QEII and QMII

Well there they are, the file names do all the explaining.

General Updates

I don't know where the last two weeks have gone but here I am.

(Is it just me or do I say things like the above far too often on this blog?)

On the long weekend just passed I really did nothing in particular, it was nice and long though. I enjoyed it so much that I had trouble hauling myself out of bed this morning. I was an hour late for work...(it's OK though, my hours are very flexible)

Friday Evening: Uncle Ben's child minding emporium (no pies or dog food to be seen, you'd be surprised how often I'm asked about Uncle Ben's pies) was open for business. We played AFX slot cars before fighting world war 3 at bed time. I won (or perhaps it was tierdness?), in the end...

Saturday: Shopping and lunch at local shopping centre.

Sunday: Went to see The Illusionist. It was a great film, very mysterious and was well cast. It was set in Vienna but filmed in Prague, so was visually fantastic.

Monday: Took a "Sunday" drive to Kyneton and Malmsbury. Had a pie from the Malmsbury bakery.Very highly recommended. Walked around the botanic gardens before driving home again. The Malmsbury Botanic Gardens feature a lake, which unlike lake Wendouree in Ballarat still has some water in it, although it's not much more than a mud puddle. The ducks didn't seem to mind though.

That's it really.

P.S. I finally got around to going through my Sydney photos, so I might post a few over the next few weeks. And I might even install the final installment into my Sydney tale soon too.

Sydney ferries again

Lady Herron at Circular Quay. It's weird because only yesterday while driving over the Westgate bridge did I notice the same type of ferry moored in the Yarra River at Spotswood. It was Lady something, but the writing was too small to read. I believe Sydney Ferries only operate two of this class of ferry these days.

I love Sydney Ferries

If you've read my rather lengthy posts on my trip to Sydney, you may realise that I spent a lot of time riding on the ferries. Over my various visits to Sydney I've come to love them. To me they have a personality, and think that they say Sydney as much as a green and cream (or red and cream) W class tram says Melbourne.

Much to my delight I discovered a book at the ARHS NSW book shop at Central Station, The Sydney Ferry Book, by Dale Budd and Randall Willson. These are the same authors who wrote the fantastic Melbourne Tram Book. I did intend to go back and buy the book but totally forgot on my last morning in Sydney. I must visit the Railfan Shop in Melbourne to see if they stock it or can order it in for me. Or I could just order it through the Railway Digest book listing, or the ARHS NSW online bookshop, which I just discovered while gathering links for this post.

Such Great Heights

The end of the world: Back in Melbourne

I can't believe I've been back in Melbourne for 6 days. My time away in Sydney felt like about two weeks, but in reality it was only 5 days. I've decided that I need more holidays. Perhaps next time I'll go somewhere I haven't been before.

I'll finish blogging about the rest of my trip (as boring as it may be) over the weekend, with some backdated posts. I've been jotting down dot points of things I did so I don't forget. And I'll probably try and get some photos up as well.

I always find it interesting to draw comparisons between Sydney and Melbourne. The thing that struck me the most this time is how green and lush the vegetation is up there, there's lush green lawns everywhere. And fountains, they have water running in their fountains. I thought Sydney was meant to be in the middle of the same drought we are, obviously not. From what I've seen on the TV weather it's been raining pretty much the whole time since I left on Saturday under very threatening looking skies.

The other comparison is how laid back and Melbourne is, Sydney is so busy (traffic jams at 9pm on Tuesday evenings don't help). The humidity is another thing that I don't like about Sydney, although apparently we had that in Melbourne last week as well. Actually, it feels pretty humid now. Another difference is the public transport, I can see the good and bad of both cities. I think I'll save that for another post though.

I' don't mean to sound negative towards Sydney, I like it a lot, it's just different to Melbourne.

Ben's Adventures in Sydney: The Motion Picture

Having ran out of Star Wars film titles I've had to resort to Star Trek.

I heard something somewhere, I'm not sure where actually, that dick Cheeny is in town and that traffic would bad , and no trains would be running. Which is why I am sitting here now at an airport internet kiosk. My flight starts boarding in about 40 minutes. The bus ride to the airporst wasn't too bad actually, thank god they only charged $2.40 instead of the usual $15 to use the airport train service.

A bit of a sour note is that I lost two T-Shirts I bought in the hostel somewhere (either that or they were stolen!). I didn't realise until I packed up my stuff and left the room. I lodged a report with reception, I'm positive I didn't leave anything behind in the locker in the room. I've even checked my bag twice. I'm a bit pissed off actually.

The other thing is that after getting back from the Blue Mountains last night I just felt sick in the stomache and had a headache. It was an exhausting (but good and totaly worth it) day. I just curled up on my bed and well just lay there. Eventually I decided I needed something to eat, and rememered that KFC is a good medicine for sick stomaches. I know it sounds strange, but it worked for me once. This time it worked with middling success. I did feel better, but still not real well. I felt the pain move through my intestines through the night, it started high but by early in the morning it was low, and was gone by the time I woke up. I can feel it coming back now, I hope I don't get airsick.

I suppose the good news is that I have a window seat for the flight back to Melbourne. I'm really looking forward to sleeping in my own bed again. I put fresh sheets on it the day I left. I will not miss the hostel, in fact I don't think I will stay there again. They claim to clean the rooms thoroughly, but I doubt it, and the bathrooms are small and grotty. But yes, Mum's cooking and my own bed beckon...

Ben's Adventures in Sydney: Train and Shopping Day

After toying with the idea of going to the Blue Mountains, I realised that I had missed the most appropriate train to get there (it takes 2 hours so you have leave early-ish to get the most out of the day). So I went with plan B which was to begin with watching freight trains pass Canterbury Station. From what I have read on the internet, there is a steady stream of freight trains passing here throughout the day. I was not disappointed. In a little over an hour and a half I saw 8 trains on the goods lines. I took quite a few photos, and even photographed a few sparks in the downtime. It was good.

Getting a bit bored, I decided to move on. The other train related thing I wanted to do was ride on the Carlingford Line. This blue line on the Sydney rail map has always intrigued me. To get there I needed to get first to Lidcombe, which necessitated traveling thorough notorious suburbs such as Lakemba and Bankstown. Much to my surprise (when considering how this area is portrayed in the Media) there was hardly a Muslim extremist to be seen. Instead there were many people from any number of faiths and ethnicities. Once at Lidcombe I needed to find a train heading west that stopped at the junction station of Clyde, only two stops further on. Eventually one turned up after nearly half an hour and I was on my way.

Branching off the main western line at Clyde it off up into the hills terminating nowhere in particular (as I found out it starts nowhere in particular as well), when most lines in Sydney seem to go somewhere, or at least loop back on themselves. I wasn't disappointed however, as it passes through an area of Sydney I was totally unfamiliar with, the most notable highlight being Rosehill Racecourse. The frequency is appalling and I risked getting stranded for an hour getting out at Carlingford to take a photo of the train, luckily there was about a 5 minute turn around. I would compare it with the Alamein Line in Melbourne except that it's longer, has a worse service and appears to traverse less well-to-do suburbs.

