Posts filed under 'Canberra Stories'
Some say it is unlucky, but for me it just turned me into an idiot magnet…
Firstly, seeing as it was just after midnight when I was fiddling with Windows & CUPS, I can say that the first idiots I ran into were Microsoft, the lovely people who have a default setting in their CUPS server which wants Internet Explorer authentication. Considering that the whole point of CUPS is OS independent printer support, and that the ONLY OS which has Internet Explorer nowadays is Windows, this has to be one of the most ridiculous setting I have seen yet.
Next Idiots, ACTION (Yea, I know, I’m beating the ACTION Rant drum again), not the drivers, just the administrators. I was at my bus stop at 8:30, a whole 5 minutes before my bus was due, but did it turn up? Of course not…but I stayed at that bus stop anyway because a teacher lives nearby and drives past there in the morning, and would be happy to give me a lift…unfortunately she had already gone, but I didn’t know that, so I waited for her or the next “38” bus. The 38 is due before the 36, so there was no point walking down the street to the other bus stop where I could catch a 36 or a 38, because that would eliminate the “get a lift” possibility…but lo and behold, the 36 came nearly 10 minutes early, and I was left to watch it go around the corner. Eventually the next 38 came…but it was too late to get to Dickson College at 8:50 to do what I wanted to do, and I was late for my 9am class.
My day at Dickson College was filled with people stepping out in front of me, cutting me off, and in general, blocking my walking path…thanks, I really needed that
Idiot number three, Dinal (Yes Dinal, it is you!). I am hoping that, other than Microsoft employees, there aren’t more people like Dinal who think that Internet Explorer is better than Firefox…what kind of idiot thinks that a major-security-risk-integrated
-into-most-disk-access-and-other-system-functions-bloatware-browser is better than Firefox. Internet Explorer integrates with Windows Explorer far too much, which is half the reason why it has so many flaws (it is also badly written, but that’s another story for another day). Firefox doesn’t integrate with Windows Explorer, and doesn’t suffer the same problems, I’m not saying it doesn’t have some problems, and I’m not saying it doesn’t have compatibility issues with some websites, but in general it is the better browser. I’m sure somebody is going to point out the obvious similarity in Linux, KDE and Konqueror, so let me say this: Yes, Konqueror is the explorer type app in KDE, however it is a poor excuse for a web browser, and I avoid it with as many teeth as possible…I use firefox on Linux, and I’m not a fan of KDE…I much prefer GNOME.
I had a bit of a break from idiots, I spent two hours in the library (good thing I was working, that way I didn’t have to attend an assembly filled with idiots playing loud “music” and apparently “dancing”), then I had a class, and went into Civic to await a friend’s arrival. This waiting period proved interesting:
To start with, more people blocking my walking path for no good reason…it just so happens that I walk faster than most people, and stepping out in front of me is very annoying, but it doesn’t stop most people from doing it anyway.
I went to sit down on a seat to wait for the person’s arrival, but just before I could sit down, somebody jumped in the way and sat down instead, so I sat on a different seat. Incidentally, this “somebody” was only seated for 30 seconds…hardly seems worth the bother does it?
While I was sitting down, two people walked past and nearly sat on me….the day keeps getting better doesn’t it?
The person I was waiting for arrived on time, and I got on the bus with them, naturally, somebody had taken my favourite seat 20 seconds before me, so I sat down elsewhere and moved onto my favourite seat when it was vacated.
On the way back was no better, firstly I was treated as a bag rest by someone…they just plonked their bag right on top of me!! At an interchange, an old woman got on with a trolley overflowing with plastic bags…the bus was already crowded without that…and it seemed quite awkward for her to manoeuvre it…her trying to get off the bus with it was worse though. The other amazingly dumb idiot was just nuts. They had headphones, but they were wearing them around their neck, not on their ears, the headphones were also blaring…making it impossible to hear the driver’s radio, which is a pity because I missed some good bits, I think the driver had difficulty hearing the radio over these headphones at time as well.
