Yesterday I mentioned that I had coffee at a coffee shop a few metres away from the Civic bus interchange. The coffee shop in question was Coffee At Helen’s which seems to have had a minor refurbishment since the last time I was there. Unfortunately the refurbishment seems to have brought with it a rather peculiar drop in the level of service.
Me: Could I get a flat white and a custard tart to have here please?
Shop Attendant (in an almost thick accent): Yes, would you like the cuppy mug please?
Unfortunately my brain, due to the accent of the shop attendant, heard one of the Cs as a P, which meant that what I heard was:
Shop Attendant (in an almost thick accent): Yes, would you like the puppy mug please?
Needless to say, I was perplexed.
Me: I’m sorry, what?
Shop Attendant (in an almost thick accent): Cuppy mug, cuppy mug please?
I thought about it for a moment and decided that the question must be whether I wanted the coffee in a cup or a mug.
Me (with some hesitation): A cup please?
(Awkward pause)
Shop Attendant (in an almost thick accent): Ahhh…..cup?
Me: Yes please.
Shop Attendant (somewhat confused): Yes yes, um OK yes.
(Shop attendant walks over to cash register and battles with it for a few moments)
Shop Attendant (in a not so thick accent): The forty-five please…err zero…um four fifty
Surprisingly after that exchange, the coffee and custard tart were quite good…and I didn’t have to drink out of a cuppy mug, which I can only assume is a dog’s bowl with a handle attached. I was almost expecting to end up with coffee on a plate and a custard tart in a cup, especially when the shop attendant took a plate to the coffee machine.
I'm sorry to hear that Scott Burgess from Water Rats is going through marital problems, but to the same extent it doesn't really bother me, just like almost every other "celebrity" story. I do hope that his problems are sorted out quickly.
To answer your question, the show ended on the seventh of August 2001. It was a great Australian drama and I was sorry to see it go, but it was also good that the producers were informed that Channel Nine wouldn't be renewing the program and they therefore had a chance to write a good conclusion. The show ran for six years.
Channel Nine have been repeating the show in the wee hours of the morning in recent years, and I believe that it will be on at some stage tomorrow morning. I try to watch it when Nine repeat it, and I'm slowly building up a collection of the DVDs of the series.
I also noticed that a couple weeks ago the New South Wales police named their newest boat the "Nemesis", which just happens to be the name of the main police boat on Water Rats. All they need now is a "Harpie" and a car named "Water Police 200" and they'll have the full set!
WIN News anchor Jessica Good happily showed off the perils of putting commas in the wrong place on the autocue during this evening’s pre-recorded weather update.
“Hello again isolated showers, [forecast continues]”
Whilst it was much more amusing than the correct “Hello again, isolated showers [forecast continues]”, unfortunately it sent me in to hysterical laughter and as such I haven’t the faintest clue what the weather forecast is. I don’t even know if “isolated showers” applies to us or some other region.
That said, if you know somebody named Isolated Showers, you might want to ask them to watch WIN Television for the rest of the night. Jessica Good seems to have a message for them.
All ten of them are marked police cars that were in the same place as me at various times between 2:30pm and 5pm today. I think that seeing four marked police cars per hour over a two and a half hour period, when I would normally be lucky to spot one marked police car per day, is as good a reason as any to be paranoid.
Where did I see the Police cars? I’m glad you asked:
Three of them passed me in rapid succession as I was walking down Ainslie Avenue shortly after 2:30pm.
Another one passed me on Northbourne Avenue (and turned on to the cross road that I was using the footpath of) as I was walking towards West Civic.
A fifth police car did much the same thing as the fourth one as I was heading back to the Civic bus interchange.
A sixth police car drove through the Civic bus interchange while I was having coffee at a coffee shop a few metres from the interchange.
A seventh police car passed the bus that I was travelling on as it headed down Athllon Drive towards Tuggeranong.
An eighth police car passed the same bus just as it was about to turn in to the Tuggeranong bus interchange.
The ninth and tenth police cars passed the bus I caught back to Civic as it was travelling along Athllon Drive, a few minutes before 5pm.
