Samuel's Blog

Samuel’s Cofee-Cup-O-Meter

Friday:
3 x Standard Mug (1 Point Each) = 3 Points
1 x Large Shop Coffee (1.5 Points Each) = 1.5 Points
Total = 4.5 Points

Samuel

October 8th, 2005 at 01:23pm

Celebrating 100 years of Canberra

Over at the Centenary Of Canberra website (which occurs in 2013), they are asking for ideas on what they can do to celebrate the 100 years of Canberra.

They want virtually any idea that celebrates Canberra in some way, and brings attention to Canberra, so I gave them my suggestion.

Seeing as all of our past and present chief ministers are so excited about this (and presumably being well paid to administer it), they should be the feature attraction. We could have them all stand on top of each other on top of the flagpole on City Hill, they could even stand there all day on the celebratory day, which would surely bring in the media attention. It would quickly become one of the odd stories that radio shows love.

Those crazy Canberrans have dispensed with the customary birthday cake and singing, in favour of standing on each other. The chief ministers have stood on top of each other on top of a flagpole for a whole day….I know it gets cold in Canberra, but if that’s how they plan on bringing the sun closer….

Samuel

2 comments October 8th, 2005 at 01:34am

Trams, Trains & Buses

John B1_B5 had a rather interesting article about a Brisbane 400 Series Tram (circa 1958) on his blog recently. In it he mentions that the trams in Brisbane were very efficient “The beauty about the trams was that there was always one coming in the distance, and if it was too crowded, you just waited for the next one.”

Brisbane apparently had one of the best tram systems in the world and “a lot of Brisbane residents are STILL saying that it was a mistake to phase out the trams”.

Image courtesy John B1_B5

This got me thinking, with the rise in petrol prices recently, people are moving to public transport in droves, the only issue is that the people managing the local bus service (ACTION) know about as much about managing public transport as a tinned sardine does. They seem to be doing their utmost best to make travelling by bus a pain (Flexibus, Constantly making a mess of, and changing, timetables, seemingly at random, introducing uncomfortable and relatively useless green monstrosities, etc…) with the full blessing of the ACT government. (previously documented on this blog in numerous articles.)

The ACT government want to build an expensive busway which will cut two minutes from the trip between Belconnen and Civic, which will never get built because of groups like Save The Ridge and completely ignores the rest of the population. (At one stage, the minister responsible for the busway declared that it would cut 15 minutes from the trip, effectively getting you to Civic two minutes before you leave Belconnen, and vice versa)

Light Rail has been brought up as a possibility a number of times, but the seemingly useless local government have ignored it over and over and over.

This is what I would do with local public transport.

Light Rail going directly between town centres (IE. Gungahlin to Belconnen, Gungahlin to Civic, Gungahlin to Woden, Gungahlin to Tuggeranong, Belconnen to Civic, Belconnen to Woden, Belconnen to Tuggeranong, Civic to Woden, Civic to Tuggeranong, Woden to Tuggeranong and vice versa on each). This would be a high speed and quick service which would be expandable in the future and would be much quicker than current car transport and bus transport.

Trams travelling around town centres. Town Centres tend to be fairly large, they can be walked through, but it takes time, time which could be saved by having a low-medium speed tram service through the town centres, this would ease the problem of people getting off the bus/train at an interchange twenty minutes walk from their office on a rainy day.

Local Area Buses: Firstly, scrap Flexibus, buses are not taxis, taxis are, let it be. Then, buses going directly between a suburb and the town centre (so Braddon to Civic, Banks to Tuggeranong etc), these buses would go through most streets in the suburb, which would provide convenience to the commuter, and then go straight to the town centre…no more waiting through an archaic array of other suburbs.

I would also have area buses which would go from a town centre, through the main streets of a number of suburbs and then to a town centre (either the one it started at, or another one if the suburb is halfwayish between the two centres).

I would also release a mandate that the bus timetables be designed to get people to their destinations quickly, rather than sometime next week as tends to be the case at the moment. Why ACTION insist on timetables that get buses travelling at 30km/h is beyond me.

Naturally I would have combined areas for the bus/train/tram interchanges, this would make it much easier to use the services, I’m sure some planners would make sure these various centres are a long way apart, but that would defeat the purpose of useful and efficient public transport.

