Quick Saturday ride

In the spirit of using the bike to save the planet, I drove the 4WD to the mechanic this morning for a 10,000km once over. I put the bike in the back and rode home - the long way. I could have caught a bus home, but knowing my luck, there would only be two of us on the bus. Me and the grossly fat person sitting next to me. Am I wearing the wrong deoderant?

This photo shows one of the bike routes through the eastern part of Drummoyne. The council has gotten all tricky in their efforts to calm traffic and eliminate rat runs by blocking this road off halfway along its length. Bikes can still get through though by going up the wheelchair ramp that I have marked with the red arrow, and then ducking across the island and rejoining the disjointed road on the other side.



There's just one problem, as usual. During the week, this street is in demand for car parking, and there is inevitably a car parked right in front of the wheelchair ramp. If I was on a mountain bike, I wouldn't be bothered at the prospect of having to jump the kerb and cross the woodchip strewn island (or even jumping over the parked car), but I'm on a road bike with skinny little whimpy road tyres. Going at woodchips is a good way to spend the next 10 minutes on the side of the road fixing a puncture.

Council, as usual, have not thought through this properly.



I thought these two little dogs were going to have a go at me. Why is it that it's always the small yappy dogs that are the most threat? They're bouncy enough to leap six feet off the ground and bite your throat out.



Another silly numberplate. This suburb is full of them. Maybe an entrepreneur is going door to door and selling them. This one says REZRXT, or 'resurrect'. As you might expect, there was a crucifix hanging from the rear view mirror. We're in a spot of trouble when even the God-botherers start getting stupid personalised plates. Why couldn't they just get one of those "fish" stickers?



This photo shows a lovely, green treeline, with an unbelievably ugly building poking out of it. That building is of course a Telstra exchange, and it is also smothered in head-nuking mobile phone towers. Why is it that Telstra builds such hideous edifices? I sometimes think that they have taken on either Saddam Hussein or Kim Il Jong as a consulting architect. You never see these types of buildings except on the other side of the Berlin Wall. Makes me think we are living in Albania.



Nice day to go out on the water in a boat. I cycle through this boat-ramp carpark quite often, and it is usually empty. Not today. I had to play dodgems with the boat trailers, which were everywhere. Not that I saw any boats actually moving on the water. I suppose they launch here and bugger off somewhere else to do the fishing etc.



A man with a van - a very busted up and rusted out old van. The rego sticker said 2004, so it has been sitting somewhere for several years collecting spiders, dust and rust. The owner stuck his head over the fence as I took this photo and asked me if I wanted to buy it! I had to zip it and stop myself from saying that I was going to do my level best to have the council tow it first thing on Monday morning.

Life - episode 3

I've been watching the series "Life", mainly because I liked the lead guy so much in Band of Brothers. I thought he was great as Capt. Winters. I'm enjoying Life immensely as well, even though the two characters could not be more different.

Just one bugbear so far. In episode three, they are dealing with a bloke who has bumped his head during a car crash. He has a big lump of bandaid on the right side of his head. During one scene, it shifts to the left side of his head, and then back again to the right in the next scene.

Continuity person needs to be shot.

Not bus-ting a gut

What is it with public transport in this city? Most afternoons, I wander down to George St and it takes only a few minutes for a bus to turn up and take me home. Except for yesterday, when it took 40 minutes before a bus turned up with my number on it. Dozens of other buses turned up, but none were going my way. I started to suspect that maybe the drivers on my route had gone on strike, since at least 4 or 5 buses should have arrived within that time frame. I get mighty suspicious when I see lots of other buses picking people up, but none with a particular number.

I can't wait to get back on my bike. None of this waiting around rubbish. You get on and you go. Yes, there can be holdups all the way to Darling Harbour thanks to stupid pedestrians and bad traffic, but at least you don't have to wait to be picked up. And if it is a slow trip home, that is entirely my fault.

I can see why a favourite past time for rioters is burning buses. I feel like doing it every week or so.

Splitters

At last - some teachers are breaking away from the loonie unions and forming new associations. Next thing we know, it will be civil war.

"What have the Romans ever done for us?"

"You mean apart from roads etc etc etc"

Organic food dying out

Our local supermarket is a fairly upmarket affair. For as long as I have been shopping there, it's had a big section set aside for the greenies and the organic fruit-head types.

Well, all that is no more. I went past that section tonight and found that it was now where all the crappy machine produced TipTop bread is kept. Rack upon rack of mass-produced, sponge-like muck now occupies the space that used to hold organic yoghurt, organic olive oil and all that stuff.

Good riddance. I never saw anyone in there buying it, so supermarket management obviously wised up finally, looked at the till-rolls, did the sums and ripped all that rubbish out. The only stuff left is some bio-dynamic yoghurt that is fast approaching the use-by date and some funny looking breakfast cereal. I wonder if it will still be there after the weekend.

As you'd expect, the removal and disposal of a few tonnes of bio-dynamic seaweed juice has elicited not even a peep of protest from the local wogs. As long as you don't mess with the pasta aisle, I doubt they give a damn what is on the shelves.

I do hope that I run into a confused greenie one night, wandering around the shop in a dazed state whilst searching for organic custard.

What smells worse?

We had to change a stinky nappy in the car last night. Since there was a shortage of rubbish bins in the area, and we are not the sort to dump bags of stinky nappies in the gutter, we took it home.

By the time we got home, the car stunk.

I had to transport different crap in a bag tonight. Junior has a throat infection, and for some odd reason, all he can get down is KFC drumsticks. That meant I had to drive to KFC to bring home a doggie bag of grease.

By the time I got home, the car stunk.

Which one do you think was worse?

The KFC - by a long shot.

Bus seats

I must pay more attention to whom I sit next to when I get on the bus in the morning. This morning, in a lack of sleep-induced haze, I stupidly sat down next to a woman who was wider than she was tall. I think I was confounded by the fact that I could barely see the top of her head over the seat in front, so I ambled down the aisle thinking that she was short, and thus rather small.

How wrong I was. A beach ball would be positively elongated in comparison to this turnip of a woman. By the time I had landed on the seat, and realised my error (she was also dressed in black from head to foot, so her width was disguised by it being slyly blended into the seat in the gloominess of a morning bus), it was too late to stand up and go somewhere else.