If you listen to the sound file you will note that my voicemail greeting contains my full name, so why the caller (by the name of Matt) decided that leaving a message on my voicemail would be the best way to ensure that their message got through to “Tony” is beyond me.
When I fist heard the message, my phone cut out during the word “Tony”, so I called Matt to ensure that the call wasn’t actually meant for me, which he confirmed…in fact he seemed to be able to work that out simply from my voice, perhaps he remember leaving the erroneous message on my voicemail, in which case I have to wonder why he didn’t hang up without leaving a message, did he really feel such a strong urge to make the flagfall on the call seem worthwhile?
I’m almost certainly going to be howled down for this post…I can see the usual suspects dismissing me as a fanboy already, but hear me out because there is actually some substance to this.
This year, from the perspective of somebody like me who happens to like the two commercial AM radio stations in this town and takes note of what frequency various radios are tuned to, has been fairly disappointing. Apart from my own, I’ve struggled to find a radio which isn’t tuned to an FM commercial station. I’m not sure where all of the 666 ABC Canberra listeners are though, because I’ve barely spotted any of them.
The last month of so has seen a rather interesting turnaround though. Mix 106.3 lost Mark Parton, one of their rather popular breakfast hosts (the rumours have been flying about that ever since then). It’s fair to say that Mark had a unique style…he was never my cup of tea but a lot of people liked him, and his replacement, FM 104.7 presenter Cam Sullings, is a very different presenter. The two stations, despite a few similarities, really attract two rather different and mostly incompatible demographics…replacing Parton with Sullings has had a predictably mixed reaction from the audience, sending some in search of something else. Some of those listeners will be back simply because they like the rest of the station’s format, but others who desperately dislike Sullings won’t be back…and if they dislike Sullings then they’re not likely to enjoy FM 104.7, which doesn’t leave them with a lot of other possibilities. In music radio it leaves them with 2CA and a couple community stations who want to emulate a lot of Mix’s format.
In the short term Mix aren’t likely to gain as many listeners as they lose due to the breakfast change, mainly due to the fact that people who are listening to other breakfast shows don’t have any incentive to change. In the long term the changes at Mix may work well for them, but in the short term, with a survey period only a couple weeks away, the timing isn’t great.
In my opinion, if any station is likely to gain from Mix’s change of breakfast lineup, it’s 2CA as they have the closest music format to Mix 106.3 of any Canberra station, although where listeners end up will depend on their individual music tastes and not which station has the closest match.
Moving on to a few practical examples. In recent weeks I have spent more time in other peoples’ vehicles (be they private or public) than I have done in a very long time. With the exception of one bus driver who was listening to ABC NewsRadio, another who was listening to FM 104.7 and one who didn’t like the radio at all, all of the bus drivers (the number in this category would be close to twelve) have been listening to 2CA and 2CC. I’ve noted that the Steve Price Morning Show on 2CC is particularly popular among Canberra’s bus drivers, and it seems to be difficult to catch a bus between 9am and midday and not hear Price’s voice emanating from a speaker.
I also never thought I’d see the day (I was going to use the phrase “live to see the day”, but given recent posts on this blog, it may convey the wrong message) when people on The RiotACT would write about how much they enjoy listening to 2CC’s breakfast host Mike Jeffreys, and how 2CA’s playlist is enjoyable. (See the comments on http://the-riotact.com/?p=7932, http://the-riotact.com/?p=7831 and http://the-riotact.com/?p=7849). I was also surprised to see a YouTube video of a 2CC program end up on The RiotACT. For such a long time RiotACT has had a habit of attracting an awful lot of 666 ABC Canberra listeners…perhaps that’s the real reason for former (and now once again) RiotACT editor Johnboy returning to Canberra and the site, he wants to steer them all back to the ABC.
Another example of good signs for the commercial AM stations in Dickson Seafoods, (not surprisingly, a seafood shop in Dickson). For as long as I’ve been frequenting there (late 2004) they have been a Mix 106.3 shop. Their radio has been virtually araldited to Mix 106.3. Imagine my surprise yesterday when I walked in and heard a voiceover from Ron E. Sparks informing me that I was listening to 1053 2CA. I didn’t probe the staff on why they changed station, but it did occur to me that, considering the number of students from Daramalan College and Dickson College who frequent the store, this change of station is a mini-coup for 2CA.
