not keen Keane

I get the bus. 
I got a MYKI on the first day it was sold in Ballarat in the winter of 2009. On arriving home I telephoned to register it and spoke with ‘Luke’. He gave me various security code numbers which I noted, but registering online-use proved too difficult for him to achieve and we both gave up. I should have realised how important this was.
I topped it’s balance up by $20 only days ago and used it normally on Tuesday 22nd January.
On Thursday 24th it was stone dead unusable. I bought a Daily ticket to travel.
On arriving home I went online to deal with my various MYKI numbers and ‘register’. 
No deal because ‘your MYKI has expired’.
I start from first-base to re-register and purchase online. DOB, address and phone are required in order to catch a bus. After giving all that, I got – ‘we already have that name’, ‘that email’ etc.

It would seem that I was supposed to organise my online use, and a new card, with transfer of my $20 balance, sometime before Wednesday 23rd January. 
 Where was that written? 
 How many thousands of similar balances are now in limbo?
‘Keane Australia Micropayment Consortium Pty Ltd (Kamco) is the Melbourne-based company

‘Kamco is wholly owned by Keane International Incorporated, a privately owned IT services company

From their ‘Overview’ page:
‘Employing more than 100 people in Melbourne, Australia, Kamco also boasts a dedicated team of software developers and testers in Hyderabad, India 
From their FAQ page: ‘Kamco is headquartered in Melbourne, Australia. It also uses a dedicated development and testing team operating out of Hyderabad, India.’

‘Keane has been in operation since 1965, employing more than 10,000 people across 11 countries.
Kamco was formed in 2005 to bid for the New Ticketing Solution.

‘Kamco is a single purpose entity, established to build and operate the myki ticketing system on behalf of the State Government of Victoria.

In July 2005 Kamco was awarded the contract to build, operate and maintain the NTS (myki) system. Kamco is contracted to run the myki system for 10 years following implementation. Key among those subcontractors has been Giesecke-Devrient, which provides the cards and ACS Solutions Switzerland, which provides the software, maintenance, and: 1,000 ticket vending machines, 12,200 fare payment machines, 2,500 bus driver consoles, 1,000 tram driver consoles, 1,500 hand held devices for Transit Inspectors, 220 train station gates, 220 ticket office terminals, and 900 retail terminals'.  (for those 94,000 square miles of State - Ed.)

Keane Australia Micropayment Consortium Pty Ltd (Kamco) is at Level 14, 628 Bourke Street, Melbourne.
 I would like Level 14 at 628 Bourke to go down in history as the site of 

the Second Eureka Stockade.

wild weekend

My photo, taken from our table, of the smug city seagulls on their million-dollar Federation Square perch, complacently observing us eat.
After a big Saturday Night in the best seats At The Opera thanks to the generosity of That's So Pants, how lovely it was for us both to Sunday Blogger-Brunch with Hawt Highriser, the legendary, elusive and saintly R, and Copperwitch.

We were, however, scanning the horizon for Sanity Clause who failed to appear because he was looking for his phone, left in someone else's car for the second time in a week.

After the delicious food, Pants and I really enjoyed the British Watercolours 1760-1900 collection of the NGV just up the road. See my groovy image left, showing how blatantly 'designer' Roy Grounds regurgitated the style of Le Corbusier.

See that desk top right? That is the place for paying membership fees to the NGV association. When I approached waving the application and money, the 'Attendant' fled, claiming it was closing time.

For some reason Pants blogger finds this hilarious.

We then 67-trammed to my cousin in Caulfield for a garden party with poodles, dragging ourselves away to do battle with Vline and the horror that is So Cross Station, to get back to opposite sides of regional Victoria. What a weekend.

Tooting and coming

As you all know, SoCross Station is my natural habitat, and as I passed through last week I just had to record seven regional trains but thankfully not the noise level of the seven engines roaring.
But wait, that's not all, I also bring you Tutankhamun whose HUGE effigy stars there at the moment.

(images copyright Ann O'Dyne 2011)

I wish the ancient civilisations had invented trains. They might have evolved sufficiently by now to be bearable.