spikeda

No, it's not what you're thinking.

I do collect commemorative and foreign coins as a hobby of some sort, and came across two interesting coins in the past couple of days. They both have a mildly interesting history:

- I had a 5 000 Vietnamese dong (2003) coin passed off to me as a A$1 yesterday. Its value at the time of minting was about $0.40, and is now about $0.30 (or 17 000 dong to the AUD).

Now, 2003 may not seem that old, but in terms of Vietnamese coins, it's the oldest still circulating. Apparently some were minted in the mid-70s, however Vietnam has been suffering bad inflation since - the US CIA's factbook says inflation was about 23% last year (puts them in the highest 10pc of nations listed) - so they stuck to banknotes for about a quarter of a century. Finally, they re-introduced coins, with the 200, 1 000, and 5 000 coins brought into circulation in December 2003, with the other coinage brought into use in April 2004; notes currently run from 10 000 up to the half-million mark.

- My mum also found a 0.25 Dutch guilder (1950) coin in the till, probably passed off as a 5-cent piece due to its size. Based on current rates for the euro, it would be worth roughly A$0.18, however the coin itself no longer has value; the Dutch central bank de-monetised guilder coins in 2007, five years after the euro coins and notes were introduced (notes remain exchangeable for 30 years).

Shock of having a coin that old appearing in an Australian till 60 years on aside, 1950 appeared to be an interesting year for the coins - mainly due to what happened in the Dutch monarchy; Queen Wilhelmina abdicating from the throne in favour of daughter, later Queen Juliana. There was apparently a 1948 version of the coin I have with Wilhelmina on it, which may be fairly rare since it only existed for one year. The Juliana versions would have run for about three decades most likely.

When Juliana abdicated for the current queen, Beatrix, in 1980, the coins were again re-designed. Her image still appears on the "country" side of the all the Dutch euro coins, with the 1-euro and 2-euro versions using the same "head" design as was revamped for the "Beatrix" guilder coins.

Learning about the histories of the coins can be more interesting than the coins themselves, for a while. :)

CityRail updated their indicator boards last Monday. Big deal, so you say, and normally I'd agree with you.

The change involved finally adding a "via" destination to the indicator software, shown on screens and announced on the platforms by the computer and those dulcet(?) tones of Taylor Owynns. The current system's been around since not long after 2000, and I always found it a bit lacking - instead of "via" it'd only say "limited stops" or "all stops" on screen, and eventually spoke only the final destination. Especially when your home town has at least five ways of getting home (you can get to Campbelltown via the Airport, via Sydenham, via Granville, and the rare trips via Bankstown or Regents Park...)... although not usually on the same platforms.

Given that Hornsby trains going two ways (via the North Shore or Macquarie Park) will be departing from the same platform come Sunday week, I can understand why they're doing it now. Most of the selections of "via" destinations are straightforward and sensible enough, however I'm sorta scratching my head at some of the selections of "via" destinations. Line by line...

- North Shore Line. Trains to Hornsby/Berowra get "via Gordon"; short trains to Gordon get "via Lindfield"; shorter trains to Lindfield get nothing. I can understand why they're avoiding Chatswood as a "via": since the Macquarie Park trains go through Chatswood too.

- Northern Line. The main reason for all this mess. At Central, trains going towards what will be Epping are signed as "via Strathfield". Trains toward Hornsby via the new link will be "via Macquarie Park"...cue everyone calling that branch the "Macquarie Park Line", much like the "Granville Line" that the South Line is often called. North of Central though, Epping trains are shown as "via Central". May be useful at somewhere like Chatswood, but useless anywhere between (say) Town Hall and North Sydney! (Incidentally, current Macquarie Park shuttle trains get "via Macquarie Park" at Chatswood but nothing inside the link itself.)

- Western Line. It appears "via Parramatta" is the preference, although again, suffers from the same "via Central" fate at Town Hall. Parramatta is okay, although Strathfield is historically used more as a "via" point.

- Bankstown Line. Sensible: "via Bankstown" for trains to Lidcombe or Liverpool. Short runs to Bankstown itself get "via Campsie" - which is okay, especially since express trains in the afternoon run limited stops to Campsie, then all to Bankstown and beyond.

- Inner West Line. Sensible: "via Regents Park" for the Bankstown trains. Short trains to Ashfield get nothing.