I would also ensure that all services use the same tickets.

I like this plan so much that I am now going to email it to various people who may be in a position to do something about it, or perhaps bring it to the attention of those who can do something about it.

Samuel

4 comments October 8th, 2005 at 12:03am

Samuel’s Tape Highlights: 32 Musical People

Tonight I am happy to be able to bring you the highlights package from the first known audio recording of myself (well, there was about ten minutes of recording before that, but it was broken accidentally just after recording, and I later reenacted the song on it on this tape).

This one is called 32 Musical People as there were 32 people in the “Old Folet” family, which was an invention of mine after hearing the name Rosemary Follett (she was chief minister at the time, so her name was fairly common in local media), this family consisted of me, and the 31 toys that were in this family. This number later grew to be in excess of 40, I think it nearly reached 50 at one stage. I remember one of my aunties visiting once and I gave her a tour of “my friends” as they were known (and still are…), she got to meet every single one of them by name.

Anyway, back to the tape, the highlights package contains the following items:

• The Intro, whilst this is the second segment on the tape, it sounds like an intro, and introduces one of the main components of the tape, the radio, which was tuned at various stages to 1206AM 2CC & 1053AM 2CA, usually when I realised it was on 2CA I switched it back to 2CC. I always thought 2CC had the better music, not that there was much difference, but I do wish 2CA sounded like that today. This segment contains the tail end of a featured song from a previous musican of the week. Radio was often called “salp” (rhymes with salt) on my early tapes for some reason. (0:43)
• The segment is a song titled “Bring Bring Is Funny. (0:11)
• Then we have one of my favourite radio ads, a Magnet Mart ad which I later continued to attempt to sing. (0:54)
• Next up we have a segment involving me playing with a police car toy I had (0:45)
• Then we have me placing coins into a money box and pretending that the cents are dollars, I then made a song around it, and performed one of my regular tricks of “money boxes shaking”. You can also hear the phrase “Lets hear that” in the middle of this. This is because I was pretending that it all took place in front of a live audience, and I would stop recording, rewind the tape and listen to what just happened. (2:12)
• Then a small song, Hello Stretch Coconut Today. (0:05)
• The recording took place on cleaning day, so I recorded the vacuum cleaner’s visit to my room, a bit of it can be heard here. (0:38)
• I started a segment with a hello song which contained the name “Stretch Nepo”, which had been made up by me as I had a magnet on my blackboard which said “Stretch” and I had some alphabet magnets spelling “Open”, I reversed the word “Open”. (0:43)
• I also had a fascination with supermarket receipts, and for some reason recorded a segment where I checked the accuracy of them with a calculator, this is one such example. (0:32)
• Then I asked dad a maths question and checked that with the calculator. At that age 120-106 is a tough question. (0:28)
• This is followed by a song called “Meow” (0:30)
• Then I had the radio going while I played on my mini-piano. (1:07)
• Next up is a song called “Salp is radio music”. (0:23)
• Then we have a segment which makes use of one of those green bendy pipe things that are often sold at fairs/shows/etc. (0:26)
• And finally, The Important Song, which I think I got the name for from an ABC Kids program. (0:28)

The whole highlights package can be heard/downloaded by clicking here.

Samuel

2 comments October 7th, 2005 at 10:36pm

Samuel’s Coffee-cup-o-meter

Thursday:
2 x Standard Mug (1 Point Each) = 2 Points
1 x Shop Coffee (1 Point Each) = 1 Point
1 x 75%ish Travel Mug (1.5 Points Each) = 1.5 Points
1 x 90%+ Travel Mug (2 Points Each) = 2 points
Total = 6.5 Points

Samuel

6 comments October 6th, 2005 at 08:48pm

Career Update

As some readers may know, I recently applied for a job with 2CC, I will put you all out of your suspense, and inform you that I didn’t get the job…I came close, but I was beaten by somebody with more experience.

My SNAP (School based New APprenticeship) position in IT support expires next week, so negotiations are ongoing for future arrangements. I have enough “points” to finish year 12 early (which would be nice…mainly for the stress releif) and still gain a year 12 certificate, which makes it possible for me to get a better paying school assistant position, which would probably be less paperwork for everyone.

My voluntary (and eventually paid…eventually) newsreading position with Australian Independent Radio News remains stable, currently on Saturdays.

