Just a few random thoughts from the day

To the Indian dude who looked like a version of Manuel from Fawlty Towers with a Melbourne Midnight Suntan who stepped out in front of me this afternoon with your head up your arse; yes, I did walk directly into you and knock you over on purpose.  Look where you are going.  Even better, look where I am going.

 

Lady at the shopping centre who suddenly decided to pull up motionless spang in the middle of the aisle because you saw some product that caused your single neuron to cold-start; yes, I did run my trolley directly into your shins deliberately to make the point you are a dumbarse.  It looked like it hurt.

 

It’s nice to be able to afford the luxury of knocking off 30 minutes before rush hour if you are getting the train home.  You get to avoid all the little scurrying lemmings why think they have to barge and push to get themselves home 2 minutes earlier.

 

To the smartarse whose attitude I corrected on the train the other day; it’s not only basic civility to let people off the train before getting on, it’s basic physics.  Two people cannot occupy the same doorway at the same time.  I felt zero hesitation in taking a firm grasp of your collar and relocating you where you needed to be for the basic laws of the universe to carry on.  I realise you didn’t like this, but I have 10 years, 4” and about 30kg on you, and after the day I had I was quite prepared to sit you on your arse in front of the entire platform to make the point.

 

There are two sorts of people who wear suits.  People who wear them because their job or position requires one, and people who wear one because they’d like to have the position where they need to wear one.  It’s quite easy to tell which is which.

 

Quite a few women wear joggers for walking to work and presumably change into something a little more dressy once they get there.  I think this is an excellent idea.

 

Laptop backpacks are also an excellent idea.  Manbags/satchels built for laptops sound cool until you heave one over a shoulder for more than a block.  Then you’ll be crying for a backpack.  I’m only carting a 13” ultraportable, power pack, full sized corded mouse, VoIP headset, wireless modem and cabling with me and that’s heavy enough for 4 blocks.  On a similar note, that cordless notebook mouse you got?  How’s your hand doing after a few hours?  Yeah, looks painful.

 

There’s a interesting variety of street bums who exist exclusively in cities.  How they got there, I don’t know.  I’ve seen a few still sleeping in the mornings, just crashing on a slab of concrete or a bench with a blanket over you must kill your back, even if you’re less overweight than I am ever going to be.

 

Our work VPN sucks the root.  The throughput is woeful and the DNS is worse.  Luckily I only need it on to access the network shares and Communicator, mail works fine with it off.

 

I just found out that I am being paid $50,000 a year more than the annoying FOH person I sit next to until the ops centre floor is completed in our building.  He’s no less annoying, but somehow… the irritation has faded into relative insignificance.

 

Oh yes – despite the annoyance, cost and occasionally odour of getting the train into town, there is a certain value in being able to sit down for half an hour, let someone else drive, and watch Star Trek on my iPhone.