- South Line. Sensible: "via Granville" for these trains. So straightforward, I forgot to add it the first time. :P

- Airport/East Hills Line. Airport trains have "via Airport" reinstated. When the current indicators were introduced at the start of the decade, "via Airport" was the only "via" destination seen, replacing the usual "limited stops" line, before being dropped. Not sure what the peak-hour trains via Sydenham are signed as - I wouldn't be surprised if they signed it "via Beverly Hills" instead of "via Sydenham", for similar reasons as to why they avoided Chatswood or Hurstville.

- Eastern Suburbs/Illawarra Line. Ranges for reasonable to plain weird, since they avoided Hurstville. Limited stops services to Cronulla and Waterfall get "via Kogarah" - reasonable since a lot of people set down there, and it's a major station (undercover too). But all stations services (as on the short runs to Hurstville/Sutherland) get "via Banksia". Sutherland via Banksia??? I'm curious as to how many actually set down there, but I wouldn't really call it major. Eastern Suburbs trains get nothing at Central, although wouldn't be surprised if further down the line it's shown as "via Central".

- Carlingford Line. Okay, I just put this in for shits and giggles. ;)

- City Circle. At Central, "City" has been replaced by "City Circle" again, no "via". The signs used to say "City Circle", but always limited stops for some reason...and was eventually replaced by "City - all stops" instead. At Redfern - where monitors have replaced the LEDs on half the platforms - trains are shown as, eg. "Museum via Town Hall" and announced "Museum via City Circle". I've never liked them using Museum or Town Hall as destinations, because "City" services are usually described by how they enter the circle - trains signed as "Museum" are often spoken as "City via Town Hall". But this is compromise enough.

- Intercity trains. No idea about these, and the intercity platforms at Central haven't had their indicators changed.

Follow up to something covered three months ago: the imminent change-over of the operator contracts for Melbourne's tram and train networks. TransdevTSL (operating as Yarra Trams) and Veolia (operating under their old Connex name), respectively, will make way two months from today to new operators, Keolis/DownerEDI Rail (KDR) and Metro Trains Melbourne.

They were actually announced this time last month, but we now seem to have the new liveries - available highlighted in 60-second grabs on Victorian Premier John Brumby's YouTube channel. Neither of them are surprising to me.

It appears KDR will hold onto the Yarra Trams name, albeit relaunched. Seeing the Yarra Trams name hasn't really been dragged through the mud so much, the continuity makes sense. Can't say the logo's too imaginative, though, if that's what it's going to be.

The trains are going to be called, simply... "Metro". Despite the consortium name making such a name likely in the first place, I'm sure the Brumby government probably tapped them on the shoulder to make it fit with the "Melbourne Metro" vision for railway there (including the second underground tunnel). Unimaginative, but again, hardly surprising.

(PS: Reading through some of the comments on a Herald Sun article about it show that a good few still have good memory about when it was just "The Met" pre-Kennett privatisation, and how unimaginative the new name is - but the direct equivalent of this is the Metlink umbrella brand, not just the trains...)

Noticed this off Slashdot this morning, although the ABC News story is a couple of days old now. The report told of a couple of pre-teen girls, age 10 and 12, stuck in a stormwater drain in the southern suburbs of Adelaide, near Noarlunga.

Okay, nothing unusual there. What happened next though concerns the emergency authorities: instead of calling triple-0 to call for emergency help, they updated their Facebook status to try and alert their friends that they needed help. Metropolitan Fire Service spokesperson Glenn Benham points out in the story that...well, those who saw it on Facebook are likely to call triple-0 anyway, so it only delays any help that the girls.

It took me a couple of minutes to realise that the "darwin" tag on the Slashdot post was referring to the "natural selection" theory of Charles Darwin...and not that they were having a crack at people from Darwin. :P

Seriously though, we have enough problems in some areas of the community about people trying to dial 911 instead of 000 for emergencies; now we have to contend with people using Facebook to call for help? Granted, NSW Police does have a Twitter account - it's been official for a while now after being run by a fake...I could certainly see someone try to use that for 000 or PAL help...