Samuel

7 comments October 6th, 2005 at 08:41pm

That was a long day

I can really only describe today as being long, considering that I was unable to sleep last night, it has been very long indeed, here is a fairly accurate summary of the day.

Midnight: Still at computer, reading emails and some websites, I had a cup of tea during this time.

12:30: This is when I went to have my shower.

1am: By this time I was in bed and seemingly unable to go to sleep and found myself listening to New Day Australia with John Kerr.

2am: Sometime around here I heard a noise downstairs and went to investigate, it turned out to be Nattie’s doggie door which I think may be developing a squeak, I fixed up a couple things, re-covered Nattie with her blanket and wrote an email to John Kerr in which I stated that I don’t email or call him nearly often enough.

3am: Still awake and in bed, it was around this time that John Kerr read my email and seemed quite pleased to hear from me again, he agreed with my statement that I don’t email or call enough.

5am: After dozing off briefly one or two times, and having had to get out of bed a few times (hourly) to turn the clock radio back on, I was still awake. By this time the “real” New Day program had ended and it was time for the 30 minutes of light news and information which is the last half hour of New Day which has replaced the 5am half hour of news. I still find it laughable that they have a sydney traffic update in the middle of this, they almost always say that “it’s not very busy at the moment”…they must be geniuses to work that out (or would that be genii???)

5:30: The 5:30 news arrived, and I promptly got up to make myself a cup of coffee, I went downstairs and covered Nattie with her blanket again (she actually does like it, she just can’t pull it over herself after going out to the toilet). I finished making my coffee and sicovered it was overfilled, so I had a few sips before going back upstairs and entering my room just as James Creegan was finishing the weather (in this case I am guessing at spelling of names), and I got back into bed humming Mike Jeffreys’ opening music. During the next half hour I enjoyed my Coffee, listened to Mike and noticed my curtains gradually getting lighter, this brought back memeories of work experience in July where it was still pitch black at 6am…not like October!

6am: After the 6am news I got out of bed and went downstairs, performed a number of household duties, and then had breakfast…which became a long and drawn out affair, I was in no real hurry.

7am: Well, I had only just started eating breakfast at this stage, and was doing that whilst listening to the radio and checking my email. Not long after 7am the Chief Minister made some curious comments about CCTV Cameras, it seemed to me that he was saying “We put in all these cameras, and now we have had a review and actually know how many cameras we have and how they work.” Just after his comments I got up (nearly finished breakfast) and tried calling 2CC but they had to talk to Jason Morrison (well, replay the call from before 6am anyway), so I called again during the 7:30 news and had a chat with Mike Jeffreys about the CCTV Camera comments and something he had spoken with Jason Morrison about…I think it was phone bugging in Indonesia…I think.

8am: At about this time I took Nattie for her morning walk, and then returned home, and decided it was such a nice morning that I would walk to work. I had a quick look for two A4 envelopes and discovered I was out of them, and I would “borrow” some from Dickson College. I eventually left home (knowing I was running late) at 8:35. I set a target of reaching the Ainslie shops by 9am, and at about 7 to 9 I realised I was going to beat that, in fact the Ainslie shops were almost out of sight when 2CC informed me that it was 9am.

9am: On the walk from the Ainslie shops to Dickson College I remembered the last time I walked from Ainslie shops to Dickson College, this was late last year when I caught a bus which was running late and spotted my normal bus with my bus driver friend just behind us. Unfortunately my getting off at Ainslie shops was mistimed as he drove by as I was getting off, and I had to walk, on this occasion I listened to George Moore on the way to Dickson College, today Lawsie was there.

9:15: I arrived at Dickson College, and to my astonishment was the first person, so I sat down and had a hard earned coffee. It is probably worthwhile noting here that National Walk To Work Day is tommorow, and I think I know why it is on a Friday. Most employees are less productive on a Friday, and they sure as heck don’t feel like working after walking to work, so having it on a Friday produces minimal differences in work outcomes, whereas my Thursday excersise made me somewhat opposed to the idea of doing much all day.

9:30: My direct boss who doesn’t have a key to get into the building arrived around this time, we stood around and chatted for a little while.

