...only five days till xmas!
crazy stuff. I'm going up to Mona Vale to spend xmas with Lisa and her family then she and I and a couple of her mates are going camping up at Forster for a few days before new years. Can't wait.



I've almost finished the painting that I'm doing for Lisa, we've celebrated chunks of xmas already... I bought her a little aquarium setup and she has got me some paints, some great coloured pens for my drawing, some thai fishermens pants (so comfy) and the first pair of thongs I've had in many, many years.
Things are getting a little bit quieter at work... we experience the opposite of a xmas rush, as a result of so many people for our customers going on holidays. This is a good thing. I get to do some catchup on my programming for the upcoming job change.
My good mate Kele called tonight to impat his particular style of xmas glee and have a chat. It's hard to believe that it's been 5 years since I've seen him. Must rectify that...

In the news today: The Sydney Harbour Bridge is going e-tag only in the next couple of years.

from the article:

"Motorists will soon be banned from using cash on the Sydney toll road network as the State Government seeks to entrench the use of electronic tags.

Even the Sydney Harbour Bridge, where tolls have been collected manually for 72 years, will have its cash booths removed as part of the motoring revolution aimed at forcing more than 85 per cent of motorists to use electronic devices.

The Roads Minister, Carl Scully, has confirmed the scrapping of cash payments on all six existing toll roads. It has already been decided there will be no manual transactions on the three motorways under construction: the M7 Westlink and the Cross City and Lane Cove tunnels.

The Cross City Tunnel, now running well ahead of schedule and due to open early next year, will become the first tag-only motorway in Sydney. Motorists driving on the road without tags will have their vehicle's numberplate photographed. They will be able to defer payments or ring a hotline within a few days of the trip to arrange for the $2.50 each-way toll to be paid.

The Sydney Harbour Tunnel was to become tag-only this month but Mr Scully said the changeover would be delayed until the Cross City Tunnel was opened - a tactic aimed at reducing "teething" problems.

Mr Scully said Melbourne's strife-plagued opening of cashless tolling a few years ago had made him nervous about introducing the scheme in Sydney, but it was inevitable the entire network would be tag-only.

"I wouldn't want to put a time limit on it," he said.

"But eventually, a few years down the track, it's probably time to say to people, 'Look, now's the time we make our motorway system cashless'.

"I'm reluctant to force it on people but I think it's such an attractive product, people will vote with their feet. They'll take it up anyway."

Electronic tags first became available in the middle of 2001, but it was not until last year that a single tag could be used on all motorways.

Since then tag use has soared to an average of about 65 per cent.

The M2 has the lowest number of users at just below 60 per cent, while 70 per cent of journeys on the M5 are tagged.

Mr Scully said he would move to make the road system cashless once more than 80 per cent of all trips were made using a tag.

He said he was putting pressure on the Cross City Motorway consortium and the Roads and Traffic Authority to ensure the new cashless system worked properly from the start. A marketing campaign was being devised to raise community awareness on tagging and how motorists could pay tolls if they chose not to buy a device.

The way it was on the bridge's official opening day in 1932.

"There are always teething problems when you introduce new infrastructure and technology, so I don't expect it to be problem-free," Mr Scully said.

"But I've certainly got the pressure on them."

In late 2006 the 40-kilometre M7 Westlink will usher in another landmark in cashless tolling, with motorists paying tolls according to the distance they travel - up to a cap. It is expected the decision to ban the use of cash could be timed to coincide with the opening of the western roadway's connecting roads from Seven Hills to the M5 at Campbelltown."

The Goodies Reunite for Sydney Show!


At last, The Goodies will get together for a Sydney show, writes Richard Jinman.

The Goodies won't be riding their famous tandem bicycle when they reunite on stage in Sydney next year.

The comedy trio saddled up in London recently, but the "Trandem" proved as uncomfortable and unstable as it was 30 years ago. Back then, the sight of Tim Brooke-Taylor, Bill Oddie and Graeme Garden pedalling off to combat a plague of Rolf Harrises or a giant kitten, was as familiar to television audiences as the theme song refrain, "Goodies! Goody goody yum yum".

"We always hated the bicycle," says 62-year old Brooke-Taylor, who played the group's Union Jack waistcoat-wearing royalist. "The first one didn't have brakes and we were always falling off it. But as an image we knew it was right."

The reformation of The Goodies for a series of live shows as part of Sydney's Big Laugh Comedy Festival in March won't mean much to anyone under 30. But it's a source of real excitement for fans. The show screened Mondays to Fridays on the ABC and is still remembered fondly here, as evidenced by 50,000-plus sales of a Goodies DVD released last year.

"There's a phenomenon of thirtysomethings who just love them," says Big Laugh director John Pinder, who persuaded the trio to reunite. "I know there are people talking about flying out from the UK to see them."