Back at Clyde I decided to go to Paramatta, don't know why but it seemed the logical place to go when searching for food in that part of Sydney. I ended up in the Westfield Shopping Centre, but nothing in the basement level food court took my fancy at the time so I went seeking the other food court. This place is huge, it's got at least 5 levels (although they are all narrow and head in the same direction). I ended up wasting a few hours here. Upon re-emerging into daylight to get the train back to Sydney (an express to Gosford stopping at only Lidcombe and Strathfield) I discovered that the clouds had rolled in and it was raining. No complaints from me, it was refreshing.

Once back in town, I took some time to re-group in the hostel before heading over to Market City in Hay Market where I ended up buying some T-Shirts which subsequently got lost/stolen. Gunzel time again struck when I took some time to photo some Sydney trams/light rail. Becoming lazy I opted for a light dinner at Darling Harbour, before just vegging out on a step overlooking the water for an hour or so. Again I took the light rail back to the hostel, but decided to forgo the beer because I decided that tommorow was my last chance to go to the Blue Mountains before returning home.

Ben's Adventures in Sydney: Train and Ferry Day.

Wednesday, ah yes, I slept in 'till 10 I think. I decided to take it easy and start off with a train ride. I ended up at Berowra via the North Shore. On the way back to the city I stopped off at Waverton and Wolstoncraft for a bit of gunzel photography (I'm a sucker for a curved platform), although I wasn't really into it and the results weren't too good.

By the time I got back to the city it was about 2:00pm. After a quick bite of lunch I decided to hit the ferries for the afternoon. Focusing on routes I haven't been on before, I chose Woolwich and Mosman. Having missed the Mosman ferry, Woolwich was the go.

I always enjoy the ferry to Darling Harbour as it goes under the bridge and through the less well known parts of the harbour. The Woolich ferry was no exception, passing all kinds of boat yards, and more "mundane" harbour side suburbs. I just love the "industrialness" of this area. We called at warves such as Birchgrove and Grenwich before arriving at Woolwich. At Woolwich we appeared to suffer some sort of engine trouble and the captain came down to inspect the engine. It can't have been too serious as we were soon on our way back to Circular Quay, via a few extra wharves in Balmain and the like.

Once at Circular Quay we appeared to play chicken with a number of larger boats before berthing. These included cruise boats such as Captain Cook and Matilda, as well as the larger Manly Ferries. I wasn't complaining, I was enjoying my cruise. Once on the wharf I needn't have exited the barriers as the Mosman Ferry departed from the opposite side.

The Mossman ferry was an experience and a half, it's like Toorak with water up that narrow inlet. Certainly a very nice part of the world to live, but limited to the privileged few. I'll add that to places in Sydney I would live if given the chance (yeah right!).

From there I decided to go and check out Kings Cross and Potts Point. Taking the train, I went the long way via Museum meaning I had to change at Central instead of Town hall. My main reason for going there was to have a look at some accommodation I considered staying at, both places seemed reasonable, and I might stay at either next time.

What struck me the most was the Contrast between Kings Cross and Potts Point. You walk out of the Kings Cross train station and turn left, passing all the sex shops, backpacker oriented shops and homeless people as you go. Then you turn the corner in to Macleay Street (it's the same street, but there's a bend) Potts Point. Everything is neat and very up market, the people are well dressed and there's luxury cars driving down the leafy street. It's almost like there's a line drawn across the road and the footpath, odd indeed. Back into King's Cross and heading south down Victoria Street I did consider eating at one of the two Thai noodle restaurants nearby, but decide I was not hungry enough.

Next stop was Bondi Junction for a bit of a look around, but by the time I got there, all the shops were shut. So after a brief walk around the Mall it was back on the train to Town Hall. When I got there I decided to take the Monorail to Darling harbour. It's clearly targeted at the dumb tourist and priced to match, but for me it's one of the things to do in Sydney. I could have used my daytripper on the bus instead, oh well.

So after wandering around the Harbourside "Tourist Trap" shopping complex I had Oporto for dinner. After wandering around a bit more I ended up at Star City Casino. By now I was buggered, so decided to tram it back to the hostel. On the way I got a little side tracked, and ended up having a few beers at a bar in Haymarket before going to an internet cafe I was familiar with in George Street for a while.

Ben's Adventures in Sydney Episode 2: Attack of the Queens

No, as I said in a previous post, not the queens normally associated with Sydney around this time of year.


So my day was pretty much taking in the sights of the harbour. I went for a couple of ferry rides. The first was to Kirribilly (Hi John) and Neutral Bay. This ride gave a pretty good view of the Queen Mary II which was docked at the Garden Island naval base 9it's not actually an island, I checked). GArden Island was used because it waas to bid to fit in to the passenger terminal at Circular Quay. one time when I was in Sydney there was a US aircraft carrier berthed at Garden Island, which would make a good comparison with QMII. I would probably describe her a 3 or 4 appartment buildings and then some.

The other ferry ride ws to Watsons Bay. Here I went for a walk along the top of the ocean cliffs to the lighthouse. Having missed the last ferry back to the city, I decided to hang around and watch the QE2 enter Sydney Harbour, something I don't regret. I had a very good vantage point, the photos which I should post soon tell the story for themselves. I even got to have doyles fish and chips for dinner. For $10 you get some of the freshest fish (from a fish and chip shop) that you'll ever have and a mountain of chips.

Getting back to the city wa another story. Eventually the 8:15 bus to the city arrived to the applause of some of the 30 or so passengers waiting at the Watsons Bay Bus stop. The ride in was ok, but busy until we hit traffic gridlock at Kings Cross. It took us ages to turn into William street and then another 30 or so minutes to reach circular Quay. It might have been quicker to walk, but I was content to just sit there. In all it was just surreal to see a traffic jam of this size at 9:15 pm on a Tuesday evening. Apparently all of Sydney wanted to see the Queen Mary.

I was lucky enough to watch QMII leave sydney from the walkway on Sydney harbour Bridge. Getting back to the hostel was not easy as I missed the last train for the night from Circulay Quay. I ended up riding a bus down George St and got off just around the corner from the hostel. You gotta love the Daytripper (except for the price! (by Melbourne standards anyway)).

Ben's Adventures in Sydney Episode 1: The Virgin Menace

They frigging well canceled my flight. So I spent a few more hours than intended at the airport. When they announced the delay, I had vision of various UK TV shows such as "Airline" and "Airport". No such luck, they were very good with how they handled it and after spending half an hour in the checking qeue ( the real one, not the blue check one) I was on flight that departed Melbourne 2 hours after I should have arrived in Sydney. I even got a $6 voucher for food while I waited (the pasta I had for dinner was dry anyway).

The flight itself was uneventful. I saw the baggage crew load my bag on to the plane, good thing I didn't pack the good china. The people sitting next to me sounded surprised when I told them I was from Melbourne, after they asked me how long my stay in Melbourne was. One of the flight attendents had a massive VPL (I would have thought there would be a regualtion against that sort of thing on Virgin Blue). I just listend to my MP3 player for an hour, like any other bus ride.

From Sydney airport I made my getaway on the train and was checked in to my room within half 45 minutes of stepping off the plane. As I'm cheam I'm only staying at a backpackers (a more reputable one I might add. So far there's no sign of lice or bed bugs, and no sign of tinea from the shower.


This post has been backdated.

Mixed news

The good news is that the change has hit.