A few paragraphs ago I mentioned that the next radio ratings survey period is about to start. It runs from August 3 to August 30, which means that each calendar week of the survey period contains the Beijing Olympic Games. There are only two stations in Canberra with the broadcast rights to the Games, 2CC and 666 ABC Canberra. The news services of both stations (which also serve 2CA and the ABC network respectively) have access to the Olympic broadcast material, but the FM commercial stations are lumped with the usual onerous broadcast restrictions for non-rights-holders. Whilst they are allowed to report scores and results, they have to deal with some pretty hefty restrictions on what else they can broadcast.
2CC and the ABC on the other hand have full access to commentary and pretty much whatever else they want from the games, which will make their news services much more appealing, not to mention the fact that the stations will be the place people will turn to for coverage of the games in many vehicles and offices around the city. This survey will be skewed in the favour of 2CC (and 2CA to a lesser extent due to their access to news and being the only music station near an Olympic broadcaster on the dial) and the ABC, and because of the way radio ratings work in Canberra, that skewing in favour of 2CC, 2CA and the ABC will be “official” until at least February next year, probably later. When you consider that the ABC don’t accept advertising, the only people to truly benefit from the skewing of this survey are 2CC and 2CA, and that of course will be at the expense of Mix 106.3 and FM 104.7 who make up the rest of Canberra’s commercial radio market.
If 2CC and 2CA can not only retain listeners after the Beijing Olympics but also use the extra advertising revenue effectively, then the games could be precisely the lift they need to be a very strong and effective competition against Mix 106.3 and FM 104.7
The next few months in Canberra’s radio landscape could be very interesting indeed.
Stories like this one make me about as sure as I can be that I don’t ever want to work in a petrol station or convenience store, especially overnight.
Police are searching for a man who robbed a Brisbane service station armed with a fluorescent light bulb.
The offender, who’s been described as chubby, walked into the Shell service station at Breakfast Creek in Brisbane’s north about 4.45am (AEST) today [Monday] and demanded money, police said.
He used the fluorescent light tube to threaten a female worker, before fleeing the scene on foot with a sum of cash.
He is described by police as caucasian, about 180cm tall with a chubby build and blue eyes.
He was wearing a singlet with white stripes down the sides, shorts, white sports shoes and a dark balaclava at the time of the robbery.
I would imagine that getting whacked over the head with a fluorescent lightbulb would be quite painful and I can see why it would be an effective “scary weapon” for use in an armed robbery…but it really leads to the question of what can’t be used for that purpose?
If I was working in a petrol station overnight, I think I’d have a nervous breakdown within a week as I would end up looking at everyone who entered the store with some suspicion…not just because the bag that they’re carrying might be filled with lead and could be used to injure me, but because they might be concealing almost anything potentially painful under their clothing.
Of course, they don’t even have to conceal a weapon, let alone have one:
Police are appealing for public assistance in relation to an armed robbery at Campsie overnight.
About 7pm the victim, a 26-year-old Campsie man was walking along South Parade talking on his mobile phone when he was approached from behind by two youths.
One of the youths punched the victim to the head area and he dropped his phone and a sum of cash which one of the youths picked up.
Perhaps I’m just naturally paranoid…a number of people have told me so over the years. All I can say is that with lunatics roaming the streets wielding fluorescent lightbulbs and sums of money from petrol stations, and more lunatics punching people in the head, why wouldn’t you be paranoid?
Yesterday I wrote a rather long blog post titled “So, a week is gone, and another one is here“. Since then I have received a handful of emails from people who were concerned by my references to suicide in that post.
Firstly, I should point out that I have no intention of committing suicide. Admittedly, people who have tried to commit suicide at least once are statistically more likely to try again than those who haven’t tried at all, but I don’t actually want to try again. I have a number of reasons for that, but I think the memory of how ill I made myself and how lousy I felt afterwards will be enough to dissuade me for quite a while.