By the time we got into town, my left hip was aching from being jammed into the arm rest on that side. From now on, I will take clear note of how much seat space is available before just plonking myself down next to anyone.

I was lucky to avoid a similar fate last night. An enormously obese woman waddled onto the bus behind me when I was heading home. Although she was in front of me in the queue, she was so slow at moving forward that I was able to duck around her before she wheezingly lifted first one leg and then the other onto the bus. The bus was one of those modern things that sinks to one side to reduce the step height for limited mobility people, but even so, when she got on, the bus threatened to tip over even further. I think that sinking suspension was fitted so that 90 year old grannies with two plastic hips would have an easier time getting on, or parents pushing a pram - but it appears that the main beneficiary are those that eat four hamburgers for lunch.

On a side note, we've had a contractor in here recently who requires a super-sized chair. He stunned us on day one by informing us that he had to go out to have his "second breakfast". No wonder his bum required a second seat.

So I managed to get around the tub of lard on the bus and found a seat, and she stood up next to the driver and complained all the way to Central about how another bus had gone past and left her standing there. I saw the bus go by, and knew that it would not stop as it was bursting at the seams. Sometimes, even if a bus is full, the driver will stop and allow one small to medium sized person on. At times like that, I normally wave someone like a small asian lady on in my place if I am at the front of the line. It's just common sense. If it would be hard to fit me on board, it would be impossible to fit Mrs Four-Hamburgers on board.

As it was, she stood in the aisle next to the ticket machine, and everytime the bus stopped to pick someone up, these poor buggers would have to get on board and then squeeze past her in order to get a seat. Why she didn't just move to the back of the bus is beyond me. The look on the faces of the people getting on board when they saw her for the first time were priceless. The horror at realising that they would have to inch past this whale of a woman, and touch her as they did so, evinced looks of utter horror - especially as it was a hot day and she was sweating heavily. I was never so glad as to have made my move to get on the bus before her.

After a couple of stops, she gave up on earbashing the driver about the faults of another driver and took the seat behind me. She had run into someone on the bus that she knew, and so they sat together and she then started going on and on and on about her mother. Her mother sounded completely batty, which probably explains the completely fat and batty daughter. This woman had one of those accents where she pronounced 'time' as 'toime', which mad me wish for an iPod for the first time in my life. Normally, I can tune these nutters out, but the proximity of this one to my ears, and the awfulness of her family traumas removed my ability to cease to hear her. I was stuck with her all the way to Glebe. I am not sure which was worse - having my lungs collapsed by fatso the fat arsed frump this morning, or having my brain melted by super fat arse last night. Half the trip was taken up with her complaining about her sore knee, which was undoubtedly hurt by the fact that it had to support 200 kilos of bacon double cheeseburgers with a large fries.

I am going to write to Sydney Buses and suggest that they fit narrower doors to their buses in future. If someone can't fit through the doors, then the exercise of walking to work will do them some good.

Mad fags

It's been a while since I have had the desire to light up a gasper. Probably five years or more. I used to enjoy a few fags when out for a beer on a Friday night, but the desire to have a social fag went around the same time I stopped going out for a social beer on Friday night. Now, when I have a beer, I am thankful that all the filthy smokers are stuck outside on the footpath and I can enjoy my beer without getting second hand smoke up my nose. I never thought about the consequences of banning smoking in pubs, but now that the ban is in force, I love the idea of getting out of bed on Saturday morning and not stinking like an ashtray.

All that aside, the smoking bans can be taken a bit far. I found that quitting smoking was dead easy. I just stopped buying cigarettes one day and stopped smoking a few days later when my last packet ran out. That was it. No cravings. No shakes. No nothing. Although for the next few years, I felt the need to bum a smoke or two when consuming too much beer, but even that went away eventually. I don't get this whole "quiting is hard" business. Maybe it is for some people. Maybe I just didn't smoke enough. I find the idea of going with coffee for a day to be much more distressing than going without nicotine.

From The spectator:

A recent inquest recorded the death of Genevieve Butler, a woman in her twenties who threw herself from the fourth-floor internal walkway of the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital. I have followed this terrible case because Genevieve’s parents are friends of ours. It raises many issues about the mishandling of mental health care too large to be discussed in a note here, but one smaller point should be made. When Genevieve, who was in a psychotic state, jumped, she was being taken outside to smoke, in accordance with the no-smoking policy which is now law. A great many mental patients like to smoke. If they are not allowed to do so, they become much more anxious and desperate. If they go outside to smoke, they will generally need supervision. This involves greater risk and is a waste of nursing time which could be avoided if they could smoke in designated indoor areas. There are other recent cases, I gather — e.g. a fall from a hospital window in west London and a stabbing of a nurse in Essex — where the smoking ban created extreme and avoidable strain. Smoking harms the body, we know, but can we be so absolutist when it comes to the troubles of the mind?

Landscaping - the hard way

Saw this in the SMH yesterday:

The program will largely be based on the work of a private firm, Boston Consulting Group, which has been contracted by RailCorp to conduct the survey and recommend changes to the network's industrial landscape and work practices.

I love how they describe dealing with bloody-minded unionists the "industrial landscape". Having noted the generally sullen and downcast mien of many rail staff, and the generally obstructionist and Ludditish positions that union officials take to every announcement, the industrial landscape conjures up images of Mordor. I've never thought of it that way before, but most of those bitter and twisted station staff, and the mad maintenance staff, can now be thought of as orcs.

Is Vince Graham the magician on a white horse? I doubt it. He reminds me more of a Hobbit.

The only way they are going to change the place is to sack the bottom 10% of the workforce every year for at least 10 years. They simply need to evaluate everyone every 12 months, and cast off those that have the least chance of getting with the program. You could probably cut 30-40% in the first year, but recruiting replacements for that many could be difficult, so I'd stick with 10%.

Moths

I walked past an office building this morning that has one of those huge glass atrium things out the front. Yes, they are lovely at letting in light and keeping out the rain, but it appears that they are also hugely attractive to moths. Every glass panel had moths attached to the inside face, and there were clouds of moths circling around above the lift area.

A colleague told me that he went past the same building yesterday and people were shoo-ing moths away from their heads as they went in and out the doors. Apparently it looked like a bat attack scene out of a horror movie.

We've got lots of things to thank architects for. This is another one.