The bad news is that so far there is no railn

No wait, it's raining now, hope it lasts.

It's all good.

A few thoughts

I can't believe I haven't blogged at all this month, oh well.

One day not so long ago I came to realisation that I have a man-bag. Well it's a backpack, but I just carry around so much crap in it, mostly stuff I don't need on a day to day basis. The main things I have in it are a water bottle and my camera and assorted public transport timetables. I feel naked if I don't have it with me.

I learned this week that one of my friends quit his job and is moving to Townsville with his girlfriend and taking up a new job there. It's a 9 month contract so he doesn't have to stay up there if he doesn't want to. He had a bit of a farewell shindig on Friday night at his parents home (parents weren't home). He says he's either going to start up an email list or a blog while there, which should be interesting...

Some sad news is that my cousin's wife died from cancer early last week. They were married not quite 2 years ago in a very nice (despite the rain) wedding at Healsville Sanctuary , which was very fitting as she was a vet. Keeping with the bush theme all the guests at a wedding recieved a small native shrub as a gift. I believe there was a small private funeral, which we weren't invited to (not many of the extended and even close family were). Next week there will be a memorial service, which some/most of the family won't be attending (not because of any family disagreements either), myself included. In a way I'm glad our part of the family wasn't invited, I don't do too well at funerals, but who does really.

Finally, Ben's Adventures is off to Sydney to see the queens (no not the queens usually associated with Sydney at this time of year) this week. I may or may not post while I'm there, depends on if I can be bothered paying for the privilege.

Right now I'm sweating like a pig waiting for the wind change to arrive, it may be cloudy and there may be a bit of thunder, but it's still bloody hot.

That's about it really

E.T. where are you?

As I went through Auburn on the train this afternoon I thought I saw a UFO somewhere over Abbotsford or Carlton. This got me thinking about what would happen if Extra Terrestrials (aka Aliens, Martians etc) visited Earth tomorrow and how people would react. This naturally led on to religion and how the various different ones would react. Naturally for the single (or few) god religions it would cause all kinds of questions to be asked. For philosophical religions such as Buddhism or Sikhism it would cause no great alarm. Then for multi god religions such as Hinduism such an occurrence would probably raise a few questions also, but in the end cause no rift in the faith.

Thoughts naturally led to Scientology, where things could get interesting. Naturally at first they would be claiming they were right after all (not bad for a 30-40 year old movement). Really it all depends on whether the new arrivals accept Scientologists as disciples and servants or eat them for breakfast. All in all I think *Scientology has the most to loose if we are visited...

* I know there's lots of stuff about "thetans" and souls getting spewed out by Hawaiian volcanoes etc as well, but I can't be bothered researching properly now.

The Scottish Comet

Comet McNaught- 24/01/2007

Last Tuesday and Wednesday evenings I took a number of photos of the Scottish comet (aka McNaught). The only problem is that most of the photos were longish exposures of between 6 and 15 seconds and as far as I can tell the longer ones at 15 seconds show the beginnings of star of a star trail effect. Who'd have thought the earth rotates that far in 15 seconds? I'm about 80% sure it's not camera shake, because I used the 10 second timer to trigger the shutter on the camera which was mounted on a tripod on a solid surface, and kept well away while the shutter was open. Basically I think I need an SLR with a pretty fast lens for this sort of thing (a good "pro-sumer" camera would probably produce much better results as well).

Oh right, the comet? It was pretty good...

Ben's Big Day Out

Kasabian

Finally after all these years I made it to a Big Day Out and had a fantastic day. I went with a couple of mates from uni, one of whom lives in Carton so it was a short walk to the venue at Princes Park (right next to the Melbourne General Cemetery, RIP my arse...) from his house.

In no particular order the bands we saw were:

• Muse
• The Killers
• You Am I
• Kasabian
• The Herd
• The Vines
• Little Birdy
• The Sleepy Jackson
• Evermore
• The Violent Femmes
• Tool

I can't really think of any more that we saw. The full lineup is on the Big Day Out website.

The highlight was without a doubt Muse, who performed a killer set. The Killers were pretty good as well. Notable mention goes to Kasabian (I thought I didn't know any of their songs, but recognised quite a few from the radio). The headline act was Tool but none of us are into tthem so we didn't stick around for long after they started. Apparently they had a pretty cool laser show after we left though. Oh well.

The two big mistakes I made were forgetting my small rollon sunscreen and camera. Even though I put some on before I left home I ended up forking out $4 for a small tube of sunscreen. That was $4 well spent, and have very little sunburn, well maybe a few small bits on my arm I missed. I certainly was not lobster red like many people I saw on the train on the way home. Years of airshow experience and very fair skin (did anyone mention freckles?) have taught me that lesson. As for the camera, the reason I didn't take it was because I thought i would loose or break it, but lots of people had them. I did take some dodgy shots with my pohne but got nothing worth displaying in public (one included to illustrate this post, atmospherics etc...). I really regret not taking my camera.

A smaller mistake was not taking a bottle of water. Supposedly they were confiscating water bottles at the gate, but a mate managed to smuggle one in, I saw some “dudes” with a goon bag, so they can't have been looking that hard. I bought a bottle for $3 and stupidly threw it out when I'd finished it. I didn't realise that they had taps where you could refill, needless to say I bought another latter for $3.50, and refilled it several times.

At the outset i said that I was going to buy a T-Shirt. And so I did, a black one with giant blood shot eyeball. Tre chic! It was either that or a Muse T-Shirt. I should have bought one of the counterfeit Muse T-shirts being sold on the footpath outside as well (or “half price” as the man selling them said when he overheard me say counterfeit). I think I'll head in to the Queen Victoria Market and see if I can pick one up there instead.

Australia Day

I don't know what it is about this day, but I'm a bit perplexed about the whole thing. When I was younger it was just a public holiday, a few people I'd never heard of got some awards, and was an excuse for "grown ups" to get drunk and very sunburned. Now there's this nationalistic pride that arises on the day. Where the hell did that come from? Admitedly this year it was helped by the (un)banning of the Australian flag at the Sydney Big Day Out.

What did I do? I did what I've been doing the last few years and just gone to the festivities around the Federation Square area. A good excuse for a day out, but I don't get carried away with flag waving (or wearing for that matter). As happened last year we found ourselves at the Ian Potter Centre, although last year it was more to do with avoiding the heat, but it seems set to becoming a tradition. So anyway, there I was minding my own business looking at this (and this), when who should walk up next to me but, this man (but wearing far less makeup than he did in his earlier career) and his son. If it wasn't him then I made a fool of myself, because I freaked out and quite literally ran about two galleries on. I don't handle celebrity encounters very well. Last Australia Day at the same location I saw this man and lady friend in the cafe, only recognising him through his blog and a few brief media appearances.

Other than that time was spent walking around, sitting down on an island eating ice cream and looking at some purple haired woman's house and comparing it to that of not too distant relatives. Didn't bother sticking around for the fireworks though, managed hear them just fine at home accompanied by distant flashes in the sky (said relatives would have had a better view from their home).

Hung Long Video

Now for a long promised contribution from my "blogphotos" folder:

I get the feeling the proprietors didn't quite have appreciation for English language euphamisms when naming their business in down town Box Hill. I'm assume it's the owners surnames? I wonder what "Harvey Norman" means in Vietnamese?

