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Free City Parking

Posted on by Bigglesan

I live in Adelaide, and until today had thought here was only one way to really get free city parking right near my work. Ride a Motorbike or Scooter. So I do. I ride my vespa to work almost every day, and parking in Adelaide for motorbikes is growing, and in the wet months you can always grab a park right near where you need to be.

The fair weather riders however tend to fill up those parks pretty quickly when the sun comes out.

but today I discovered another, not quite so legit, way to get free city parking.

You see, in Adelaide we have ticket based parking meters. Feed the machine a few dollars and you are issued with a ticket, which, displayed in your windshield will give you an hour or two of parking privileges.

Ticket Parking meter

This is a photo of one pretty similar. I was too lazy to go out and take a photo myself. Anyway, these things aren’t free, and they seem to cost more all the time.

Today, some friendly good samaritan saw me feeding the meter (I drove my diesel guzzling 4WD today) and he actually stopped his car, and came up to me with a most interesting tale. Feed the meter, and DON’T TAKE THE TICKET. That’s right, pay the full fee, and leave the ticket sitting in the dispenser for about 2 or 3 mins. The machine then thinks it’s had a problem, and promptly cancels the transaction, refunding your money. The ticket is still there to be taken, and it’s all printed and legit.

Well I was dubious, but I’d just lit a cancer stick, so I loitered at the meter for a few minutes with the ticket sitting waiting in the slot for me, the machine trying to guilt me into taking the ticket, brightly declaring “Take Ticket” on it’s little green screen. Passers by looked at me oddly, and at some point i wondered if it wasn’t all some kind of weird practical joke.

But it wasn’t. The ticket machine declared itself to be faulty, and my handful of shrapnel was returned. So if you have a minute or three to kill next time your parking in the city. Try this trick and see if you can’t take the council for a few dollars.

Otherwise, grab yourself some two-wheeled transport and do your wallet and the environment some good.

Face Value

Posted on by Bigglesan

I’m sitting here, reading a few posts, exchanging emails, just wasting a few moments as you do and I’ve been inspired to write a little something on how often we do, or don’t take things at face value.

two seperate cases:

First, there is the story that’s doing the rounds atthe moment about a Redback Spider catching a small snake. i first saw it here and then it came through on the usual email chain letter train. I even reposted the link on my facebook account, figured it was pretty interesting. But I took it on “face value” and didn’t think to question the veracity of the story. However someone else did and I soon got an email from a friend, ‘it’s not a Red Back, it’s a Black Widow, and therefore American” (I’m paraphrasing BTW)

That made me think, “what’s the difference?”

So I went looking, first I followed the original blog story back to it’s source, and unfortunately it didn’t go too far and seeemd to be an unacknowledged repost even then. I read other peoples comments on the stories, and came up with a couple of things that could be checked. The type of Snake, and the type of spider. Someone mentioned the possibility that it was a South African snake, an Aurora House Snake so I checked out both the snake and the spider. The spider, it’s a tough call, could be A Redback, a Black Widow, a Button Spider, or one of many variants on the genus Latrodectus. The snake though, note that distinctive orange strip seen clearly in the picture below…

Spider Eats Snake

So a bit of research, and a story, that on ‘face value’ seems legit, is suddenly quite probably not an Australian story at all, and the spider is in all likely hood not a Redback, but another similar spider of that genus.

but what of the other side of the coin, the inability of some to talke something at ‘face value’.

This is my second point. Even in the comments for this spider story I saw people write “It’s a fake, it’s a photoshop”. If yuo surf/stuble about the web as much as I do you’ll notice it seems to be the catch cry of a jaded generation. So used to things being faked, they can’t accept occasionally that marvelous things can and will be caught on camera. That nature is often more beautiful, or more spectacular than one could ever imagine.

Sometimes you do just have to enjoy the image beforeyou, take it as you see and, and not cry ‘photoshop!” just because you’ve never seen soemthing like it before. hell it doesn’t have to be nature that’s weird…. tell me what you think of this. yes, it’s a crap post, but yet the ONLY comment asks… “photshopped?” I mean come on. A dodgy photo taken on a wet day of some idiot’s stupid car, why the f*** would anyone BOTHER! (of course you could say the same about the car in the photo.)

Anyway, to all you who cry “photoshop!” take a moment to enjoy things at face value. open your eyes to the world a bit. and if a photo is a clever photoshop fake, applaud the clever SOB who pulled it off.

Work Wanted

Posted on by Bigglesan

I’m looking to branch out a bit, in particular I’m looking for something that’s not tied down to little old Adelaide. In particular I am looking for work doing IT or Audio Visual support at Expos and Conferences.

If you are involved in organising a conference and want someone on hand who can make sure everything goes smoothly for delegates, please contact me. My rates are very reasonable and I have over 12 years experience in education IT support and AV. I also have a background in live mixing, having worked for a number of local bands such as The Seen, and The Gaskats and more recently The Phonics.