Secondly, yesterday’s blog post should have contained at least three more paragraphs to spell this out. I decided not to include them because I got stuck whilst writing the second of those paragraphs, couldn’t decide exactly what I wanted to write, and came to the conclusion that they weren’t really on-topic anyway.
The basic gist of the paragraphs was that a few weeks ago a friend of mine wrote a rather long blog post which reminded me slightly of what I had written. It was basically a summary of where they believed they were in life, why they weren’t happy with their position, and what they thought they needed to do in order to move on. When I read it, I became concerned that they were close to suicide. It turns out that they weren’t, but I was concerned anyway.
Because my blog post reminded me of their blog post (although they didn’t actually mention suicide in their blog post), I came to the conclusion that people reading my blog post may become concerned for my welfare, even though I didn’t intend on making any rash decisions, or intend on alarming anyone.
It looks like I was right. I alarmed a few people, and all because I couldn’t make a few extra paragraphs make sense.
I’m sorry if I concerned you; that wasn’t my intention and I want to make it clear that you have no need to be concerned.
I should also thank the people who were concerned enough to write to me. It is very moving to know that there are people out there who, even though in reality they barely know me, are concerned enough about my well-being to write to me and offer their support. Thank you.
In a way, I’m glad that I couldn’t work out what to do with those paragraphs yesterday. If I had worked it out, I wouldn’t have seen one of the better sides of human nature, which is something I think I really needed to see.
I was watching the replay of the Western Bulldogs’ victory over the Melbourne Demons on Prime Television in the early hours of this morning, and was quite amused by Dennis Cometti’s description of one of the Melbourne players:
He’s built like a fire hydrant, which is good unless you’re playing the ‘dogs
Next week the Bulldogs are up against competition leaders Geelong and I’m going to be out of town at the time. 2EC are the 3AW Football relay station near Wollongong, covering much of the South Coast on four frequencies. It looks like I’ll either be delaying my return to Canberra or enjoying a lengthy detour so that I can hear the full match, as called by Rex Hunt and Dennis Cometti.
(Oh, and congratulations Dennis, your amusing quote is the reason for the two-thousand-three-hundredth post on Samuel’s Blog)
And finally it sinks in, it’s a Monday morning, and for the first time that I can remember in a very very long time, I’m not at the beck and call of somebody else. Yes that is correct, I am unemployed.
The duration of this unemployment is yet to be decided, but will probably be in the order of weeks, although a handful of people have the power to make it less and if they decide to do so then I will be happy with that, but otherwise I will enjoy my few weeks of relative freedom.
The last time I took any proper leave from work was in October last year when I took two weeks off, one of which I spent in Sydney. It looks like I’ve built up a reasonable leave balance since then and I’ll be quite happily living off the payout from that for a few weeks.
For those of you who aren’t aware, I resigned from AussieHQ about a month and a half ago. Originally I was going to finish up on Friday June 13, but this date was pushed back by mutual agreement and I finished up on Friday July 11 instead, the last couple weeks of which I have spent working from home, which is rather fortunate considering my current lack of personal motorised transport.
Last week was somewhat quieter than usual on this blog due to my week being somewhat more hectic than usual. On top of working, I had half a dozen personal administrative matters to sort out, and I spent most of Monday and Tuesday in bed with food poisoning…well, that’s technically accurate, but not the full story.
“Food Poisoning” is definitely technically accurate, after all I ingested something which didn’t agree with my body and I became quite ill as a result, the full story isn’t quite as innocent though. If we go back to the early hours of Monday last week, everything “just got to me” and I hit what I would describe as being my most depressed state yet. I have previously reached the point of writing a suicide note and scheduling it to appear here a few hours later, only to eventually come to my senses and delete the note. On Monday I didn’t write a note, I just decided that taking 2600% of my daily dose of anti-depressants would do the job…I was wrong. Within half an hour I was very sick and I spent the better part of the next two days in a “zonked” state, clearly a large dose of the drug made its way in to my bloodstream before my body could deal with it, and it had quite an effect.
