ajft

Ok, we've done it now. The TV has been purchased — and what a comedy that turned into! It seemed to take a quarter of an hour for the staff in Dick Smiths to find one in their store-room and get it to the checkouts. I was amazed at the size of the box, concerned that it wouldn't fit in the car, but since the washing machine went in, just assumed that the Astra could take it... As the young lads were wheeling it out to the car-park I realised why it looked so large. 76cm screen vs. the 66cm one we'd purchased. Then came the fun part, around four iterations of “That's the wrong TV, not the one we wanted,” followed by “are you sure?” Eventually we got the right one, and loaded it into the car. I guess if I wasn't so honest — or not quite so quick to comment — we'd have walked off with a AU$1600 TV for AU$800 — me and my big mouth... (TEAC CTW2850S, no manuals in the box, no warranty card, no receipt, but apparently a 3 year warranty)

Added excitement was provided by the girl driving the Budget Hi-Ace rental van (PWO-869), driving straight into the back of us as we sat at the traffic lights on Warrigal road. She refused to give her name or license details, saying it wasn't necessary as there was no visible damage — probably terrified of what Budget would do if she admitting to crashing their van.

Farewell; Paulus, it was nice knowing you... Or whatever else is appropriate to wish someone on their bucks night. He doesn't look too concerned, we all enjoyed the proceedings. Most of them went Go-Cart racing in the afternoon, I joined for dinner at the Napier and then beers at an assortment of pubs in Fitzroy.

Far more interesting than the travesty of the State election held today. The Liberal party appears to have self-destructed over the past few weeks, the Greens don't seem to have any policies, just a general “be green” message. It being a “time of trouble” it was predicted that the populace was likely to vote for the incumbents anyway — and so it happened.

Time to be a feral unemployed bike-activist asshole (according to one posting in that bastion of petrol-headed free speech, news:aus.cars). After several years of reading the Critical Mass mailing lists, but not going to any of their rides, I decided to head into the city for the 7th birthday ride. The last times I was there, years ago, I became quite disillusioned that there were a small number of people who were pro-bike, a large number of people who were anti-car, and a medium sized number of people who were just anti-everything. My feelings for CM just keep on oscillating about. Some cyclists hate it, BV seem to hate it, on the other hand, conditions for cyclists are basically what scraps are thrown to them, and are frequently inappropriate. Civil Disobedience may at least raise the point that some people aren't happy...

5:30 meeting time at the State Library, the 6pm start time came and went, the whole assemblage resembling a mighty herd of cats — and about as easy to control. There were normal bikes, decorated bikes, and some highly customised one-off examples of the frame-builders art and fevered imagination... Sometime around 6:15 we headed off, tearing through the city streets at around 7km/hr. Much fun and laughter, no obvious aggression from any motorists, and many smiles and waves from motorists at some of the incredibly decorated bikes. One of the most impressive was a four-person vehicle of two riders and two drummers — the latter riding in a chariot-like contraption behind the riders, and protected by a large canopy.

After an hour of riding that included circling around through the city, splitting the group in two over two different routes, heading down St Kilda road and through parts of South Melbourne, I ended up missing the ride over the Bolte Bridge. I was starting to feel that the group had lost its way and wasn't going to get there, and I had other appointments for later in the evening, so at Flinders street I departed, heading home at a more normal speed. Amusingly enough, as I cycled down Bridge road, all three intersections with “forward bicycle boxes” were unusable due to the motorists parking in them. So much for BV's “pot 'o paint” approach to bicycle facilities.

Apparently the ride did go over the Bolte bridge, if I'd only stayed with them for another half-hour or so.

Later in the evening was a catch-up drinks and dinner with friends I hadn't seen for ages — about 18 months in a couple of cases. A late arrival and too much standing around talking and drinking beer meant that we missed the kitchen closing in the restaurant and Jo and I ended up with growling stomachs and a late supper when we got home around midnight.

Browsing a few Motorcycle-related bits and pieces I found a BMW Boxer to make me drool. Just the kind of vague ideas I've had of what I might like in a café-racer style of bike.

[http://www.teamincomplete.com/boxerintro.htm]

Team Incomplete's boxer

The mud is still there this morning; MarkO rang me at work to thank me for warning him about it, apparently when he got to the underpass there were three cyclists crashed in the slime, one with a suspected broken wrist. He has spent half the morning playing telephone tag between City of Buroondara council and Vic Roads, nobody wanting to take ownership of the problem or clean the path. A bit of digging around and I found the council website and their email address (mailto:boroondara@boroondara.vic.gov.au) — I've emailed them and asked them to clean it up.

