Archive for the ‘Adelaide’ Category

Rush hour

Friday, September 11th, 2009

I used to work in the city.

And yeah, I already mentioned this in a post. It’s just that it weighs so heavily on my mind, I’m hoping that writing about it will be a little cathartic.

Mornings are all go in our house. There are kids to get up and dressed, lunches to pack, kids to ask again to get dressed, cups of tea and breakfasts to make, and “Kids, why can’t you bloody well get dressed when you’re told” to be said, repeated and yelled day after day. Getting out of the door on time means being in the car at 7.45, or 7.50 at the latest. 8 am is doable but it’s a rush.

My wife and kids get off together at school in the city. To get a park for drop off, we need to be there by 8.15, otherwise we’re doing laps of the block for 10 or 20 minutes. On a good (early) day, I can even get out and take the kids into class and say goodbye. I realise that in a couple of years they won’t want me anywhere near them and all kids probably wish they could take out restraining orders to keep their parents a safe distance from school, so if I get the chance to do classroom activities, I’m fine with that.

If I’m catching the bus, I need to be in the centre of the city by 8.20. I rarely make this and usually end up having to wait till nearly 8.35 for a bus that gets me setting foot in the office around 9.07.

If I’m driving to work I have to be on the road again by about 8.35. Taking the car, I can usually get in the office before or right on 9. See, I like to get to work early. Because if you get to work early, you can leave early. And who doesn’t like leaving early?

I sometimes get all narky if I’m running late: when traffic’s heavy, when there are too many 25 zones, when people don’t know that when the light is green and the red arrow disappears, they’re allowed to turn right. Or if the bus is late, I get annoyed having to sit in Victoria square… waiting in disbelief that the buses can be so early/late/irregular (really, they publish timetables for buses. I can’t think of anything more useless).

I should say I used to get narky. I don’t really now. Not anymore.

I don’t enjoy working out of the city. At least not on the other side of the city from where I live. It’s not that I dislike the north in particular but I am in a rather unattractive corner of the metro area. The first day I caught the bus out here, I knew to get off at stop 18. I dutifully pressed the Next Stop button after stop 17 and stepped off a minute or so later. Turns out it wasn’t stop 18 but stop 17A. Of course. Obviously.

Stop 17A puts you right outside what looks like some disused packing plant. There’s a derelict factory with those really high rail things that you could move stuff on (don’t ask me what). There’s an expanse of overgrown grass and a brick building close to the road. It’s been tagged to the point there’s hardly any brown brick exposed. All the windows have been smashed. Some have been boarded up and subsequently had the boards smashed.

I was stopped in traffic the other day at Light Square. About a billion people wanted to turn right into Currie St and the right hand slip lane had filled up so nobody could get past the right-turners to go straight; they were all in the straight-ahead lane waiting to turn right. I thought “this is gonna make me late. I have to get to…” Then the image of stop 17A popped into my head. And I realised that this—being in the city amid the chaos of morning rush hour—was where I really wanted to be.

The place I work—the suburb, the strip mall, the broken footpaths—is so disconnected from the city in my mind, it’s like I work in another country. When I’m in the city, I can’t believe that it’s possible to get to a place so far away, not in distance but in mood. Of course, I know the way, and whether I’m on the bus or driving, I get here eventually.

And I still want to get here early because the work itself is fine and I want to impress the right people well enough so that I can get another job back in the city. And I still like to leave early.

But the crazy driving, dropoff, driving again. I don’t really get narky anymore. Driving through the city, or waiting in it for a bus… that’s the highlight of my day.

I just work here

Thursday, August 6th, 2009

I started a new job a little over a month ago. The actual job, where I sit down and do the actual work, isn’t too bad.

But I’m now working north of the city.

I live south of the city.

So getting here, taking so long to get here, having to catch the bus rather than the train, being here, sharing an office big enough for three with five other people, getting sore eyes from staring at two monitors all day, being subjected to another staff member’s musical tast all day, NOT being in the city, having to go to other non-city, outlying suburbs regularly, having to sit on the bus for more than an hour to get home… that sucks.

Not happy. And I’m so unfit I feel disgusting.

And I need a haircut.

I used to get that done in the city.

Eurosomethingorother

Sunday, May 17th, 2009

I’ve often thought I should try liveblogging. If only for my own entertainment. But y’know…

Firstly, at the time most liveblogworthy things are on, I’m usually getting kids to bed, loading the dishwasher and generally cleaning up the mess I’ve made earlier in the afternoon.