9:40: A person with a key turned up and we all entered, I requested two A4 envelopes and got them, then it was on to upstairs for the commencement of the work for the day. We (my direct boss and myself) went up to the IT office and discussed the work that needed to be done that day and I enthralled him (my boss) with stories of my journey to Erindale, and he read bits of this blog while I placed the letters and photographs for the various presenters in the appropriate envelopes and realised they are the lickable envelopes…so I got out the sticky tape as I dislike licking envelopes.

10:30: It was probably around this time that we went to do our first bit of work, which failed due to a poor computer case design preventing the installation of a new ZIP drive. The next bit of work involved me putting a couple programs on that computer, reading my emails again, and installing Windows XP on a computer while my boss and I discussed the working conditions of Australia compared to India. We also discussed briefly something which may or may not have been done by a junior employee (I’m a pretty junior employee myself, but I outrank this person, and in the scheme of things I’m not fulfilling a very junior job), as my contract is up for renewal I kept right out of that conflict.

11am: The direct boss left for a few minutes at 11am so I made a phone call to make lunch arrangements, which involved me walking to North Ainslie Primary School at lunch time.

Midday: After virtually no more work being achieved, I left for lunch at about 12:15 and arrived at North Ainslie at about 12:30, after spending some time their seeing that the IT people were having fun trying to get certain programs to work, the majority of us went to lunch in Dickson. Generally travelling in a car filled with people around my age would violate my personal safety policies, but this particular occasion didn’t because:
A) The driver is a close and highly trusted friend of mine who I believe to be a good driver.
B) It was a short journey.
If it had been a long journey I would have deemed it to be in violation of my personal safety policy.
We all spent a very long time in Dickson.

2:15: This is roughly the time I returned to work and and monitored a program installation while checking my email and writing for this blog…and had a cup of coffee.

3pm: At 3pm I left the college and went to catch a bus to Mitchell so that I could deliver the letters and photos (which I previously forgot to mail and decided mailing would now be inefficient), this also would allow me to catch up with some of the people at 2CC, so I made my way to Northbourne Avenue to catch the bus.

3:30: This is roughly the time I reached the nearest bus stop on Northbourne, and dicovered that the buses coming soon weren’t exactly soon or useful, but I ended up catching the first bus to come along anyway as it got me to Flemington Road, leaving me with a 10-15 minute walk to 2CC, I got there just before 4pm. I met the receptionist outside and had a small chat, after which I went upstairs and left the envelopes at reception. When I got upstairs Mike Welsh was in the middle of an ad break just before the 4pm news, so I leaned in the studio door and said a quick hello (I had previously emailed him to inform him that I would not be able to make it out to Ngunnawal to see him, and would be dropping by the studios this afternoon). I met up with a few of the people out there and had some good conversations before eventually leaving the air-conditioned comfort of 2CC for the outside world and a bus stop on Hoskins St, Kane Bond wasn’t there which was a pity as I wanted to say hello to him too. At about 4:20 my bus arrived and I got on and went to Civic on it, before walking home and arriving just before 5pm.

Since then I’ve had another coffee, and dinner, and a shower, and done various other things, and I’m now tired, so I’ll be going to bed shortly.

Anyway, that’s my long day, which involved far too much walking…I don’t have to work tommorow, so no walking to work for me…

Samuel

7 comments October 6th, 2005 at 08:24pm

Google are listening

The other day I stubled across Google’s personalised homepage thing, and realised I could customise it with live feeds from most Google services, and any RSS/Atom feed on the web. But I noticed one small omission, I couldn’t receive updates from Google Groups, which annoyed me, so I emailed them about it…this was Tuesday.

This morning when I went to check on Google Groups I noticed something very nice indeed, Firefox was reporting to me that Google Groups is now available in RSS & Atom feed formats, which enables me to:
A) Put it into my live bookmarks in Firefox, and
B) Add info from Google Groups to my Google personalised homepage.

This all goes to show that Google are listening, thanks guys!

Samuel

October 6th, 2005 at 02:50pm

Bright Ideas And Some Not So Bright Ideas.

This morning as I stumbled around the house in a semi-tired state (after not being able to sleep last night and hearing most of New Day Australia with John Kerr…including Sydney traffic at 5am where “the roads aren’t very busy”) preparing breakfast and various other things, I had a bright idea. I had just spotted the toaster with one bread slot unused and at full power, and I thought to myself “Why not insert a sensor in the toaster that detects if there is bread in the slot, and if there isn’t, doesn’t try to cook the empty slot”.

