danny’s space

Hooray. Commuters are going to be charged extra for fewer trains that run slower. Cityrail alleges that more of its services are running on time - this isn’t hard considering that they are running much fewer trains, and have changed the definition for on-time-running from 3 minutes to 5 minutes. Genius. So in effect, from July 2, commuters will be paying for fewer trains, spun by Cityrail to look like efficient on-time services. What a joke.

What’s worse is that the ‘independent’ pricing tribunal has agreed with Cityrail that its services are running more on time. Why don’t they define on-time running to plus/minus 30 minutes - then nearly all of their services will be on time, and they can justify another price hike. I’m sure the people running the independent pricing tribunal don’t have to put up with the train system and get taxpayer funded cars and petrol.

How many cityrail personnel does it take to close a train door? 6 apparently, if the display this arvo at Central was anything to go buy. Amidst much swearing from the guard, and kicking from a Central staff member, and a few other official-looking dudes, the train finally chugged off adorned with a door-not-operational sticker.

In other news, Taiwan’s done it again. It’s hit the headlines with another display of respectable parliament antics.

All thanks to a crazy State Transit bus driver.

The bus arrives at Town Hall outside Woolies at 8:30, the electronic sign at the front of the bus showing gibberish, but enough to discern the bus number, 461. A few people get on, and the bus is off.

After running numerous yellows and even a few reds (as good bus drivers do, you know, to get people to where they need to be on time) and driving through George Street with reckless abandon, a small white hatchback honks at the bus driver for cutting into the hatch’s lane after coming out from a bus stop. As you do.

Taking revenge, the bus driver nearly side swipes the hatch, and stops at a red (wow) with a hair’s breadth between the side of the bus and the side mirror of the hatch. If that wasn’t enough, the bus bellows out a honk before setting off once the lights hit green, leaving the hatch in its wake.

Then comes Railway Square, at around 8:35. Stops at the wrong stand, which I guess was warranted since there were too many buses piled up at the right stand, and everyone runs for the bus with confused expressions on their faces. As the last 2 passengers are getting on, the doors close and the bus drives off. And while navigating traffic on Parramatta Road and driving at the speed of everyone else, the driver fumbles around in his change tray for a passenger who stupidly didn’t buy a TravelTen. But there’s another passenger waiting in the no standing area after this first guy, and the driver finally gets the ticket to her 3 stops after she got on.

A few more yellows/reds, and thanks to no-one getting off (since the bus didn’t really stop for anyone even when they wanted), the bus got to the footbridge in record time.

Hey, it works for me. But I’m sure this is nothing compared to what other people have experienced.

Public transport stories don’t end there. Yesterday afternoon on the train home, this couple got on. The guy looked like he was just out of Long Bay, and the girl, well, I don’t know. A bunch of private school kids thought they’d be cute (or totally idiotic) and dare a friend to talk to this guy and ask how he was going and ask him for a cigarette (or something). So the kid goes up to Long Bay and has a bit of a chat, after which Long Bay gets fired up and screams at the kid. The kid cowers and runs away up the stairs, and Long Bay follows. Murmurs are heard, and Long Bay returns to sit down. After a few seconds, Long Bay screams at the kid at the top of his voice, and plays peekaboo disturbingly with the kid. Then he launches up the stairs again, takes his shirt off, reveals his well tattooed body, and throws his t-shirt down the stairs into his girl’s face. After a bit of a hustle and threats of bashing (Long Bay says to the kid, “I just got out of Long Bay”), another passenger gets up and fends for the kid who was no doubt cowering in the corner - I couldn’t see from my angle. The other private school boys promptly exit the carriage wearing smug smiles, leaving their friend to soil himself. After a bit of a chat between the two adults, Long Bay sits back down with his shirt off, and pulls out a ciggie, loudly asking the people in the carriage if they minded him lighting up. A woman puts up her hand, and he nods, seemingly respecting her choice. He playingly lights up anyway, but the ciggie actually catches alight, and he starts puffing, filling the carriage with noxious fumes. Thankfully it was nearly Gordon so I could get off. Another guy in a sling goes to tell the Japanese guard about Long Bay, and after a bit of a discussion everything was fine. I think.