Taken with my eBay bought camera phone. (That gives me an idea for another post, but I'd better not over do myself tonight.)

Hot Hot Hot *

*This title could equally read lazy lazy lazy, or even busy busy busy, more probably just can't be stuffed.

Yes, I'm a bad blogger I know, my reasons for saying this are that (apart from all the other obvious reasons) I don't past much, or very often. So much for the adventures part. My excuse is that I seem to spend all day at work in front of a computer, and just don't feel like doing the same at home (although I am now). I could blog at work, but that would be unprofessional.

This blog seems to be more about procrastination than anything...

Back to the regular blog content...

i.e. nothing.


Good evening.

I know what I did this summer.

I think I've seen as many movies (films even) at the cinema in the last week and a half, than I've seen in the last two years...

It started last Thursday when my mother and myself took my niece and nephew into Imax at the Melbourne Museum to see Open Season in 3D. The next day I went to see Borat. On New Years Day I saw Casino Royale. On Tuesday I went back to work, but took Thursday off to take the niece and nephew (and Nana again) to Flushed Away, followed by lunch at the Pancake Parlour.

2006 + 1 Hoo-bloody-rah...

Where the fuck did last year go? I hate new years eve, my feelings on the matter are pretty much summed up by Steph (via highriser) . I've never really had a good time on new years eve, but maybe that's more to do with the company I keep.

I remember new years eve 1999, dawn of the new Millenium etc etc (little did we realise that the true occasion was the following year). I bluntly refused to do anything I was so ticked off at the whole thing, I spent the better part of the afternoon and early evening playing bust-a-move on the computer while listening to triple j. At some point I was coerced by my mother to accompany her to her sister's, who always holds some sort of shindig for the occasion. I could have gone to a party at a cousins place to a party they were having, and by all accounts it was a good one, especially going by the phone conversation I had with my cousin shortly after midnight (a very difficult conversation I might add with all the slurred syllables coming out of the phone). On second thoughts I should have gone there instead and just got smashed, but I made my bed so to speak.

Last night was much the same, I went to my aunties at about 9pm and ended up playing pool with a cousin for a couple of hours or so while watching movies. One of these films was Independence Day, which my cousin insisted on reciting word for word as we watched, I kid you not (I don't think I've ever used that phrase before). How annoying! Other than that, as usual we watched the fireworks out of the upstairs window at midnight, except this year there was a fair bit of smoke haze, but we could see them clear enough. We got home by 1:30, and I ended up watching rage and video hits for half an hour or so before going to bed.

Brave new world...

No this has nothing to do with new years eve at all (more on that in another post), I just changed this blog over to Google. I have to say I like it. In the first 5 minutes I have changed and added some links, something I've been meaning to do for ages but haven't been arsed, and made this post. Not bad. Hopefully it's gone smoothly.

In other news I'm in the process of posting all previously un-posted but usable images from a folder called "blogphotos" on my hard drive. The post before this is an example of such and there are one or two more still to come.

Going... going... (going...) gone.

Heidelberg, September 23 2006.

Christmas

It wasn't too bad actually. We went to my brothers place this year and had a seafood themed dinner. The main dishes of Snapper and Salmon were cooked on the barbecue by my brother out in the rain. The Snapper was also accompanied by a delicious chili sauce. Also had with our meal were baked potato's wrapped in prosciutto, a salad with shredded roast chicken, mango and iceberg lettuce, a tomato salad with red onion and balsamic vinegar dressing, and a cold "cut" platter (sounds too American to me, but that's what it was called).

After lunch we settled down for a while before opening our presents. The kids, who seem to already have everything, seem to have acquired even more stuff now. The adults didn't fare (or is it fair?) too badly either, some surprises were had.

After playing with our presents for a while it was about 4pm already and time for dessert. Once again it was my mum's pudding. Delicious as usual. Somehow while making the pudding last year she ended up with enough mixture for two puddings so we ate last years extra which had spent a year in the fridge. It probably could have done with a few shots of brandy throughout the year, but it was still yum in it's bath of brandy custard. Dessert was accompanied by a fruit and cheese platter with watermelon and chocolate coated cherries amongst other treats.

The rest of the afternoon and evening involved more playing with presents. No one even thought about eating. At about 8pm it was decided we would all watch the movie Cars, which Santa had left in one of the kids stockings. If you haven't seen cars I recommend you do, as there are a lot of funny little references that the kids don't necessarily pick up. I'd like to see it again.

Finally left after 10 pm, and were home in time to watch Boston Legal before going to bed.

Cool Change

This is the change passing overhead last night, the cloud formation in the front was pretty spectacular so I decided to take a photo. I can't believe I climbed onto the roof to take this, I could have been struck by lightning!

"whatever you do, don't get hit by lightning" - Marty McFly

BTW the buildings you can see on the ridgeline in the background are at Doncaster, the one on the right is an apartment building, while the one on the left is the office tower at Westfield Shopping town. Both buildings have spectacular views of the city, and my house apparently.

It was a relief to get some decent rainfall after a hot smokey (the Firefox spell checker wants smoky, I think smokey looks better) week. In all we got 8.6 mm at our nearest weather station, not as much as I would have hoped for. No doubt the cooler conditions which are expected to persist for the next few days will help the fire in the east of the state.

Earlier in the day the tree across the road lost a very large branch during a strong sind gust. It landed in the fork of a branch lower down the tree and was hanging over the powerlines. At about 9 PM a cherry picker pulled up and the crew set about landing the branch safely. First they secured it to the fork it was caught in, then cut a bit off the bottom and then a bit off the top to stop it becoming a top heavy. I assume this went on until it was all on the ground, but because it was too cold I went inside and missed the rest.

I did happen to see a branch fall out of the same tree a year or so ago. I was sitting in the lounge room and heard a large cracking and creaking sound out side. By the time I rushed to the window the branch was bouncing off the powerlines, I watched it come down to the ground taking out one of the neighbour's phone and Foxtel cables in the process. Luckily there weren't any cars parked in the driveway it half landed in.

Present Day

Due to Monday being annual present day*, I spent the better part of the afternoon finishing off my shopping. I was a lean green present buying machine, everything just clicked into place and I managed to procure all intended gifts. One item did prove to be tricky, the recipient of this item (was on their wish list) had said they couldn't find it anywhere, but I managed to find it at a specialist music retailer in Hardware Lane in Melbourne (Actually in Hardware Street one block up from Hardware Lane, opposite Pug Mahoney's Irish Pub). As you can tell I'm really quite pleased with myself. Now all I have to do is wrap it all, the part I hate.

* I think it's originally some sort of religious holiday, either something to do with the winter solstice or some chick having an affair and telling quite a big lie to quell her husbands suspicions. I think a donkey may be involved somewhere as well...

Open Office

It's just like Word (and the rest of MS Office), only free*. It runs well now, since I put in more ram. Now that it doesn't take a week to load up or stutter while I type, I might consider using it instead of Word. Not that I really do much typing. Oh and I like the T9-esque guessing game it has going as I type...

*Most people never actually buy MS Word. I did once, thinking back I can't recall why, I already had the disks. Floppy disks that is, about 6 of them. Then again Office these days comes on CDs or DVDs, I'd hate to think how many CDs are needed.


