Korean Food

This interesting restaurant is in Bourke Street.


Why would anyone want to eat barbecued grandmas? I'm sure Koreans add that something extra to make them taste good, but really...

to blog...

All the time I see or hear someithing that I think might make an interesting blog. There is just one problem thoug, I never actually get around to bloging it. Of course I can't actually remember anything right now... I'm sure I'll remember someting or think of something else. I hope. My new philosophy on this blog is short but frequent. Plus I want to post photos so I'm going to work out some sort of image hosting thing as well.

Spirit of Progress

Today I travelled on "The Spirit of Progress" to Seymour. This was a special steam train ran by Steamrail Victoria for the June/July school (and uni) holidays. Over these holidays a number trips are being run to places such as Traralgon, Bacchus Marsh and Seymour. The consist for the train was R761-PCP292-BZ269-BS206-BRS9-BS2-BK700. Photos online at my fotopic site.

I asked my friend Daniel to come along and he arrived bleary eyed at my house at the ungodly hour of 8.30 am. From there we managed to bum a ride to the station in time to catch the 8.38 train to the city. in order to get to Footscray where the special was departing from we needed to change trains in the city, I decided Parliament would be the best place to do this. We boarded the first train to arrive on platform 3, which was supposedly only going to Flinders Street. On arrival at Flinders Street we discovered it had become a Sydenham train so we got back on and were soon on our way to Footscray.

We arrived at Footscray with nearly 20 minutes before the scheduled departure time of 9.57am. The first thing I noticed was the lack of a crowd waiting. More people did arrive towards departure time, but there were not as many as I thought there would be. Pretty soon the train steamed around the bend and had pulled into the platform. Once on board we bought tickets at the kiosk and found ourselves in a comfy compartment of ex Westcoast Railway car BS206.

Pretty soon we were pulling into the platform at Sunshine to pick up more passengers. After the short stop we were again on our way towards Albion where the train would take the goods line towards Broadmeadows. Soon after entering the goods line we came to a halt for about 15 minutes for what we were latter told was a point failure further down the line.

After an extremely short stop at Broadmeadows at around 15 minutes behind schedule, we left the wires and were making progress north towards Seymour. Along the line between Broadmeadows and Cragieburn prepatory works were under way for electrification. Soon after Cragieburn we passed through Donnybrook, then Wallan, followed in quick succession by Heathcote Junction, Wandong and Kilmore East. A few minutes after that we passed through Broadford followed some time latter by Tallarook. It wasn't long before we slowed down for the Goulburn River bridge and arrival in Seymour only about 15 minutes behind Schedule at about 12.30pm.

Not long after arrival the train cleared the platform and made it's way to Seymour loco where R761 could be turned, serviced and re-attached to the other end of the train. Unfortunately it was raining when we arrived so it was a bit wet to be standing around taking photos, so we made our way across the road to the bakery where we had lunch. Unsatisfied we then found a fish and chip shop to get some chips. By the time we left the fish and chips it had stopped raining. For the next half an hour or so we hung around the station and saw the midday (ex melb) down Albury train arrive and depart. Just after 1.30 our train had docked in the platform and everyone went nuts taking photos of the loco. After a few minutes of this we decided to find our compartment and settle in for the return journey.

Departing Seymour at 2.02pm (2 minutes down) the return journey was uneventfull, the exception being a short unscheduled stop at Heathcote Junction. We arrived at Footscray near enough on time at around 3:43pm. After everyone had de-trained the train made it's way back to North Melbourne. From Footscray we caught an up Werribee spark to Spencer Street and changed there (via new concourse) to the 4:13pm down Eltham.

Drivers are idiots

...especially the one driving the white ute who just tried to run me over. If i'm a fucking idiot, then you are just one incredibly fucking bad driver who's parents must be siblings, because stupidity like that isn't bred in a large gene pool.

At about 10.40 this morning I was crossing Franklin Street on the eastern side of the intersection with Swanston Street with a green man (traffic light, not a martian), when this rock ape in a white tray-ute thing decides to turn right out of Swanston into Franklin and not stop to give way to any pedestrians who were already crossing the road long before he arrived. He actually slowed down to call me a "fucking idot" after I jumped out of the way.

Is just me or are people who drive white commercial vehicles usually the least qualified to drive?

