The Annual Christmas Stolp 2009.

Aaah, Christmas. Snow on the ground, a roaring fire in the hearth, a glow on our faces and in our hearts as we gather around the piano, drinking eggnog and singing Yuletide carols.

Except for us in the southern hemisphere, of course. [Insert screech of needle being dragged across record.] Down here the traditional images of Christmas are suffocated in the stifling heat and burnt to a crisp 'neath the blazing Australian sun. The icy contents of a Slurpee cup and the frosty glances exchanged by the competitors in the Annual Slurpee Toss is about as cold as it gets.

And so it was with surprise that as the stolpers gathered outside the Templestowe Fish Balloon they looked up to see brooding grey clouds scudding their way across the late morning sky. Surprise, and some relief. After all, if you can step out and stretch your legs without the fear of melting in a pool of sweat or combusting in a ball of flame, then all the better.


This year saw a triple debut with Nick, Pip and Harper swelling the ranks and joining in the traditional Christmas fun with a smile and a laugh. Bart and Cobbies, two of the five pillars of stolping, were absent and sorely missed, but we're sure to see them back next year.

So stick around now for the Slurpee Toss and we'll see you in '10!

Incidentally, on that, is it just me saying 'oh-ten' for the shortened form of 2010, or are others doing it as well? I've become so used to the leading 'o' throughout the aughts that I'm finding it hard to leave behind. Tacking 09 or whatever onto the end of something quite clearly said 'year', Kevin07, for example, but 10 just seems confusing. Kevin10. What? Anyway, I wonder if my great aunt had this problem back in the early 1900s? Probably not as she was only nine at the time, but she may have heard her parents talking about it? If only I'd thought to ask when she was still with us. Continue resting in peace, Dotta. We still miss you and your endless games of chess with cups of tea and sponge finger biscuits.

UPDATE
Oddly enough, I posted this and switched to the Twitter, where I noticed a friend type 2010 as '010. Hardly seems worth it, really. It's still four key presses. Not like you're saving any time, or really any space. I guess he's just having trouble letting go as well.

Too much Slurpee blogging barely enough?
Keep on Stolping: The First Pour–2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008.
Keep on Tossing: Dawn of Time–2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009.
Keep on Demolishing: The Alpha and the Omega.

offki.

Myki, Melbourne's trouble-plaugued new ticketing system, is like a newborn elephant right now. A clumsy hulking mass, lumbering around, crashing into things and desperately trying to stay up on its weak and shaky legs. And everyone's standing around pointing and laughing at the flailing beast, which is fair enough, as Kamco or the state government or whoever has brought this on themselves. What a circus. But it's so large and easy a target that I found myself wanting to be generous and give them a break.

That was until I headed out this morning with my shiny new myki and tried to use the freakin' thing.

I was one of the lucky many who got mailed a concession card, even though I hadn't asked for one. On to the phone and I was assured by a recorded message that everything was fine with the card; it actually was full-fare and there'd been a computer error when printing the letters. Computers. Ha. When will we learn?

So, I left home early this morning to make sure I had plenty of time to add credit to my card before using it. There's only one top-up machine at my station and it's on the outbound platform 2, so I pedalled over and checked my watch. Plenty of time. I placed my myki where instructed, worked my way through all the options and was told to insert my debit card, done, and remove it, done. Remove the card, please. I have. Remove the card, please. I HAVE? Hello? Re-insert/withdraw. No change. Cancel. Try again. Same result. Cancel. Try again with different card. Same result. Toooooooot! What? Argh, my train! Cancel, cancel, cancel, back on my bike, over the tracks for a Metcard, please use a smaller denomination note, what? argh! come on! remember to validate your ticket before you travel, I know, I know! give me the ticket!! beep, beep, beep and I'm away. Phew. Enough time is never enough time.

Got to Southern Cross and saw a myki blueshirt standing around the upper concourse exit, handing out brochures. I went over and asked where the nearest top-up machine was. He looked around and ummed, before going over to ask his supervisor. She told me there wasn't a top-up machine up here and that I had to go to the "myki discovery centre" on the other side on the station. Surprised (and not surprised), I headed off and discovered one on the other side of the newsagent booth she was standing next to. Sigh. Possibly she meant, "There are no working machines up here," because this one didn't work either. Same problem. So I kept walking down to the discovery centre, only to discover it doesn't open until 9am. Which was 40 minutes away. Sigh.


At lunch time I made my way back to myki central and explained my problem to the two ladies at the counter. Because nothing could ever be wrong with the machine, they concluded the problem was with me. "You can't put myki into the debit card slot," one of them told me with a smile. "That won't work." I assured them I had placed myki where I was instructed to and anyway could they put credit onto my card now? They couldn't, of course, because the myki discovery centre doesn't have a top-up machine in it. I mean, why would it? What do they have in there? Well, there are some card readers so they can demonstrate how to touch on and off with your card; they just can't get your card working in the first place.

