Rants from Vas

There have been a number of self-styled “experts” in the media claiming that distributing the video of Casey Heynes delivering a smackdown on Richard Gale encourages violence. I’ll tell you who’s encouraging violence: everyone who’s said in public that Casey’s suplex slam was unjustified. You’re telling bullies, “Go on, pick on the fat kids; they have no right to defend themselves. You’ll get your kicks, and the worst you’ll suffer is a few days’ detention.” I saw a child psychologist quoted as saying that counselling is the best solution. What good would counselling be to Casey with his front teeth knocked out? Casey did the right thing: he showed Richard that he won’t put up with being humiliated, and he showed considerable restraint. I mean he didn’t even respond to the first punch, and when he snapped it was just a suplex slam — imagine where Richard would have been if Casey had gone for a pile driver. Instead of a screwed up leg, he’d have a fractured skull or broken neck.

Oh, and I saw Mrs Gale on TV complaining about how Casey’s getting all the love, and no-one feels sorry for her boy. I’ll tell you why: because you brought him up to be a violent jerk. You should thank Casey for trying to knock some sense into your brat — it’s obviously more than you’ve ever done for him. Hopefully from this day forward he’ll be a changed person, but given his refusal to apologise, I don’t hold out much hope. His excuse that he’s been bullied too is no justification. If that’s the case, he of all people should have known better than to throw those fateful punches.

I was in Wangaratta over the weekend for a friend’s wedding. It’s not a place I’d usually go. Despite being in the middle of nowhere, there’s a lot of traffic, and parking is metered almost everywhere. It’s white trash central, too — Shepparton has a Turkish community and Kyabram has the Iraqis, but everyone in Wangaratta seems to be some kind of Anglo, and a fair proportion of them are overweight, too. I felt we stuck out like a sore thumb — Asian family, shirt bearing the logo of a heavyweight institutional broker (that none of the locals would recognise), trying to buy stuff with a black AmEx. Speaking of which, a girl at a café tried to tell me it’s a scorecard and wouldn’t work. We’re near the fat, lazy, unstylish end of the scale in Elizabeth bay, but in Wangaratta, we feel relatively slim, fit and classy. It’s just a world apart.

We stayed at the Wangaratta Gateway Hotel, as it seemed to be the nicest place in town. It has undercover parking, free Internet, a swimming pool, a cocktail bar and a restaurant. The Internet service was down for the weekend, but they delivered on all the other promises. The cocktail bar was pretty good. I mean, it’s not exactly the Pacifica at Bondi, but they do a good cosmopolitan, and it’s a nice atmosphere. They were happy for Yoshi to be there as long as he was only drinking fruit juice, which was a plus. In the end we didn’t get to try the restaurant — we weren’t up in time for breakfast, and we were otherwise occupied at dinner times. We didn’t swim in the pool, either — just saw the frolicking bikini whales as we walked past.

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More than four months later, Nic Watt has posted an fitting follow-up to the massively underwhelming Spirit Hunters Development Diary 1: the equally underwhelming Spirit Hunters Development Diary 2. Let me give you a tip Nic: being a cheap bastard and not paying artists and level designers doesn’t mean you’ve developed an “augmented reality” application. In true real augmented reality, the application works with your surroundings. For example, games like AR Tower Defence and Invizimals allow you to have battles on your tabletop; in a more sinister application, a Ka-50 pilot’s headgear places IFF markers over vehicles, and makes the gun follow his eyes.

Spirit Hunters just places models over whatever the camera happens to capture. Most jarringly, there is no interaction with the world whatsoever. This is blatantly obvious towards the end of the first diary instalment: you get and idea of the distance between you and the spirit, but then this is blown away when the image just slides over the top of the couch. Suddenly, you realise that the spirit must be a lot smaller and closer than you would have believed given how much it seemed to have receded when it was running away, and how much it moved across the field of view when the user turned around. The spirits look like plastic cutouts hanging in the air. The perspective and lighting don’t look realistic in the slightest. Why is the spirit always facing right at you? It doesn’t turn tail when it tries to get away. It just doesn’t look right to see it slide around the screen like that.

Nnooo is the archetypal shovelware company. Everything they produce is optimised to minimise creative effort. Pop is nothing but a virtual roll of bubble wrap, and not a very satisfying one at that. The graphics are bland, and the gameplay is repetitive. myNotebook and myPostcards may as well be built developer examples, and the only design work involved is drawing sheets of lined paper (on a side note, I don’t buy the excuses about not supporting exchanging postcards within the app — if that were the case, DragonBall Origins wouldn’t let players exchange virtual items).