Secondly, and probably more pertinently, I live in South Australia so unless I want to liveblog the McGarey Medal count (a medal ceremony for local nugget-headed footballers (a tautology in itself), where they all sit at tables and gasp in amazement as a presenter on stage continually impresses them by counting to three), there’s very little point. See, we’re half an hour behind the east coast of Australia, so nothing is live here. I’d be reporting on who’s been eliminated from SYTYCD and commenting on Natalie’s frock, while in reality she would be back in the green room in her tracksuit pants downing her second Bacardi and Coke (because she’s a classy girl).

It’s also difficult with something like Eurovision, because we’re 8.5 hours ahead of western Europe and while it may seem a good idea to blog it that far in advance, there are obvious flaws in the plan. It’s a Saturday night deal in Europe but we have to content ourselves with watching a delayed telecast on Sunday evening.

I’ve been big into Eurovision since SBS started broadcasting it in the late 90s. It appeals to me because it’s the zenith of ironic consumption. Everyone in it is so into it and has such a great time, and seem to genuinely participate in the rivalry, even though everyone knows it really is a little bit shit.

It’s still fun to watch and it’s getting a bit more of a following over here now but I’m not sure a lot of people here get that it’s kind of supposed to be sort of crap. Australians love to take the piss but, I dunno, I kind of get the idea that it’s more derisive and genuine than being in on the joke. I kind of miss how we used to get the British feed with Terry Wogan with his reserved and veiled sarcasm, which again, you kind of had to get it to get it.

I nearly didn’t watch it tonight though, after the local Channel Nine news, in an act of sheer televisual bastardry, blurted out that Norway had won the competition as they threw to a commercial break. No ‘we’ll give you the winners after the break’ or ’stay tuned for the winner of Eurovision’ just a completely unexpected announcement in what must have been a deliberate attempt to fuck it up for anyone that wanted to watch it later. It would be competing with 60 Minutes after all, so they took it upon themselves to ruin it for everyone.

Nul points, chaine neuf. NUL POINTS!!

Hair cut

Monday, December 15th, 2008

I didn’t take a lunch break today, so finished up a little early and used a bit of time at the end of the day to go and have my hair cut.

I changed jobs a few weeks ago, so I’m on the other side of the city, which means the barbers’ shops in proximity to my place of employ are different. I tried a “new” place today.

And when I say new, I mean that this place has obviously been there since 1960, possibly earlier. This was a traditional barber shop, still with the original fit-out which would have looked so sleek and stylish way back when and actually looks quite stylish in a retro way by today’s standards, if a tad faded. It’s large and roomy, has a huge mirror and two chairs.

After I sat down, my suspicions on the age of the place were confirmed: there was a faded, picture with telltale fuzzy focus, of a fresh, young Italian man standing in front of a barber shop. This barber shop. With the same signage, the same fit out, the same man that was here putting a hand-towel around my neck. Seeing his young face in the the photo and his old face, decades later, sizing up my head, was one of those moments when you think “fuck, life goes so fast”. And then I noticed another 70s postcard that had boobs on it and kind of got distracted.

I’ve been choosing to go to older Italian barbers pretty much my whole life. One of my best friends in high school was italian and his dad, Joe, was a barber, so there was never any question that I’d go anywhere else, really. When I moved away, I sought other such barbers not only because they were inexpensive but because there was just something so reassuring, honest and unpretentious about them; and as one not inclined to pretentiousness, this appealed to me.

My most previous barber in Bank St was great. He was even called Joe, though a bit taller than my friend’s dad. But he did a good cut: consistent and efficient. He didn’t mess about and he always had the easy-listening AM station on the radio (which, I kid you not, seemed to play Sailing by Christopher Cross every time I went in for a cut). I’m quite convinced he never really remembered me from the previous time, always asking “Medium cut?” to which I’d always reply “Uh, quite short, actually”. He took 15 minutes, max to do a cut, starting with the clippers around the back and sides, scissors on the top, loosen the bib/shawl thing, clippers with no comb around the back of the neck, then he’d use the cutthroat razor around the sideburns, back of the neck and then a quick comb and sometimes a bit more snipping. Then, talc in the brush and a quick sweep around the collar, ears and forehead to remove any stray offcuts, and done, $16, see you in six weeks.