Although it turns out, they can! "Would you escort the gentlemen," said the elder woman to the younger, "up to the machine and assist him with his card?" Why certainly. Out she came from behind her desk and off we trekked, back to the upper level where I was led by an expert hand through all the same steps… for the same result. "Oh," the woman said in surprise. "Um, the EFTPOS connection between the machines and the bank must be down. Everywhere. Maybe try again later?" Sigh.

I did try again later, the next day, and the machine stubbornly persisted in requesting I remove my debit card after I'd already removed it, so I gave up and bought a new Monthly Metcard. I'm hoping, John Rees-style, that by the time it expires this myki mess will be sorted out. I guess we'll see.

Myki. It's your key. To something. We're just not sure what. Try your house, maybe? And let us know how you go. Thanks.

UPDATE
Walked past the lone myki top-up machine at Melbourne's busiest station today, and guess what I saw?


I'm sure there wasn't anything wrong with the machine. Just a routine maintenance call to, I don't know, empty the coin bin or something? Although the man was still at it an hour later when I walked past again, so who knows? Probably some idiot got their myki stuck in the credit card slot or something? I hear that happens a lot. Sigh. The man wasn't there at the end of the day, so I guess the machine's all back to normal. So, you know. Yeah.

Random Lyric from The Song I Was Listening To.

Around eight years ago I woke up one morning and decided the waiting had gone on long enough. It was time to enquire of Kate as to whether she'd be good enough to take my hand in marriage. Naturally, such an enquiry couldn't be made by just, you know, asking her. No, it had to be unnecessarily complicated, and so I sat down and carefully devised a complicated plan.

The first step was to post her an anonymous invitation to participate in what would be known as The Journey. Should she accept, via an email address included with the invitation, she would then be required to unravel a series of clues that led to various locations around Melbourne where instructions would be found on how to locate one of five Waymarkers. When collected, the five markers would need to be arranged in a particular way to reveal the proposal of marriage.

What sort of a woman, you might ask, would do anything other than throw a creepy anonymous invitation directly into the bin? And wouldn't Kate just assume it had come from me anyway? Well, besides the fact that I'm inherently not creepy and surely she'd never think such a thing, I had one big factor working in my favour. A friend of ours had recently concluded a wide-ranging, clue-based scavenger hunt that she'd set in motion with anonymous invitations. I thought it likely that if Kate would assume it was anyone, she'd assume it was our friend and not me.

And so I had my plan. It was bold, it was ambitious, it was doomed.

In all my careful planning, I'd failed to count on the cleverness of my quarry. Though she accepted the invitation, she never accepted my desire to pull strings from the shadows, and before long she successfully hacked into the email account I'd set up and discovered who I was. In a nice touch, before logging out she left a little present in my Inbox: an email from "myself" saying only, "I know who you are."

The next time I logged in, I discovered the game was up. Furious that my plan had come undone, I put the proposal on hold indefinitely. Partly to give myself time to come up with a new scheme, but mostly just to punish her for spoiling my surprise. So perhaps she wasn't so smart after all?

Anyway, all of this was brought to mind recently when my "old mate" Guy Shield proposed to his girlfriend in a similar piece-the-parts-together way. Where mine had been primarily word-based though, he used illustration. Which of course he would, given how exceptionally talented an illustrator he is. Pop on over to his post for the story.


Although, it's quite possible you've heard the story already. Because the Internet went a little nuts with this one. First, the illustration weblog Drawn, got onto it, and soon the Twitterverse followed, as thousands of people retweeted each other into oblivion. Scores of other links followed, including prominent Adobe identity, John Nack, and just when things seem to have settled down, someone called Joanna Goddard sent Guy's Google Analytics graph spiking into the stratosphere all over again. All thoroughly deserved, of course, as it really was a brilliant proposal. And not even the reminder of my own failed scheme can spoil the pleasure of his tale.

Congratulations to you and Liz, Guy. Enjoy your 15 minutes of fame, and your lifetime of wedded bliss as well.

UPDATE
Guy's been "practising his hand-created type" again...

UPDATE 2
What's the point in being an internet phenomenon if you can't get FREE STUFF out of it? And now, thanks to some wedding website called 'The Knot', Guy's got the chance to win a FREE trip to Hawaii! If you enjoyed his story, pop on over to The Knot's 'Best Proposal Competition' and throw him a vote. If he wins, he's promised to pick up a lei for everyone who does.

UPDATE 3
He hasn't actually promised to pick up a lei for everyone who votes for him. I just made that up. Good idea, though. Completely impractical, but then that's the way it goes with love, hey?