This post was composed in Open Office

Enter the world of tommorow...

Oh yeah!

I've been thinking about getting a digital STB(set top box) for a while now. Even though I know there really aren't any incentives in this country to do so yet, I thought what the heck. So on Friday after work I made my way to the nearest Dick Smith Powerhouse and bought one of these. Of course I also got talked into extra cables and a switch box thing to save fiddling with cables behind our "old" TV (it only has one set of component inputs on the rear) whenever we want to watch a DVD or video.

All I can say is wow! The reception is crystal clear, the sound is fantastic and there is no interference or ghosting. It's more or less like watching a DVD. I was worried that our rabbit ears antenna would seriously hamper the digital signal, I was wrong. All the channels have 90% + signal strength except for SBS which is around 80%. I'm impressed.

The only problem however is the crappy approach to digital TV that this country has taken. Why do I want 5 identical versions each of channels 7 and 10? I want different programming on each channel. SBS and the ABC do each have a second channel with different programing SBS 2 and ABC 2, however each would seem to have little that interests me. The former being foreign language news programs and latter seemingly endless repeats of Stateline and cricket games from 40 years ago. What would really sell digital TV in Australis is a system similar to the UK's Freeview (check out the list of channels) or even the similarly named New Zealand version FreeView. Only then will digital TV be worthwhile. Either that or do what Alex Encel suggests and give away STBs...

Tech Stuff

I blame eBay for it all. I haven't bought much there, only bits and pieces for my computer, a couple of computers and a mobile phone. My most recent purchase is a new CPU for my elderly computer. Well I only won the auction today, still haven't sent any money.

I know I should by a new computer as this one is really old, c. 1999 - 2000), but it just keeps battling on, and recently I've been adding new bits to it. First of all it was the monitor, a nice crisp LCD. A few weeks ago I bought some ram tripling the total from 128 to 384 megabytes. And now I'm going to almost double the processor speed (now this is where it gets really embarrassing) from 500 MHz to 900 MHz. Almost cracking one gig! Due to the clock speeds and multipliers available on my motherboard a select few Celeron and Pentium III CPUs can be used. Even though they lack the extra L2 Cache of the Pentium III I decided to go for a 900MHz Celeron.

I was also going to get a new video card but I soon found out that another shortcoming is that my motherboard doesn't even have an AGP card slot, and that what I thought was an AGP slot is in fact something called an Audio Modem Riser or AMR for short. So much for that, like I was going to be able to play any recent (say last 3 years) games on it anyway. What I have been able to do is buy myself some time before I buy a new PC.

Next on the list is probably a DVD drive. Although I'm not entirely convinced it has enough grunt to burn DVDs let alone play DVD movies (damn video card!)...

November

Well it's been a month since my last entry. I just havn't been bothered with the computer at much. That's all really. I'm slowly catching up with the other blogs I read. It takes a while... One blog even came back from the dead without me knowing about it, I was rapped (or is that wrapped?) when I found out.

I've got a few ideas to post, so yeah they may or may not appear on these pages 9they could get backdated). That's it really.

An endangered species...

I found this seemingly newborn phone box the other day. Incidentally it is located at one of Melbourne's most notorious road intersections and railway level crossings.

Tall Timber

This is the lemon scented gum in our front yard. It's a big tree but it is dwarfed by the gum tree across the road. Late this afternoon there were quite a few Rainbow Lorikeets (you'd think there were more by the noise they make!) feeding on the flowers, but because they are so high up, and surprisingly well camouflaged they are not perceptible in the photo. Last year we had a number Flying Foxes feeding in the tree, I'll have to check latter on tonoght to see if they are back. We are only about 2 km from the Yarra River so it's not unusual to see the dark silhouette of Flying Foxes overhead at night. The only problem with these trees is that they occasionally decide to drop limbs for no apparent reason. For some reason they always land on our neighbours telephone wire, luckilly last time the wire was there to save our neighbours shiny new car.

Something I discovered while writing this is that the lemon scented gum is in fact not a Eucalyptus but a member of the closely related Corymbia family.

Oooh pretty flowers...

While walking home tonight I noticed that this Bottle Brush (otherwise known as a Callistamon) was bursting into vivid red flowers, which stood out in the briliant late afternoon sun. I think I'm looking forward to daylight saving.

Caged

Or behind bars even...

The afternoon of August 25 2006 at Camberwell.

Tramit 2006

Last Sunday I attended the Tram It 2006 Family Fun day in Harbour Esplanade Docklands. It was a great opportunity to see a large number of past and present Melbourne trams in the one place at the same time.

The tram you see in this post is Hawthorn Tramway Trust tram number 32 built in 1938. It remained in service in Melbourne for many years before being used in Bendigo right up until that system closed in the early 1970's. 32 has recently been restored in Bendigo and now once again roams (as much as trams can roam) the streets of Bendigo in it's original HTT livery on the Bendigo tourist tram service. Bendigo tramways have a website which you may or may not find interesting.

Anyway You may also notice that this photo is hosted by flickr. I sighned up to flickr a few months ago and decided to finally put some photos up, including a few taken at Tramit 2006. My flickr address is http://www.flickr.com/photos/ben7k/.

This blog is coming to you from the not too distant past* (10:48pm AEST on Thursday October 12 2006 to be exact) owing to the fact that blogger appears to not be working. Notepad is probably the most versatile program that comes with Windows, I love it. This probably explains the abundance of txt documents on my desktop...

Any way I know I've been a bad blogger lately. Despite having the odd moment of inspiration (no more than usual), I basically haven't been bothered with using the computer at home much as I spend all day using a computer (and surfing the net while waiting for work computer to do it's thing). So my life has been pretty much, get up->Go to work->work->come home from work->watch TV/cook dinner(depends who's home)->more TV->maybe check emails->go to bed, rinse and repeat...

The reason I can now sit here and blog is mostly due to the fact that I now have an LCD monitor to replace my fading with age CRT that gave me bad eye strain. I have a bad history with PC monitors, for some reason they keep blowing up on me. The CRT was a 15" "temporary" solution that I've been using since my fantastic 17" CRT just decided to make loud hissing noises and flashing noises one night about 2 years ago. I love my new LCD, I've found space on my desk that I never dreamed existed.

As for adventures... Well I did go fishing on the AFL grand final day at Sugarloaf reservoir (yes the same Sugarloaf Reservoir that is supposedly full of human faeces pumped out of the Yarra River), so I'll probably post a few photos and a bit of a write up soon. Other adventures included Tramit 2006 last weekend, which was a display of many current and former classes of Melbourne trams, I'll probably post about that too...

Anything else I think of I'll get back to you with that too.

**Well more from the past, brought forward to the future and then back dated to the past again. Hopefully it won't result in a tangent in the space time continuum causing all kinds of anomalies that could include, waking up back on the old 27th foor of my asshole stepdad's Hotel/Casino, after getting knocked on the head by Billy Zane (the easy way), with my artificially endowed alcoholic mother comforting me...

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.

Round the Bend

This is for Highriser.

If you want to have a look around Yarra Bend I would recomend the following:

Catch an Epping (and somerimes Hurstbridge train) to Victoria Park station and walk past Victoria Park football ground (taking note of the grafitti on the wall, "I want to have Chris Tarrant's baby" etc) to Dights Falls, the upper tidal limit of the Yarra River and former site of a mill (which still partially stands). The falls are best seen a day or so after rain in upper catchments of the river.