I decided to walk to work today, despite the fact that Walk To Work day is tommorow. It was a pleasant stroll on a pleasant Canberra spring morning, but as i passed the Ainslie shops I discovered this entire new bunch of wooden poles had been erected around the grassland at the front of the shops. Not only do these poles serve absolutely no purpose whatsoever, they look stupendously ugly and detract from the pleasantness on that nice area.

It took me 40 minutes to walk from my home in Reid to Dickson, which whereis.com.au informs me is roughly 3.9km, so I was walking a bit slower than usual, but that is acceptable when carrying a semi-heavy bag in one hand, and a radio in the other.

The interesting thing about this journey is that I left home at 8:35 and was supposed to be at work by 9am…I arrived at 9:15 and, to my surprise, was the first person to arrive, so sat down and had a cup of coffee which I was in need of, and continued listening to a rather amusing call on the John Laws show where a yelling match took place…a NSW government minister came on straight after this call and said “he was as hot as an oven” or something to that effect. I guess you would have had to have heard it to grasp the amusement factor.

Anyway, at 9:30 my direct boss arrived, and he didn’t have a key to get in, so we waited another five minutes and somebody with a key turned up, and two minutes later someone else turned up.

Effectively I had spent at least 20 minutes thinking about how late I might be, only to find out that would be the only person to ever know the true story, until I posted it here that is.

This afternoon the fire alarm was tested, and I was in a vacant room (excluding myself of course), the notice for testing started with a giant cracking noise over the PA system, which, as it sounded like it was coming from the roof, made me jump. This was followed by an ear piercing noise show as various noises eminated from the fire alarm loudspeaker which was far too close to my ear….thankyou to whoever was running it, I will send you the bill for the hearing aids I may now require….

Samuel

1 comment October 6th, 2005 at 02:42pm

Samuel’s Coffee-Cup-O-Meter

I appear to need to fit two days into one post, so here goes.

Tuesday:
4 x Standard Mug (1 Point Each) = 4 Points
1 x Shop Coffee (1 Point Each) = 1 Point
Total = 5 Points

Wednesday:
3 x Standard Mug (1 Point Each) = 3 Points
Total = 3 Points

Samuel

2 comments October 6th, 2005 at 07:46am

LCA Speakers Actually Notified

According to an email I got from one of the LCA organisers, the speaker notification procedure has now actually begun. Here is what Mike Beattie wrote:

Hi folks, just a quick note to let you know that we’re currently in
the process of organising the presentation streams, and will begin notifying
you of the status of your submission shortly – notificatioins will be
staggered and some will be happening within the next few hours.

We do apologise for the delay in this process!

Thanks for your patience,
Mike.

Well thankyou Mike for finally ending the agonising wait, and I mean this, thankyou.

The upshot of all this is that I should know in the next 48 hours or so whether any of my submissions have been accepted or not. I’ll keep you up to date as more news comes to hand.

Samuel

October 6th, 2005 at 12:20am

Editorial Policy

The raft of recent unsavoury people leaving comments has prompted me to do something I didn’t want to have to do. I have made a few changes to the editorial policy of this website…the policy itself remains confidential and subject to change, but the following things should act as general guidelines.

• Whilst I continue to take no responsibility for the comments of others, I endeavour to make this website as family friendly as possible. That means that I will not tolerate nastiness for no particular reason. You are still free to criticise me, but only if you can provide sensible reasoning. In general, if your nasty comment has no relevance to the post it is attached to I reserve the right to delete it. If you feel a need to turn nasty towards me, there is a link to the contact form at the top of every page…use it. If you feel a need to be nasty towards somebody else, this isn’t the place to do it (unless that is the topic). Nastiness towards regular readers/commenters is generally off-topic.
• This is MY website, if you don’t like it, go away and read some other website…or if you aren’t capable of that, find the nearest mental asylum and ask for a padded room. That being said I have no problem with you disagreeing with something I have said, but I do have a problem with you posting comments for the sole purpose of attacking me (or others), I’ve had enough.
• Defamation is not wanted, there are plenty of other websites designed to defame people for no particular reason, this is not one of them.
• Certain people who shall remain nameless have requested that they be kept off this site, their requests were reasonable and logical, and I shall uphold their request
• And finally, as previously mentioned, this I my website, and I shall have the final word on what is, and is not acceptable, on this site. I do not guarantee that the same thing will be applicable to each and every person who comes here, as certain people are, in my view, more welcome here than others. Your ability to leave comments here is a privilege, not a right, so treat it as such.