I'm only just reading the match-review panel for Lance Franklin's rough conduct charge from weekend before the one just gone. Y'know, the one where "Buddy" got rubbed out for two weeks for catching Ben Cousins' head with what appeared to be his shoulder - a decision footy "experts" right across Melbourne incredulously claim will kill off the traditional "hip-and-shoulder" bump as too risky. (You're excused if you're not from a southern Australian state. :B)

I was curious to see how it was graded - the tribunal has to grade not only the location of the hit (obviously head-high) and severity of the hit, but also the intent, in order to determine the level of the offence. Unsurprisingly, it was considered "negligent" - the lowest of the three "intent" grades. The severity of the contact, however, was graded "medium impact" - enough to raise the rough conduct charge to grade 2, and a suspension unless he beat the charge outright (and obviously, he didn't). If it were considered "low impact", he could have avoided suspension with a guilty plea and took carry-over points instead, and we probably wouldn't be in any of this mess.

Well, what is the AFL's definition of negligent? The tribunal notes state that it is a "duty of care" rule - that players owe a duty of care to each other to not make illegal contact, regardless of the circumstances. Extra wording was added in the last few years to further protect the head or neck of a player under the negligence rules, to the point where any hit to the head is considered a reportable offence. (The new "forceful contact from front-on" charge was brought in for the same reason.)

The only main defence one may have to a "negligence" charge is that there wasn't another option to the bump. As I've only seen a still frame of the reportable offence and not a video, I can't judge that at all.

Personally - again, not being fully informed given I've only seen stills of it - I'm in two minds of it. Yes, the ability to hip-and-shoulder someone out of the way (currently allowed within 5 metres of the ball) is a tactic one doesn't really want to lose - but at the same time, times have moved on (for the better? I'm not sure, but consider possible rose-coloured glasses in looking back) and I'm not sure that anyone can seriously condone a knock to the head in that way and still have their head screwed on.

I dunno whether I'm just reacting to the volume of the bleating from Melbourne, or what. Argh.

Location: Sydney Swans vs. Brisbane Lions, round 22; the Sydney Cricket Ground. Last Swans game of the year to watch, since we can only finish 9th at best, leaving me to twiddle my thumbs during September and watch the AFL finals on TV...or even more horrifically, the rugby league finals. Or the Wallabies falling apart in the union. That's always fun.

Weather: 28°C during the day, fine evening...strong to gale force north-westerly winds.

Uh oh. The part of the field with the least cover from the elements - due to the historic Ladies' and Members' Stands - and it's going to be blowing a gale through there. I'll have no envy for whoever's going to end up in left forward pocket, once their team's running towards the Paddington end. It's certainly going to be tough.

Also means I'm going to be battered too, sitting in stands almost directly opposite that direction. Being a north-westerly, I can cross my fin-gers and hope that it's a warm wind.

As a side note, in my Wiki meanderings regarding limited-overs cricket, I noticed that they've removed the "bowl-off" tie-breaker in Twenty20 with a "Super Over" concept. Each team gets one over to knock as many runs as possible, with three hand-picked batsmen, one bowlsman, and two wickets in hand. It was trialled in a Boxing Day match last year between NZ and the West Indies, and was used once in the 2009 Indian Premier League. (This year the IPL took place in South Africa, as Indian elections happening at the same time, and there were security concerned.)

In thinking about it, having a "bowl-off" seemed like a bit of an odd concession to the bowlers who, let's face it, are rather marginalised in the 20-over game. (Five bowlers took one bowl each at the stumps, much like a PK shootout in soccer.) It only seemed natural for it to make way for a concept that allows a little extra batting excitement. The trial on 26-Dec-2008 certainly provided that, with Chris Gayle hitting three sixes as the Windies beat NZ 25-15. Being a trial though, the match officially ended in a tie - a curious and rare occurrence in Twenty20 cricket.

While I like the concept of the six-ball tiebreaker, what I don't like is how they resolve it if the Super Over is again tied. The winner is then determined by the number of boundaries hit, Super Over included. It's unclear whether it's separated by number of sixes before they count fours, or whether they're added together.

Sounds like a bit of a pitiful way of ending a cricket match if you ask me, however if they need to find a winner - and Twenty20 just about screams for a result on the night - how else would they do it? Especially in this day and age where cricket schedules are so packed already that a "reserve day" - even if held in the morning or early afternoon - is not feasible. With the need to switch the teams around half-way through, there's no real way to have a "sudden-death" concept, like you can with a bowl-out. (And what happens if the number of boundaries are level though?)

