I hate the train.
Get to the station. Miss the early train. The next train, my "late train" is cancelled. The train after that is packed to the point where I couldn’t even board it. The train after that I got on. Stood for 1h 25m. Caught the connecting train ended up 35 minutes late to work. Just lucky I have contingencies in place for WHEN this happens. Yes WHEN. Because with ShittyRail (CityRail) you know its GOING TO HAPPEN. Bastards.

10:00 AM:
More stock take prep, oh what fun. I am gripped by the excitement of recording catalogue numbers! But it gets better! The catalogue numbers must be entered into the computer! Whoa! Crazy, massive unforgettable fun... yer...

12:00 AM:
Goldy sent me a link to another web comic called CTRL+ALT+DEL - Tragically 1337. It's really good. I read the archives from Jan 01 05 to now. I will be making a button when I get some spare time. You will probably see it in the bottom left corner with the other buttons.

The particular comic he sent me was this one titled "The almighty twenty". This refers to rolling a critical hit with what’s called a "natural 20" on a 20 sided dice. Natural 20 means without any modifiers like +1 weapons or spells or whatever. A critical hit means that whatever you hit is probably dead. In some rules you roll again to calculate where the critical hit is located, in a "simple rules" game you just lay the smack down on it and it's dead.

It has been wholly too long since I have got out the AD&D dice (D20, D12, D10s, D8, D6s and D4s) and played a game.

1:00 PM:
It's Lunch Time!
New Scientist: It seems that there is going to be a massive nuclear reactor built in either France or Japan. When I say massive I mean 5 to 10billion US massive. It's going to be used to research the use of nuclear fusion in clean energy production. The project is called ITER - International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor. This can only end in tears…

1:09 PM:
Mr Brenny arrives. Now we eat. Then I will rant after he informed me of the reason the trains were late/fubar today.

It seems that our CrappyTrail staff are on drugs. They must be, else they wouldn’t be striking over a random drug test?!?! This shits me to tears. Officials turn up at the Flemington, Mortdale and Hornsby maintenance workshops. The workers then refuse to submit to drug tests, drop their tools and leave. Why not just take the test, be cleared and keep working? If you haven’t taken anything, what do you have to hide?

So. I have to be late for work because some fucker doesn't want his boss to know he or she is on drugs. As if the whole "train to work" thing isn’t enough of an ordeal. For fucks sake, these are the people we trust our lives to daily. They fix things like brakes and door mechanisms - from fucking bogies to roof, they maintain and repair it. I ride four trains a day. Damn my life expectancy must be dropping exponentially per trip.

In the press release to the Herald Sun, the Cityrail representative comes up with a pearler: "We have got some cancellations to services across the network…" and "But they're kept to a minimum". I don’t know how many trains they run each morning but 17 cancelled trains is not near "minimum". I also don’t think all the morning south coast trains running four car sets instead of eight car sets minimal either. A whole sector of the network (the south line) running at 50% capacity, yeah minimal.

When they build these timetables it doesn’t take rocket science to cut down the ticket purchase times vs destination statistics and come up with a timetable to match them. Fucking hell, don’t they know what a database is? If they do, well, they have no excuses; they’re just shit in general as I first thought…

While we are on the 4 car bit, why the fuck do they find it necessary to run 6 car trains in peak? Perhaps they are rolling dice to determine how many cars to have on the train. Yeah they roll 1D10 - 2.

A quiet office in Cityrail headquarters :  The silence is broken by the clacking of dice on table.  An executive has rolled 8 on his D10.    "Ooh an 8!" The executive enthusiastically announced.    "Don’t forget the minus two sir…" The secretary tactfully advised. Puzzled, the executive began the tedious calculation of eight minus two.    "Oh yeah… …That makes it a… erm…"    "Six Sir…" The secretary jumped in.    "Six!, yeah, you’re right." The executive, like his trains, came in late. The secretary recorded the figure and looked up.    "OK, so that’s a six car train for the 7:35." Happy with the progress, the secretary ushered on the next timetable entry and prompted.    "Excellent; let’s move on, the 7:51. Roll please sir."

I just wish they would admit how fucking pathetic they actually are. Face it; you bastards are doing a REALLY BAD JOB! Why do I pay $33 dollars a week to travel from the west to north Sydney? Why do I have to pay so much for shit service that is almost never on time? Why, when it is on time, is it barely consistent with the timetable?

I can see it now:

A Cityrail Maintenance depot tomorrow :
"Dude; those brakes will be fine man, just clip them in, don’t worry about the retention pin man, I wan't to keep it as a keyring. It’ll hold. It’s all good man, Just pass me that joint dude! Puff, Puff, Give man, don’t break the rules!".

Fucking assholes!

SMH News the day after:
"60 killed and 124 injured in a run-away train incident."

Maintenance guys investigate the wreckage after they truck it to the depot because the bastard is so mangled :

Excited by his discovery the Cityrail engineer exclaims :
"Dude! I found my bong! I thought that's where I left it!"
The engineer carefully retrieves bong from inside the EEBS mechanism cradling it with both hands.
Startled, he jumps as the violent hiss of compressed air bursts out. The emergency brake cylinders are charged and their pistons violently rammed down their length. The brake pad comes to rest on the wheel with a solid "Clunk".
In dramatic realisation the engineer thinks he solved it!
"Ah so that's why the EEBS didn't kick in..."

When questioned, the Cityrail representative said "It seems there was a Failure of the main brake system along with an additional failure of the Electronic Emergency Brake System or "EEBS". The investigating engineer reported there was an ‘object’ lodged in it."
The representative refused to comment as to the nature of the ‘object’.
(press room upraw)