Samuel

1 comment October 5th, 2005 at 08:56pm

Kingswood Journey

As previously mentioned, I decided to take a journey out to Erindale shops today where Mike Frame was with the 2CC Kingswood. I also decided to document the entire journey, so if you’re after pictures of the Kingswood you will need to scroll down. All of the pictures here are thumbnails of the large versions, clicking on them will take you to the original large versions.

After some preperation I decided I should check what main items I was taking with me, naturally the radio came with me, as did the story of The Fridge which I was taking along to give to Mike Jeffreys (as previously documented) and a couple bus timetables for buses which pass Erindale.

On my way into Civic to catch the bus I passed one of the many construction sites.

I had lunch at a nice little coffee shop in Civic where I had a sausage roll and a coffee, after this I briefly met my bus driver friend, and then sat down to wait for the bus. I managed to take a picture of two of Canberra’s better, older, orange buses, just after I took the photo they both disappeared.

The first bus to turn up was one of those horrid green buses, I don’t like the green buses, they are uncofortable, noisy, rattly and have virtually no suspension. The older orange buses have a kind of bounce when they hit a bump, the green ones just go bang.

I decided to have a play with the video mode of my camera to demonstrate the horrid amount of noise the green buses make, it was impossible to hear the radio over the horrid thing. (Apologies for the file size of the video, I didn’t have time to play with the video)

Then a nice orange bus turned up, which I promptly caught. This bus lacked a ticket machine, so I did not incur any cost for this particular journey.

While I was on the bus I decided to try my hand at taking photos from moving vehicles, I think I ultimately showed that I am no good at that. The first picture taken on the way to Woden is of a flowerbed on Commenwealth Avenue designed to promote Floriade.

The next photo was of the Mint, for those that don’t know, the Mint’s main role is to produce coins.

It was around this time that I lost the 2CC signal or to be more precise, they stopped producing sound, 15 seconds later the emergency tape kicked in, it kept going through it’s initial ad break, played two different music returns and then launched into some bizzare program called “Down Memory Lane” which started with some semi-amusing alphabet song which sounds like it came from the 1940’s or 1950’s, the tape was then interupted and started from the begginning again, playing it’s ad break, two music returns and launched straight into that song again…this made me want to burst out laughing, but I managed to mostly contain myself. During this time I tried to pick up 2CA, but either I was in a bad spot (probably) or they were also off-air with no emergency tape.

Then we have a photo of my favourite set of trees along Adelaide Avenue/Yamba Drive

After this I arrived at the Woden bus interchange, unfortunately there weren’t any buses on my side of the interchange and I didn’t feel like waiting around for them.

From Memory the John Stanley show had returned to the radio by this stage, so I walked up some stairs and took a photo of the Lovatt Tower (formerly the MLC Tower), possibly Canberra’s tallest building. During this the 2UE news came through on 2CC for some unknown reason, their appeared to be some audio problems with it too.

After this I walked over to the bridge over the Woden Bus Interchange and took a photo of a rather odd and tall new apartment building, during this the local weather played, and then ads started.

After this I went and sat down on one of the many seats at the Woden Bus Interchange and noticed that one of ACTION’s interesting midi buses was parked in the layover zone, the midi buses are fairly decent, but I still prefer the orange buses.

2CC were still playing ads, and I can’t work out why, when they were about 10-15 minutes into a long set of ads I gave up and switched the radio off. Either somebody hit the wrong button a few times or something went seriously wrong.

Anyway, my bus arrived so I caught it, and took a few more of my “moving vehicle” pictures. Here is a slightly blurry one of the Woden Bus Interchange as I left.

And then we have yet another photo of the “Multiplex” buidling, now known on this blog as the “Multiplex Monstrosity”.

Next we having a picture of Mount Taylor, one of the smaller, less tree-filled mountains in Canberra.