[http://www.boroondara.vic.gov.au/]

Boroondara City council

[http://www.yarracity.vic.gov.au/]

Yarra City council.

Something must have worked — no response to my email, but riding home this evening there had obviously been a front-end-loader through and it had cleared out all the mud from the underpass — until the next time it rains....

Not quite the end of the drought — but it was pissing down all night. There was about half an inch of water in the containers on the balcony, and Gardiners creek was a churning mass of mud, water, and polystyrene run-off from all the surrounding suburbs. My timing was perfect this morning — the ride was humid, but there was no rain. Then half an hour after I arrived, it started pouring again.

... about 12mm according to the weather bureau. It certainly came down in a hurry though, on the ride home Gardiners creek had flood marks nearly two metres above the current water level! Heading down into the underpass at Toorak road a rider coming the other way yelled out and warned me about the mud — a thick, black, slimy, stinking coating of evil black goo, slippery as grease. When will the idiots start to design bike tracks, rather than just squeeze them in along storm-water drains?

Another day, another homicidal maniac...

Dear Sir,

Just in case you're reading this, the reason that the cyclist smacked your car with an open hand — making that remarkably loud sound — was that as you drove through the give-way sign and straight into his path, he had just had to perform an emergency stop to avoid riding into your drivers door at 40km/hr.

Oh well, he certainly jumped. Now if only he learns from the experience....

It certainly wasn't going to hit 33°C today — so much for the forecast. On the other hand, there were no more excuses, it was finally time to perform a vigorous house-cleaning. After a mere half-hour, the carpet was located beneath a thick layer of read, unread, and partially-read newspapers, numerous unwashed and discarded clothes were returned to their respective stores, and a couple of kilos of toast crumbs removed from the kitchen floor...

Uh oh! We've nearly bought a television. After nearly ten years without one, I think the temptation to own a TV is getting to me... a few too many documentaries are looking appealing, and it is getting embarrassing to have DVDs and no way of watching them other than on my (work's) laptop. Dick Smith have a 66cm wide-screen TEAC that seems to be about what we're after — so long as we can find somewhere to put it, without having to rearrange our whole lives around the damn thing.

Speaking of rearranging things; we nearly had the front of the car rearranged by the usual idiot — yes, a P-plater in an Imprezza WRX, screaming past a tram at a tram stop, passengers leapt left and right out of the way, somehow he didn't hit anyone, then slid to a halt in the middle of the intersection, heading straight at us. A big laugh from the driver and his mate, back into gear, and off he goes. Hopefully he'll put it into a large concrete barrier soon and remove himself from the gene pool.

And to think that we actually went out shopping for a CD rack — an object that seems to be missing from every shop we visit. You can find any number of cheap plastic ones that'll hold forty or so disks, or ornate stylish numbers taking up twice the space and holding half as many — but try to find a simple shelf for two hundred or so, not a chance....

Mr Curly, the duck, Vasco Pyjama... Michael Leunig's famous cartoon characters brought to life in a series of short animations. They've been screening in-between TV shows on SBS, tonight at the Astor there was a full length show of some of the 50 short films, an interview and chat with the artist, and a documentary of the making of the animations. His cartoon “Sunset” is one of the defining Leunig items to me — a single panel showing the inside of a room in a house, a man proudly showing his son a magnificent sunset on the television, outside the window the exact same sunset is playing in real life.... Around ten years ago I was camping in a caravan park on the NSW South coast and felt that I was living in that frame — sitting by the fire as the sun went down in magnificent colour over the lakes, not a soul was outside, and every window of every caravan was flickering in time, as they all watched the same news program on television....

Somewhere, someone must have decided that today was summer. The hazy cloud lifted while we were at the markets and it quickly heated up to around 30°C, with nothing much on the agenda for today, it all leant a very lazy summer feeling to the day.

Its either a sure sign of senility, or of hanging around with a two-year-old nephew for too long. Tonight we went off to the HiFi bar to see Mick Thomas and the Sure Thing play, supported by Gorgeous and the Drowners. During the Drowners set, Stewart (Stuart?) from the Sure Thing was standing near Jo and I watching them. The conversation between Jo and I was something along the lines of:

“Isn't that one of the …”

“Yep, Stewart, one of the Sure Thing.”