Wishing everyone a merry Christmas (I hope I can get this post done before midnight to make it legitimate… stupid WordPress bug making some posts with a particular combination of characters not post properly making me lose everything I had typed…)

What’s the reason for the season? What is Christmas all about? Contrary to popular belief it’s not about Santa or snowmen or reindeer or gifts, just like Easter isn’t about chocolate bunnies. Pastor Andrew has written something on his blog about this which I think is pretty useful. Christmas is all about the dude whose name gets abbreviated to the X in Xmas - that is, Christ. Christmas is about the most thoughtfun, necessary and undeserved gift that was ever given and ever will be given in human history. Christmas is Jesus Christ’s birthday - the day that God sent his only Son down to earth, setting in motion a 33-year course of events that would end in the execution of a Jewish carpenter, the miraculous, historically-documented resurrection of this man, and the salvation of humanity.

Pastor Andrew gave us a good sermon today about Christmas. Santa apparently knows if kids have been bad or good, and the good kids receive the presents. I reckon God also knows about this, but the difference between Santa and God (apart from the red costume) is that God gives presents to the bad kids. By this I mean that even though people are fundamentally godless and sometimes downright ‘bad’ (come on, admit it, you’ve known this all along), God loves us so much that he looks past our rejection of him, and sends his Son to deliver us from evil and to bring us back to him. It’s like Ground Force doing a garden makeover on a terrorist’s backyard. The undeserving (i.e. humanity) get the free gift (i.e. Christ). Do you know the reason for the season?

In other news, I’ve eaten way too much over the last few days. Chris’ Christmas party was, as usual with anything he hosts, full of tasty food and I basically had two servings (there was more than enough to go around). The food was great, the fellowship was fantastic, and I was beaten at effectively every game we played like poker, ping pong and SingStar.

And then last night Sara’s family got together with a few family friends from church (the Wu’s, Lai’s, Chu’s) to have a nice Christmas eve dinner at her place. I was invited as well which was nice of them. We had great food (again), which I can’t describe because my culinary vocabulary is severely lacking. Apart from the tasty sausages, the seaweed, oysters (which I normally don’t like but the ones they had were okay), sashimi, squid, etc, the best part of the night was undoubtedly the people. I never realised how great these family friend get-togethers really were. Even though I was the odd one out (being the only representative from my family), the vibe of the night was fantastic - parents chatting together over food, wine and some pool, and the kids hanging out playing foosball, mahjong, chatting and watching an interesting honkie romantic comedy about a sadistic girl. I re-learnt how to play mahjong, which must have been a frustrating experience for my tutor, Sara. But the whole night was great, such a good feel to it - I wonder if everyone being Christian had anything to do with it. It just felt like we were all one big family - and I guess we are. Thanks be to God for providing us with so much.

Today (Sunday) after church we wanted to go to Macquarie to watch a movie. But being Christmas, and being Sunday, we should have figured that everything was closed. Literally everything. Most of the entries/exits at Macquarie were securely sealed, including ramps to/from the carparks. This made for interesting driving because we went down the exit ramp to Waterloo Rd only to find out that it was shut, and had to reverse all the way back up, and drive into a few no-entry areas to get out again, passing a metal gate that looked like it had been rammed open. We ended up eating at Eastwood (which was alive with Asians, surprise surprise) and then bumming at Sara’s place. Another fun day.

Tomorrow need to do some preparation for biology olympiad teaching. I need to re-learn basic biology like what covalent bonds and cells are. Proves to be interesting. Looking forward to a day of ‘bludging’ at home though.

So to all, season’s greetings! Hope you’ve all had a safe, enjoyable and meaningful Christmas.

Thought 5: HP devices are getting cooler and cooler. HP multifunction printer/scanner/copier/faxes are totally cool. They even come with free ink (well, to be expected since you can’t really print anything without it), free photo paper, a cool resealable photo paper storage bag (which I think is the best bit), etc etc. The installation went smoothly, even a banana could set it up. Included HP software looks pretty useful on first glance. Plus $100 cash back, what a deal. The black print speed is super quick. Only gripe so far is that the new Vivera inks from HP are a bit strange - there are 5 little separate colour cartridges (cyan, dark cyan, magenta, light magenta, yellow, or something like that) that look like they’ve only got enough ink for 2 decent photos. They must be expensive as well. Damn.

