I’m heading back to Canberra this afternoon and should arrive at some stage tonight. At this stage I intend on taking the longer and more scenic route via Echuca and Albury, although that may change.
It may interest you to know that on Monday evening I decided to drive to Echuca and ended up buying petrol (at 111.9 cents per litre, three cents cheaper than in Deniliquin) while I was there. 57.63 litres of the stuff to be precise. It had been exactly 660KM since I had last filled the tank, and apart from a small amount of city or town based driving as I left Canberra, drove through towns and a small trip in Deniliquin, it was all highway driving.
57.63 litres to travel 660KM works out at 11.452368558042686100989068193649 kilometres per litre.
I will be topping up again before leaving Deniliquin, so it will be interesting to see if I am able to get back to Canberra on one tank of petrol if I take the longer route via Echuca and Albury which is about 663KM or 57.89 litres based on the above calculation. If the calculation is accurate, then I shouldn’t have any problems getting back to Canberra on a single tank of petrol.
And for those of you who are wondering, yes this does mean that I will be back on 1WAY FM’s breakfast show tomorrow morning.
Samuel
December 31st, 2008 at 11:04am
Some days detectives just get all the luck:
A 40-year-old Chicago area man allegedly robbed a Chicago bank on Friday using a threatening note written on the back of his own pay slip, which was printed with his name and home address.
Thomas Infante of Cary, Illinois, walked into a Fifth Third Bank at 5.50pm local time and handed a teller a note that read “Be Quick Be Quit (sic). Give your cash or I’ll shoot,” according to an FBI affidavit filed on Monday. The teller gave the man about $US400.
The robber left behind his demand note, written on a torn half of the pay slip.
Investigators found the other half of the note – with Infante’s name and home address – outside the bank’s front doors.
The pay stub showed Infante was paid $US165.99 by Jewel Food Stores on October 23, according to the FBI.
“It’s fairly unusual that we see something that specifically stupid,” said FBI spokesman Ross Rice.
“But overall, we see a lot of strange bank robberies.”
The bank teller described the robber as a man in his late 30s with brown eyes and no front teeth.
Investigators learned Infante may have been living at a home less than two blocks from the bank. They interviewed his brother there, who said Infante had been there earlier and had left a brown jacket behind – the same one seen in a security videotape of the robbery, according to the FBI affidavit.
His brother, shown a photograph taken from the bank security video, also identified him as the robber.
Infante was arrested at his Cary home and later admitted to the robbery, according to the FBI affidavit.
Not exactly the most inspired bank robbery in history. Surely if he wanted to rob bank customers of $400 he could have just taken up a job as a bank executive and introduced a new fee. He might have managed to get away with it then, although with his writing skills he may have created a “reverse fee” where every customer gets $400…hmmm, who runs St. George Bank and how do I make them hire this bloke?
Samuel
December 31st, 2008 at 07:54am
I certainly hope it’s a December version of April Fools Day, because this story which I heard on the 5am 2UE news, seemingly from The Daily Telegraph, is just bizarre.
TEENAGERS caught with fake identification will be forced to spend an extra six months on their P-plates.
The move comes as police warn of a thriving blackmarket in fraudulent IDs, with students paying up to $80 for professional-quality altered driver’s licences.
To be introduced early next year, police will pass on offenders’ details to the Roads and Traffic Authority and those already on their provisional plates will have the additional six months automatically added.
It will take their minimum time spent on P-plates to 3½ years.
Uh huh, and what about those who don’t have a licence?
Gaming and Racing Minister Kevin Greene said the penalties would be retrospective, meaning youngsters caught and who are unlicensed will still be forced to spend the extra time on their provisional licences.
Apparently it removes the burden from parents…apparently being responsible for people under the age adulthood is a bad thing.
It is also in response to parents bailing out their children by paying the existing $620 fine on their behalf.
“We’re introducing this sanction because P-platers to be punished for using fake IDs risking your driver’s licence strikes a chord with young people,” Mr Greene said.
“Imposing a fine which might cause some fleeting pain – or even none at all if parents are paying it – but having to stay on your P-plates well after all your mates are on their full licence might just get the message through.”
If they’re so serious about making sure that parents aren’t inconvenienced, why not just make it illegal for parents to pay the fine, with some awful penalty if they are proven to have done so.
I’m not sure that referreing to the great deterrent of our legal system, the fine, as “fleeting pain” was such a good idea either.
All that said, it looks like people who never get a licence, and quite possibly those who move interstate, will never have to deal with the extra half a year of a provisional licence. Could this be a novel approach to curing Sydney’s traffic problems?
Samuel
December 31st, 2008 at 05:20am