Batman Begins

I am so over Batman. I enjoyed Michael Keaton as Batman (I must have been the only person on the planet that still says that), and hated every other Batman movie after that. They just became an excuse for more loud and expensive shit.

I didn't bother with Batman Begins, mainly because it looked like another 2 hour festival of wham-bam and whatever.

Then I saw it on TV the other night. Most of it anyway - missed the first 10 minutes or so. It didn't matter. I watched 10 minutes of it and was hooked. I really liked the theme of exploring how he became Batman, and the process he went through to get there (kind of like what happened in Spiderman). The cast was also bloody marvelous, although it was a pity that -- arrgh, can't remember his name.... the cop... didn't do his bad cop thing with the pills. There simply wasn't enough of him in this movie. Oldman - that's his name. He should have lost the moustache and glasses and had a much bigger part.

In the end, I think it was Michael Caine that did it for me. He's done some terrible stuff in recent years, but he was marvelous as the butler. I know Michael did any old movie for a while, so long as it paid the tax bills, so I will always forgive him turning up in bucket loads of stinking movies, but this was not a stinker by a long shot.

Until about half an hour from the end. The bloody producers or director or script writers just couldn't resist infecting the movie with some of the crap that destroyed all the other movies. A big action sequence. A big yawn if you ask me. I wish directors would realise that in order for an action sequence to be gripping, it has to have meaning. There has to be tension and suspense. Just blowing things up or dropping trains off tracks does not equate with tension.

I'd love to see the first 3/4 of it again, but if I do, I'll switch off when they turn on the microwave thingy.

New filters

I need to setup some sort of news filter for the next six weeks. I know how I am going to vote, and a 6 week campaign will make no difference whatsover to how I cast my ballot. I'd just like to vote now, then forget about the whole thing until it's over.

It would be great if you were given a hat or T-shirt after voting early that said, "I've voted". That way, people would not bother you with horrible political conversations and pollsters would avoid you like the plague.

Not that I ever watch the 6 o'clock news, but the election campaign is providing an even better excuse to never, ever watch it. I'll stick to reading UK magazines and looking at US and UK web sites and just avoid all local news. I wonder if I can avoid it so much, I almost forget to vote.

Here's hoping.

Legs

Oh boy, a morning of sore legs awaited me today. I didn't ride far yesterday - only about 30km max. I left too late for a really long ride, the day was hot and so I cut it short. However, when you put together a good ride on Saturday with lots of hills that I have not done in ages, and then another reasonable ride on Sunday, it bashed me around a bit.

The last time I headed for the airport, the ride lasted about 3 hours and I got as far as The Fishos, which is also known as the Brighton-le-Sands fishing club. I think the red arrow shows the spot where I did a U-turn on that trip. If you have any idea of what Sydney looks like, the big yellow patch on the right is the airport. Which airport? The big airport. The one that everyone flies into.



I had no idea where I was of course. I had just followed a couple of other blokes on bikes for the last 10km and simply hoped that they had some idea of where they were going. I know now that if I had kept on going to the water and then turned left, I could have gone through the middle of the airport and then down to La Perouse. But I'd probably need to set aside four hours to do that and get home, and I only really had 1.5 hours on Sunday, so I didn't go far at all.

I used to scoff at Chook when he'd tell me about going for an 80 or 100km ride on the weekend, and I would wonder how he could find the time to get away from the kids and wife to do that. Well, I now know that the only way really is to get up at about 5am and get home about the time they are waking up after a big sleep in. Trying to go in the middle of the day can be a write off, especially as the weather is getting warmer and the tanning effects of the sun are getting worse. I have had two good weekends on the road, out in the sun, and I am about 10 shades darker than I was last month.

Ouch

I spotted this hulk not far from home. It's in an industrial estate, and has been sitting there for at least a week.



When I first saw it, only one window was smashed. I presume this car is a good example of the "broken windows" theory of crime. If you leave something around with one broken window and don't fix it, some idiot will come along and smash the rest of the windows.



Even the roof has been caved in, probably by someone jumping up and down on it.



The hilarious thing is that the council is responsible for towing these things away. It is about 100m from a council depot, and no one has noticed it yet (or they have noticed, and couldn't be buggered doing anything about it).

Bridge ride part II

More mechanics and other business things underneath the approaches to the harbour bridge.



Riding into town from North Sydney is an interesting affair as you take a different route going into town from the one coming back. When going into town, you have to go down a rather steep and nasty bit of footpath beside a church, and someone has thoughtfully put this warning sign up. The 'go-slow' idea is a good one here. About the only time I would ever advise someone on two wheels to use the brakes.



The problem is not the steepness of the path, although it is quite steep and the runout at the bottom is disastrous - it's the metal covers that some idiot has put over some inspection holes of some sort. I've ridden over these metal covers in the wet, and they are absolute death traps. Sheets of black ice would be less slipery. You have to crawl down the hill and then release the brakes when crossing them - otherwise the wheels go into an uncontrollable slide and they can go out from under you sideways. Nasty, nasty, nasty.



Here's an office block being converted to apartments. Kind of looks like Beirut at this point. Close up, it looks even worse. They've just hacked the fascia off the concrete and it really looks like a few bombs have done the work. Next time you see a photo of a 'blown up' building in Iraq or Lebanon, just think of this building in North Sydney. The damage might be a result of the building being revamped by developers. Things are not what they seem.



Not the best thing to happen on Saturday afternoon - car breaks down and leaves you sitting on the grass, phoning people and trying to arrange a lift. That's the girl sitting on her bum on the far right of the photo.



This bowling club has the best view if you ask me. I think the club is now defunct though. The grass looked brown and uncut from above. I guess the club has gone belly up and developers are now fighting with the council about what they can replace it with. Knowing what our councils are like, the fight will still be going on when I retire. This site will be a pristine bit of reclaimed bush in 10 years time.



A good view of the bridge. The nice thing about looking at it from here is that there is no prison type fence topped with barbed wire on the right. In some parts of the path, the wire stretches out from both sides and doesn't leave much of a gap overhead. It's like riding through a concentration camp.



Another nice view, with the ANZAC bridge way off in the distance.



I'm not sure what is being demolished here, but I always think its a hoot when you see a bulldozer or excavator of some sort on the roof of a building.



