egads!

Read this article.
The bit that kind of blows my mind is this:

Transperth’s cycling integration manager Jim Krynen said a car park survey found 60% of motorists drove less than two kilometres to their preferred station. And 40% had driven less than 800 metres to the station.*

That kind of blows my brain. I walk about a kilometer (maybe 1.20km?) to the station and it takes me 20 minutes. That’s a nice, short walk to get the blood flowing. Certainly not taxing or warranting a change of clothes. To think of driving 800 metres… holy moley. There are, of course, extenuating circumstances – infirmity, kids, etc. But, really, if you’re able bodied and the weather’s fine, why would you drive? I enjoy that type of quick, purposeful walk, and couldn’t think of anything nicer than sharing with someone, so why would you choose to drive?
You know how I feel about bikes on trains. I’m for it. I’m totally for it. The ‘ban’ is kind of shitful (though you don’t get fined, so it’s not a massive deterrent), and of course I feel there should simply be more trains running to accommodate the crush (yes, yes, I know that’s it’s more complicated than that, but please. We’re talking ideal world, here). I still don’t really understand why more people don’t ride bikes or walk, and why there aren’t better bike lanes. I mean, it’s just plain fun! And I’m a currently scarily unfit, ordinary person who doesn’t ride a supermachine bike, isn’t a super bike rider and doesn’t ride terribly quickly…
I know people who drive down from the ‘wick to Melbourne Uni. That kind of makes my brain explode. It’s a 15-20 minute bike ride from my place. You could walk it in an hour. It’s all bike paths, all the way, and it’s a nice walk – down a lovely tree-lined avenue for the most part. Or you could cut through the parks and go down the lovely bike path through the park. It’d be a frustrating drive and it would take you at least as long (if not longer) to drive – the traffic is poo down Sydney Road in peak hour. I mean, I’d ride every day, and catch the odd tram when the weather was bad, and I’m not a hardcore rider. I’d do it just because it’s such a nice thing to do…
Look, I’m still trying to get my brain round that not walking 800 metres thing. It’s just such a short distance. Maybe 2 minutes drive. Only about 15 to 20 minutes walk (20 slow minutes at that). Easy, even in work clothes. And if you have someone to walk with and talk to… Or if you live in a suburb like the ‘wick, where there are plenty of people to say hello to, lots of interesting things to stare at as you walk long…
I mean, I’m constantly looking for new ways to squeeze a bit more incidental exercise into my life – I choose not to ride to the station because I need the extra 15 minutes walk (it’s about 5 minutes, max to ride).
Golly. It’s mind boggling.
Oh, remind me to post the number of steps I took at MLX. Crinks and I wore pedometers one night of the exchange. I wore mine from 9.30 til 6am on the night I was running an event (not dancing) and racked up a phenomenal number of steps. The stupid pedometers got all confused by dancing, especially with nice, fat lindy hopping bounce, so we had to discard that data. Next year we’ll get it together and wear our pedders every night.
*I wonder how they got these results? Let’s just assume they’re ‘accurate’.

feeling a little traumatised

by difficult French films?
There is only one solution:
noflavah.jpg
Also having difficulty imagining the dissertation as a book, so rereading markers’ comments, just to remind me that I don’t completely suck. Academia = way great fun.
…and I’m finding editing the Transformers pages on wikipedia very satisfying. I know nothing about the Transformers universe, I can’t figure out what the articles are actually about because they’re so badly written, but I am feeling immense satisfaction in rewriting them. Soon, though, I will know everything about the Transformers. Just ask me.

Bunk Johnson’s Bunk and the New Orleans Revival 1942-1947

Bunk and the New Orleans Revival 1942-1947. Not something you’d like if Sidney Bechet gives you the shits. I’m not really the hugest fan of revivalist stuff any more. I did go through a massive phase, but I’m kind of coming out the other side… I mean, I like it, but I have limited tolerance for it. It can go badly when DJing, and I know I’ve had moments when I’ve really not liked dancing to it. I think you have to pick your songs and artists carefully, otherwise it can just be a bit too annoying.
But this was an interesting CD (another from the Tasmanian jazz shop guy – gotta keep supporting him as they’ve just opened a JB in Hobart. Argh!), and I’m kind of interested in the parallels between the revivalists in Australia and the US. In fact, jazz in Australia is kind of interesting, when you consider the fact that there weren’t any African American artists in Australia to keep things fresh…. I’m sure you could make all sorts of provocative arguments about white Australian jazz… but I won’t.

The Jimmie Noone Collection

I’m especially liking The Jimmy Noone Collection from Collectors’ Classics.
Favourite tracks? Very scratchy versions of familiar songs like:
After You’ve Gone by Jimmie Noone’s Apex Club Orchestra (1929)
Love Me or Leave Me by Jimmie Noone’s Apex Club Orchestra (1929)
My Melancholy Baby by Jimmie Noone’s Apex Club Orchestra (1929)
Ain’t Misbehaving’ by Jimmie Noone’s Apex Club Orchestra (1929)
And a few others, including
Wake Up! Chill’un, Wake Up! (as above)
My Daddy Rocks me (as above, with female vocals)
The vocals aren’t all ok for dancing – they can be a bit cheesy, but there are some goodies. Love Me or Leave Me is really fab. As is My Daddy Rocks Me. I’m not sure any of it’s really of a high enough quality for DJing, though it’s better than a lot of the really old recordings I have. Once you get into the 1920s, unless it’s a super Mosaic set, you really can’t be sure the quality will rock.
But I’m quite keen on Jimmie Noone atm. And Wingy Manone. It’s all pretty olden days, and not necessarily something I’d DJ for lindy hoppers, but it’s definitely stuff I like to listen to.

intertube moofies

Because we are queen of media, and because our local video shop sucks arse, I am considering an online DVD ordering arrangement. It’s terribly old school – DVDs coming in the mail. Just like ordering seeds from a catalogue (my favourite thing ever), and I guess as soon as the internet becomes a superhighway rather than a single lane (covered) central Queensland highway it’ll be superseded by downloads. But for now, it’s about the most exciting thing I can imagine.
So does anyone use any of these things? We’ve looked atquicklix and bigpond, but quickflix is winning at the moment. Once you get to the $36 per month plan, you get unlimited DVDs per month, 3, 4 or 5 at a time. It’s a bit cheaper on Bigpond (especially as we have a Telstra phone account for our internet), but Bigpond don’t do the unlimited DVDs and they have some slightly dodgy small print. Both offer free trials.
I’m not sure which account we should get. I’m a massive DVD renter, so I think there’s definitely the potential for unlimited DVDs. When we had a halfway decent DVD shop, I’d get DVDs out every other day – 2 and 3 at a time. So we’re looking at a family who’d hire about 10 DVDs a week, possibly 5, and that’s about 20 a month. That’s $46 on Bigpond or $36 on quickflix. The issue would be how many you can have at a time – only 3? Would 4 be better? It’d depend on your turn around time and how good you were at putting them in the mail. We’re weak on returning DVDs round here.
And you have to keep 20 DVDs in your list to be hired on quickflix. There are no overdue fees, but you are paying for the service, monthly, so you’re losing money if you don’t return DVDs.
… I guess we’d take advantage of the films (especially the older, harder to get arty ones and others that I think of as ‘weeklies’ – musicals, classics, foreign, etc), and would really benefit from the telly. It’s easier to get through multiple discs of a telly show than multiple movies, because you watch them in 30 minute, 45 minute and 1 hour blocks, rather than committing to one and a half hours at a time. That’s good for me because I like to watch an episode of something over lunch, to take a break from work.
So, does anyone use any of these services? Which? What’s good about them?