From there you can walk along the river to Yarra Bend (where you ended up after crossing kanes Bridge), which was the site a Lunatic Asylum, and is currently home to the Yarra Bend Golf Course. Following Yarra Bend Road North you cross the Eastern Freeway. On the left (west) hand side just over the Freeway you can find the remains of the former gates to the Lunatic Asylum. Opposite this is the site of the Fairlea Women's Prison, a remnant of which is now a Parks Victoria Office. Then you could make your way past the Thomas Emling Hospital and fly casting pools (as in fly fishing). From memory you can get get down to the river from wehre you can follow the path to the Fairfield Boathouse for refreshments.

To get back to the City you could take the route 546 bus to Melbourne Uni. This bus only runs every half hour on weekdays only from Heidelberg Road just near the Fairfield Boathouse. Otherwise it's a further (farther?) walk to Dennis Station on the Hurstbridge line.

I spent a lot of time in Yarra Bend a few years ago with TAFE and uni. Not particularly scenic, but I find it interesting none the less. It has it's fair share of wierdos hanging around too, so watch out...

Poor Form

Two winners! I can't believe I only tipped two winners! I would have been better off not tipping at all. I did better the week I decided to tip the losers, I got 6 or 7 that week (out of a possible 8!). Shows what I know about footy.

Seriously though, I can't beleive Collingwood went down to cellar dwelling Essendon, thats two losses in two weeks now for the mighty (bah!) Magpies. Collingwood is now 7th on the AFL ladder.

It cold be worse, I could barrack for Carlton(but that would never ever happen)...

New Toys

Two weeks ago I finally got around to getting a new camera. After much research I settled on a Canon Powershot A700 (reviews by dpreview and Steve). Short of getting a digital SLR, the A700 has everything (well most things) I want in a camera. In time I will get a DSLR, but for now I wanted a do everything compact that I can slip in my pocket (I have big pockets ;-) ).

It's 6 megapixel for decent sized prints, has a good reasonably fast lens, and shooting modes ranging full auto to full manual (as well a whole heap of scene modes I know I will hardly ever if not never use). It has a 6x optical zoom, which is only let down by the lack of image stabilisation. Camera shake at long focal lengths is assured, however this is overcome by the use of my mini tripod in such situations (I plan to get a Gorillapod for the go anywhere sort of photography I like).

So far it's proving to be a good all rounder (oh yes it takes pretty decent video as well), with excelent results. I've had fun experimenting with time exposures without the expense associated with my film SLR. Hopefully I'll be able to get out and shoot some photos this weekend and have something to show for my efforts here. So watch this space...

My other new toy is an MP3 player, after more research (hey that's half the fun of buying a new toy) I settled on a Creative ZEN Nano Plus 1GB. I very nearly purchased an iPod shuffle 1 GB, but luckily the stores I went to were out of stock. For the same price as the iPod I got the same memory capacity, an LCD screen, voice recorder, FM radio and line-in MP3 encoder. Most importantly however I avoided the use of iTunes in favour of a simple windows explorer drag and drop file transfer. It may be irrational, but I just don't like iTunes. With regard to the battery the downside of the ZEN Nano is that it does not have a built in recharble like the Shuffle, but the plus is that it takes just one AAA cell, alkaline or recharble. A pair of AAA rechargables is on the shopping list.

Soundwise the quality is good, the LCD screen's menu is easy to navigate and it's a small unit. Oh and it also can shuffle songs!

Now to show off both of my new toys, here's a photo of my mp3 player taken using the superb macro mode on my new camera.

Coathanger City

That's the Sydney Harbour Bridge on the right. One afternoon in early February 2005 I sat in the park on Observatory Hill for almost an hour just watching the world go by. There was even a wedding while I was there.

Beforehand however, I had a look through the Sydney Observatory. An interesting way to spend an hour or so. Best of all, it was free.

Solo driving...

Last Sunday I took a spin by myself in the car. It was a strange and lonley, yet liberating experience. Next time hopefully I'll go further than around the block...

No more BYO

That's right, because I'm now fully licenced. A few posts ago I mentioned about getting my drivers licence, well Thursday was the big day.

In all it went pretty smoothly actually, having passed my Hazard Perception Test a week earlier (what a silly test that was), I forgot all about the driving test until the night before. On the day everything just clicked into place and despite the silly actions of other road users passed with flying colours. The tester (a nice girl, probably about my age if not a bit older) said that it went perfectly, and that I didn't loose any points at all (the assessment sheet only goes up to 95 + and you need at least 85 to pass).

For those interested, my low speed maneuver was a point to point, which is starting 1 metre from the curb and reversing for about 20 metres to finish within 30 centimetres of the curb.

Now you'd think I'd be excited, but I'm not really. I'm happy I've finally done it, but things are just the same as they were before. I haven't even driven since. Things might be different if I was 18 years old.

Moving right along.

Since I can't write, here is a photo instead. Taken one year ago yesterday from an overbridge in Heidelberg/Rosanna. I can't believe it's one year ago that I was roaming the streets, taking photos when I first hit rock bottom. The photo was taken with my long lost digital camera which I still have not yet replaced. The original was in colour but I reckon it looks pretty good in black and white.

I can't write!

I've been trying to write a post about what I did on Saturday since that night, but I just can't seem to get it right. I just can't write. Seriously, I can't remember how I managed to pass English in year 12, let alone write assignments at uni that made sense. I know what I want to say, but I can't express it, everything just get's so long winded and complicated (this post is a prime example). I need to find a way to untangle my writting. Part of the problem is that I'm just so tired by the time I think about writting a post. Working life eh...

Oh and yes part two of the powerbook chronicles is coming....

No really, it is.

June General Updates

I don't know where June went, but it's just flown past. It's probably because I got a job and am now employed at an hourly rate. If I hadn't got the job I probably would have posted part 2 of the powerbook chronicles by now...

And as for the driving thing, all going well I should have my license this time in two weeks.

Powerbook Chronicles - Part 1

About a year ago while in the grip of eBay fever and web surfing based procrastination (I should have been studying for an exam I think) I purchased an elderly Macintosh Powerbook computer. My reasoning for wanting a Macintosh powerbook was thus:

1: For one of my subjects at uni I had to use a Mac in the library for photoshop as these were regularly the only PC's that were vacant (Whoever designed those stupid "no button" mice has a lot to answer for). This got me intrigued in the whole Macintosh idea.

2: I was looking at an older windows laptop just because I thought it would be cool.

Surely it would be sensible to get a Macintosh laptop? Plus that way I would save money! So I won a Powerbook 1400 on eBay for about $30. After the seller eventually sent it to me I realised that I didn't particularly need it. I read a couple of articles on LEM about using this particular machine fore wireless internet, which sounded a pretty cool thing to do with such old technology. So it was back to eBay looking for a suitable 16 bit 802.11b PCMCIA card. From memory that cost me about $10 including postage. Bargain!