After getting off the bus, I sat down and got out my thermos, poured my coffee into my linux.conf.au mug, and had my coffee. This was, however, interrupted by another idiot, this one happened to be from my college, and they recognised me, so they came over and started asking me strange questions. “How old are you?” “What year are you in?” “What year were you in during 1990?” etc…this lasted about two minutes, after which they just walked off. Why did I put up with this? Quite simply because I know that they are less mentally capable than most, and have a habit of doing this.
That was Friday the 13th.
Samuel
May 14th, 2005 at 12:13am
Well, they’ve done it again, once again ACTION have made a complete mess of a change to their service.
ACTION have just recently changed their timetables. The good news is that they finally accounted for the extra time it takes the Buses to get through the Canberra Centre bus stop, the bad news is that they forgot that it takes longer to get along Bullumbir Street than Bunda Street and haven’t accounted for that…so the buses are still late.
ACTION also modified the morning services of the 38 bus in a very bizzare way. Previously the 38 was running at 8:25, 8:40 & 8:53 along Ainslie Avenue, and if I managed to miss the 8:53, I could catch a 36 at 8:55ish. The new arrangement sees two 38’s arriving around 8:30 (they both arrive at the same time due to the traffic light delays on Bullumbir Street) and there isn’t another one until 8:55 (which never arrives until 9:00 or later). The 36 timetable has also been modified in such a way that it is earlie than the 8:30 buses, and later than the 8:55 bus.
My grumble here is that the 38 used to be relatively predictable, it was every 15 minutes, and I could catch a 36 if I missed the 38. Now due to the insanity of the new bus timetable, I have to be ready for the bus before 8:30 (previously 8:40 or 8:53 would be acceptable), or I will not be able to catch one until at least 9am, which makes me rather late.
I do have a theory about this bus timetable change. ACTION knew that I catch a 38 (or 36) from Ainslie avenue in the morning to get to Dickson College. They knew this, because I was a person who made a lot of noise about safety issues at the Canberra Centre bus stop, most of which remain unaddressed, and I eventually got tired of making noise after it became clear that they had no intention of ever doing anything to fix the problem. I could just be paranoid, but there is a chance that ACTION have decided that I am a nuisance, and therefore don’t deserve a decent bus service. I can see no other such bizzare changes to other timetables in Canberra, only the Ainslie Avenue routes. If ACTION think that it was a good idea to do this, they should expect some angry correspondence. I am certain that they will do nothing to fix the problems, but they do deserve an amount of angry noise.
On the plus side, ACTION have moved their fleet of horrible new green buses over to the 300 series intertown buses, meaning that I don’t have to catch them. Those things were never designed for suburban roads, they are too low to the ground, and have very little suspension. They are still pretty dreadful on the major roads, but at least they don’t have to rattle, clatter & bang as much. The Green buses continue to service the 34 (Hospital run).
Naturally ACTION have taken their policy of “It doesn’t work, so we’ll give it to everyone” and applied it to the Weston Creek area services. They were designed to make the buses act like Taxi’s at night. People would ring the ACTION phone number and say that they wanted to catch a bus from wherever they were. This service simply wasn’t working in Weston Creek, some people were waiting more than an hour for a bus. ACTION in their infinite wisdom have decided that this is a great system and expanded it to all of Canberra (except certain parts of Yarrulumla, which currently have high nightime patronage of buses) and called it Flexibus. “Buses are not Taxi’s” is my quote, if you need to get somewhere after 7PM, get a lift or ring a Taxi, you’ll be waiting all night for a Flexibus.
Samuel
April 27th, 2005 at 07:21pm
I’ve discussed this numerous times on Google Groups, so I’ll make it brief. Thankyou to 2CA for making it possible to hear live AFL coverage on a regular basis in Canberra. They have cornered the market by providing the *only* commercial radio AFL coverage in Canberra, and they also are the only place that are regular with the coverage. The ABC do cover it, but they are not regular, they shuffle it over to News Radio whenever they take the NRL, and often News Radio just cut into other programs with it, and provide no information about when it will be on. 2CA are regular, they do Friday night from 7PM, Saturday & Sunday from Midday, and other special days whenever they happen.
I will be writing a letter to 2CA about this shortly.
Samuel
April 26th, 2005 at 07:35pm
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