The building with the glass roof is a swimming pool. I used to swim here a lot when I lived on the north shore. It's a great pool. Bugger of a thing to get to, but worth it to have a swim underneath the harbour bridge. I swam there in the rain a few times (the big pool is in the open air) and it was quite spooky looking up at the bridge as I turned at the end of each lap, as the bridge was wreathed in mist. Unlike today. The only mist was the evaporating sweat from my back.



Off in the distance, there is a mass of newly delivered white cars glinting in the sun on the docks under the ANZAC bridge. Whenever I get into riding and read about what a growing activity it is, I ride over that bridge and look down and see another car carrier pulled up at the wharf dropping off another huge load of shiny new cars. People love their cars a lot. I like mine a lot, but it is good to get out of it on a regular basis and work off some of the junk food that has been consumed whilst driving it. I wonder if car seats are getting larger to accomodate larger bums?



I've been ripped off by this sandwich bar. Bad food and high prices.



This beamer has been sitting on the side of this street for months in this bashed up condition. It had a car cover over it, but it got ripped off in a recent storm. The rego runs out in Feb 2008. I wonder if they will manage to get it repaired by then?

To the Harbour Bridge and beyond

I did a nice little ride today - about 37km from here to North Sydney-Crows Nest and back again. That took me over two landmarks - the ANZAC Bridge, and the Sydney Harbour Bridge. I took some photos along the way of things that most people would never see.

It was a good day for a ride - the mercury didn't even make it to 20 degrees, but it was just warm enough to be comfy and not raise a sweat. It was odd at times - the air would be warm, but I'd feel cold, and at other times, the air would be cold and I'd feel hot. It wasn't one of those days where it is freezingly cold or blisteringly hot - it was a funny inbetween day.

Here we are, next to the approaches to the bridge on the city side. Just up ahead is the entrance to the bike path on the western side of the bridge. This spot is a devil to get to - it's badly marked, hard to find and I have spoken to many cyclists who have tried to find this spot and given up in frustration. My advice is always, "Stop, look for another cyclists who looks like they know where they are going and follow them".

Works for me.



This spot is just opposite the unused tollbooths at the city end of the Bridge. I can never understand why the RTA doesn't just rip these out. I imagine many motorists zoom past this spot every day, never realising that just to their left, there is the start of a great bike ride.



This is the view back the way I came. Just behind the two pedestrians is where you ride up onto this section of road. The hard part is getting to the point where you can ride up to where I am now. You have to buggerise around at a bad intersection, ride up a section of footpath and then up a steep ramp. Unless you have someone to follow, most people would never find it.



The other attraction here is the Sydney Observatory, which is on Observatory Hill funnily enough.



This is the bike path over the bridge. The RTA recently put up the security fence on the right, which narrowed the path slightly. I worried when they were putting it up that they would narrow the path so much, it would create a risk of head on collisions between cyclists.



On the right, there is a sliding gate in the fence that's there in case a train needs to be evacuated. There's also security cameras at regular intervals. The only way to get off the tracks and over the fence is via a ladder, and there are also ladders stored behind the fence at regular intervals. Someone has been thinking this through.



The view from the bridge is always marvelous. Off in the distance is the ANZAC bridge, which is where I was about half an hour before taking this photo. It's cool that you can see each bridge from the other.



Nice day to be on the harbour.



A jetboat happened to pass under the bridge as I was standing there. I used to live in an apartment up the back of this bay somewhere - not close enough to be on the water, but high enough to be able to see the bridge and part of the city. Not the greatest apartment, but a great view.



The RTA has put up a bit of signage at both ends of the cycle path to tell pedestrians to keep to their side of the bridge, but I used to see some strolling idiot in the old days about 1 crossing in 5.



Here's where the cycle path finishes at the northern end of the bridge. That's Milsons Point station in front. I've stood there on the platform and watched cyclists come down the path and then disappear down the steps. It looks kind of odd. Not that most people notice it - they're off in their own little world and take no notice of cyclists zipping around.



Here's the steps/ramp down the side of the bridge. It's not that well sign posted either, so the only way to find it really if you've never ridden through here before is to follow another cyclist.



Here's the view from the end of the cycle path. The park here was revamped a few years ago - this used to be a complete pit.


More signage to tell people to stay off the cycle path. It's amazing how few people read these things.



I reckon chances are no one has ever been fined $500 for doing this. Never.



A parking spot under the bridge. One of the better places to park when visiting Milsons Point.



This is something I'd never want to do. I've seen a few cyclists do it, but I reckon if I tried it, I'd zoom off the end and crash into something heavy, like a car.



Apart from parking, there's also some businesses that lurk beneath the bridge. I used to get my car serviced down here. Hundreds of thousands drive over the top of this spot each day, and I reckon 1% or less know what's underneath.

Throttler

Check out the numberplate on this tool car. DECIM8.

You go, tough guy.

Erections

This is a photo taken from the ANZAC Bridge. I haven't ridden over the bridge for months. Last time I rode across the bridge, this building was just a hole in the ground. At that time, I took some photos of this crane being put together like a big Meccano set.

Look at it go.

Fresh paint

Leichhardt Council have done a nice job of putting down a bit of green paint on Lilyfield Road. Wherever there is an intersection that crosses the bike lane, they've put paint across it. I guess the idea is to warn drivers coming in from a side street that they might be about to encounter a bike going up or down the road.



This is what I call a 60km/h hill. If you just roll down the hill without even bothering to pedal, you'll hit 60km/h by the time you get to the bottom. When I come down this hill, the last thing I want to do is stay close to the left hand side and risk having some goose open a car door, or some idiot come out of a side street with a mobile phone glued to one ear and their attention elsewhere. Since there is very little traffic on this section of road, I normally come pretty much straight down the centre line, because that is also the best way to avoid all the manhole covers and things that litter the downhill side. In fact I really use a weave - going from one side of a manhole cover to the other side of the next one.

The only useful bit of green paint is the bit just in front of where I am standing, since drivers come out of the carpark on the left with their head up their arse most of the time.

The council has done the same thing all the way up Lilyfield Road towards the ANZAC Bridge. It's nice to see them doing this, but I can't figure out why they just didn't paint the whole lane from go to whoa instead of just doing the bits that go past intersections.



It's little things like that which get up my nose.

