New GoCard

My GoCard hadn't yet turned up, and I doubt it will now. It was unfortunate, but shit happens. I bought another one to replace it, but I only have the crappy Brisbane Transport plastic case to keep it in instead of my leather Disneyland pouch. I'll call the transport people in a few days, but I'm not holding my breathe waiting for it. It's actually annoying that I can't just keep my GoCard in my wallet like other people can, because the chip in my GoCard will apparently interfer with the chip in my student ID card. I'm not sure what they'll do to each other, but I don't want to screw either of them up.

Lab Safety Video

All lab safety videos should be like this one:

Lost my Go Card

I had an annoying day yesterday. I left my Go Card on the bus, along with the black leather disney card pouch I kept it in. I got to the door of the bus, and couldn't find it in my pockets or the pouches on my backpack, and the bus driver was getting annoyed, so I thought I'd just get off the bus and pay the fine for not swiping off, but then once off the bus, I couldn't find it anywhere, so I assume I must have dropped it under the seat I was in or something like that. I had about $20 credit still on it too, plus the deposit for the card. Grrr.

Swiss Cows

Les vaches en Suisse chantent bien.
Krów w Szwajcarii dobrze śpiewać.

Do Fryzjera

Il faut que j'aille au coiffeur. Mes cheveux sont longues, donc je pense depuis quelque temps que je devrais y aller, mais aujourd'hui j'ai travaillé chez gv et une de mes collegues m'a dit que mes cheveux la rappellent des Beatles. Donc, il faut que j'aille au coiffeur.
Mais quel couleur cette fois?

Ontplof

I like this sentence: My tepels ontplof met vreugde.

It's amusing in English, but to me, it sounds funny in Afrikaans. "Ontplof" means "explode", which is the word I particularly like. ("Vreugde" means "delight" for those trying to guess the meaning of the sentence.)

Je deteste le 170

I hate certain aspects of the Brisbane public transport system. Especially route 170, which is the route that I need to take to get from the busway to home*. It's invariably late, or delayed, or the drivers become geographically embarrassed, and I always seem to just miss one whenever I arrive at the busway. Yesterday, I got off my 139 at the busway to see the 170 still listed on the electronic signboard, but alas, it had already been past and the sign was just slow at updating itself. Knowing that this is a half-hourly bus service, I sat down and waited until the next one, expecting it to arrive in about 30mins. This didn't happen. The next 170 appeared on the sign, about 30mins later, but didn't show up. I think the driver had taken a wrong turn or something, judging by the way the passengers commented when she finally took a correct turn at a later stage. This bus finally showed up at the busway stop 26mins late. I had to wait 56 minutes at the busway for a service that runs every 30 minutes. I really don't think that's acceptable. It's no wonder people in Brisbane own cars because they can't rely on the public transport system.


* except during peak hours when I can take the 171, 178 or 176

Double geek

Star Trek meets Lord of the Rings.
I'm not sure where to even start with this. The lyrics, the choreography. Just watch it, it's worth it:

Impressive sand artist

This is cool:
It is apparently the winner of Ukraine's talent tv show thing, and worth watching, even if it is 8 and a half minutes long. The artist used a light table and sand to depict the German invasion of Ukraine in WW2.



(Found on the stranger)

Not my favourite author

I've read Angels And Demons and The Da Vinci Code, and while I liked the basic plot, I never thought they were particularly well-written books. It's good to see someone shares my dislike of Brown's writing style:
Dan Brown's 20 worst sentences
Some of them are amusingly bad. I'd like to add to number 6's reason for being inept; How does studying the migration patterns of manta rays help with entanglement physics?