The next photo was supposed to be of the nice scenic view towards the Brindabellas, but it didn’t turn out that way, if you look closely you can spot some of Canberra’s high voltage power lines, which, as previously discussed on this blog, carry radio signals very well, it was the first crystal clear on-bus reception I had all day.

The next thing that happened is I got off the bus, at the stop which the bus map informed me was the right stop…once again, ACTION prove they are the worst map makers on the planet. It did leave me with a good view though.

I walked down to the end of the street and still couldn’t see the shops, I was now very confused, I spotted a policeman conducting speed checks from his stationary motorbike, so I asked him if he knew where it was, and he gave me directions. On my way to the Erindale shops I spotted the bus stop I should have gotten off the bus at.

After a short walk, I spotted the Erindale centre, however I also noticed a sign advertising one of the non-Video Ezy video outlets, this had me mildly concerned, but I entered the centre anyway. It reminded me to a large extent of one of the smaller shopping centres on the sunshine coast, which has an almost identical layout. Video Ezy wasn’t in there, so I walked out the doors at the other end of the shopping centre and noticed the Video Ezy store in the distance, the zoom on the camera picked up the sign and the Kingswood fairly well. (I didn’t spot the Kingswood myself at the time)

The next thing I did was turn around and take a photo of the Erindale Centre.

As I got closer I took another photo of the Kingswood.

It is worthwhile pointing out that I hadn’t seen John B1_B5’s comment about him also going to see the Kingswood, so I was unaware that he was coming, and was surprised when he arrived. I didn’t recognise him at first, but I had requested that Mike Frame stand next to the Kingswood for a photo, and John B1_B5 arrived so we both wanted to take a photo of this, it was only just before we took the photos that we recognised each other. We promptly started a small competition to see who has the best Kingswood photos. My one of Mike Frame and the Kingswood is perfect with flaws…the only problems are that Mike blinked and I cut off some of the Kingswood…not to worry.

Next up we have a photo of the insides of the Kingswood, including the yellow mini-kingswood. The people in this photo are Mike Frame standing at the driver’s side door, one of the 2CC listeners in the background, and John B1_B5 standing behind the bonnet.

Next up we have the rather impressive signage on the rear window of the Kingswood, it is a good job, but as Mike Frame put it last time we met “It’s fine as long it isn’t raining, then you can’t see out of it” (paraphrased). This could become one of those photos used as memorabilia when 2CC turn 50 in 2025.

Then there is an unfortunately blurry closeup of the yellow Mini-Kingswood.

Next up is a picture of the competition entry box, John B1_B5 has a closeup of the poster on his site (link below).

The next shot comes with a large thanks to Mike Frame who allowed it to go ahead, this one is of John B1_B5 sitting in the Kingswood. (This is the one image that does not link to a larger version).

John B1_B5 spent quite a while chatting about many different and varied subjects, 2CC’s breakfast presenter Mike Jeffreys was going to turn up around 2PM, but it was closer to 3PM when he did eventually arrive. It appears to me at least that 2CC could make use of this picture with that large Video Ezy sign in the background.

Just after taking that picture I handed Mike Jeffreys the story of The Fridge

A little while later when I got the camera out again, after spotting a good photo opportunity, I took a photo, this one contains the Kingswood (naturally), in the bottom left corner of the picture is a golf club cover on one of the golf clubs 2CC are also giving away, the person on the left is Mike Frame, and the person on the right is Mike Jeffreys, whilst it looks like he is putting on an interesting funny pose, he is actually trying to get rid of flies. In the Kingswood is Mike Jeffreys’ son Jack who developed a game of climbing into, and out of, the Kingswood.

After this the discussions turned to the topic of Brisbane Trams (I’ll have more on that in the coming days) and how extremely efficient they were. Not long after this John B1_B5 left, and not long after that, I left. This is the bus stop I was planning on catching the bus from.

Naturally the bus was late, and just at the moment that I was planning on getting out the camera and playing with the video mode again, the bus appeared in the distance, however it turned the corner without stopping for me, and then stopped after turning the corner, apparently it is too difficult to turn after picking someone up at that bus stop.
I also caught a picture of some scenery I had been thinking of getting a photo of on the way to Erindale.

While I was on the bus I heard Mike Welsh have a conversation with Mike Frame…I didn’t catch the first part of the conversation, but I think Mike Welsh had been reading this site and asked if I had come out to Erindale, Mike Frame replied by saying that I had come, as had “another one of our listeners, John” and he also said that Mike Jeffreys had been there for “the last half-hour or so”.

