Sunbus

Published
by
drew
 on 8 May 2008
 in Australia and Travels
.

It’s not often I feel compelled to devote a post to a bus journey but the trip from Avalon airport into the city was an absolute doozie.

I’ve long had some kind of weird fascination for bus drivers, specifically coach drivers. On every school trip we went on, we’d call our bus driver Barry. The name just seemed to fit. I think we actually surprised a few of them by getting it right. But growing up in the 80s, when plane travel was still very much the domain of the elite, and living in a town that had its only rail service suspended, coach travel was in its heyday, with reclining seats, curtains and, on very special coaches, a VCR on which you may have been lucky enough to see such gems as Splash, Mr Mom or something equally as sanitised starring Robin Williams or Michael Douglas (of course, you’d see them on a television which was invariably attached with some kind of RF lead to said VCR; I can’t imagine a load of coach travellers being excited by watching the heads of a top-loading VCR spin around through that little translucent window. “Oooh, Tom Hanks is in there!”).

Back then, coach drivers had that air of professionalism; they were, after all, ‘Captains’ of their roadcraft (as opposed to aircraft or seacraft). They had the tanned skin, the winning smile, the carefully blow-dried hair, the neatly pressed and over-starched shirt, and yet, like their truckie cousins, they still wore shorts to work.

I think our driver from Avalon to Melbourne must have been one of those shiny Coach Captains of the 80s as he was eager to point out some of the places of interest between the airport and the city, along the lines of:

“Out here at Avalon, some of the scenes from Mad Max were shot.

“We’re currently travelling on Highway 1, which circumnavigates Austraya. Out to the right is Point Wilson, where they test all the ammunition.

“We’re now passing by the town of Little River, pop-y’lation of about 6000. This is where the famous Little River Band originated.

“We’re now passing the Werribee sewerage farm: 10,000 hectares that services the water treatment of Melbourne and the western suburbs. The farm is made up of 10 ponds, one to two hectares each. The first pond is covered and that supplies all the methane that is needed to power the plant.”
[I’ll leave that quote there, partly because he went on so long about it and partly because I’m having trouble reading my shorthand]

“We’ll shortly be passing under Point Cook Road. At the end of Point Cook Road is Point Cook Airforce Base, which is now turned into a museum. If you ever get down to have a loogedit, it’s free admission to get in.”

Gold… all of it.

Thanks, Baz.

0 Comments

Is this working? (Melbourne edition)

Published
by
drew
 on 8 May 2008
 in Adelaide
.

Why can’t I post from my phone?

Later…So after typing a whole post in the departure lounge at Adl airport on my tiny tiny phone keypad in Opera mini, and trying to save it about 20 times and trying to publish it about 20 times and nothing happening, the above was what I actually managed to post in desperation just as my row was being called to board.

The gist of the now-forever-gone-into-the-phonoshpere post was that I was nipping over (here) to Melbourne for a few days to attend my brother’s 40th celebrations. I made a joke about the fact that the party was in Melbourne while he lives in Modbury (très rigole, non?) but I’ll never be able to recapture the magic now.

It’s funny how travel helps you mark time in your life. Being at the airport reminded me of the last time of the airport, then I got to thinking of all the variations on ‘The last time I…’

  • When was the last time I was at the airport
  • When was the last time I was at the airport to meet someone (because my last time (see above) was for a photo shoot).
  • When was the last time I was at the airport to catch a plane?
  • When was the last time I was at the airport to catch a plane by myself?
  • When was the last time I caught a flight to Melbourne?
  • When was the last time I caught a flight to Melbourne and actually ended up going to Melbourne?

The possibilities are endless.

But I must say that having spent a good deal of my 20-somethingityness coming and going from all sorts of airports, rail stations and bus termini, I’m not half bad at it by now. I had everything timed to perfection. The J1 passes right outside my work building. I was there waiting for it five minutes early. It dropped us at the airport and I was straight into the check-in line. I had no luggage to check in, so that was a breeze. I got through the X-rays and had 20 minutes to kill before I had to be at the departure gate and I thought “Shit, I’m good at this.”

Cos, I am.

0 Comments

Long service

Published
by
drew
 on 7 May 2008
 in Ma vie and Work
.

Just realised that yesterday marked my 6th anniversary with my current employer.

What am I doing with my life?

2 Comments

Having a toss

Published
by
drew
 on 2 May 2008
 in Ma vie
.

I’m actually pretty excited about tomorrow.

I’ll have a couple of hours free in the afternoon, during which time I’ll be meeting a friend and we’ll be throwing a frisbee to each other.

It’s been a long time but I finally feel ready to have a bit of a run around.  I’m even toying with having a hit of volleyball in the coming weeks.

0 Comments

…and then, this morning

Published
by
drew
 on 30 April 2008
 in Consumer goods and Ma vie
.