What a flogger

This guy, Mr Jeep AOT 63D, is a complete flogger. There I was, riding down the road towards this set of lights, and as I wanted to turn right, I got into the right hand lane.



Mr Flogger comes out of a shopping centre car park behind me, gets annoyed at my lack of forward progress and passes me on the left. All so that 20 metres up ahead, he can stop 2nd in line at a red light rather than 3rd.

We went around the corner and got stuck at another red light. As if that little manouvere did anything to speed up his trip to whatever drive by shooting he was off to attend.

I thought afterwards that I should have sidled up alongside his window and lobbed a goobie into his lap.

Floggers. Can't stand them.

This story annoys me so much

Commuters happier chained to the wheel

Ha ha

This makes sense.

Slightly incorrect description

Can you tell me what is wrong with this description?

Soldiers from the 5/7th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment, prepare to fire a mortar round from an 81 mm mortar at Mt Bundy Training Area in the Northern Territory.

Good news?

This is slightly reassuring:

LAZYBONES who shun cycling for safety reasons may soon have to find a new excuse.

Roads and Traffic Authority figures obtained by the Herald show that while the number of cyclists has jumped 50 per cent in the past three years, cyclist death and injury numbers have remained relatively stable over the past decade.

Seven cyclists were killed in 1997 and three were killed last year. In the intervening years, the number fluctuated but did not rise above eight. The number of cyclists injured in road accidents grew from 603 in 1997 to 672 last year, but as a proportion of the total number of cyclists, the death and injury rate declined.

The chief executive of Bicycle NSW, Alex Unwin, said the figures showed motorists were becoming more aware of the approximately 3000 cyclists who rode into the city every day. "There would be other factors like the increase in off-road cycling paths, education programs and people riding together," he said.

"Cycle count data shows that commuters into the city has gone up by about 50 per cent in the last three years. This is on the back of improved infrastructure like the Anzac Bridge pathway, but petrol prices, health and greenhouse gas also contribute."

Bikes now outsell cars every year and enrolments for National Ride to Work Day on October 17 are up 300 per cent.

A spokesman for the RTA said there was more than 3900 kilometres of cycleway in NSW but Mr Unwin said more could be done. "We still have significant gaps in the cycle path network; the biggest gap is the link to allow people from the north to go over to the west," he said. "Over 50 per cent of car trips in Sydney are under five kilometres. If you put in the facilities around the dense urban areas you get a better chance of substituting those car trips with bike trips."

The City of Sydney has plans to build a two-way cycle path along King Street on exhibition, and a path is also planned for Clarence Street. But the Greens MP Lee Rhiannon said more cycling infrastructure was needed, noting recent Government decisions to remove bike lanes from the M2 and William Street.

Would you like bacon with your creme brulee?

We went out for dinner with friends last night, and had a whoopee time - as much of a whoopee time that you can have when you need to be home to relieve the babysitter at 11pm. It was plenty of whoopee for me - I spent most of the day in bed with a very sore head. Any more whoopee, and I would still be in bed now instead of typing this.

The original plan was to have an outside table at this restaurant, but the weather conspired against us and they had to move the table inside. Inside was a bit squeezy for a table the size of ours, and it presented all sorts of problems for the waitress serving us. She also had lots of problems serving us that had nothing to do with the table - I think she didn't really have any idea of what her function was or how to wait on people.

I'm glad we had all the wine we needed on the table at the start of the meal. If we had waited for her to notice that we needed a drink, and then came and got our orders, and then worked out how to screw the top off the bottle, I never would have ended up as drunk as I did. And that would have been a tragedy.

We started with some bruschetta and some garlic pizzas with dips. The bruschetta was ok, but nothing marvelous. The pizza crust stuff was covered in a good mix of dried spices - like a zatar mix - and was quite tasty. It came with three dips, which were interesting but badly thought out.

Dips should be made out of things that produce a thick, gooey consistency - something that can be scooped up onto bits of bread, and will remain on that bread whilst you transfer it to your mouth. Leaving a restaurant with dip spread all over your shirt makes for a less than ideal eating experience.

The three dips we were presented with made no bread-sticking properties. Yes, you could dip bread into them, but nothing would stick to the bread. One dip was bits of chopped up tomato. Excuse me, but you try dipping a bit of bread into chopped up tomato and see how many chopped up bits stick to your bread. If your answer is more than zero, you have cheated and painted your bread with glue.

Think of all the classic dips - hummous, baba ganoush, gaucamole etc - they are all gluggy. They stick to things. You can fling spoonfulls of it onto the ceiling at a party and it will still be there when you attend the next party a year later.

Another dip was a coriander pesto. I love this stuff, but it was 50% coriander and 50% olive oil. There was nothing in it, like pine nuts or parmesan cheese, to cause it to goop up into a goo that will cling to bread. The only thing for it was to put some of the "pesto" on a spoon, suck the pesto out of the spoon and then gobble a bit of bread. The only thing "dipped" into the "dip" would be the spoon.

That said, it was a very nice coriander and oil combination. It just wasn't dip. I'd call it a "marinade".

The final dip was something made with sour cream or yoghurt. It also went well with the spicy pizza dough. But like the other two dips, it suffered from some problems not yet mentioned. The dips were served in a very groovy triple headed bowl (I should have taken a photo) that looked fantastic, but held little more than a few tablespoons of each dip. The size and shape of the dip holders was such that they were too small for you to really 'do' some dipping. You don't really dip bread into dip anyway - you scrape the bread or cracker through the dip, like a road grader, and pick up dip along the way. For that, you need a large surface area, and a shallow bowl without a high lip.

This thing featured a narrow, deep bowl. Perfect for holding candles perhaps, but useless for dip. The triple headed dip bowl was also a nightmare to pass around the table. In short, a waste of space.

The main courses were good. The restaurant offered pizza as well as some meat and fish courses. Most of us had blue eyed cod, with others having lamb racks, fillet mignon and pizza. Those that had the lamb and beef said it was very good. Most of us that had cod liked it, apart from the bones that the chef forgot to remove. I fished out five after swallowing one. The chef was also a believer in serving crispy fish, which meant that the bottom was very well cooked and brown and crispy, which is a nice effect with salmon with the skin on, but not so good with skinless cod. The result was a half dried out bit of fish, and the fish was not that big to start with. It needed to retain all the moisture that it could. Mine had the look of a rather juvenile cod - it completely failed to cover the small mound of vegetables that it was sitting on. If you are going to pay $28 or so for a bit of fish, you want more than just a bit of fish. You want a slab or a chunk of fish. You want a whale of a fish. We got the whitebait end of the cod spectrum.