I guess now the Swans are playing their last game tomorrow, I have to turn my mind to "green, green grass and Richie" (or Mark or whoever).

This morning, the cricketing writers up in England were starting to pen the obituaries for full limited-over cricket worldwide. In a meeting between the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) and the counties that provide teams to their first-class competition, the counties rejected a return to the 50-over game by about a 3-to-1 margin.

The decision leaves two shorter limited-over format being played: the apparent new prodigy in the baseball-like Twenty20, and their slightly shorter "Pro40" format (as it is called now).

For Twenty20 to be so popular among fans and more importantly administrators - particularly in the cash-flooded and politically powerful sub-continent - makes me sick to the stomach, especially seeing the imbalance it has in favour of the batsmen. This probably makes sense from a promotion and television point of view: big slogging hits are boring, big pitching.....uh bowling duels are often seen as boring. It makes sense to have it run as close to the 20 overs each as possible...it's not like you're guaranteed nine innings' worth of game here!

At the same time though, I can understand why some see the current 50-over format as a bore at points. It was often the case that you had the 15-over fielding restriction at the start and a blast-off in the last 10, but the middle part was more than a bit inconsequential at times. I don't know what started the "PowerPlay" concept in the 50-over game a few years ago (which allows the captains to choose their own five-over windows for restrictions), but perhaps it was to try and bring a little unpredictability...unfortunately I don't think it's worked that well, because the captains will know when's the most effective time to use them.

The image of ODIs may have also been tarnished - some would say irreversibly - by the apparent shambles that was the West Indies edition of the Cricket World Cup in 2007. Although there were plenty of criticisms about what happened off the field (including the handling of the death of then-Pakistani coach Bob Woolmer), the events on-field that saw the two big sub-continent teams - India and Pakistan - knocked out after two games saw it not earn as much money than it otherwise would have, and pretty much turned off the entire sub-continent (bar runners-up Sri Lanka) from the remainder of the Cup. Not a great situation there - you could almost see the red replacing the rupees in the BCCI's eyes.

If a switch to 40 overs saved the longer form limited-overs, if not from being completely cannibalised by Twenty20 but at least not dying out in favour of the fast-food version, then I'd be all for it. Fifteen overs of restrictions, still the bash at the end, and with an increasing number being played as day-nighters, people can come to a 2:30pm game and be out at a semi-reasonable hour for the kids - say 9pm, rather than finishing well after 10:30pm. That'd be the biggest drawcard for me. Or day games starting at a more sensible hour, like 11am instead of 10am or even 9:30am.

One curious matter is TV rights. If the Nine Network were still showing one-day domestic games, I'm sure they'd be railing Cricket Australia to retain the 50-over format, if only because it provided sufficient filler (and ad revenue from sports-friendly sponsors) for their daytime weekend schedule, at least until 5:30pm. Now that Fox Sports covers the ODD games, it's hard to know how they'd react to a shortening to 40 overs, but I'm not sure it'd be quite as hostile.

One-day internationals are a different story, and who knows what's going to happen to them after the 2011 World Cup. If anything, I believe they're going to be marginalised a little - you likely won't be seeing the 7-game series like we're about to see between the Aussies and the Poms next month. Will they get the chop completely? Will they be shortened to 45, 40 overs? I guess we'll find out in a couple of years, eh.

Hey hun, I'm just going out to watch the horses run over at Betfair Park!

Doesn't quite roll off the tongue, does it, particularly if you're a horse-racing purist?

I'm actually about nine months slow on seeing this, and it was only on a chance flick-over to TVN that I noticed that Melbourne's Sandown racecourse had its naming rights sold off to the controversial "betting exchange" in a minimum three-year deal. Betfair also received other sponsorship opportunities at track owner Melbourne Racing Club's other track, the more high-profile Caulfield. (Sportal article.)

I guess to some, conceding anything to a corporate bookmaker - and particularly something like Betfair that requires people to "lay" horses to lose for it to work (I think they get around some of the question marks in Australia by making Betfair match all the bets, rather than the opposing punters themselves - or you not allowed to lay at all? I'm not sure about their conditions for horse racing here.) - would be something tantamount to blasphemy in racing, given the TAB (tote) is traditionally supposed to be the lifeblood, and cashblood, of racing (or so Tabcorp and its ilk would like to tell us).