Brooke-Taylor, who began performing with Oddie, 63, and Garden, 61 when they were students at Cambridge University, says they had not previously contemplated a reunion. They aren't sure if they'll perform the show - which tells The Goodies story through performances, anecdotes, songs, film clips and (possibly) a few explosions - in Britain

"We don't want to be like an ageing pop group that gets back together to pay the mortgage," says Brooke-Taylor. "We want it to be fun and good. If we feel the show is enjoyable we might go on with it."

The Goodies have met several times to script the new show. It isn't easy translating a television program that made heavy use of costumes and camera tricks to the stage, but the trio's enduring friendship has made it a smooth reunion. "It'll never be quite the same, but we were one of the few groups that never fell out," says Brooke-Taylor, who has worked regularly with Garden on the BBC radio quiz I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue.

Watching old episodes like The Goodies and the Beanstalk and The Bunfight at the OK Tearooms, Brooke-Taylor admits some gags have aged. But he's intensely proud of the show.

"To be honest, I don't think The Goodies would be made now," he says. "I didn't think the first two series were very good, but once you get a bit of confidence and people get to know the characters, you can take more risks. Nowadays, if the ratings aren't right you're taken off overnight."

And The Goodies did take risks, despite the popular perception of the show as a more slapstick, kid-friendly version of Monty Python's Flying Circus. The Goodies was written for adults and initially aired at 10.30pm in Britain. Brooke-Taylor says he has a "huge list" of moments - everything from rude words like "pissed" to sexual innuendo and parodies of religion - that were excised from the ABC's early evening broadcasts.

He says the show's edge was sharpened after they received a letter praising the first series from British morals campaigner, Mary Whitehouse. It was a call to arms for comedians who had learned their craft at university revues alongside future Monty Python alumni such as John Cleese and Graham Chapman.

"It made us go out of our way to make sure she didn't like any of our shows" says Brooke-Taylor, who got his wish when Whitehouse complained about a scene in which he wore underpants emblazoned with a large carrot.

The show was political, too. Brooke-Taylor was the arch conservative, Garden the middleman and Oddie the scruffy socialist.

"In reality, we were all anti-establishment," says Brooke-Taylor. "But I had the double-barrelled name so I was always going to play the Tory."

The Goodies perform at The Riverside Theatres , Parramatta, on March 3 and at the State Theatre on March 4, 5. Tickets $59-$72, bookings 9266 4800.

Great news!
I've scored a job as an application developer for our company. I start in late January. Can't wait. So long tech support (after 5 years) I'm finally on the path I've been oh so gradually building towards over the last few years. Eggshellent. I've got a lot of catch-up learning to do in the next few months, but I predict it's going to be worth it.

In other news, Friday night we had our office xmas paty which was held at 'le montage' in Leichart. A nice night, even with the overly raucous femal comedian, always nice to have a few with ones work colleagues.

I'm just doing some of my management course and I've found this great Native American quote:
"To truly understand another, we must walk a mile in their moccasins. And before we can walk in another's moccasins, we must first take off our own."

...and while i'm a quotin' :

"The colossal misunderstanding of our time is the assumption that insight will work with people who are unmotivated to change. Communication does not depend on syntax, or eloquence, or rhetoric, or articulation but on the emotional context in which the message is being heard. People can only hear you when they are moving toward you, and they are not likely to when your words are pursuing them. Even the choices words lose their power when they are used to overpower. Attitudes are the real figures of speech." -- Edwin H Friedman, Friedman's Fables



...Good night.

Hello there, how's it going?
I worked out at Homebush today.. . So a much easier trip to work, simply a 45 minute drive or so, pretty easy. Today the Homebush Ikea store opened up. It's the largest home furnishings store in the southern hemisphere has a floor area of 26,000m2 (which would cover the Sydney Olympic Stadium) and a product range of over 7500 articles. Amazing.
I've been to the Moore Park store & though that was pretty damn large and impressive, only to find out that it' the SMALLEST Ikea store in the world! I guess that's amazing again, just in a different way.

=)

Wil Anderson is performing tonight at the Mic in hand at the Friend in Hand pub in Glebe tonight. Lisa's going as are Mick and Chris from work, but unfortunately I'm a wee bit too fiscally crippled at the moment, working in the city costs me about $8.80 in transport costs a day. It's also nice to get home early and have a bit of time to myself too. It's been quite a while since I've had a little break (even a few hours it seems!) and so it's nice to sit back and enjoy some quiet time.
...Is that enough justification? hehe... it will have to do. I do feel a bit bad that I'm leaving Lisa to go when she would have loved to have had me there, but she's a grown girl, and capable of having fun without me. It is hard to shake that 'staying at home, loser' feeling, but I'm also trying to save some money at the moment, I'd love to go on a holiday with her soon, after Christmas we're going camping down the south coast, so we'll have some quality time very soon.
Can you believe it's only 3 weeks to Christmas! Eeeek!

I love this image from EigenRadio




...And i don't know why.

Later.

Ooh, another hot hot day today... about 38 deg. There was a bit of thunder and a touch of ran just a few minutes ago.. enough to make it more humid, not enough to really cool anything down.