Tangential Ramblings

Bus driver buttons

dan — 10:52pm, Monday 6 October 2008

The number and range of automated warnings, requests and general snippets of information that are piped to me while on the bus of a morning has increased significantly of late. As well as telling me where I am before every bus stop, and telling me where I'm going after each, my fellow passengers and I are graced with requests for people to stand well clear of the doors, not to stand on the stairs or upper deck, and indeed confirmations that the bus is going to wait here for a few moments to "regulate the service."

I can only imagine that the driver has a plethora of buttons at their disposal, much like a Jean-Michel Jarre set-up, one for every eventuality imaginable. Maybe this is at the expense of the traditional, driving-related instruments. Maybe windscreen wipers had to go, and indicating is now a thing of the past.

"At the third time of asking, would the ugly bald man please understand that there aren't any seats free upstairs, and that this bus won't be budging an inch until you haul your ass off the stairs."

"And kids. Yes you. No, not you. You. Would you turn that fucking music down? Have you ever heard of the concept of headphones?"

Overheard in the swimming pool changing rooms

dan — 12:08pm, Sunday 5 October 2008

Five year-old boy to his sister: the only games I ever play involve at least one girl.

World's shortest-lived Facebook account

dan — 10:37pm, Tuesday 30 September 2008

Before leaving work today, I helped a friend and colleague set up her Facebook account. We then got into a discussion as to whether other people could find her, either through Google or Facebook, after which she got paranoid and insisted the account was deactivated.

Estimated time of the account's existence: 1m 43s.

S. Palin mistake

dan — 9:47pm, Monday 29 September 2008

I bring you potential future US Vice President Sarah Palin.

Oh my days.

Thanks to Francis for pointing this one out, Katie Couric's CBS interview.

Monologue of the day

dan — 8:57pm, Monday 29 September 2008

Why is a vagina called a box? I can only imagine it's because you put things in it. But it's not square; and it doesn't have hard edges.

The original vagina monologue?

Angry Dan

dan — 9:41pm, Tuesday 23 September 2008

I'm watching a fabulous documentary this evening about anger, being guided through the emotion by Griff Rhys Jones, himself an angry man.

Coincidentally, I got angry at work today. I say coincidentally because I rarely outwardly display my anger.

I got angry with my IT supplier, I got angry with my colleagues, and I got angry with myself. I raised my voice, I got emotional in a meeting (in this case, as has been the case on occasions before, anger displayed itself as passion), and I was unnecessarily terse in my responses to people, both verbally and in emails.

While some of the anger was justifiably directed towards incompetence, some was a direct result of pressure and workload as we head towards a major software release this weekend.

Apologies if I offended anyone unjustifiably.

Streetcar: is it worth it?

dan — 7:17pm, Saturday 20 September 2008

Last week I took a week off work. And hired a Streetcar for the nine day period, at an overall cost of �289.43. That includes petrol, insurance and parking round the corner from our home. It also takes into account a �5.95 reduction for taking it through the car wash, which my daughter loved!

Over the course of the week, I drove 276 miles (444km), averaging �1.05 per mile (65 pence per km). Let's stay metric from hereon in.

Allowing for a combined fuel consumption of 6.7 litres per 100km travelled and an average petrol cost of �1.15, petrol would have cost me �34.22. My parking would have cost �3.20, and my road tax �4.19, both pro rated from the annual charges of �130 and �170 respectively. confused.com tells me my insurance on a VW Golf 1.6 would be around �750 per year, or �18.49 for the nine day period.

If we say the car cost �15,000 and it depreciated fully over five years, then that would equate to �73.97 in depreciation over the nine day period. Yikes.

So if I owned a car, my costs for the nine days would have totalled �134.07. I've not included the cost of any maintenance work, servicing, damage I wouldn't want to claim on my insurance, car washes or MOTs in this figure.

So I paid �155.36 extra over the nine day period for the luxury of not owning a car, but having access to one whenever I choose, subject to availability.

But that wasn't my average Streetcar week. Over the last twelve months (including last week), I've used a Streetcar on 40 calendar days, travelling 2,573km (1,599 miles) at a cost of �1,591.26. That's 62 pence per km, or 99.5 pence per mile.

If I'd owned a car, my costs would have been:

Petrol: �172.41
Parking permit: �130.00
Road tax: �170.00
Insurance: �750.00
Depreciation: �3,000

A total of �4,222.41, or 165% higher than the Streetcar cost. Even ignoring the depreciation, the cost would have been �1,222.41, or 77% of the Streetcar cost.

Streetcar does prohibit us a little. Occasionally it would be nice to be able to just jump in the car and drive somewhere, without thinking about cars' availability. But when you look at the relative costs, given the amount of driving we do, owning a car just ain't worth it.