The back wall of Coles supermarket at Edgecliff is lined with open-front refrigerators. Above each of them is an illuminated sign that says “Chilled Foods” in large, high-contrast text that can be read from metres away. Well thanks, Captain Obvious! I never would have guessed that food in a refrigerator would end up cold! How about some helpful category signage? You could have signs that tell me where I can find “Cheese”, “Milk”, “Yoghurt” and “Pro-biotic Drinks”. Did it never occur to you that people would appreciate knowing at a glance which fridge they need to look in? I guess that’s just a bit too complicated. Or did you think I need the mental stimulation provided by searching for my food? I’m not a zoo elephant in danger of going mad with boredom, and I think I’ve lost touch with my hunter/gatherer instinct. If you make grocery shopping easier, I’m less likely to get frustrated, leave without buying anything, and go down the road to Woolworths.

I take a scan of the subnet where I pwned my first n00b
I take a look at my life and realise it’s pretty good
’Cause I been crackin’ the world from my seat
And even my girlfriend says that my skillz are l33t

I ain’t never op’d a ’tard who didn’t deserve it
Plus O on a luser — you know that’s unheard of
You better not flood, or exceed the max ping time
Or you and ya’ node’ll be hit with a G-line

I really hate to flame, but I gotta’ troll
The lamers bite, that’s where I get my l0lz, fool
I’m the kinda geek all the k1dd1ez wanna’ be like
Writin’ ’sploits through the night
By the pale L.E.D. light

Been spendin’ most our lives
Livin’ in a h4xx0rz paradise
Been spendin’ most our lives
Livin’ in a h4xx0rz paradise
Keep spendin’ most our lives
Livin’ in a h4xx0rz paradise
Keep spendin’ most our lives
Livin’ in a h4xx0rz paradise

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When I first moved in here, I received notice of a development application for a Japanese restaurant just across the road. There are plenty of cafés in Elizabeth Bay but we could use more restaurants, and I was excited — I might actually get to go to a restaurant’s opening night! The application was approved, and not much seemed to happen for a while, but the work progressed slowly. When the signs finally went up the suspense set in, and they were ready to open on the 17th of August — about nine months later. We booked ourselves in for dinner, so as not to miss out. Rather than a short summary, I’ve decided, for the first time, to write a real restaurant review.

Restaurant: kūjin, 41B Elizabeth Bay Rd, Elizabeth Bay, 02-9331-6077
Cuisine: Japanese specialising in udon and teppanyaki grill
Hours: Tuesday to Sunday lunch 12:00–3:00 and dinner 6:00–9:30
Verdict: some great food, but beset with logistical issues

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I sincerely believe John Brumby is an idiot. How is increasing the number of lanes on the freeway supposed to help people get to Tullamarine airport? Cars trying to exit bank up hundreds of metres onto the freeway in the morning already — regularly flying to work in Sydney has made me acutely aware of this, as I have to factor it in to my taxi trip time estimate. Increasing the number of lanes will help people going elsewhere get around the traffic jam, but it will do nothing to help people who need (or want) to fly. Busses might help mildly, but they would contribute to the congestion. Melbourne busses have a pretty dismal reputation, and my experience with them has been awful, so I’d still get a taxi. Why don’t you just bite the bullet and run a railway line under the terminals? It’s worked wonders in Sydney, and most people pay the extra $12 over a normal rail fare rather than catching a cheaper bus out of there.

Blaming Kevin Rudd for sliding popularity is also undeniably idiotic. You can’t blame Rudd for trains that run late (if at all) and break down, blowing the budget on unreliable and inadequate myki, mismanagement of the water shortage, the Eastlink toll backflip, failing to deliver on promised rail network expansion, rampant corruption, wasting money of F1 and Tiger Woods, and all the while just saying things like, “Victoria’s the place to be, and Melbourne’s the most liveable city in the world, mate!” Let me tell you, the better rail service, more accessible airport, desalinated water and generally more helpful police make make me less frustrated when I’m in Sydney.

It’s too bad the opposition has nothing to offer — Victoria is in a truly sorry state.