Next I realised that because the computer didn't come with a CD ROM (still working on that) I needed some way of getting the driver files for the wireless card which are bigger than a floppy disk (thankfully it has one of those) onto the computer. The answer came in a flash, literally, so I bought a PCMCIA Compact Flash adaptor for about $5 (I think that also included postage too) on eBay.

And that is where the project stalled for the next year...

Next installment coming soon.

General Updates

I'll try to elaborate more on one or two of these a bit latter but for now:

I am now on Centrelink's Newstart Allowance (AKA "the dole") and looking for a full time job. I hate the whole thing, the sooner I get a job, I don't care what, the better. This may have a detrimental effect on my degree by putting completion out another year.

I am taking driving lessons, all going well I should have my license in 5 or 6 weeks. Why 5 or 6 weeks? That's because after one and a half lessons my instructor decided I am capable of passing the test. So this week we are booking the test during my lesson (that alone costs in the order of $50!), but Vicroads has a waiting list of about 5 weeks, hence the wait.

S302 has been bought by El Zorro and will probably be seen in action working infrastructure trains around suburban Melbourne.

Macintosh has switched it's full lineup of iBook and Powerbook computers over to Intel Core Duo processors and are now known as Macbook and Macbook pro respectively. Also they have dropped the 12" iBook(Macbook) model, so it looks like my plans for one of those are down the toilet, they are now 14" only.

I could always get a second hand one at some stage though. But then again those black Macbooks are sexy...

Spam

For the first time today I got some spam that is actually purportedly from a bank I am a customer of, the contents are as follows...

Dear Commonwealth Bank of Australia member,

Due to recent hardware failure and partial loss of our database we decided to review
our customers account information to prevent security problems . If you
could take 3-5 minutes out of your online experience to verify your
account status , you will not run into any further problems .

Update your NetBank Account : Click Here

Thank You ,
Commonwealth Bank of Australia Management Stuff

Please do not reply to this confirmation email, as this message was sent to all Commonwealth Bank members.

Now for starters I'm behind the times and don't actually use NetBank, but that's not all. Oh no, if you were reading carefully or even just skimming you should have picked up a few glaring errors that give this piece of correspondence an air of rank amateurishness, they are:

1.

Dear Commonwealth Bank of Australia member

Since when does a bank have members?

2.

Thank You ,
Commonwealth Bank of Australia Management Stuff

I mean I agree that banks are full of management stuff, but this is just unprofessional even for a spamer.

Another dead give away, as with all these sorts scams is the presence of a URL with lots of .'s in it. And no I'm not including it for obvious reasons.

I should mention my method for dealing with spam, which is that my ISP flags messages as spam and I have a filter set up in Thunderbird to sort it all into a spam folder. The reason I send it to a spam folder is partly out of habit, partly out of the fact that the occasional legitimate email gets flagged by mistake and partly because I don't completely trust my ISPs spam filter for the afore mentioned reason. When it's in my spam folder I scan the sender and subject before doing a "CTRL-A, Delete" maneuver. And I must be doing something right because I'd be lucky get more than 10 or so spam emails a day. If it was worse I'd probably use a spam filter like mailwasher (that's the only one I can think of off-hand).

Bravo

Have you ever noticed how sometimes you keep seeing the same type car where ever you go. Not that you see them more than you normally would, you just for what ever reason notice a particular model of vehicle more than the rest. Yesterday it happened to me, the Mazda Bravo to be exact. I observed one parking outside the bank, the lady driving it came back 5 minutes latter and drove away. That was enough to get me going for the rest of the afternoon. Normally it's more to do with a friend or relative buying a new car. Over the course of the next 2 or 3 hours I kept seeing Mazda Bravo's. Then I started picking up Toyota Hilux's which at long range resemble Mazda Bravo's. The Toyota Hilux out numbers the Mazda Bravo by about 3 to 1. During the afternoon I even saw a few Holden Rodeos. One anomaly though was the over loaded, small Kia tray truck in Bell Street Heidelberg dragging it's rear mud guards along the road.

Now listening to:

I'm a Cuckoo, Belle & Sebastian

Keyboard Antics Again...

Finally got around to replacing my keyboard. I opted for a Logitech Standard Keyboard, which I found on sale at Dick Smith Electronics for only AU$ 9.95. It's just a no frils keyboard with a PS/2 connector. The only thing that comes close to a frill is the detatchable hand rest. It's not even listed on the logitech website, but does closely resemble the Access Keyboard without any of the one touch configurable buttons across the top. Like anything it takes a bit of getting used to.

Currently listening to:

Death Defying, Hoodoo Gurus

Keyboard antics

I spilt a glass of water on my keyboard again on Friday night...

Last time I did that I went to the trouble of unplugging the keyboard and drying it out over the heater. For some reason the following day I ended up prying off all the keys and giving it a really good clean. Beleive me, you don't want to EVER do that, there are all kinds of disgusting things lurking inside your keboard, unrecognisable at that. In the process however, I did learn that my keyboard had what seemed to be a water proof skin over all the electronic components inside.

...Back to the present. I went away over the weekend only to find out on Sunday night that my keyboard would do strange things when I pressed certain keys, strangely enough this mostly happened while using firefox. For instance, if I pressed the right hand arrow the "Find" toolbar would appear at the bottom of the screen, another one was that if I pressed the space bar while typing in the search box it would cycle to the next search engine in the list. The funny thing is that as far as I can tell none of these keys pressed have anything to do with any shortcuts to these functions. I have now decided that my keyboard does not have a waterproof skin. Finally I got fed up and am now typing on an old keyboard I had lying around. I think I'll have to let my normal keyboard dry out a bit more before attempting to use it again.

Although, I could go and get a better keyboard...

The old girl retires

S302 leads the 1240 Melbourne to Warnambool train through Footscray in Melbourne's inner west on 6 October 2005.

On January 9 2006 S302 made possibly her last journey as a front line locomotive in the V/Line fleet. In late 2004 the locomotive was brought out of storage and received much love and attention from EDI at Newport for a new lease on life. Returned to traffic in early 2005, she spent the best part of a year plying the rails on the daily 535 km round journey between Melbourne to Warnambool. Her return to service was not without trouble, having a reputation for unreliability and being speed restricted to 100 kmh as opposed to the usual 115 kmh for passenger trains on this route. Her future is uncertain.

Built in 1957 at Clyde Engineering in Sydney, she spent 37 years in service with the Victorian Railways (later known as Vicrail for a short period in the early 80's then V/Line) before being sold of in 1994. She was bought by the fledgling West Coast Railway along with other aging B, S and T class locomotives and other items of aging rolling stock. West Coast Railway was the private company that won the contract to provide the now privatised rail service between Melbourne and Warnambool.

This venture was somewhat of a success and acheived growth in passenger numbers. In the mid 2000s however things started to go wrong, first with the death of the company founder and CEO, followed by structural problems with the company's fleet of veteran diesel locomotives. This lead to the suspension of the rail service mid way through 2004. In late 2004 the company was wound up and rail services were again provided by the state owned V/Line, who purchased a number of items of rollingstock as well as locomotive S302 in order to be able to run the service.

Relevant links:

• Locopage S class page.
  
• V/Line webpage.
  
• Vicsig page on S302.
  
• Wongms blog entry on s302's last day in service.
  
• Martin Bennet's fotopic page documenting the last day.

I'm Ba-ack...

Yes, 'tis I!