Although, if something had to happen like this - outside of Betfair's original licensing state of Tasmania (I originally thought that Hobart's course had been sponsored, but that'd be too low-profile for them) - it would have to be Victoria, which if we are to believe the media has handled the corporate bookmakers issue with aplomb. (Particularly when compared with NSW, so we are told.)

It's certainly going to be hard for me to accept - now I know what it actually is, expect me to be calling it "Sandown Park" for ages to come. :P

Re: news reports this morning about Kyle Sandilands and Jackie O's breakfast show being "suspended", and the resulting press release sent out by 2Day FM general management refuting the claims. (This follows an incident on-air last week where they put a 14-year-old girl under a lie detector, with her mum forcing out from her that she was raped as a 12-year-old. Mandatory link to the local Rape Crisis Centre, given the subject matter.)

I don't know. I tend to think the story is correct, but incomplete, seeing as 2Day's hand was likely only forced by Mr Sandilands notifying the station that he is taking the week off after the incident. (I suspect that he would have been still on-air this morning if he hadn't.) The PR says that the show is "in recess" until a review of station protocols and procedures is complete - a process, it is speculated, that will take about a week. Being "in recess" is not unusual, but pending a review? Sounds like a mighty euphemism for "suspended", I would have thought!

Pardon the "venting" tag. I certainly need to get this off my chest this morning.

I know IRC is not the be-all and end-all of this complete furry breakfast, and that as a functioning member of said community I am supposed to defend the "party line" that most of us really aren't into yiff - particularly gay yiff - and so on.

But then I look at the channel /list on FurNet, as a new fur might do, and see at least three seemingly R18-rated channels in first ten channels openly inviting RP-sex right in the channel name, including the ominously-named #maleyiff in third spot. (I don't use Anthrochat, the other major furry IRC network I know of, but it seems to be roughly a similar situation there.) I dare not go further down the list; I think last time I looked at all channels with 10+ members, I was pretty much scarred.

(NB: And this isn't taking a shot at those who manage to keep that out of their life - I seriously applaud you guys. I try and I fail, just to declare any hypocrisy in advance - I am but male and human after all. I do cringe at these obvious cases, and certainly don't enter them.)

But yeah, GG guys. Way to do as you say and not as we do.

Oh looky. Spikes shunned an AFL game for rugby league of all things. Traitor. :P

Well, I headed to Canberra on Sunday - three hour trip as it is for me - and my original intention was to go and see the Sydney Swans play the Melbourne Demons in the match at Manuka Oval. However, the temptation of a better quality game featuring my pseudo-local league team - as someone with a former interest in the similarly-former Wests Magpies - made me switch plans and go to Canberra Stadium instead, to see the Tigers take on the Raiders.

It was bitterly cold, and rain started by half-time - I really needed more layers to keep my torso warm. As it turned out, it was just as cold at home, so it didn't really make any difference. My clothing was rather each-way... Swans jacket as usual, topped off with a Wests Tigers cap. So I could have fit in at either stadium. :P

The game didn't reach any great heights either - I didn't realise Canberra were so low on the ladder - but it was a happy day for Tigers fans, myself included. It was certainly a sight for sore eyes to watch something different live - and sore my eyes were indeed, crawling back home after 8pm. Eek.

--

For the record, the Swans scraped in for the win, 10.8 (68) to 6.14 (50). By all reports, I should have been happier that I was watching the rugby league, dire as the game reportedly was! (And watched by only 7,300 people, too. That'll make the ACT government happy to keep paying the AFL a reported $400,000 a year to extend their contract, to play two home-and-away games a year there. Not.)

I'm not looking forward, as a Swans fan, to the game against unbeaten St Kilda on Saturday night - we'll either pick up and be close, or we'll get smashed by 20 goals. Coach Paul Roos himself claimed that if they played like they did against the Demons, we'd be struggling to even score - probably a deliberate ploy to try and motivate his men, but the way they've been playing the last few weeks, it might be close to the mark!

Woolies is offering double the usual Qantas points in a four-day deal, coinciding with Big W being brought online this week. (Not sure who's paying for the extra points. Other than us, of course.)