I don’t book taxis very often — most of my taxi rides are between Tullamarine Airport and Flemington in Melbourne, and you never have to wait long to flag down a taxi at either location. But the other week I happened to be at Werribee station on a Sunday morning, and I’d missed the bus by about ten minutes (stupid trains and busses that don’t line up), and the busses only run every hour. So I thought I’d call a taxi. Since I don’t call taxis very often, I need a number that’s easy to remember, so I called 132227 as it’s a convenient mnemonic. This was the old Black Cabs number, but they seem to have amalgamated with a bunch of other taxi companies and changed their name to One Three Cabs these days. But I will no longer be calling this number. I will make an effort to always find the number of another taxi company because of how shockingly bad their service has become.

I call them up, and get put on hold. I’m not too worried about being on hold for a little while, but the hold music consists of repeated radio ads for themselves that appear to be intended to drill their phone number into the listener’s head. What kind of stupidity is this? I know what the number is — I’ve just dialled it for crying out loud! Give me something distracting — elevator music, radio, ads for some other company — reminding me who’s keeping me on hold is not a smart move! I was on hold for about a minute when I got the ring of an operator’s phone. They picked it up, and then hung up without even saying anything. Nice going — I guess you just scored one more call handled. How many more until you meet your quota for the shift?

As I don’t know the numbers of any other taxi companies, I called again, and spent another minute on hold. This time I actually got an operator. She asked me where I was, and I answered, “The taxi rank at Werribee station.” She asked, “What street?” I answered, “I don’t really know. There’s a bus terminal on one side of the station and a taxi rank on the other; I’m at the taxi rank.” She said, “Well call back when you know the street,” and hung up. What’s the use of taxi company that doesn’t even know where taxi ranks are? Surely you have a Melway or UBD, or perhaps Goole Maps accessible? Don’t people call taxis when they know where the want to be but not how to get there? Also, the call centre drones seem far more keen on increasing the number of calls they handle than actually taking bookings, or being helpful.

So I asked a random girl who happened to be there if she knew the number of a taxi company other than 132227. She told me 03-9689-1144 was the local mob (West Suburban Taxis). When I called this number, I got an operator immediately, and they got me a cab in a couple of minutes, without asking me what the name of the street was. All in all, a far better experience. I don’t think I’ll remember the number, and I don’t know if they service all of Melbourne, but I’m definitely not calling 132227 again.

It’s the 21st century: I should have a flying car, and a videophone, and a robot housekeeper. Well, I do have a videophone – a wireless one, in fact – but 64kbps H.263 is quite underwhelming if you grew up with images from 2001: A Space Odyssey and Back to the Future. But what’s really upsetting me right now is the flying side of things. I fly quite regularly, so I can no longer put it down do bad luck: flying in the 21st century is still unreliable at best. At least half of my flights are delayed or cancelled. I should be in Melbourne right now, but no, the flight was cancelled, and the next flight I can get isn’t until almost nine in the morning. How does this happen?

You never get good help, either. Everyone’s too busy to help, or claiming it’s not their job to help you. The Virgin Blue posters that say, “Our service measures up…” are just plain insulting. One thing that really grates on me is that there’s just about no way to get a refund if you’re not happy to catch another flight – they’ll only offer you a credit to spend on another flight. Well excuse me, I’d rather spend the money on something other than your poor service, thank you very much. In fact, I think the only way to actually get a refund is to ask your credit card provider to charge back the transaction (CBA will do this with no questions asked). I believe you’re within your rights to do this – they haven’t delivered the service you paid for.

You might think it’s just the budget carriers, but that’s not the case. I’ve had the same level of service from Qantas and United on international flights when things go wrong – no-one who wants to help, no reimbursement for inconvenience, and compensation only available in the form of credits or gift vouchers, as if you’d want to come back for more. Man, if we treated clients like that where I work, we’d be out of business in no time. Why do the airlines get away with it?

(And don’t get me started on Melbourne trains that don’t work when it’s too hot or too rainy…)

I swear I must look like a ghost or something – people seem to think they can walk right through me! This one time, I was walking up the Sussex St ramp to the bridge from the city to Pyrmont, carrying a big bag of shopping, keeping to the left, and this guy was running down the ramp. He slammed into my shoulder and bounced off, across into the opposite railing. Then he turns around like he’s surprised and says sorry. Excuse me, but what do you expect to happen? Did you think you’d go straight through? Or were you expecting to knock me down and keep running?

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