The pizzas were not a big hit either. We brought both home in doggy bags, fired up the oven tonight and cooked them for a further 15 minutes. After that, they were quite edible. Last night, they were doughy, undercooked and less than fine.

Dessert was in a class all of its own. To start with, they had run out of sticky date pudding. The restaurant was only half full, and they'd run out. Unbelievable. They had also run out of some other dessert as well, which meant that most of us were stuck with creme brulee.

Now I like creme brulee. I went through a phase of trying to make it at home, and was very chuffed when dad bought me a gas gun for use at home in producing a crispy top to my creme brulee. It never worked, because I was hopeless at making them. I have made every mistake possible when making creme brulee. I have resigned myself to only eating them in restaurants, where professionals make them.

The chef is clearly still in the same phase I was in when I gave up making creme brulee. The top was nice and crunchy, but the custard was little better than curdled scrambled eggs. He'd completely fucked it up. It was full of air bubbles, which to me is a sign that the custard has scrambled and then an attempt has been made to bring it back to life. They were all the same. If you took away the sugar and vanilla and added bacon, it would have made a delicious breakfast.

The afogato was also something of a joke. Afogato has three ingredients - icecream, a liquer and coffee. Their version had two - icecream and coffee. There was no liquer, like frangelico, to be seen anywhere. Thankfully, the barrista overheard our conversation and came to our rescue, replacing the coffee muck whipped up in the kitchen with proper coffee, and finding some frangelico from somewhere. That allowed the afogato to get a pass mark.

So the service was poor, the food ranged from bad to quite good and the drinks service just failed to exist. They had bad music playing, a huge TV above the door playing distracting TV stuff and some wierd decore. But dinner was only a bit over $40 a head, and we combined to produce a really funny table. Although the restaurant did everything possible to ruin the night, it turned out to be bloody good.

We'll have to go back.

The pain of trying to be good

Went out for dinner last night (review to follow shortly) and had a wonderful night with some old and new friends. The restaurant was pretty ordinary, but we had a good laugh and I had plenty to drink and it turned out to be a hoot.

One of the guys was not drinking as he had to be up early this morning to do some things. He never elaborated on those things, but we discovered what they were around 10am.

He had collected a ladder and a saw and was in the school nearby trimming some tree branches, which is the kind of thing he does on a regular basis. He's that kind of guy. Trouble is, instead of banging on my door and kicking me out of bed to hold his ladder, he did it on his own and ended up falling off the ladder.

The first we knew of it was when his wife and kids turned up to collect his car. He was in hospital with a broken arm and was in no fit state to drive.

So there's a lesson here kiddies. If you want to save the planet, don't be afraid to get some help. Even if it is an ungodly hour on Sunday morning.

Vanilla slice taste off

I attempted to do a triple vanilla slice tasting today, but got bogged down on the first one and had to put the other two back in the fridge. These three babies come from three different bakeries at our local shops. One is a fancy wog bakery, with lots of expensive and layered cakes and things in the window. Another comes from a Vietnamese place, and the third



This is the fancy vanilla slice - all $2.50 of it. The wog shop actually calls it something else - millefeulle perhaps? It contains a lot more pastry than custard, the pastry is very, very flaky, and it has only a light sugar glaze on top.

I had one of these last year, and didn't like it. The custard was bland and the pastry exploded and went in all directions. I give it about 3 out of 10.



This is from the Vietnamese place, and cost $1.70. It has three layers of soft pastry - one on top, one on the bottom and one in the middle. The custard is bland, the icing sugar blows all over your face when you try to eat it, and I find it rather unpleasant from start to finish.

Maybe 3 out of 10 as well.



This is from the place of no obvious ancestory. It is an old fashioned vanilla slice, with one layer of dense custard and proper icing with passionfruit on top. The pastry is soft, and it cost $1.70 as well.

I like this one a lot. After finishing one, I want another one. The little monkey likes them too, although he only gets a slice off one end, and he doesn't get any icing. J doesn't like these much, but that won't stop her from eating one if one happens to be left lying around (as was the case yesterday). I give this a 7 out of 10. It is good, but fails to scale the heights of greatness.



Don't you just love the free market? Isn't capitalism just wonderful? Do you think the Cubans are walking up and down their main street tonight trying to decide what vanilla slice to have after dinner?

Do you think the Cubans are getting any dinner at all?

Great quotes

Here.

Who said this:

"A tree's a tree. How many more do you need to look at? "

Crumbs

Why is it that modern bread is so crummy? I was making a dish the other day that required a handful of breadcrumbs, and I attempted to make them from some stale bread that was lurking in the cupboard.

Instead of being reduced to crumbs, it quickly atomised into dust. I guess if you start with a slab of white paste in a bag, there is not much chance of it turning into something small and useful.

The guys that invented the Chorleywood bread production system have a lot to answer for.

Smelly people

I have not caught public transport on a regular basis for years. I used to get the train every day, but then I started walking fairly often, and then I moved on to riding almost every day. The train or bus was something that I caught on an odd occasion - when I was feeling rundown, or the weather was particularly nasty.

I have not found out where the showers are yet in my new building, so I am on the bus every day. The trip takes longer than going door to door on a bike, mainly because the bus route meanders all over the inner west. Forget going as the crow flies. Feed a crow half a bottle of vodka and then you have an idea of the route the bus takes.

I don't mind the time so much, since I have caught up on about 12 months reading in the last 2 weeks. The thing I object to is the smell of some people. Tonight, I sat next to a bloke who was nicely dressed, but he gave off an odour of dogshit. It wasn't a full on stench, like he'd trodden in a turd. It appeared to be coming from his skin. He smelt like dog turds. Very old and dried out dog turds, but dog turds nonetheless.

I am also astounded by the fat people that get on the bus. There are some buses that kneel, which is a very nice feature in that I don't jolt my knees when alighting from the bus. However, I noticed last week that some of the really old buses were kneeling as well from time to time, and it was because a chubbalord was boarding. I am talking about buses that come from a time before air conditioning was invented, so it is doubtful that they have adjustable pneumatic shock absorbers that can adjust the ride level of the bus.

