There are many things about the future we cannot possibly predict, but I would like to make the following prediction about mine:
There shall be banjos.
Well, at least one banjo. Irish tenor (4 string) to be precise.
Possibly by next weekend.
Or the weekend after...
Monday, March 30, 2009
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Woody
It's hard to explain the Woody thing.
He could have been the right guy, except it was the wrong time and I wasn't in the right place.
He wasn't the one that got away so much as the one I didn't try to catch, but always wondered if I should have - if that makes sense?
Although I can't say I was ever in love with him, there was a time when I probably would have fallen for him if he had ever asked me to. He never asked.
And yet...
It's strangely hard to get over something that never happened, probably shouldn't have happened anyway, and will - in all likelihood - never have the chance to happen again.
Life does strange things, doesn't it?
He could have been the right guy, except it was the wrong time and I wasn't in the right place.
He wasn't the one that got away so much as the one I didn't try to catch, but always wondered if I should have - if that makes sense?
Although I can't say I was ever in love with him, there was a time when I probably would have fallen for him if he had ever asked me to. He never asked.
And yet...
It's strangely hard to get over something that never happened, probably shouldn't have happened anyway, and will - in all likelihood - never have the chance to happen again.
Life does strange things, doesn't it?
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Further to the Last (Google maps)
Actually, I've had a thought.
I have noticed on more than one occasion that Google has "ghost" streets and blocks of land - marks which clearly do not show existing streets or land divisions (they are in shades of grey, rather than the more definite markings), but at the same time clearly show where streets and land divisions... are? But, aren't...?
I'm wondering if they are working off town plans that have been registered with some official body somewhere which show where future developments will/may occur. Perhaps they are predicting the future after all?
I have noticed on more than one occasion that Google has "ghost" streets and blocks of land - marks which clearly do not show existing streets or land divisions (they are in shades of grey, rather than the more definite markings), but at the same time clearly show where streets and land divisions... are? But, aren't...?
I'm wondering if they are working off town plans that have been registered with some official body somewhere which show where future developments will/may occur. Perhaps they are predicting the future after all?
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Wulguru Station
This amuses me:
Every time I look up a map of my town on Google maps, I find these "stations" all over the place. Little train station logos, with official sounding names like "Wulguru Station" and "Currajong Station", implying that you could go to that point on the map and find a train station, from which you would be able to catch a train.
Perhaps this was true, once, many long decades before I was born. I can't say for sure. All I know is that there hasn't been a train station in the vast majority of these locations for as long as I've been alive - and most of these areas don't even show signs of form work to suggest that there might have been train stations there once... in the long distant past.
I wrote an article on the vanishing train lines of North West Tasmania a few years back for Australian Coast and Country magazine, so I'm reasonably good at picking up the signs that a train line or a platform once existed in a location. It has to be gone for a number of decades before you loose all sign of it.
This means that one of three things is happening here:
Google is completely and utterly wrong about these stations having ever existed
Google is running off information so far out of date it doesn't even belong in the last three decades of the last century
Google is somehow predicting the future, and projecting to a time when the population of Townsville will demand train stations to be present at these locations.
If any one of these things are happening (and surely one of them must), it indicates that Google cannot be trusted to provide accurate landmarks. Given the fact that they haven't actually listed the one train station that is in existence in Townsville, and they show a number of train lines that definitely don't exist, I think this might be a fairly safe assumption.
Oh, something else I noticed the other day that I thought was particularly amusing was the fact that the Dalrymple Gap Road turns up on Google maps. That "road" has been abandoned for well over 60 years and has long since returned to the wild. It's now a popular half-day-walk amongst bush walkers in the area.
Where is Google getting it's information from?
And why do I still look at Google maps if I want to get directions?
Every time I look up a map of my town on Google maps, I find these "stations" all over the place. Little train station logos, with official sounding names like "Wulguru Station" and "Currajong Station", implying that you could go to that point on the map and find a train station, from which you would be able to catch a train.
Perhaps this was true, once, many long decades before I was born. I can't say for sure. All I know is that there hasn't been a train station in the vast majority of these locations for as long as I've been alive - and most of these areas don't even show signs of form work to suggest that there might have been train stations there once... in the long distant past.
I wrote an article on the vanishing train lines of North West Tasmania a few years back for Australian Coast and Country magazine, so I'm reasonably good at picking up the signs that a train line or a platform once existed in a location. It has to be gone for a number of decades before you loose all sign of it.
This means that one of three things is happening here:
If any one of these things are happening (and surely one of them must), it indicates that Google cannot be trusted to provide accurate landmarks. Given the fact that they haven't actually listed the one train station that is in existence in Townsville, and they show a number of train lines that definitely don't exist, I think this might be a fairly safe assumption.
Oh, something else I noticed the other day that I thought was particularly amusing was the fact that the Dalrymple Gap Road turns up on Google maps. That "road" has been abandoned for well over 60 years and has long since returned to the wild. It's now a popular half-day-walk amongst bush walkers in the area.
Where is Google getting it's information from?
And why do I still look at Google maps if I want to get directions?
Thursday, March 5, 2009
The Caretaker
Well, I've finally gotten around to putting something new on my Siege Works blog. It's a short story I started writing ages ago, but was distracted before finishing the last few paragraphs.
It's now finished and up for all the world to see.
The Caretaker is a ghost story. It's not a particularly scary ghost story, but it's a story about ghosts, and that makes it a ghost story.
Well, technically, it's a story about people living with ghosts.
Ah, I can't be bothered trying to explain it, just go over to the blog and read the darn thing.
It's now finished and up for all the world to see.
The Caretaker is a ghost story. It's not a particularly scary ghost story, but it's a story about ghosts, and that makes it a ghost story.
Well, technically, it's a story about people living with ghosts.
Ah, I can't be bothered trying to explain it, just go over to the blog and read the darn thing.
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