As I was running for the train, the fucker dropped out of my bag.

So if anyone would like either

a) a recently refurbished and button-flattened SE K800i, or

b) to return said recently refurbished button-flattened SE K800i to me

there’s one laying in the grass at the bottom of Hawthorndene Drive, just near where it turns into Watahuna Ave.

I’ll be ringing it every few seconds to help you find it.

…later

Phew. Luckily, C has today off, so she nipped down the road and found it. I’m rather relieved, though still pissed I don’t have it with me.

0 Comments

Button problems

Published
by
drew
 on 29 April 2008
 in Consumer goods
.

I had to take my mobile phone back to the shop recently to have it fixed. It’s a K800i and the joystick was doing all sorts of weird shit, mostly registering a ‘centre’ button press whenever I was trying to push ‘down’.

It went in just before Easter. They said it would be two weeks. It took three, and I got it back on April 10.

On April 11, I had to take it back. It felt a little weird when I first picked it up and I noticed later that the profile of the buttons was way out; they simply hadn’t put it back together properly so the buttons didn’t sit flat but were protruding at odd angles.

In the meantime I’ve been using an older phone: a once-water damaged w800i that I managed to resurrect and get working.

This morning, I missed a call from the phone company and I have a bad feeling that things aren’t over yet. The message was to let me know that my Blackberry was ready to pick up.

Still, I could go an upgrade…

1 Comment

Irrelevancies

Published
by
drew
 on 23 April 2008
 in Miscellany
.
  1. When you buy airline tickets online, they always seem to charge you more than the sum total of the price there + price back fares. I just booked my flights to Melbourne next month (well, one flight to Melbourne, the other one to back here) and they charged me a ‘paying by credit card’ charge, which is essentially a fee for paying them in the way they ask you to pay.
    If I was, say, buying a pie, and they charged me 20 cents for sauce and then another 10 cents for paying for the pie, I’d give back the pie before money changed hands. The nerve… honestly.
  2. When you fill up with petrol, how do you work those little spring-loaded clips that let you fix the trigger handle in place? I remember seeing people use them all the time but I can never get the stupid little clip to latch on to anything.
  3. I love it when I do this… Last night I was thinking about a word and wanted to look it up to get a precise definition. I went to my Shorter Oxford (big, two-volume MF of a dictionary) and opened it AT THE EXACT PAGE! Ah, it’s the little things…
  4. I just had the best mandarin, EVER. Seriously, this was juicy and both sweet AND a little bit tart. Mm mmmm.
4 Comments

You know you’re a parent when…

Published
by
drew
 on 22 April 2008
 in Bairn and Media
.

Sunday night, watching TV with C. Richard Roxborough’s girlfriend has just arrived from London. They’re having a conversation.

C: What have I seen her in?

Me: Playschool.

C: Yeah, that’s it.

0 Comments

You go to the toilet, I’m trying to edit.

Published
by
drew
 on 17 April 2008
 in Idea v. Reality, Work and Writing
.

I’m working on a really big project right now. It’s a bastard. Lots of text, lots of pages, lots of people who need to be sure that a lot of the text on a lot of the pages says what they want it to say. I’m in the middle, trying to make sure it says everything it’s supposed to say in a consistent and uniform tone. I’m trying to bring the body of work together, to make it harmonious and lovely. It’s like I’m growing a tree.

Occasionally, other people need to see parts of the text, to make sure it says the right thing (which I just explained). For the most part, I think it says the right thing. All the facts are pretty much there. Very little of it is actually wrong. Very little of it really needs to be changed.

But people are curious. Put a piece of copy in front of them and they try to change things so it says the right things in the particular way that want the right things to be said. Them, that is, and 25 other people. It’s not wrong, you understand, the bits they try to change. Some words, you can spell different ways. I’ve chosen to spell this word this way and I’ve done it the same way every time I’ve written it. If they spell it the other way, it’s out of place. It becomes more wrong than they thought it was when it wasn’t spelled their way.

If what I’m doing is growing a tree, I want each branch to look the same as the other branches; each leaf to look the same as the other leaves.

If what I’m doing is growing a tree, these people are dogs, who see the tree, sniff around the tree and have the uncontrollable urge to piss on the tree in an attempt to make it their own.

But this does nothing at all for the tree; it just makes the tree smell like piss.

But they don’t mind. They just want to come back to the tree when it has been chopped down, pulped, and had the information I’ve been gathering printed on it, smell it, and say ‘Yep, that’s my piss!’

4 Comments

Holgr #1

Published
by
drew
 on 17 April 2008
 in Ma vie and Photography
.

Have just updated my first (successful) roll of shots from my Holga to Flickr. (The first roll of film was over a decade old so results weren’t exactly publishable).

Check it out.

0 Comments
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