Thoughts - train travel
Dec. 6th, 2004 04:46 pmThis weekend I went up north to visit Grandma and Grandfather. Some thoughts on train travel:
1. A horse whinny, neigh (or, I suppose clop or any other sound, but that was what I heard) is REALLY DEFINITIVELY FREAKIN' ANNOYING as a mobile ring tone, especially if you're trying to doze.
2. Trains are still stupidly expensive if you can't plan your journey far in advance. (And so are sandwiches, but less so MAGNITUDINATLY.)
3. Some trains have power sockets for laptops and mobile. Woo!
4. It's impossible to chat to a stranger unless you have something in common, however little. Changing from one train to another the same, or both being delayed even, is sufficient, but if otherwise it seems freaky (not that there's any reason it should, I met one of my oldest friends on a train, but it *does*).
5. A laptop makes you feel like a young professional business traveler, unless you play minesweeper[a][b][c] on it, in which case you feel daft[d]. Writing notes for a roleplaying campaign falls somewhere inbetween.
6. What's a good way of planning a journey? If I ring the enquiries line and say "I have a return ticket which unfortunately means I have to travel via not london, what is the next way from lancaster to cambridge" or "I'm going to Leeds and want to stop overnight in York, is it possible to go to either via the other, and if so can I break my journey" always produce a "Mwaaaa?" which is mainly my fault, but short of buying a car, is there a good solution?
7. I saw what looked like a tour/interview/proto-fresher with it's mum. Awwww. That takes me back.
8. I need a drink. And to sleep. And food with vitamins in. And for this build not to break so I can go back to working on what I'm SUPPOSED to be working on. I'm so hopeless.
9. PARTY FRIDAY! Invitations as soon as I'm awake, hopefully tonight or tomorrow.
10. NaNoWriMo failed conclusively, and I bought a book on the station smiths which encompassed my next-best idea. OK, things I should stick to because they're more fun and I'm better at but have a tendancy to do the opposite of (1) something in a world I know fairly well, probably the real one, as it feels a lot realer unless I'm Tolkien (2) humour, not over the top, but light hearted (3) characters traits based on people I know so they seem slightly real.
[a] It was still on my 'recent programs' menu from when Naath got bored secretarying in poohsoc a week ago :) I need to use more different programs, and install some decent (or any) games.
[b] Alphepetical feetneet due to contrast with list enumeration.
[c] And using a footnote to footnote a footnote is awkward because you can't resiably doubly (ie. nestedly) superscript (I think). I recognise the irony this third footnote.
[d] Partly due to being incredably lucky when I was a bored teen and scoring about 3 seconds on the easy level, which no-one believes, and there is no proof of because the score table is unencrypted, and means that I'm never going to improve so I might as well not try.
1. A horse whinny, neigh (or, I suppose clop or any other sound, but that was what I heard) is REALLY DEFINITIVELY FREAKIN' ANNOYING as a mobile ring tone, especially if you're trying to doze.
2. Trains are still stupidly expensive if you can't plan your journey far in advance. (And so are sandwiches, but less so MAGNITUDINATLY.)
3. Some trains have power sockets for laptops and mobile. Woo!
4. It's impossible to chat to a stranger unless you have something in common, however little. Changing from one train to another the same, or both being delayed even, is sufficient, but if otherwise it seems freaky (not that there's any reason it should, I met one of my oldest friends on a train, but it *does*).
5. A laptop makes you feel like a young professional business traveler, unless you play minesweeper[a][b][c] on it, in which case you feel daft[d]. Writing notes for a roleplaying campaign falls somewhere inbetween.
6. What's a good way of planning a journey? If I ring the enquiries line and say "I have a return ticket which unfortunately means I have to travel via not london, what is the next way from lancaster to cambridge" or "I'm going to Leeds and want to stop overnight in York, is it possible to go to either via the other, and if so can I break my journey" always produce a "Mwaaaa?" which is mainly my fault, but short of buying a car, is there a good solution?
7. I saw what looked like a tour/interview/proto-fresher with it's mum. Awwww. That takes me back.
8. I need a drink. And to sleep. And food with vitamins in. And for this build not to break so I can go back to working on what I'm SUPPOSED to be working on. I'm so hopeless.
9. PARTY FRIDAY! Invitations as soon as I'm awake, hopefully tonight or tomorrow.
10. NaNoWriMo failed conclusively, and I bought a book on the station smiths which encompassed my next-best idea. OK, things I should stick to because they're more fun and I'm better at but have a tendancy to do the opposite of (1) something in a world I know fairly well, probably the real one, as it feels a lot realer unless I'm Tolkien (2) humour, not over the top, but light hearted (3) characters traits based on people I know so they seem slightly real.
[a] It was still on my 'recent programs' menu from when Naath got bored secretarying in poohsoc a week ago :) I need to use more different programs, and install some decent (or any) games.
[b] Alphepetical feetneet due to contrast with list enumeration.
[c] And using a footnote to footnote a footnote is awkward because you can't resiably doubly (ie. nestedly) superscript (I think). I recognise the irony this third footnote.
[d] Partly due to being incredably lucky when I was a bored teen and scoring about 3 seconds on the easy level, which no-one believes, and there is no proof of because the score table is unencrypted, and means that I'm never going to improve so I might as well not try.