Driving me crazy!

I am 23 years old. I do not have a licence or a car, for this reason people think I am strange. I am sick of people asking me if I've gotten around to getting my licence, in fact the more people nag me the more I resist. Family functions are the worst, it seems like almost all of my relatives ask the question. A lot of people seem to forget that I do actually have a learners permit and have done a fair ammount of driving. I beleive that I may be the worlds most experienced learner driver.

The thing is, that at this stage I don't feel I need a licence. I'll admit that it would be handy sometimes. I do however realise that I am going to have to get my licence very soon, as I am finishing uni in the middle of the year and am then hopefully getting a job. For some reason a lot of jobs require applicants to have a drivers licence.

As for a car... well all I can say is that cars are more trouble than they are worth, especially with all the extra expenses involved. Additionally the highly fluctuating price of petrol is something I don't want to contend with.

FYI my learners permit is about five and a half years old.

Still here.

Has it been that long? I had no idea.

Must update a bit more.

I cant recall what happened for the first month, the rest of the time taken up with preparations for Christmas, and the last 2 weeks spent lazing around. That's all really.

A man's home is his Castle

Last night I went to see the Heidelberg Theatre Company (HTC) production of The Castle. The Castle was a great film and I was sceptical as to whether it would work as a play. The good news is that it was a fantastic adaption of the film.

All parts were well played, but it was the part of Dale Kerrigan that was best. The actor who's name I can't recall was excellent. He narates and acts in the play at the same time so he had a lot of lines to remember. Also of mention is the actor who played Steve-ideas man-Kerrigan, he has an interesting comic style that just cracks up the audience. This was also seen to good effect in the HTC production of Rough Crossing earlier in the year where he played the drunk waiter.

The set was good, even managing to squeeze in a jail (or is that gaol?) cell on the right for brother Wayne who spent most of the play sitting on his bed reading a book, while on the left was the veranda of the holiday house at Bonnie Doon. The centre of the stage though was the Kerrigan's Kitchen, with "ergonometric" chairs. This revolved around to reveal a judges bench for the court scenes.

One particularly funny moment was when the actors walked off the stage except for Wayne Kerrigan in his cell. For a few seconds we were sitting there in darkeness and silence before Wayne too walked off the stage. It was only when they turned up the lights that I realised it was interval and cracked up laughing. It's funny how interval sneaks up on you like that, sometimes you can feel it coming from miles away. Not this time though.

And yeah, that's it really, a good adaption of the film. I almost forgot to mention the good use of musical interudes between scenes, they portrayed the emotion of the previous scene perfectly. Although the only song I can recall now was "Better get a Lawyer" by The Cruel Sea.

The best of Ben's Adventures.

It's been a while since I've posted so I've decided it's time for a Best of Ben's Adventures. "But you've only posted afew times?" you ask. I thought tha sincetabout half of all the popular musical acts have or are about to release a "best of" or "Greatest Hits" album I thought I'd do the same.

Nah, not really.

The list of greatest hits I've made so far is:

Powderfinger
The Living End
Placebo
Shania Twain
Brittney Spears
Nikki Webster (yes that Nikki Webster)

I had more but it's too late to remember.

The last one on the list is unfathomable. What the hell is she thinking? What hits? Bloody oath!

No more exams

Woooo!

I had my one and only exam for this semester yesterday. It wasn't too bad, but I could have studied more for it. I think I did ok...

Now to finish off all those assignments. Bloody Assignments.

New toy

I've been eyeing these off for a while now, and today I bought one. Yes that's right, I'm now the proud owner of a Lego Star Wars Imperial Shuttle. It is so cool, all white like a fridge except for a few grey bits in the vertical stabiliser and the wings fold up and down. It even has blue bits at the back that represent the thrusters.

Wings down...

and wings up...

Blogger sucks the big one...

I just typed up a massive post about my experience with the heroin addict yesterday. It took me about 45 minutes to write. When I clicked publish I got some message about blogger being offline between 6:00 and 6:30 PST. Thank's a fucking lot!

If anyone reading this would have liked to have known about what happened with the heroin addict, write a complaint to blogger.

I went gunzeling instead.

I didn't feel like going back to uni so I went and bought some film for some photography (I had my new camera with me). Yes I know it's not a digital, but I couldn't afford a digital SLR so I got a film one. After putting two and a half films through I'm addicted to SLR cameras.