I have taken to sitting up the back in order to avoid having the barge-arses squeeze past me, which generally involves me getting a face full of hip lard. You know how some people are so fat, they seem to have wings coming off their hips and the sides of their legs? That's what I am talking about - being basted with a lard wing. And it's not like it's a rare occurence - at least one beached whale flobs onto the bus each morning.

Bus doors need to be narrowed. If you are too fat to get on a bus, you should be made to walk.

Kleenmaid ovens

From looking at the miserable amount of web traffic to this blog, I noticed that one person was searching about Kleenmaid ovens (since I bagged one we had). I felt the need to put in another post to see if I could double my traffic.

The malfunction that terminated our Kleenmaid/St George oven was in the control board. Who would have thought that an oven would have a computer control system that was so prone to failure, and so expensive to fix, that it would be more economical to replace it with a new oven?

I do miss one feature of the old oven - a precise, digital temperature control. If your muffin recipe said to cook them at 170, you dialled in 170 an (hopefully) that is what you got. Our new oven has this stupid dial control, and you could set it to anywhere between 150 and 190 when trying to get the temperature right.

The old Kleenmaid oven was also quite wide internally. The replacement has the same external dimensions, but is a few inches smaller inside. I detest that, since some of my roasting tins won't fit.

Would I buy a Kleenmaid oven after our experience? I would certainly look at them and consider them, but I wouldn't reject them out of hand.

What happened to Jake Kovco?

Jake Kovco is a story that never seems to go away.

Did he shoot himself deliberately? I don't think so.

Did someone else kill him? I doubt it.

Did his gun "just sort of go off"? I really doubt that one.

There is no conspiracy. There was no cover up. My thinking is he just fucked up after a long day at the office. It's sad, it's terrible for his family, but it can happen to any one of us. I walk through town every day, and I see people wandering along in a daze and then they step out in front of a bus. I am yet to see anyone hit by a bus like that, but I have seen someone cleaned up by a taxi.

We are not computers. Our brains do wierd things at times, even when we are not fatigued. I had to do an emergency brake last week in the car to avoid hitting another car that turned out in front of me. How many times have I pressed on that brake pedal? Tens of thousands? And you know what happened? My foot hit both the brake and the accelarator at the same time.

I fucked up. But I still stopped in time to not hit the other car.

When I was in the Reserves, we did weapons safety training all the time. It was drilled into us morning, noon and night. Yet I witnessed several people being charged over the years for unauthorised discharges (all with blanks thankfully). No matter how many times we drilled, people still tried to commence the cleaning of the SLR with the magazine still attached. The first thing you do is take the magazine off. Then you cock the weapon to eject any round that might be up the spout. Then you dry fire the action and start stripping it for a clean.

If bozo has left the magazine on, cocking the weapon ejects one round but feeds in another. When they "dry" fire the weapon, it goes off and they shit themselves.

Weapons are dangerous things. They are designed to kill people. They are agnostic - they don't care who they kill. They just kill anyone that they happen to be pointing at when the trigger is pulled. Kovco might have just had a mind blanking episode, done the wrong thing and killed himself.

I'm sure soldiers have been accidentally killing themselves with their own weapons since bits of sharpened flint were attached to sticks. Roman soldiers might have tripped over their togas and stabbed themselves with their swords. I am sure the odd person walked in front of a ballista as it was fired, and copped a large bolt through the head. Others probably got their feet tangled in the ropes of catapults and were hurled into beseiged cities, along with lumps of stone.

Musketeers were notorious for double or treble loading a musket in times of stress, and then blowing themselves up when they tried to fire it.

Crossbowmen must have shot themselves in the foot every now and then when trying to load their weapon. People blunder around weapons just like they commit blunders with their cars, their cement mixers, tractors, chainsaws and showers.

Where I used to work, fatigue was a problem that was taken very seriously, as it was found to be the cause behind a lot of workplace accidents and deaths - and some of those accidents were pretty hugs and cost millions of dollars to fix. People would zone out and then BAM - big crash of one sort or another.

I think Kovco simply zoned out and fucked up in the worst possible way. It really could happen to anyone, including me, except that I don't have a Browning 9mm lying around the house.

Drunks and ice cream

I just had a craving for good ice cream. Luckily for us, there is a very good ice cream shop in Balmain - about a 10 minute drive from here at this time of night. Being a long weekend, I reckoned that there was only a slim chance it would be open, but what the hell else am I going to do at 9.30pm on a Monday night that is any more useful?

The trip was half a waste of time. The place I wanted to go to was shut, but a restaurant just up the road was still open, and it had an ice cream display out the front. I have been to that particular place once before - and never been back. But it was try their ice cream of starve.

Their selection was terrible compared to the place I wanted to be open - seven flavours vs about 30. I also didn't like the look of the way the bloke was struggling to scoop it out. That often means it is too cold. He even had trouble with the tiramasu flavoured stuff, and that is half biscuit.

The other shocker is that I had to pay $10 for two small tubs of ice cream. You know when you buy Thai takeaway and you ask for a small rice, and it comes in a small circular container? Well, think of something about half that size, or less. Two of them cost $10.

I occasionally make ice cream at home. Not exactly proper ice cream - more a frozen creamy ice confection. I can't remember what it's called - some wop name. Even if I throw in lashings of berries, double cream and a vanilla pod, I can make about 6 times that amount for $10. And it tastes better, and has a superior mouth feel.

The icecream was gritty, like it was full of sand, which is usually a sign that it has been frozen and thawed and frozen again, as ice crystals have been able to form in it. I was no very impressed.

I was so unimpressed, I have failed to have seconds. It is now October, and that is the first time this year I have not had seconds. Bad, bad sign.

The other thing about my short journey to Balmain and back was the number of drivers that appeared to be drunk. Most were completely incapable of remaining in their chosen lane. Now I know the roads around here are rough, and cars get bounced around a bit, but they don't get bounced halfway into my lane as I am trying to get past someone that is doing 30 in a 60 zone and weaving from side to side. They were everywhere. It was like the Christmas Island crab migration - all these cars going sideways everywhere one looked.

I never thought that going out for ice cream could be so perilous.

