ajft

Funny enough at the time. The background information you'll need is a Lotus Notes rollout that seems to include a lot of heartache for those forced to use it, a corporate “wellbeing initiative” that has boxes of fruit delivered that provide one piece of fruit per person per week, and a mail room with the only pigeon-hole system in the universe where the names are above the boxes not below them:

  **** A message has arrived from pluto on Fri Sep 19 08:41! ****
  From: anonymous1 [To: ajft anonymous2]
  sigh
  It would be bliss...
  Till Slowtus Goats came along I hardly ever swore. Now I could make a sailor blush!.
  It's turned me into something I'm not and I'm embarrased about it. I demand compensation!.
  And no. Not 1/5th of a banana a day. That will not do it.

  **** A message has arrived from pluto on Fri Sep 19 08:42! ****
  From: anonymous2 [To: ajft anonymous1]
  if typical Monash fashion you can have your 1/5 of banana, but someone else will take your orange LOL

  **** A message has arrived from pluto on Fri Sep 19 08:43! ****
  From: anonymous1 [To: ajft anonymous2]
  I could have an orange???.
  NIS must've taken it before I got to it...

  **** A message has arrived from pluto on Fri Sep 19 08:44! ****
  From: anonymous2 [To: ajft anonymous1]
  Xxx put one in the pigeon hole for Adrian, but he put it above the name, so in fact it was in Allan's pigeon hole, and thus Allan ate it

  **** A message has arrived from pluto on Fri Sep 19 08:45! ****
  From: anonymous2 [To: ajft anonymous1]
  well actually it was a tangelo I think

  **** A message has arrived from pluto on Fri Sep 19 08:47! ****
  From: anonymous1 [To: ajft anonymous2]
  I thought it was a mandarin.

In the centre of Melbourne is a road labelled "Swanston street walk", its a joke really, there is no walking along it. During the day it is closed to private motor traffic. It is a major north-south thoroughfare through the city for cyclists, who have to share it with trams... and horse carriages... and jaywalkers... and taxis... and courier vans... and delivery trucks... and tourists who accidently drive into it... and motorists who ignore the closure and deliberately drive into it... and tour buses.

Tragically, this morning a woman died under the wheels of one of those tour buses.

It touched a nerve with the hundreds, if not thousands, of people who cycle into or through the city and a memorial service was organised for 17:15 on fairly short notice and despite this and the rain, somewhere between 100 and 200 people showed up.

A last minute decision to leave work early and head into the city to join the memorial gathering for the cyclist killed by a bus this morning. A sudden rain shower, a double-parked car blocking the bike lane and a less than successful overtaking manoeuvre across the tram tracks.

Thumbs up to all who showed up for the memorial.

Thumbs down to the idiots I saw in traffic; on foot, on bike, in car.

...and congratulations to our two newspapers, who seem to be at odds with each other in their reporting:

The Age

"She fell into the path of an oncoming Gray Line tour bus"

The Herald Sun

"The woman, from Parkville, was riding south when she was hit by the bus, which was also travelling south."

Truly makes you wonder about the quality of reporting of events that you can't verify from other sources.

There I was riding to work along North road, same as I always do. Obeying the law and riding in the lane adjacent to the bus-lane, same as a I always do. Nearly every other person using the road seems to be able to safely and legally pass me, same as the always do.

But there's always one...

The driver of a tow-truck from Gardenstate towing, registration TOW-836, was somehow unable to pass me and instead drove along for 400-500m blasting on the horn, yelling abuse and gesticulating wildly for me to get off the road and into the bus lane. I tried to wave him past, he just kept on hooting and yelling, finally as we got to Clayton road he swerved from being in the left-hand lane behind me, across the right-hand lane and into the right-turn lane.

Why is it that once or twice a week I get to meet a neanderthal who is insistent that I break the law so that they aren't inconvenienced?

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