“So, is he Thing One or Thing Two?”

Half the audience stood around looking like stuffed fish all night long — looked like they would like nothing better than for it to finish so they could go home to bed. Too much effort to be out to a gig on a Friday night. There was one song that caused a bit of confusion, I could have sworn I'd heard it before, yet Mick announced it as a new song — I guess I'll just stay confused.

The encore was “Made of Stone” by the Stone Roses, and odd choice, but one that Mick has sung a few times before. I nearly laughed when I looked around and saw all the old people in the audience singing along, and all the young ones who weren't around in the mid 80's looking puzzled.

We thoroughly enjoyed the Drowners, as well as Mick and the band, so on the way out treated ourselves to a copy of their CD (Far From Home), together with two No Sleep Til Richmond tee-shirts — in anticipation of the Christmas Eve gig at the Corner.

Some idiot of a politician is proposing that Muslim women in Australia should be prevented from wearing traditional garments; due to the possibility of them carrying concealed weapons or explosives — fine, I'll agree with it, so long as it applies equally to all other clothing that could conceal any kind of weapon. I think the first place to enforce it would be in Parliament — “for their own protection from terrorists” — just think how quickly the sittings would take place if all those fat old men had to face each other naked and shouting....

A quick jaunt up to the shops before breakfast to get some bread, and — surprisingly — there was only one car illegally parked in the clear-way on Bridge road, and it even had a parking ticket on it. Normally there's at least one car per block!

The cool and drizzly weather has cut down on the number of other people riding in the mornings, and on the number of wandering people-with-dogs on the path. Makes it a pleasant trip heading in to work. On the downside, the evil smells from Gardiners creek are much more apparent!

I never knew that trying such a simple thing as moving mailing lists from my work email address to my private one could be such a hassle — yesterday I thought that I'd done it, today I found that some of the subscribes worked and some of the unsubscribes worked. I'm getting two copies of some stuff, and one (at various places) of the other. I don't think there's anywhere that I've managed to lose a subscription completely….

Cool, drizzly morning rain;
Eucalyptus smells along the creek.

[http://mesa3d.sourceforge.net/]

Mesa 3D toolkit has released version 5 of their software.

[http://www.doxpara.com/]

assorted interesting stuff: Black Ops of TCP/IP: Paketto Keiretsu

1. 0

I went through a number of my email mailing lists and changed the subscriptions from my work address to my private one — not that I'm planning on changing jobs anytime soon, it just seemed more appropriate. Along the way I added the hooks into spamassassin on the mail processing on bund, and changed from spambouncer to spamassassin on my home machine. Spambouncer just didn't seem to be staying up-to-date enough.

yawn. For some stupid reason I woke up at around 2:30 this morning and couldn't get back to sleep, it wasn't helped by not getting to bed before midnight — so now I have to try and survive Monday without falling asleep on my feet.

Interesting fun and games across the street at breakfast time — as I sat down to coffee and toast I noticed two of Victoria's finest Police officers standing around waiting at the door. Eventually the occupants came out, she in pyjamas, he dressed, and a great arm-waving discussion took place with the girl. Arms were waved, mobile phone calls were made, documents were shaken about. The most interesting part of it was that one of the coppers was quietly having a cigarette the whole time, cupping it out of sight in his hand like a naughty school kid. Unfortunately my camera isn't quite up to surveillance standards, so you'll just have to take my word for it!

Now I wonder who was the genius who put the application for a car-park permit on my desk at work? $50 to battle it out with the students in the blue areas, $316 for the exclusive staff-only parks… on the other hand I could just stick to riding the bikes and park for free.

… and a quick visit to the doctor has reassured me that the mysterious lump in my left ring-finger is scar tissue on the flexor tendon sheath— probably from vibration or gripping handlebars too hard on the tandem! It should go away in a couple of weeks, I'm to take it easy on the handlebars….

Off into the city this afternoon to shop around for Joey's birthday present — I know what I want, I just can't find it! Eventually successful, not only that, but the shop in question had the book on sale! Along the way I checked out the Lego Mindstorms that Dick Smith has — it's getting very tempting as a present to myself! None of the other chain stores had it, so price checking wasn't possible, but I did get to see all the current cool bits of Lego that they do have — like the Bionicle robot thingies. Of course, like every other piece of merchandise these days, they have their own website at www.bionicle.com.

