howie’s halfpipe

I got hit on the head by a boom gate this morning, I was scooting to work, and took the normal shortcut through the tafe and tafe carpark, and I as I approached the car park boom gates, the exit boom gate lifted so I thought, cool I’ll scoot through. But I don’t think my scooter weighs enough to keep it open so as I went under it began to close and donked me on the head. Didn’t hurt too much, but it made a person in a car beside me laugh quite a lot.

Baltic city wants bigger bust for mermaid

this is my biggest month ever on my blog, and thats before i bought advertising with haloscan.

so far this month 712 unique visits and 1732 page views.

Today I went to Belrose with tom and Helen and jo and Jamie and matt to help out with their scripture seminars at some high school. It was a bit hectic but good. Then we went to maccas, Scott is going to get a blog. Then I came back to Hornsby and did jacks.

A lot of interactions with young people today, I feel like a youth worker.

Last night jo appeared in Hornsby and tom and I where going to woollies so we met jo at woollies. That was fun then we came home. Jo and I watched enough rope on the ABC then it was time to take jo to the station. We walked up, hand in hand all romantic and the like. On arriving at the station it was apparent that jo would miss her bus from Chatswood, and to make matters worse it didn’t seem like there where any trains on the north shore, the indicator board seemed to be broken.
So jo and I began to walk down to platform one and I was going to wait with her until a train came, as there was no indication if how long it would be. All the ticket barriers where wide open (because it was after 11pm). And jo walked through and so did I then the drop out cops in their grey uniforms stopped jo and asked for her ticket then her concession card. Then they moved on to me, and said “were is your ticket” I told the man that I wasn’t travelling and just waiting with jo for her train. The man told me I couldn’t go past the barriers and that he was going to have to ask me to leave.
So jo suggested I buy a ticket so I could go and sit on the platform to say goodbye to her. Then decided to go to Chatswood with jo, so we went to buy a ticket to Chatswood for me. There was no ticket windows open and only one machine working, only the machine that was working said “correct change only”.
We didn’t have the right change, we had 10 cents too much in our coins so it wouldn’t give me a ticket, we tried and tried, then we went and asked the men in grey if they had change for a 20 cent coin cause of the dodgy cityrail ticket machine.
One of them hesitantly obliged us with two 10 cent coins. We went back to the machine and put the money in, The stupid machine kept cancelling the transaction. WE HAD THE RIGHT AMOUNT!
Then I thought, oh maybe its that stupid thing where it wont take more than 10 coins, but all in all we had 8 coins. And it was cancelling at around 5 coins. Time after time we kept trying, then I got fed up and hit the front of the machine with a bit of force. We put the money in and it gave me a ticket. As soon as I took my ticket out it said “correct change only”.
Its like cityrail was watching me and they where seeing how annoyed I could get at their bad service.

Anyway I have found out cityrails problem, not enough people are hitting them, when they are hit they work. Vandalism is the key to an efficient train service, it may sound outrageous But it worked.

Ok maybe it wont always working just being violent towards cityrail, but oh boy its satisfying.

I was reading a joke book this afternoon, it was a whole book dedicated to jokes about australians, it was written and printed in New Zealand. here is an exert.

How do you bring up a baby in Australia?

Stick your fingers down the dingos’ throat

What did the angry inflatable teacher say to the irresponsible inflatable child in the inflatable school?

Not only have you let me down, you’ve let yourself down, and you’ve let the whole school down!

I bought a digital camera too.

What happened to the Daddo brothers?
They have dissapeared

“Is your dad a terrorist? Cause you’re the bomb.”

I shaved today, I havent shaved since the 6th of Febuary

This was in Spike on friday

Central to Campbelltown to Moss Vale to Albion Park, around the airport line several times, Newcastle to Scone and back again - you would only do it on a CityRail fare-free day.

It is not the first time Kent, who is adamant he is not a trainspotter, has made the most of free train travel. He covered more than 800 kilometres in 18 hours in 2000 during another CityRail fare-free day.

By Andrew Hornery with Joel Gibson
March 26, 2004

Last night tom and I went down to the car to go up to Hornsby tp pick up my camera and have a coke with david. Tom got in his side of the car, I opened the passeneger door and sat down only on the impact of my bum with the seat, something bit my bum. It really hurt, it felt like I had just sat on a needle or something, or a killer wasp. I have no idea what it was but I jumped out of the car so damn fast, tom said I was close to tears. IT really hurt. There is a little lump now. It stung for about 20 minutes.
Stupid bug or what ever it was.

Anyway we met up with david, he was waiting for us in the mall and tom and I hid behind a pole and sprung him from behind with a kick in the bum.

Then we went to get a coke from sailor seafood and we where sitting there about to enjoy our coke and scallops, but our scallops where full of fish. Whats with that? I have never seen fish scallops before in my life..gross man real gross.

Lesley walked past and joined us, and I told lesley about the killer bug that got to bite my bum, then tom in a normal conversation style voice said “I’m jealous of the bug”

Want to bite my bum do you tom?

like james clarke i made a little animation too

I didn’t go to Boys Brigade tonight, just really wasn’t feeling like it, my head hurts and my nose is full of snot. I have had chunky green snot for 3 weeks now. Steve thinks I should go to the doctor. I think we should move our office to a new building.

There are 14 million active mobile phone numbers in Australia, and a population of 20 million

Today as I was waling over the Hornsby station bridge to go buy some frozen pizzas I noticed that there where about 8 police officers standing around in a circle, as I got closer I noticed that none of the police where saying anything. Then when I was right up beside them (I had to go close to get past, I didn’t just go close to see what was going on) Anyway in the middle of the circle was another police officer and a man in a blue shirt, and the police officer in the middle said “Do you have a ticket?”.

So nine police officers to ask one man if he had a ticket….lovely just lovely.

“The Great Cityrail Challenge”

What a night, A much smaller turn out than I had expected after a mass emailing of nearly everyone that tom and I know, but thats ok. We had a lot of fun.

We had 2 teams, a girls team consisting of Helen, Jo and jemma.
And a boys team consisting of Tom, Me, David and Julian. And whe where later joined be chris and ryan.

We left hornsby station at 7:20 and went our separate ways, travelling across the city on trains, meeting interesting people and seeing interesting sights. There was some battery problems with both teams digital cameras but still plenty of photos.

The full details of the event will be posted on a specially made website in the next week or so

What a great night, its amazing, I just had the idea late yesterday and sent out a mass email, then today it all came to life and really happened and was a lot of fun.

So cool.

come young and old, meet at hornsby station at 7pm, split into teams, see how far your team can journey on the cityrail network, being back at hornsby station at 10:15pm. Documenting your trip with a digital camera and a group purchase at your destination.

email for more details and to register…

you can printo out the ticket too.