Had a busy lead up to Christmas which is why the blogging stopped. Post Christmas it was the combination of couldn't be bothered with a side serve of being too busy.

Christmas itself was good, I didn't get many presents, but that's not what it's about. New years eve was OK too (not the greatest either).

Hopefully I'll be ably to think of more stuff to blog when I'm not quite so tired.

P.S there's no Chocolate crackles left either.

Chocolatey and crackely goodies!

Today I made Chocolate Crackles. They are yum.

Steam at Greensborough

Steamrail's K153 leads a train of BW cars through the 'S' curves at Greensborough on a shuttle trip to Macleod on Sunday 4th December 2005. Unseen in the photo is K190 on the rear of the train which will lead the return trip to Greensborough from Macleod. The occasion was for the Manna Gum Festival (it's an Arts Festival) at Greensborugh.

USB applications

For years I used floppy disks to transfer my work between school, then TAFE, then Uni and home. During that time the files just kept getting bigger and bigger. Eventually I got to the stage where I had to burn and waste CD's or FTP my work around instead. FTP was better than floppy disks, the latter having a tendency to fail at the most inapropriate moment, but having dial up at home made ftp a slow process for larger files.

It wasn't until last year after a bad experience with a rather large Powerpoint presentation that I bit the bullet and got myself a USB flash drive. After a bit of shopping around the various computer stores near uni I got myself a 128 mb Shintaro branded flash drive for about $45, which at the time was a good deal. Since then I have never looked back except for the fact I fill it up with so much crap that 128mb never seems like enough. I don't how I could do without it.

Lately I've been loading applications onto it. So far I've got:

• Irfanview
  
• OperaUSB
  
• Quickmailer
  
• npop
  
• Frontpage express
  
• Simon Tatham's Portable Puzzles

The best type of applications to use on usb drives are those that are self contained in their own directory, which do not rely on recources stored in other locations such as the Documents and Settings folder, and/or those that install their own registry keys. A wide variety of applications suitable for USB flash drives is available, including simple text editors, image editors (Irfanview), email (npop and quickmailer), office suites (open office), browsers (Opera USB) and even various linux distrubutions that can boot straight off the usb drive or an acompanying CD.

Some sites that I have found with informaiton on USB flashdrives and compatible applictions include:

• USB flashdrive - Wikipedia
  
• The Portable Freeware Collection
  
• Kazias.net |USB Applications
  
• Standalone Applications
  
• TinyApps.org

Corporate Symbolism...

Recently I have become aware that Vision Australia has a new symbol. I can't remember what their old symbol looked like but the new one is wierd, just a couple of coloured dots. Last week after seeing it on TV it occuded to me that it might be braile for something. Then yesterday a lightning bolt hit me as I was walking past the Vision Australia office in Mount Street Heidelberg. The symbol is actually a "V" and an "A" in braile. Don't know why I didn't realise earlier...


So I checked it out on their website and sure enough there is a page that explains the new logo and how it conveys the image that they want to project to the public, as well as being clearly visible to people with poor eyesight. In addition to that, Vison Australia have created an audio logo. Being an organisation that are involved with people who are vison impaired an audio logo is a great idea. Basically it's a recording of someone saying their name and tagline with a short chime at the begining.

I just found it intriguing.

Steam at Hurstbridge

Steam locomotive J515 is approaching the home signal at Hurstbridge. The occasion was the inaugural Wattle Festival on Sunday the 4th of September 2004, the train was chartered from the Seymour Rail Heritage Centre. J515 is on this end while diesel loco T357 was on the rear. This arrangement was used to avoid the need for the steam loco to run around the train at Hurstbridge, which is impossible given that it is a dead end terminus. The train ran a number of trips between Hurstbridge and Diamond Creek throughout the day.

The Wattle Festival was held again in 2005, but this time the train was chartered from Steamrail instead.

To the end of the earth and back again!

Well not quite but it may as well have been...

What really happened was that I wanted to go to Photo Colour in Heidelberg to drop a film off to get developed and put on CD. So I decided to get the train to Heidelberg. On the way back I decided that I would get the most out my 2 hour (actually was more like 2 and a half hours) zone 2 Metcard by taking a ride to the end of the line as I still had over an hour left. My metcard expired at 6pm. From Heidelberg I got on the next train to arrive, which just happened to be a Macleod train. This was no problem though as I only had to wait a few minutes at Macleod for the following Hurstbridge train.

The trip to Hurstbridge was fairly eneventful except for a problem with a couple of level crossings just on the down side of Eltham. To me it seemed like a problem with the track circuits that trigger the bells and gates, most likely related to the rain we'd been having for most of the day. So I arrived a Hurstbridge with half an hour left on my ticket. As I didn't consult a timetable I had no idea when the next train back was, but as long as it left before 6pm I'd still be able to use it for the return journey. I was hoping that the train I came on would go back to the city but as I suspected the Comeng continued on and joined a lonely X'Trapolis in the sidings beyond the platform.

A quick look at the timetable revealed that the next train departed at 5:56, cutting it fine, but all was OK. So I walked up and down the platform a couple of times, checked out the sidings adjacent the platform, checked to see what the lever on the platform did and various other gunzel type things. The train was scheduled to arrive at 5:51 but it didn't get in until at least the departure time. As a result it departed a couple of minutes late. For the record it was a Comeng and the leading car (where I was seated) was real groaner.

On the way back one surprise was a staff exchange at Diamond Creek, which occured even though we weren't scheduled to cross another train there. Checking the timetable that I picked up at Hurstbridge an explanation of Diamond Creek being open as a staff station was found in that, the train I'd gone to Hurstbridge on would form the next up train departing at 6:10pm, and that it would cross the next down at Diamond Creek. We would cross that same down train at Eltham. Even though the train departed Hurstbridge late we still arrived at Eltham on time and so had to wait the full five minutes for our cross there. From there on it was smooth sailing back towards my home station.

Boring I know but it's all I can think of to blog at the moment...

What is the world coming to?

I caught four trains on Friday. One from Greensborough to the City, one from the City to Box Hill, then tat return trip, and finally one back to Greensborough. What ties all of these together? All four trains I caught on Friday were X'Trapolis or "crappers" as some people call them. On all my journeys I saw plenty of other trains, all were a mixture of Comengs and X'Trapolis, with the only Hitachi in sight looking all forlorn in the yard at Camberwell by itself. What is the world coming to?

In other news

Ever since playing with a 12" iBook in Myer a few weeks ago I've wanted one. One drawback of the 12" versus the 14" is the lack of a DVD burner, but it would be easy enough to use either the wireless networking or external hard drive for backups/transfers of large ammounts of data.

Although I reckon I could get along just nicely with one of the original colourful retro iBooks. Second hand of course, which is the more likely scenario for me.


The fact is that I would just like a laptop, and the iBooks just look so damn cool.

It has come to pass that...

You Are an Emo Rocker!

Expressive and deep, lyrics are really your thing. That doesn't mean you don't rock out... You just rock out with meaning. For you, rock is more about connecting than grandstanding.

What Kind of Rocker Are You?

While not altogether bad, it's not what I expected. Although a lot of the time I think I feel "emo". Man I wish I was 10 years younger, I'd be all like the uber emo. Maybe I should just grow up...