Asleep on a Train

...get back into a digital life. What I mean is that for the past year, I have been disconnected (in a way) from the 24/7 bombardment of Twitter, Facebook, Skype and the Internet in general. Sure, I've check some of my email accounts on a regular basis, I've used Wikipedia and IMDb to catch up on TV plots and identify actors in certain shows, mainly to show to my family what a smart-arse I can be with the help of the Internet. Haven't we all? It has helped that my HTC 3G Desire kept me connected when I was on the road What I'm referring to is a deep, all-day dive into the Internet, checking out old forgotten songs and bands, using Google maps street-view to check out old family homes in distant countries (the flowers have gone from Chester St, Patea -sigh- where I lived in 1976) But this week I've sat at the computer, Twitter ticking over, Skype showing me my old colleagues logging in and out, LinkedIn doing a similar dance, Gmail filling up then emptying ou...

One of my favourite things at the moment is my set of blue tooth stereo headsets from Plantronics. They are called BackBeat 903 and I brought them on line from Amazon after trying to find another set of my other blue tooth headphones, also from Plantronics. Where to buy them The reasons I like my BackBeats are many, so I'll list a few that leap to mind. 1. I can listen to music (my music) while I'm working , driving the buses. 2. Others cannot hear my music, but they should because I have good tastes. 3. After the first couple of days getting used to wearing them, they are comfortable and I hardly notice them. I can also wear my sunnies (a favourite thing) at the same time. 4. I can stop the music without reaching for my HTC Desire (another favourite thing). In fact, I keep my Desire in my back pack on the bus's dashboard. It is a big dashboard. 5. It has a Poly-Lithium battery and lasts 8 - 10 hours which is about the average shift duration as well, so I can be a...

There are days while driving the buses around Werribee that are stone, as the song goes, and then there are diamonds. The other day for me was a diamond. A bit of background is needed to explain the photo I have hopefully embedded in this article. The car in the photo is a local one. (It is the type most crushed by police for hoonerism) It is driven by an older, redneck biker bogan type person, with no offence directed at any reader who is either older, redneck, biker or bogan, or any combination of the above.  I know all this stuff because this person pissed me off one day by cutting in front of my bus while I was crossing the Werribee Railway tracks on a busy afternoon. That doesn't sound too bad when I write it now, but at the time, if I get blocked on the railway tracks in a 16 meter long bus, with people on board, and a train comes along, it could get messy for everyone. Needless to say, I cursed the driver and I noted at the time that the sign in his rear window made me u...