The guy I went to today had much the same procedure. But it wasn’t the efficient, no nonsense cut I’d become accustomed to. This guy seemed to think that use of the clippers was two-fold: firstly, to cut hair and secondly, where it missed cutting, to flatten the hair. I conclude this from how hard he was pressing with the damn thing. I would have thought the best way to get the cut shorter, would be to use a shorter comb but he seem to think my skull was somehow flexible enough to give him a bit of leeway if my hair wasn’t as short as he’d like. It was like he wasn’t so much trying to cut my hair as force the clippers into my brain through whatever crack in my scalp he may have been fortunate enough to find. I had visions of my head breaking like an easter egg and the clippers buzzing away as my chocolate brain oozed out over his leather chair.

By the time he got to the back of my neck, he’d had the damn things turned on so long, it was like being branded it was so hot. The end result isn’t too bad, but what an ordeal! My other guy is close enough to the railway station I think I’ll just have to keep going back there.

He’s $3 cheaper.

Mobile internet: a good thing?

Friday, November 14th, 2008

I love that I can post to my blog from on the train, or anywhere I might happen to be with my phone and half decent reception.

When you throw alcohol into the mix however, it may not be such a good idea to give an idiot like me unfettered access to the realms of online publishing. You just never know who you’re going to defame.

Actually… I better check you tube… no idea what I may have put up there

Rollin, rollin, rollin…

Monday, September 22nd, 2008

I get the Belair line train into the city most mornings. I met a work colleague at the station this morning and we got in the train together and were having a nice chat about work stuff; boring but interesting.

The Adelaide public transport system, the rail network in particular, has a bit of a reputation. Most of the rail cars are getting old, they run on diesel, the windows are made of some dual-layer Perspex material that ranges from translucent at best to almost opaque at worst, the trains NEVER run on time (at least not on the Belair line but I gather most other lines are the same).

I don’t know what the problem was this morning but we noticed that as we pulled out of the station and got up a bit of speed, the engines cut out and we rolled into the next station before the brakes went on, passengers got on, the engines were started again, we got up some speed and they cut out again. The fortunate thing is that the Belair line, being the only train line into the hills, runs downhill going into the city, so saving power for whatever reason is pretty easy when gravity can do most of the work.

Even when things levelled out after Mitcham, the driver was still turning off the engines after getting up to full speed and we rolled into pretty much every station. It certainly made chatting easier, as the lack of engine noise made for a very quiet ride. My colleague and I were having to keep it down a bit at times because there was just so little noise and we didn’t want to seem loud.

The funny thing, and perhaps the point of this post, was that after we rolled into Goodwood, and just before the driver fired up the engines again, he made the same announcement that every driver makes just before leaving Goodwood on this particular train.

“Express to Adelaide”

It was one of those occasions where the unwritten rule of keeping to yourself could be disregarded. For some reason, the train was only half-full and that remark brought guffaws of laughter from me and a few other passengers. A guy sitting near me pulled out his earphones and asked “What did he say?” and he laughed when I told him.

Oh, we pulled into an unusual platform too (not that platform 4 is different in any way but this train usually comes into platform 1) and, such is the opacity of the windows, that people lined up to get out the doors on the wrong side of the carriage.

Lost and found

Friday, September 19th, 2008

I was walking across town last night after work to meet my SO for a ride home.

I was carrying my Holga, in case anything of photographic significance should have made itself apparent to me, and was trying to put my headphones on (or in) at the same time.

My headphones are the in-ear type, comprising the hard, plastic bit that houses the speaker and, surrounding that, the soft, silicone rubber bit that conforms to the shape of the ear canal, creating a seal and shutting out much of the outside noise.

The cord had become all twisted and I was trying to fasten the little clip near the microphone (it’s part of my phone/mp3 player setup) onto my shirt… while I was holding my camera… while looking for anything cool to photograph. I had my bag half open. The other end of the headphones, not yet attached to the phone, was dangling around my knees.

So I got the clip sorted, finally. Then I got the other end and plugged it into the phone. I changed the position of the camera in my hand. Then I went to put my headphones in and realised one of the silicone bits had fallen off.

I hate losing these things. It makes the earpiece not fit in your ear, rendering the headphones pretty much useless. While they give you extras with the phone, I won’t be flippant about losing them because it would suck to have to buy new ones and I just know it would cost about $20 for four grams of silicone, which I wouldn’t want to pay on principle. I lost one walking to work down Memorial Drive once. I retraced my steps for five minutes or so and found it.

So I started to do this, in 5pm foot traffic, walking slowly, gazing downwards, looking for a grey bit of rubber on a grey footpath covered in shadow. I went back to where I thought I still would have had it, then walked back again and gave up.