Even for someone who spends as much (or really, as little) as I do - I'd be tempted to move my shopping to the Sunday, instead of (say) the Monday night - to sneak in with this deal. (I spend about $80 every three weeks, on average. Them's the breaks of still living at home.) But I'm not tempted to move it a whole week, just for... what, an extra 30 points, if that? Stuff that for a joke, I'm not that desperate.

As an aside, the ACCC couldn't find any reason to do anything about the 40c/litre deals Coles, and later Woolies, were doing for spending $300 there last week. The ACCC did note that IGA did a similar deal this week to match them - but at what cost to them and its member supermarkets? I think that's the greater issue here - if these "one-offs" are going to continue and IGA (and potentially other smaller ops like FoodWorks) are expected to match, will it eventually kill some of the minor IGAs by stealth? Hmm...

Follow-up to previous post, re Dance Your Ass Off: apparently Nine have canned it after one episode.

Hmm. Well, that's hardly surprising, then. :D [Edit: It'll be moved onto Go! when that starts up, apparently.]

Surely Nine could call themselves "channel 2.5" though, given the replacement. I presume they'll put something else on at 8.30, rather than subject Nine viewers to - ironically enough - two and a half hours of said sitcom. I couldn't think of anything worse to subject a current TV viewer to, other than watching Sunrise or Today for that length of time. :P

The softball World Cup made me realise one of my current pet hates. Double naming-rights sponsors for an event, or more correctly, a naming rights sponsor and a presenting sponsor.

Case in point: the softball event's sponsored name was the "KFC World Cup of Softball Presented by Six Flags". Far too much of a mouthful for my brain, let alone my mouth, to decipher. I tend to use the ABC method of shying away from sponsored names for sporting things, especially stadia (it's why you mostly see my Swans posts refer to ANZ Stadium as "Sydney Olympic Park" or similar), and this makes it MORE than twice as bad.

Slightly stranger case in point: 2003's CART open-wheeler championship became officially "Bridgestone presents the Champ Car World Series powered by Ford" - presenting partners at either end of the name, but no proper naming rights. And even more WORDS. ARGH.

ESPN's been showing World Cup softball from the US in the mornings.

One possible detractor: the US being so far in front of everyone that games are called off after 4 innings due to the mercy rule (or 'run-ahead rule' in softball parlance).

Softball games go 7 innings, but the international rule is 7 runs after five innings, 15 after four, or 20 after three. (Case in point, game shown this morning: USA 15, Canada 0, F/4. :P) I mean, come on! At least in baseball they'd play seven of nine (no, not the Star Trek character) and it'd get to 30-0!

At least, that's what used to happen when we got flogged in junior baseball... XD

Down just under a kilo, or two pounds on two weeks ago. =D About 107.5kg now; perhaps just under. I'll next see how I'm travelling in that department in two or three weeks' time. I'm aiming to try and lose about 1.5-2kg more in the five weeks until I head on my next trip to Adelaide. If more than that (safely, of course), then all the better.

I'm surprised about this weigh-in though, given what I'd been up to during the week - I'd had to check whether it'd been two weeks or three since last weigh-in. What with the freebie poker meaning a couple of nights eating out (and a HUGE chicken parmi on Wednesday night, before finishing 11th out of 75 - can't complain about that), and then a Sunday drive yesterday to Goulburn - almost 2 hours' drive to the south-west of me, at least at my hobbled 90 km/h down the freeway - and back to Berrima.

Goulburn's not as hustling-and-bustling as it was 10-15 years ago, before it was bypassed by the expressway. As such, most of the local businesses on the main street had closed up for the weekend by Saturday lunchtime. Which is a shame, but on the other hand some in the cities probably wish for the days when shops were still closed on Sunday. It wasn't a complete ghost town, though, with some of the cafes and supermarkets open, as were the few clubs and pubs they have. I stopped by a hotel for a counter meal - rissoles with tomato and onion gravy. The rissoles and chips were nice, which was to be expected, but the salad that came with it was HUGE! And covered with cheese for some reason. o.O Still, bonus - and for $9.50 too. :)

Stopped by Berrima on the way back intending perhaps to restock my tea, but ended up having a Devonshire tea instead. Naughty Spiky. :P Was lovely though; worth the wait for the couple of scones, jam and cream. Ended up passing on the tea re-buy, but it looks like I might be "all-in" in loose-leaf tea terms (to borrow a poker phrase) by week's end. Bum. :P

Apparently, NSW Opposition Leader Barry O'Farrell wants to scrap the CBD Metro if elected in 2011 - suggesting that he'll put the North West and South West rail links back into play. The transport minister, David Campbell, is suggesting it's a "political game", and the above article also suggests that shelving the CBD Metro, at a time when construction's about to be started (and certainly before the March 2011 election), may cost NSW whatever reputation it has left for being a stable and worthy partner in contracts like these.

