90 days of Hell(now rebranded as Metro)

So the new stationmasters have stepped in to the boots that Connex left with much fanfare, flashy lights and other such media releases. Much hullabaloo is also being made about the fact that nothing seems to be changing and that a few days in we should nail them to a cross and dancing around with pitchforks.

I’m holding my judgement for now.

The new breed of owners who’s new ‘original’ name is Metro have already started by stomping all over whatever respectability ‘Connex’ had by decrying the lack of service for the trains, the fact that parts are missing and that they are not ‘Connex’.
Now I know, that every media outlet has been banging on about the fact that out of 3000 + members of the company only about 20 people right up the top have moved onto another job at another place (most likely with a good send off with a banquet and all) but I think it needs to be absolutely clear on this.

Trains are identical - Check
Tracks are identical – Check
Staff are still wearing the badly fitting overcoats – Check
Control System is still identical – Check
MX still handed out haphazardly at stations – Check
Occasional spin still sent out by Transport Minister – Check
Transit Authority still informing us that it won’t be fixed overnight –Check

It doesn't seem that different to me personally. But on that last point is where I start to get a little annoyed. We just went out to the world to look for the people who are prepared to offer us the method to turn our ailing system around and they haven’t completed it already?
I don’t care if the infrastructure is so bad we might as well wrap it all up in Gaffer tape or that every train is sticking together entirely based on the belief held by Lynne Kosky in flying pigs but they should be able to fix this thing quick smart. Considering how long and arduous this tender process was I can’ think why we didn’t get a team who promised converting lead into gold, water into wine and bus stops into nightclubs, all in the first night.
I have noticed a few new changes though already, apart from the occasional new executive laughing uproariously from the Metro head office. As one of the new changes is for more information on announcements, I presume Commuters will now get a clipped female reading full romantic history of all trains should any of them need a mental fatigue day. Granted it will tell us what actually happened but it will be dull and boring but wouldn’t it be better to have a droll sarcastic voice yelling out obscenities to help the commuters at least know it annoys the operators and workers just as much them.

Still I’ll give them 90 days(28 Feb 2010) before I properly yell and abuse them. I don’t know why but I would actually like them to get the system working to cover the 600,000 people who travel daily. And if they need it, I’m more than happy to yell obscenities over the loudspeaker instead of the current announcements.

An 'Emotional' Message

I love living my life by moderation. If people ask how I am I might say 'good', 'bad', 'tired' or even 'where's the coffee'. It seems that that really covers my lifes feelings, wants and gives back about as much information as the asker requires or wants. And despite english stunting emotionally direct communications, the tone of my answer will give away more about my actual feelings than anything else.

The tone of all my answers is, in fact a highly relevant supporting the use of the wonders of sarcasm, the wit of irony and the humour of a movie like 'Wayne's World'. All these things that are then lost in the wonders of the net. And that comes at a point. If you think I'm serious with the first comment of this paragraph you can't hear the tone of my voice dripping with sarcasm. You may be waiting to see if I'll insert a winking emoticon to check I'm joking otherwise you could, possibly, watch a feed of my webcam as I gaze, glassy eyed, into the glowing box of a screen in front of me. I can't see much emotion being conveyed through 36 alphebetised characters plus punctuation or at intently gazing at a flickering screen while people watch me from a plastic egg.

So can we get past this barrier of only putting straight flat lines down on a screen with little to no emotion. Does a :) really convey that I have ambivalent feelings about my cat's employment choices or that :P will show my heightened disapproval of the business plan for the matchstick world builder set. So what options does this leave us, Maybe we can start to have a colour variations to indicate anger(red) sadness(blue), envy(green), shallow(pink), Peachy(peach) or even Pissed Off(Yellow). Personally I like to think that emotion is all about pressure and the keyboards, in all there innovativeness, should be able to the pressure your pounding into the keys. So if you're hammering nails into a concrete wall or lightly brushing a speck of dust on the keyboard the letters should change in size. Apparently, the chinese language, has five different tonal variations but the English could not have over 128 different points of pressure. It might make it a little harder to see the vary light touch people have when typing lightly but punch the keyboard and some letters should sit there for days.

But just to be clear I'm quite happy to see you all reading this. It's just annoying for you, the reader, that you can't tell if I'm sarcastic or not.