Two new CDs also managed to fall into my hands; Rob Snarski and Dan Luscombe's “There is nothing here that belongs to you” as a present for Jo, and Death in Vegas' “Scorpio Rising” for me. The first one was hard to find, filed under S where I'd been looking under L, the second was a bit of a wild card, without hearing anything other than the single “Hands Around My Throat” I was hoping I'd enjoy it as much as “The Cantino Sessions.”

Viewed from the tram on the way home: a 20-something girly, arms waving wildly around as she was freaking out in Bridge road. The source of her problem — her car bent neatly around the nose of another tram. I guess she didn't see it....

Birthday dinner for Jo with Jo's family — Jack still happily believing that all birthdays are for him, leaping in and blowing out all available candles.

The Spiegeltent is back in its box, back home to Belgium for some R&R. That'll teach me to not quite get around to visiting it. Maybe next year...

Hmmm, maybe its time to get serious and compare the KHS Alite and Cannondale MT800 tandems:

So there it all is. As Pegasus Peter has said, there doesn't seem to be much between the two, is the Cannondale frame and name worth an extra 33% on the price?

Weird stuff is going on in the Melbourne Critical Mass “community.” Flames, etc appearing on the mailing list, and the sound of personalities clashing in the night....

There has been an interesting discussion on bells and the sounding of same prior to passing pedestrians. The argument for is in the interests of peace and harmony of all human-powered transport, the argument against is that most pedestrians on cyclable paths either know the bikes are there, and so don't need the bells, or don't know the bikes are there, and are such dopey idiots that making a warning noise is not in the best interests of cyclist or pedestrian.

The law requires me to have an “approved sound maker” “affixed to my bicycle.” Is my voice, capable of a large dynamic range, considerable volume, and wide variation, an “approved sound maker?” Is my 85kg mass, attached at seat, pedals and handlebars, better “affixed” than a bell or tweeter held on by a clip or one phillips-head screw? These questions and more can be asked of your local magistrate...

Woo! Bicycle Victoria has redesigned their web-pages. It still amuses me that Bicycle Victoria has a “.com” domain while Bicycle NSW has a “.org” registration — and it seems to reflect their focus as commercial ride organisers rather than bicycle activism. Oh well, it looks like I'm out of luck with respect to the bells, below is a direct quote from Bicycle Victoria.

Bells are of little use in alerting people in motor vehicles but can help alert people who are about to step onto the roadway.

The rules

Traffic regulations require a rider to have a bell fitted. The penalty for riding a bicycle without a bell is $50. The penalty refers specifically to a bell. The old definition of an audible warning device no longer applies - so you can't argue that your voice meets the regulations.

I wonder how the law regards air-horns, since they obviously aren't “bells?” Strangely enough, the requirements don't apply to tandems or other non-standard bicycles!

It's too nice a day, I should be outside riding my bike.

[http://www.criticalmass.org.au/]

[http://www.criticalmass.org.au/stkilda]

[http://www.urbanbicyclist.org/]

[http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bicyclesexcepted/]

Bicycles Excepted.

In keeping with the day's bicycle orientation, I went and attended Bicycle Victoria's Annual General Meeting this evening — something I've never done in the past. I have my own views on BV, and of how they've changed over the years, and of what their focus is these days, after five years as a member I thought I'd see what the AGM was like.

A few observations from the meeting:

• Out of a membership of around 30,000, approximately 50 people attended the AGM.
• The motto “*More People Cycling More Often*” might well be amended to “More People Cycling More Often — so long as we can make money off the events they're cycling in.”
• The crisis in public-liability insurance is causing much consternation, both to BV and to the related BUGs.
• Owing to “commercial sensitivity,” the majority of BV's financial information is not available to its members — whether there is a real or imagined threat to their income is not known, but it only serves to hi-light any suspicions that members have.
• The statements “*All organised rides were financially successful*” and “*Easter-bike is no longer held since it is not financially viable*” seem a little circular. It appears that the money is more important than getting “more people cycling” in this instance, and that the one main family-oriented event cannot be cross-subsidised by other events.
• The closing of BV's office the day before an important special meeting was explained as incompetence, rather than malice or any sinister motive to rail-road through changes to the constitution at that meeting.
• The councillors, old and new, seemed to be predominantly business people, or “recent new cyclists.” It appears that once you are a regular cyclist, you are no longer the primary focus of Bicycle Victoria. This seems to be reinforced by their emphasis on off-road paths and recreational facilities.

The old and the new — restoration of St Paul's cathedral and the newly opened Federation square.

