tram with the old flip dots. The A class previously had destination rolls, which were OK, but the LED's rock. There are also some Z class trams with LEDs too, perhaps the B's will get them eventually also.

No updates for me

My laptop doesn't like updates, Windows Update has been broken for about 5 weeks and has been reporting an 8024402c error. I've Googled it but I just can't seem to find any fixes. Windows Defender can't even get updates because of the error. I don't know if to reload windows or what, at the moment I just don't care.

Why are all the TV shows I like so hard to find...

I was checking the ABC website to see if ABC2 is repeating Enough Rope at all. Alas no, but it is available as a download. But what caught my attention is that Red Dwarf is on at 6:30pm on Sunday evenings. This was one of my favourite shows back in the day, I used to borrow the videos from the video library all the time. Now I just need to remember to be in front of the TV at 6:30 on Sunday.

Now if only the ABC or ABC2 would screen Wild West again at some stage. What I liked about Wild west was that it was completely absurd, and it took "west country" stereotypes to a new level. It was pretty well hidden away in the middle of the afternoon while I was unemployed, and that's the only reason I saw it. I think this was the same timeslot used for My Family which I also found quite amusing, which reminds me somewhat of the Singaporean sitcom Under one Roof which SBS used to screen about 10 years ago. Wild West is available on DVD, but not something I would actually buy.

A show I've been watching lately is Marx and Venus on SBS, it's only a short 5 minute filler but it's actually quite good. Each storyline was selected from public submissions and worked into a script by the shows writers. The basic premise of the show is that Marx has just broken up with his girlfriend who has moved out leaving behind just the other house mate Venus and himself. All the episodes are available as streaming downloads.

Another good show on SBS that I just discovered is back on is the Broken News...

"I'm Richard Pritchard"
"and I'm katie Tait"
"still to come"
"coming up next"

And speaking of digital channels, bring on ABC3 aka ABC kids! And finally I ask, why are the proposed commercial multi channel services only going to be available in HD?