Filth

I meant to wash the bike today. I meant to ride it as well, but the mercury climbed up over 30 and there have been strong winds all day, which would have produced a rather hot and sweaty experience. Plus I got a bit fried yesterday, being out for an hour longer than expected with no sun screen, so I didn't think my skin needed any more tanning than it already has.

The bike has not been washed in months. It is encrusted with grime - at least a few thousand kilometres of sand, grit, road base, oil and other horrible unmentionables. Probably includes rat guts - I saw a very flat and exploded rat on the road the other day.

Well, it was not to be. It will have to survive another week without a bath.

Socialist mumbo-jumbo

My heatfelt thanks to Bastards Inc for posting this mass of.... I don't know how to describe it. Let me put my spin on how we implement these policies:

1.4.2 Following from this international pressure must be applied for all nations, especially the industrialised nations, to adopt the goal of 90% reductions by 2030. A new round of climate negotiations must be organised with all sympathetic governments to prepare a global plan and treaty.

"International pressure" sounds like good old fashioned military force to me. Task the RAAF to tool up the F111s and bomb all power plants within range. Stop the bombing when either we run out of bombs, or electricity production in the targetted countries is down 90%.

Carry out "Linebacker II", I mean "Kyoto II" if they try to repair any of their infrastructure.

This is commonly known as "bombing them back into the stone age".

1.4.5 Australia must recognize environmental refugees and offer to take in people, especially from drowning countries in the Asia-Pacific region, who are displaced due to climate change impacts.

All citizens of a "drowning" country are hence forth to be known as "citizens of Atlantis", and issued a passport to that effect. Since they are currently living on islands, they will be happiest if they can continue living on one. They will all be shipped to Tasmania, and told to carry out traditional "slash and burn" agricultural practices in the national park of their choice.

I am sure that 5-10 million new residents in Tasmania will have little or no impact on the environment.

2.3.1 Climate change education programs must be run in schools, workplaces and communities.

All children must sign up for the Hitler Youth, I mean that National Socialists Workers Party youth scheme.

Why not run them in churches as well?

4.1.1 Unnecessary travel must be discouraged. Firstly, instead of shopping complexes being vast, centralised and away from public transport, local distribution outlets should be put in every neighbourhood where people can purchase or order their requirements. Travel to work must be rationalised.

You are all to be issued with a ball and chain.

Your house is to be acquired compulsorily and demolished to make way for a local distribution outlet. You are to be relocated to Bantustan. Don't forget to take your ration cards when you go shopping.

4.2.3 Freight rail should be upgraded to electric, including interstate and intercity freight lines.

Even though this is startlingly uneconomic, we'll do it anyway. We have no understanding whatsoever of the economics of rail freight, but this sounds like a good idea. They do it in densely populated Europe, so it must make sense to do it in the very undensely populated Australia.

4.3 Air transport. Air transport should be avoided at all costs except where its speed is absolutely necessary (for example, urgent medical goods, or people with urgent business). This means a regulatory authority to be given power of restricting air travel.

I guess this means we'll be back to driving across to Nullarbor. Prepare for a massive increase in road deaths as hordes of people have to drive between Sydney and Melbourne and Sydney and Brisbane. No mention is made of course of upgrading the death traps on the Hume or Pacific Highways.

The export of food crops like rice which undermine poor peasant producers in south-east Asia (for example) should be stopped.

Yeah, screw the bastards in countries that are unable to grow enough food for themselves. Who cares if a few million starve?

5.1.1 Unnecessary manufacturing includes products which are not needed at all or are not needed in the quantities which they are currently consumed. Cars are the biggest example. A massive cutback in auto manufacturing (and import) is necessary.

A new agency, known as GOSPLAN, will be responsible for the creation of a 5 year plan that will lead us to this new nirvana. The Chinese might not be very happy when we stop importing from them, but who ever worried about annoying the Chinks?

5.2 New industries must be built to manufacture the requirements for sustainable living.

Pol Pot showed the way here. The cities will be emptied of the bourgeouise, who will be put to work in the fields building the factories of the sustainable future.

5.3.3 Wherever possible, the transition should be accomplished by re-tooling existing plants. Whenever a factory is going out of business, socialists advocate its nationalisation and re-development to make socially useful, ecologically sustainable products. The huge capacity of auto manufacturing should be the base for manufacturing sustainable energy infrastructure.

Even if a factory is being scrapped because it is totally technologically clapped out, we'll still insist on keeping it running. That will even be the case where an old factory is going to be replaced by a new one that uses less energy and creates less pollution. The railway workshops at Eveleigh, which were built in the 1860s, will be re-opened and the old coal fired boilers restarted to power the lathes (non computer controller), winches and pulleys.

6.2.3 Livestock farming creates significant emissions of methane. Livestock farming must be reduced to a sustainable level. Livestock feed must be sourced from organic sources to ensure that methane emissions are not coming from fossil-fuel fertilisers but from carbon already in the biosphere. Does this make sense and is it necessary?

No more hamburgers for you!

And you!

6.2.4 Food production must be decentralised. This will reduce the amount of energy needed to transport and refrigerate foods. A broader base of production protects food security in the event of natural disasters destroying crops. This should include widespread urban agriculture.

If your house has not already been demolished to make way for a local distribution centre, it will now be demolished to make way for a market garden. The local footy oval is to be ploughed under with wheat.

6.3.3 Endangered species must be protected with the most stringent measures. Introduced pests need to be removed or controlled as much as is possible.

As Mao proclaimed, you must all kill 10 flies per day. You will be issued with fly swats to achieve this.

The same fly swats must be used to eliminate rabbits, foxes and feral cats.

And cane toads.

The transition to a sustainable economy will require more workers than are available. There is no reason for the human waste of unemployment in our plan.

Junkies, deadbeats, the mentally ill, the homeless, the useless, artists and the lazy will all be made senior managers and given the task of implementing the first five year plan.

Commit to 95% of stationary power emissions reduction by 2020; 60% overall emissions reduction by 2020; 90% overall emissions reduction by 2030. Immediate research into planning for these targets. Initiate an international treaty and mutual assistance program to bring other countries together to meet a target of 90% emissions reductions on 1990 levels by 2030. Isolate recalcitrant countries with trade sanctions etc.

Once the RAAF has finished bombing our neighbours, we will bomb ourselves.

Anyone caught with a backyard generator will be shot.