I'd been wanting to take a look around the square, I like the design, the architecture. I also like the fact that it inspires people enough to detest it and write scathing letters to editors, rather than just being blandly uniform.

There was a fashion shoot going on in the main atrium, and we didn't get there until 4:00pm, but even so there was plenty of time to look around the galleries and open spaces. It should be even better when access to the river, and Birrarung Marr is opened up.

None of the cafés are open yet, so over the river to Southbank for a snack, then off to see a movie. Ten Vietnamese spring rolls were ordered, ten appeared on a plate, both Jo and I swear that we'd eaten five each, yet one remained.... The only possible explanation is that aliens had teleported an eleventh spring roll onto the plate.

Being good, civic-minded citizens, we attempted to purchase train tickets for the trip from Flinders Street to South Yarra — machine number one took our money and issued tickets, but machine number two refused to take our tickets and validate them. I guess we just put them in our wallets for later....

There hasn't been much on at the cinemas recently that has inspired either Jo or I to go out, but in order to use up my free Palace pass, we headed over to Como to see Time Out. Very, er, “French,” or “arthouse,” or whatever else you'd use to describe a movie that was intriguing, but seemed to drag on interminably. The last scene was a surprise, after what I thought was the end, a particularly black ending, there was a final scene that all too neatly tidied things up — almost as if some test audiences hadn't liked the original ending.

Flat battery? Need a mate to start your car? Where do you think you should park. No worries — park right across the middle of the bike path, she'll be right!

Just another of the myriad uses that bicycle paths seem to have in the public mind...

In case its not quite obvious what the content of the photo is, I was sitting at my least favorite set of lights waiting to cross Malvern road to continue up the bike track. The car on the opposite side has driven onto the bike track and parked, bonnet up, to jump start the broken down station wagon parked in the middle of the lawn.

After four days on the tandem, riding my own bike this morning was a bit surprising. It felt so light and manoeuvrable! I realized as well how much my seat has slipped down over the last couple of weeks, put that back up to normal height, hopped on and nearly swerved into the kerb in our street — the steering seemed that twitchy! The tandem must have helped the fitness though, the ride along the Boulevard was a lot quicker than it usually is!

Traveling home, today's “Idiot of the Day” award goes to the rider of the orange 100cc Honda motorbike, registration ZO-097. Passes me on the road, then turns left onto the bicycle track, sped off along the track and over the pedestrian/cyclist bridge over Warrigal road, before disappearing up behind the houses along the cycle track towards Chadstone.

  Today: 37km
  Total: 192km

Day 4, Cup Weekend Deadly Treadly Tour: Rutherglen Red Ride.

Myrtleford: 146° 43’ 39.1” E, 36° 33’ 35.8” S
Milawa: 146° 25’ 53.4” E, 36° 26’ 45.4” S

  Today: 62km
  Total: 154km

Day 3, Cup Weekend Deadly Treadly Tour: Rutherglen Red Ride.

Beechworth: 146° 41’ 10.7” E, 36° 21’ 41.4” S
Myrtleford: 146° 43’ 39.1” E, 36° 33’ 35.8” S

  Today: 52km
  Total: 92km

Day 2, Cup Weekend Deadly Treadly Tour: Rutherglen Red Ride.

Rutherglen: 146° 28’ 0.5” E, 36° 3’ 0.1” S
Beechworth: 146° 41’ 10.7” E, 36° 21’ 41.4” S

  Today: 40km
  Total: 40km

Day 1, Cup Weekend Deadly Treadly Tour: Rutherglen Red Ride.

Wangaratta: 146° 19’ 34.4” E, 26° 21’ 19.4” S
Rutherglen: 146° 28’ 0.5” E, 36° 3’ 0.1” S

Are there prizes for bizarre motorist behavior? Is the warmer weather affecting their minds? Just how many people believe that only other drivers need to obey law regarding mobile phones and driving? Sadly, I don't think I'll ever know the answers to these questions, but after managing to make it to work on the roads with them this week, I'm getting more amazed by the day.

... there must be some way that I can hook up the USB webcam to the laptop and get some “commute-cam” footage....

I don't know whether this should make me feel better or worse. Yobs don't just abuse cyclists from their cars, they're quite happy to scream at pedestrians as well... “Get a f#$%ken haircut C#@T,” rang out loud and clear from the occupants of the white Ford XD wagon, rego. PDF-374 as I walked along Beach road in Brighton, on my way to pick up the tandem for the weekend.