Not long after this, I arrived in Woden

I noticed a green bus, so I waited for the next one, I took this opportunity to take a photo of one of those “If you see something, say something” signs alerting people to be wary of terrorists (presumably without alarming them…if you’re not Australian you won’t get the joke).

My 117 was running late, and the 312 (I think) came before it (both of which were nice orange buses), while I was in the queue for the 312, the 117 arrived, and as it was running late I caught that knowing that it would leave quickly. This one had a non-working ticket machine, so another free ride, although I had already bought a daily ticket, so it’s not overly free.

I decided to embark on another round of moving vehicle based photography…which produced some varied and dreadful photos, one of which was so bad that I deleted it as soon as it was taken. Here are the remains.

Firstly, is it Telstra Tower? And is there a photographic fog?

Next up we have a photo which was supposed to be of Mount Ainslie, Regatta Point and the War Memorial in the background, which was taken at precisely the wrong moment, and as such is a picture of a Commonwealth Avenue Bridge pylon, with bits of Regatta Point and Mount Ainslie…with some bridge bits.

I tried again, and this time got a picture of Mount Blur (aka Mount Ainslie) and Regatta Point Blur.

Next up is a reasonable picture of the approach to Civic, which also contains a bird and an unexplainable smudge.

Next up is another tilted picture, this one is of City Hill.

I got off the bus outside the Legislative Assembly (which has a more than fair share of scary people, and therefore doesn’t get a photo today), as it is quicker to walk home from there than the Civic Interchange. On my way home I passed through the Canberra Centre and noticed one of those little Canberra oddities, they hadn’t brought in the lightweight portable “long weekend trading hours” sign, despite it being nearly 4PM the day after the end of the long weekend. This poses a question…did they leave it out overnight or did the bring it out this morning?

After passing through the Canberra Centre I took a nice scenic photo looking up Ainslie Avenue towards Mount Ainslie.

I then went home and, as I was thirsty, made myself a cup of coffee which I forgot to photograph.

As for who had the better Kingswood photos, I think I got the better pictures of Mike Jeffreys, I think John B1_B5 got the better picture “Frame and Kingswood” picture, I think the rest are all so different that there is no way to compare them. He took some more detailed pictures of the car, whilst I took mainly overview pictures (and went on an insane marathon photo-taking-a-thon through Canberra).

You can see all of John B1_B5’s pictures on his website.

Well, that’s my story for today, and if a picture is worth a thousand words, then I have 42,488 words (2,488 written & 40,000 pictured) not including this sentence or the next.

Samuel

2 comments October 4th, 2005 at 09:47pm

The Man Who Really Lives In A Fridge

Regular readers of my blog would know that I once had a dream about people living in kitchen appliances, in this dream I lived in a fridge and the neighbours lived in a freezer, I then turned this story into an incredible work of fiction.

Well, now, for the second time in history, UK News Source Ananova receives a link from this website, as they have a story which just goes to show that truth really is stranger than fiction.

I’ll let them tell the story

Iceman can’t stand the heat

A Russian man who suffers from a rare disorder that means his body easily overheats has been divorced after moving to Siberia and turning his house into a fridge.

Vitaly Matyukhin, from Arkhangelsk, converted his new home into a fridge after being told by doctors that he was suffering from a “heat exchange disorder”.

The condition means he risks overheating if exposed to anything over five degrees Celsius, the Moskovsky Komsomolets daily reported.

But after Matyukhin converted his home his wife Olga and their son walked out, saying they could no longer stand the cold.

The condition started after Matyukhin was taken to hospital suffering from heat stroke, which according to doctors upset his body’s internal method of regulating his body temperature.

He said he now only ever leaves his house late at night in winter when the temperature drops below freezing.

His only real problem here is that, if the power goes out, he isn’t going to be able to reenact the events of The Fridge and delve into the power system to fix the problem, as there is a very good chance the teperature might rise above 5 degrees.

Samuel

October 4th, 2005 at 08:28am

Samuel’s Coffee-Cup-O-Meter

Monday:
4 x Standard Mug (1 Point Each) = 4 Points
Total = 4 Points

Samuel

October 4th, 2005 at 12:29am