The North West link is probably the most contentious of the pair - having been first put on the table for a potential 2015-2017 completion, then turned into a metro (for about triple the cost), then shelved completely once the government had to back down on privatising electricity - the latter having been knocked back at the Labor party's state conference. The CBD metro, connecting the city with Rozelle at a cost of almost $5 billion, while a West Metro line plans to link the Parramatta district, Sydney Olympic Park, and the Leichhardt-Camperdown region with the city.

The West Metro doesn't sound like too bad an idea, and I'd likely benefit from it if my work is still on the new line (ten years from now). But the CBD Metro has still got my head scratching, particularly now it's been revealed that the West Metro's proposed route will not extend from it, and instead go underneath Parramatta Road, more-or-less. Much of the CBD Metro's route already seems covered by or can be easily accessed from the light-rail line, and any extensions of it can really only be to the inner north-west. By itself though, I can't see the CBD Metro as anything but useless at this stage.

I still believe that the North West something should be priority no.1 - for a region that is being swamped with urban sprawl, and yet has no decent connection at all to the city other than buses. The government's thrown a good number of "growth buses" toward the problem, but it's something I can only see as a band-aid. I don't think a metro is what that area needs - the population density is still not enough to support it well - although perhaps connecting it with a CBD Metro extension terminating at somewhere like Epping (rather than Top Ryde as has been suggested) wouldn't be a bad thing. But if nothing's done... well, imagine what it could be like in ten years time.

South West line is probably not so urgent, but that could change depending on how aggressively the government wishes to push the housing expansion area around Oran Park.

Aarrgh. State politics just seems so hair-pulling, and has seemed as much since Bob Carr got his third term in 2003. I know it wouldn't be any better interstate, but still.

I'd read about the rumours on certain discussion sites this afternoon, but the Nine Network used what appeared to be the second story on A Current Affair (seriously) to officially launch their upcoming digital SD multi-channel. The new channel, named Go!, will start on 9 August on LCN 99 (probably will be 88 in regional areas, since Nine's regionals are on LCN 8 rather than 9), and follows previous rumours that the multi-channel would have just been "Channel 9 + 2 hours". Said timeshift makes sense for the Foxtel channels as it's all live for the satellite, and gives Perth viewers a shot at prime-time viewing of their general entertainment channels at a sane time... but doesn't make sense for a free-to-air running on local time. (Incidentally, 99 was the old EPG channel for Nine.)

(There is a YouTube video of the ACA "report"/promo. It's mostly promoting Go! obviously, but does have a little bit at the start and end pushing FreeView in general - ie. free-to-air digital, obviously in competition with Foxtel's larger offering.)

It follows the launch a few months ago of the Ten Network's all-sport channel, One HD. Seven has yet to make their move on their SD multi... suggestions abound that focusing on lifestyle or drama might be best for Seven, to play to their strengths. The former especially. Similar suggestions state that this would be best for FreeView as a whole, too, as FTA-digital would then have three kinda distinct new services to launch some sort of small attack on Foxtel - especially if they're all branded at least semi-independently of their parents... like Go! and to a lesser extent One are. (Of course, they can't hide from the first digit of their LCN, which IDs its parent channel.) Backroom handshakes aside though, Seven would find it very tempting to compete their SD multi-channel directly with Go!.

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By the way, following the promo/report for Go! was a 45-60 second advert for a new US import, Dance Your Ass Off, which has been picked up by Nine to screen soon-ish. Originating from the NBC-owned Oxygen, a reality-ish cable channel that skews toward Venus, it appears to be roughly So You Think You C, er, Dancing with the Stars crossed with The Biggest Loser. (They get a dance partner, so closer to DWTS - which airs on ABC. Loser is NBC.) A crazy combination if you ask me - the thought certainly turns me off, if I was ever turned on to begin with.