Thought 6: What’s with people and turning right? On Yanko Road a stupid van driver took a bigger risk than the police car earlier today, turning right from a side street onto Yanko Road when I was probably only 10 metres away going at 60. Of course, I honked him (twice actually). I like honking. There’s something about public humiliation and helping people to become better drivers.

Thought 7: Finally finished building a shelf-like thing for storage of large boxes other things like that (see picture). Unfortunately the thing isn’t exactly that well built, and it still sways a bit, but hopefully it’ll withstand semi heavy stuff. Hmm, actually, I worry… The thing was too big to assemble and then carry into the room, so I had to build the frame in 3 parts, lug it into the room, and then assemble it with the shelf boards. It’s 2.4m high and 1.8m wide, quite a monster. Needless to say everything smells like sawdust now, and there’s plenty of it all over the ground.

Thought 8: For those who leave their computers on all the time and don’t use it for much demanding stuff, visit World Community Grid and lend your processor time to science! This is another one of those distributed computing things where normal run-of-the-mill desktop computers in peoples’ homes are used to do big-time research by combining the power of thousands computers around the world. This particular one is non-profit and researches things like anti-HIV drugs and protein folding.

here come a string of random comments/thoughts whose only connection is that i have something to do with them.. how i pity them..

Thought 1: I think I’ll start typing in proper case in blogs, since most other blogs I visit do this. It seems to be easier to read but not easier to type.

Thought 2: For those who want to watch Saw II, unless you like lots of blood and torture scenes and general sadistic things then it’s not for you. There are good plot twists and red herrings as you would expect from Saw, but apart from that it’s more gruesome than the original, especially since there are more people involved and they’re let loose, so to speak, in a whole house instead of just a room. Definitely not one for the squeamish.

Thought 3: Aren’t police subject to common sense on the road as well? Mum and I were driving back from North Sydney on Epping Road earlier today, and we were approaching this intersection without traffic lights, but with a right turn bay coming from the opposite direction on Epping Road. So we’re bearing down on the intersection at the legal speed and the police car, the next car in the turning bay to turn, decides to turn with an unsafe distance between our car and the intersection. I wonder what would happen if we didn’t brake and had hit the car.

Thought 4: I wonder if you could scam money back promotions. Say a company, let’s call them HP, offer a $100 cashback scheme for an item, let’s say a multifunction printer. If one was to buy 10 multifunctions for say $500 each, and then apply for the cashback, and then return the items to the store (being none the wiser to the customer’s cashback dealings), would this mean the customer is net $1000 richer?

Update to Thought 4: Ah nuts, it seems HP is pretty smart. They ask that you send in the physical barcode and serial number cut out from the cardboard box within which the multifunction is contained. Nuts.

More thoughts later when I can think of them.

ahhhh i love the rain… the musty smell it leaves behind.. the muddiness of jaz’s paws on my pants.. and also it means that the damn BP demolition/construction site opposite our house ceases to operate - at least for a while, until the water dries up and it’s back to TUT-TUT-TUT-TUT-TUT-TUT-TUT at 8 o’clock in the morning.. it’s perfect timing, the time of year when everything is due and students need to work long hours..

cityrail seems to be slipping in terms of on-time running again.. what a pity, but not unexpected.. i swear, if cityrail ran the NYE countdown, it’d probably go: 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 7, 3, 2, 6, 15, 2, 3, 2, 2, 2, 3, 4, 2, 0..

okay, siesta over.. ah what am i talking about, i take a 10 minute siesta every 5 minutes.. it does wonders for productivity..

1. apples are more effective than caffeine at waking you up in the morning
2. when you sneeze, all bodily functions stop, even your heart
3. 40 people are sent to the hospital for dog bites every minute
4. the toothbrush was invented in 1498
5. 40000 americans are injured by toilets every year
6. most of us have eaten a spider in our sleep
7. in most tv milk ads, a mixture of white paint and a little thinner is used instead of real milk