Thankfully the work I needed to do on Monday and Tuesday didn’t require an awful lot of concentration and I was able to take care of it by sitting in bed with my laptop.
To answer the obvious questions, yes I feel better (both physically and mentally) now, and no, I don’t want to do that again. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if that failed suicide attempt turns me off trying for a very very long time. Apart from being zonked for a while, I had an utterly awful taste stuck in my mouth for about four days. To understand the taste, imagine chewing any random medication you happen to have, multiply the awfulness of the taste by about three hundred, add the taste of vomiting, and there you have it, an absolutely awful taste for four days, and a really really bad memory for life.
Of course, I’m happy that I’m over that, and I feel much better now knowing that I’m not actually compelled to do anything at this very moment by virtue of employment. I could have breakfast now, or this afternoon, or just skip breakfast completely, sleep until midday, have lunch and the rest of the day’s meals in their normal sequence, and have breakfast before I next go to sleep. Regardless of what I do, nobody is actually waiting for me to do something for them or turn up somewhere, and I’m not going to get an earful and be disciplined for not doing such.
It’s not that I don’t like work…it’s just that I pretty much lost interest in the job I as doing, and I’m happy to put it behind me. Whilst it was nice to know that it was almost over, it’s much nicer to know that it actually is over.
With things looking up from a work (or lack thereof) perspective, and with me looking forward to taking a break for a few weeks, I’m pleased to say that things are also looking good from a personal transport perspective. I’ll be back on the road on Saturday afternoon, after which I’ll be in a much better position to spend a bit of time out of Canberra, and take care of a few projects and trips I’ve been putting off for some time.
That reminds me. I was planning on starting a new podcast this month. The plan was for a weekly online talkback program recorded live and released as a podcast. I haven’t had any time to deal with my plans for that lately, so I don’t know if it will actually happen this month, but it’s coming and is back near the top of my priority list.
I’ve got a lot to do, and a good amount of time in which to do it. This should be a good few weeks.
This week the award goes to The Veronicas, and the feature song is Hook Me Up. I first heard this song on 2CC when Stuart Bocking played it after interviewing the band…it sounded absolutely awful on AM radio, which struck me as a bit odd because most of the music I like sounds great on AM radio. This song, whilst not one of them, sounds quite good as purchased from iTunes.
It is also nice to find a band who release their music on YouTube and allow embedding of it. It makes my job a lot easier, and works well as a promotional tool for them. If only I could say the same for Universal Music who seem to think that allowing embedding of their music will cause the planet to turn in to a bowl of cereal.
Incidentally, this song sounds better in stereo than it does in mono. The sound on the YouTube video doesn’t quite do it justice.
I’m tired of my life
I feel so in between
I’m sick of all my friends, girls can be so mean
I feel like throwin’ out everything I wear
I’m startin’ over new
Coz I’m not even there
Sometimes (sometimes)
I wanna get away some place
But I don’t wanna stay too long
Sometimes (sometimes)
I wanna brand new day
Try to fit in where I don’t belong
Hooooooooook
Hook me up
I wanna feel the rain in my hair
Hooooooooook
Hook me up
Where should we go I don’t even care
Anywhere is good enough
Hook me up
Hook me up
I like the lights turned out
The sound of closing doors
I’m not like other girls
Who always feel so sure
Of everything they are
Of what they’re gonna be
Sometimes I’m just a girl
Stuck inside of me; of me
Sometimes (sometimes)
I wanna disappear some place
But I don’t wanna stay too long
Sometimes (sometimes)
I’m feelin’ so alone (I’m feelin’ so alone)
Tryin’ to fit in where I don’t belong
Hooooooooook
Hook me up
I wanna feel the rain in my hair
Hooooooooook
Hook me up
Where should we go I don’t even care
Anywhere is good enough
Hook me up
Hook me up
Anywhere is good enough
Hook me up
Their gonna crash and burn
I’m gonna find a way
Nothin’ left to say
Hooooooooook
Hook me up
I wanna feel the rain in my hair
Hooooooooook
Hook me up
Where should we go I don’t even care (I don’t even care)
Hooooooooook
Hook me up
I wanna feel the rain in my hair
Hooooooooook
Hook me up
Where should we go I don’t even care (I don’t even care)
Anywhere is good enough
Hook me up
Hook me up
Hook me up
2CC’s new website was launched earlier this week, almost in conjunction with the updates station imaging that I was expecting but couldn’t say anything about. Unfortunately I haven’t had a chance to write anything about either of these things this week, but I will do shortly.