Luckily, because I had a phone stolen a while ago, I have two pairs of headphones. The other pair went a bit spaz so I stopped using them but still have them in my bag. I plundered them for a silicone earpiece and spent the rest of my walk to Dequetteville Tce happily strolling with Regina Spektor.

This morning, C dropped my on Pulteney St and I walked up Grenfell towards work. I crossed King William and realised I was in the spot and thought ‘It can’t hurt to have a look’ so I slowed, only slightly, and went over the same bit of footpath again.

Nothing.

But 10 m further down, there it was, protruding like a nipple on an otherwise flat-chested footpath. It hadn’t even fallen into a crack or been kicked into the gutter or anything. It was just there and had been all night.

I’ll stick it in a cup of near-boiling water to sterilise it and put it back in circulation.

It seems so odd when fortunate things happen. In a good way though.

Tongue numbing

Monday, June 16th, 2008

For any readers outside South Australia, there’s been a recent crisis in this state’s hospital industry, with doctors and other specialists arguing over wage increases. Related story here.

The issue has come to a head and many emergency doctors and staff have not just gone on strike but resigned their positions altogether.

Take that!

I’d like to put out a message to directors of TV and radio outlets now, as it’s timely. I’m mostly a humble guy and don’t like to blow my own trumpet, as it were. I don’t think I’m arrogant or self-righteous and I don’t often judge or condemn people. However, there are times when I believe a base level of competence should go along with certain jobs. So my message is this.

If you’re running a Radio or TV newsroom, please get in touch with me and offer me a job. Why? Well, for starters, I can correctly pronounce the word anaesthetist.

Seriously, I should put this on my résumé.

It’s been an interesting week of watching and listening to various media, hearing them say that word and completely fuck it up in about 90 % of cases.

Another word a lot of journos have trouble with is vulnerable. People, the first l is NOT SILENT.

If you hear a newsreader or reporter this week saying “South Australia’s health industry is in a vulnerable position following the recent mass-resignation of emergency doctors and hospital anaesthetists,” listen for the gurgling sounds that follow as their throats go into spasm and they invariably choke on their tongues.

I once met a med student studying to become an anaesthetist and she couldn’t pronounce it. While I hope she, and other anaesthetists, can successfully pronounce the drugs they’re administering, I’m not going to judge, as long as the right drug goes in the right patient and everyone who’s supposed to be alive, stays alive at the end of the day.

But journalists? They’re supposed to be guardians of the language. They’re the one group of people who are supposed to get this right.  Still, when most people on TV news are either ex-footballers (read: trained monkeys (and even then, I’m not that sure how well trained)) and sexy young uni grads with zero life experience, what hope is there?

Pigfish

Friday, May 30th, 2008

We all went to the Markets tonight and were buying meat from the butcher.

Little Miss M saw the chevapchichis (I have no idea how to spell that) and said “Look at the salami fish fingers!”

They’re so cute when they’re three.

Vague

Wednesday, May 28th, 2008

So where was I? Yeah, that’s right, I went to Melbourne then came home and sort of just fell asleep.

Melbourne was great. Good to be back in my home state. I don’t know what to make of myself sometimes because I don’t often feel very Australian and despite, or probably because of, my football-filled youth, I can no longer stand the sport, or the constant news coverage it gets, or the nugget fans (nugget fans being a majority sub-species of fans in general; I know there are some quite normal, respectable, educated people who are not nuggets but are, paradoxically, football fans) who can talk about nothing else. Yet I still feel some kind of connection with Victoria. I’m not sure if it’s the landscape, the people, the weather, or the fact that, unlike South Australia, it doesn’t have it’s head stuck up its own arse (just my crude way of saying that South Australia is way too parochial, introspective, isolated (not only geographically) hostile to external influence (especially from Victoria) and has an inflated, ‘we’re as good as the other states’ complex that the other states don’t have because they’re not secretly worried that they aren’t).

So yeah, there’s that.

And I seem to have realised just how deeply entrenched I am in my current rut. Not enjoying the job and have had a sick kiddie, which means waking up at all hours of the night and being generally very tired, which kind of sucks. I’ve never had the SADs (the lack of light thing) but am wondering if there might not be something to it this winter.

And I’ve been shocked to notice how vague I have been of late. Only last night, after a day of staring blankly at a screen, I put in my headphones, stepped outside, and while crossing the road, forgot to look and stepped out in front of a motorbike. Then, as I was getting on the train, I put my ticket in the validator… and forgot to take it out again.

Where the fuck was my brain?