quicko: ice cream boat

Possibly I've mentioned this before, but I'm just starting to see them again for this season -- the ice cream boat.  And not only does it sell ice cream -- this is really ingenious -- it also sells hot chocolate and cappuccinos.  So, not only does it cater for the overheated summer tourist; it also caters for the friends who are dragged into frigid waters and desperate for a way to warm up.  I still haven't worked out how anyone has any cash (much less card) with them out in the element, but evidently some people do.  Or else they've got a really solid honor system going on.

quicko: the christmas bus!

I know I usually rag on the buses, but you know, they're the necessary evil everyone loves to hate.  And everyone once in a blue moon (lifetime?) they do something pretty cool:  it's around for what's at least its second year, if not more, it's that time of year:  the Christmas bus is in town!  (Please don't start on the amount of punctuation in that last sentence ... or I'll double it in the next one!)

The Christmas bus is amazing, and I really quite like it.  You have never seen a bus with such fully decked halls.  It is red and greened to the nines -- pictures from school kids, garlands and a whole shocking array of what would normally be exceptionally tacky, except, for some reason, I really love it.  I think it's the lack of Christmas everywhere around it -- and here is one motley bus, going whole hog for Christmas with wild abandon.  It's adorable.

Oh, and it was free.

Talk about the best bus ever!

quicko: bumper buses

You know, when there are two of the same number that suddenly somehow end up right on top of each other?  (Not literally.  Though that would also be a moderately significant bus blooper in its own right.)  One is really late or one is really early, though knowing buses, I'd say you have a much better shot putting your money on the former.

quicko: abba

Aaaah! (you scared me!)-BBA, say the Australians.  Aahhhh (you ARE right)-BBA, say the Americans.

I'm sure there's a more linguistically savvy way to put that, but, well, I'm not quite a linguistic and neither are most of you, so even if someone told you which sounds they were on that funny little chart no one can read but they insist on using in dictionaries, it really wouldn't do many of us much good.  So there.

quicko: an australian song about christmas

So this is clearly not a Christmas carol, but I've recently been told it does a pretty good job of summing up (secular) Australian sentimentality about Christmas.  See what you think of Tim Minchin's "White Wine in the Sun."

update: further things that can go wrong on a bus

This one is a real humdinger in the sense that I had actually written it down as an idea to blog about in a, "oh, it's so frustrating this happened to this other man I saw" sort of a way ... when before I was able to, it happened to me!  Forewarned is not necessarily, it seems, forearmed.

Here it is:  the bus may eat your ticket.

You know what happens when it does?  In my case, it worked out reasonably fortuitously with no lasting damage, but I see that in many ways that was a matter of pure ... predestination, shall we say.  Certainly not any thanks to Sydney transportation.

My ticket was eaten on a Wednesday night about 6:30 pm on a 230.  The driver took my name and number (felt a little funny right there ...) and said he couldn't open up the ticket machine so someone would give me a call when his shift was over.  (Fortuitous incident number one:  his shift was over only an hour or so later.  Fortuitous incident number two:  I was not on my way to work and didn't have to catch any more buses immediately.)

Thankfully, someone did give me a call shortly before 8 and said it was all right, they had my ticket, I could come and collect it now.  Evidently it had not occurred to them that I no longer had a bus pass to come collect the bus pass with.  I pointed this out, and was asked where I was.  I was, it transpired, at a trivia night at the Kirribilli Hotel, which meant I was not able to come and collect it when the doors closed at 9 pm somewhere in Neutral Bay.  And also that I had no means of getting to work in the morning if I waited for them to mail it to me.  (Furthermore, my mailbox key is broken, but that's another story.  Well, actually I guess it isn't much of one:  I went to open the mailbox one day and discovered my key was bent.  How odd is that?)

This threw the man greatly as he was anticipating I would either come (how, he had not thought through) or not care or something.  He said to wait a few minutes and he'd call back.  Risking trivia team disqualification for indoor use of cell phones, I magnanimously waited with my phone for another call.  He thankfully (fortuitous incident number three) found a passing 227 driver who was going to the same stop I'd got off at that could take the ticket to me if I could meet him at that stop between 8:10 and 8:15.

And thus I found myself meeting the 227 at 8:15 and it had, indeed, returned my ticket.  Which was all very lovely and fine and I'm glad it worked out -- but for goodness sake!  What if I had been on my way to work and still had to catch another bus?  What if his shift hadn't ended for six more hours?  What if I didn't have friends to drive me home in case the 227 driver hadn't been found?  What if, what if, what if?  They had absolutely no plan in place besides "come without your ticket to collect it or we'll mail it to you" -- which, frankly, as one who depends on public transportation to get to work every day can assure you, is not remotely sufficient.  Particularly as I suspect this ticket eating business has been happening repeatedly lately -- as I had seen it happen just prior to my own unfortunately fortuitous incident!

So, fellow riders, beware:  the bus may eat your ticket.

quicko: license plates

While we're on the  topic ... they're a different size here.  More British, though I'm not positive if they're the same as British ones or not.  Longer and thinner than ours.