I ended up catching a 96 to St Kilda. On the way we passed B1.2002 shunting outside the convention centre in Spencer Street with the desto showing St Kilda 112. So with that in mind I alighted from the 96 in Fitzroy Street St.Kilda and hung around the Park Street terminus of the 112 waiting for 2002. It turned up after waiting while 2 trams shunted in turn. A few shots were had of it approaching and sitting in the terminus.

I boarded and travelled through the quiet leafy backstreets of St. Kilda, Middle Park, Albert Park. Even Clarendon Street in South Melbourne seemed very laid back today, it must be the nice sunny weather we are having. I guess the intoxicating sea breeze that was blowing helped as well. As much as I would have liked to stay on board I alighted from the tram at the Casino and crossed over to the other side in order to get a 96 back to Albert Park. This is where I snapped a shot of a Citadis approaching the stop on it's way from Port Melbourne to Box Hill.

All the way back to Albert Park, and then a short walk along the grass between the street and the light rail line, I was going to get a shot of the trams in the cutting between South Melbourne and Albert Park stations but decided against it. So back it was towards the bridge on the corner of Canterbury Road and Albert Road. The hope was to get a shot of a 5 section Combino crossing the bridge in the afternoon light. I missed my chance, one went past before I managed to position myself in the median strip of Kerferd Road. After that it was a precession of B2's. I snapped one of those insted. As I knelt down on the grass while waiting I also discovered that the Kerferd Road median strip has a bindii. Must complain to Port Phillip council ;-).

I thouhgt I'd try another angle of the bridge, so I repositioned myself and just as I was making sure the settings on my camera were OK a D2 raced by. Missed it again! Bugger it I'm going home, but not before I got another shot of a B2 from this new angle.

Got the next B2 that turned up at Albert Park back to Spencer Street Station. I alighted at Bourke street and made my way accross the bridge towards the suburban platforms. I managed to make the 5:29 Greensborough which was an X'Trapolis. The only problem was that the lights were off, except for the ones at the doors, so it was really difficult to do the crossword while in the city loop. I've got to say that I like the X'Trapolis as the seats are comfy and the cabin is relatively quite as compared to the Comengs. It's just a shame they don't ride as smoothly as the Siemens trains (which have hard seats by the way). The horns on the XT sound unreal though. HONK!

Nearly hump day

I went to uni today, to the library to work on an essay and discovered that I'd left the assignment sheet at home. No problem I thouhgt, I'll just download the sheet off the lecturers website. The website was down so I ended up surfing the net for an hour and a half...

After that I logged off the computer and found one of the good desks waaay down the other end other end of the library next to a window overlooking Swanston Street. I pulled out all the bits and pieces of my medium density housing design for land development and proceded to watch the trams go past. Half an hour latter (by this time it was 1 pm) I started work. I finished up some time after 3 pm when I decided it was time for lunch.

Deciding what to have for lunch was too hard so I went to Hungry Jacks. I had one of those Cheese and Bacon Whoppers that they've been advertising lately. It was kind of like a big bacon delux, funny that. And why do the people behind the counter still persist on asking if I'd like a large meal? If I wanted a LARGE meal I'd ask for one. So I sat in the dining room upstairs and did the crossword in MX while watching the trams on Swanston Street again. Some of the ones I'd seen earlier went past agian after going to their suburban terminii and returning to the city.

continues...

Wow it's a Blog!

Yes it is.

What is meant to happen is that I'm supposed to write stuff here, with a sprinkling of pics and links to stuff etc etc, while you are meant to hang off every word I type and praise and adore me.

Ok now that we've got that sorted I can tell you all a bit about myself. I'm a 23 year old student from Melbourne Australia. I still live at home with my parent and I have a 14 year old cat named tabby (I'll post a pic latter). After finishing year 12 in 1999 I enrolled at RMIT where I completed an advanced diploma in spatial information. After completion of the advanced diploma in 2001 I enrolled into the batchelor degree of Geomatics. I hope to complete this degree by the end of 2005.

My hobbies and interests include railways, aviation, fishing, geocaching and photography. I enjoy a good movie or book and listening to music. I keep telling myself that I need to do more walking and that I need to ride my bike again.