Anyway, today for a bit of fun, Mike Welsh is running a competition, asking people to submit a fabricated history of him. The reason for this is that a listener suggested that the presenter profiles should have a bit more biographical information, and Mike decided that it would be more fun to have his listeners invent a biography.
I submitted an entry earlier this hour, purely for fun:
The history of Mike Welsh
Mike Welsh was born somewhere in remote Tasmanian bushland during the mid-20th century, in what is rumoured to have been the result of immaculate conception. To this day, scientists have been unable to pinpoint the exact location of the birth, but have narrowed the area to a set of crop circles which spell “2cc”.
Mike’s school life was made difficult by his natural tendency to talk a lot. One day in 1967, Mike’s teacher Mrs. Arquette Polonium told him to go outside until he stopped talking, however Mike did not stop talking and started terrorising the entire state with his incessant chatter. The Tasmanian government, in a desperate effort to rid their state of this menace, set fire to the state, a move which forced Mike to swim to mainland Australia.
Mike has been taking over radio stations across the country since then, with 2CC the latest station to be called “the home of Mike Welsh”.
When Mike isn’t busy giving the transmitter grief, he can be found writing songs about talking, and producing documentaries about the people who talk to him.
If you think you can out-talk 2CC’s smallest big-mouth Mike Welsh, you are invited to call him on the open line…but be warned, if you get him talking, there is no way to make him stop!
Incidentally, I noticed that one of 2CC’s new promos mentions that it is the “home of the Mike Jeffreys breakfast program” and the rest of the day’s lineup through to Stuart Bocking. I’ve always wondered about this phrase of a station being the home of someone…it makes it sound like they live in the studio. I like the phrase, probably because it always brings a smile to my face. I suppose that’s one way to make sure that the message sticks in my head!
This week the award goes to Carly Simon for a song which only recently made it on to the waiting list (currently containing 86 songs including this one) when Tim Webster reminded me of the song by playing it a week or so ago.
The song is “You’re So Vain”.
Son of a gun
You walked into the party like you were walking onto a yacht
Your hat strategically dipped below one eye
Your scarf it was apricot
You had one eye in the mirror as you watched yourself gavotte
And all the girls dreamed that they’d be your partner
They’d be your partner, and…
You’re so vain
You probably think this song is about you
You’re so vain (you’re so vain)
I’ll bet you think this song is about you
Don’t you? Don’t you?
You had me several years ago when I was still quite naive
Well you said that we made such a pretty pair
And that you would never leave
But you gave away the things you loved and one of them was me
I had some dreams, they were clouds in my coffee
Clouds in my coffee, and…
You’re so vain
You probably think this song is about you
You’re so vain (you’re so vain)
I’ll bet you think this song is about you
Don’t you? Don’t you? Don’t you?
I had some dreams they were clouds in my coffee
Clouds in my coffee, and…
You’re so vain
You probably think this song is about you
You’re so vain (you’re so vain)
I’ll bet you think this song is about you
Don’t you? Don’t you?
Well I hear you went up to Saratoga and your horse naturally won
Then you flew your lear jet up to Nova Scotia
To see the total eclipse of the sun
Well you’re where you should be all the time
And when you’re not you’re with
Some underworld spy or the wife of a close friend
Wife of a close friend, and…
You’re so vain
You probably think this song is about you
You’re so vain (so vain)
I’ll bet you think this song is about you
Don’t you? Don’t you? Don’t you?
You’re so vain
You probably think this song is about you
You’re so vain
You probably think this song is about you
You’re so vain
You probably think this song is about you