Getting Back To Normal

Not only was last week World Youth Day (uh, week?), but the kiddies were out of school on holiday, as well. So today, even though most of the WYD pilgrims had left the city, traffic had to return to the full routine, which included getting the kids to school. I didn't see too many kids out, but you could tell that the timing for the normal commuters had shifted. As I got on the bus this morning, I noticed a lot more people were on the bus this morning. But I was already on, so I had the pleasure of standing for the entire ride, along with about 15 other people. I think tomorrow I might wait the extra 5 minutes and get on a bus where I am one of the first stops. (You'd be surprised how many buses going to the City some by my stop, all with different initial routes, but still heading the same way after my stop. I usually just get on whichever one gets there first.)
Traffic was a lot worse, too. It took a lot longer on the bus that it has in the past couple of weeks. I'm not sure what was going on, but even the Motorway was slow. Interesting that once all the people go away, traffic gets worse... Let's just say that I'm very glad that I was not driving today!
Speaking of WYD, there are still orange backpacks around the city. I thought everyone would have left by now, but nope. They really like to hang out in the middle of mass transit during peak rush hour times, too.
There were some tourists walking down Market Street as I headed to the train station. I was standing at a crosswalk, waiting for the light to change, and noticed that some people on the other side were taking pictures of the city. The light turned, and people spread out on the street. As I crossed, the guy taking pictures pointed his camera right at me, and took a shot. I have no idea why - I think it was a fluke that he took a photo of me. But I laughed to myself as I walked away that this guy was probably taking pictures of the non-tourists in Sydney, and he ended up with a shot of me. Maybe that 7 Degrees of Separation thing will work out, and somehow someone will see the photo and let him know that he took a snapshot of an American, not an Aussie. HA!
Then, as I walked into the QVB building to get to the train station, there was a guy walking towards me who I think was a little off his rocker. The guy kept throwing his elbow backwards, like he was trying to hit the guy behind him. Then he would kind of turn and glance back to see if he actually hit the guy. This little game happened about 3 times (that I saw) as I was approaching. The funniest part of the whole thing was that the guy behind him was walking about 3 feet behind the guy, not really all that close, and had the funniest look on his face, one of those "What the...!?!" looks.
Ahh, good times. And speaking of good times, I had some mail in my box today. I received my number for the City2Surf race in the mail today. I am number 36712. Here's the sad part: I am one of the competitive runners. There are 2 groups in front of me who are seeded runners, and get their numbers by completing the race in a certain time the prior year. So there is a whole herd of people who will be behind me as part of the "Back of the Pack" group, which includes non-competitive runners and all of the walkers. Holy crap, this race is going to be huge. In fact, the info sheet says that since they added timing ships, this race will now be the "biggest accurately timed fun run in the world." Man, I really need to get in shape, since this race is less than 3 weeks away...
So I do have one other funny story from today for you guys. Those of you in the Charlotte office will appreciate this one. An email came out today that announced that the End of Month Drinks would not be held this Friday, but next week. (Yes, we have happy hour every month here. Pretty good, right?) Anyway, the email came out to everyone in the office, which is about 200 people. This guy in my department sent a reply that was clearly not supposed to go to everyone, about going out and getting pissed (translate: drunk), and something along the lines of "Thx for the $75, babe." I can assure you he was not talking to the lady who sent the original email. Of course, there were some other text shorthand comments, and I have no idea exactly what he said (yes, I'm getting old), but nothing important. As soon as the email popped up, you could hear people start to laugh. Suddenly, a second email from this guy popped up that simply said, "My apologies." That email made several people bust out laughing. About a minute later, another email came across to everyone from a girl in the office that simply said, "That's gold." So I replied back to this girl (taking the chance that I knew her, although I wasn't positive), and said, "No, not gold. I think he's on the red team." (We are divided into 3 colored teams in the audit department. The guy sending the original email is apparently on my team, although I am not sure who he is.) A couple of minutes later, an email came back from this girl to laugh and say that she meant to only send it to the original guy, not the whole office. I told her that it was well worth it, and not to worry about it. How freaking hilarious. She gave the best comment about this guy sending a "Reply All" email to the entire office, but she managed to do the same thing. Hi-freaking-larious!
I think I'm out of anecdotes for today, so I will close with a couple of mX quotes and a story from today's paper. I've been a little disappointed with the reader comments (today's were mostly about WYD), but I managed to scrounge up a couple of decent ones.
VENT POSTS:
"Steele, chivalry isn't dead. Now I know it's you that won't stand up for me and my seven months' pregnant belly." - K from City (Oh, I wouldn't want to go home tonight if I were this guy...)
"Who left all the fruit juice poppers on the 3.40pm Wynyard to Lidcombe train on Friday? There's about 60 of them on the seats around me." - DJ from Newtown
"Karpie, I love you. Tuck your flaps in." - Alissa from Hurlstone Park
And finally, my favorite story of the day comes to us from the UK: Ice cream van jingles will be cut to just four seconds by UK bureaucrats in Worcester, as the tinkling songs have been labeled an "annoyance" to the public. So now, ice cream trucks can only play a four-second song every three minutes, and it has to keep to a certain decibel level. But my favorite part of the story? "Furious ice cream vendors have also been told they cannot sell within 50 metres of a school or place of worship." No song? No selling around where little kids are located? What Good Humor man pissed off the local politicians? Must have run out of the chocolate eclair ice cream bar...