Friday, October 17, 2008

Who's Got My Go Card?

Yesterday when I went to get on the bus to work I realised I'd forgotten my Go card, which is basically an electronic card you can use with the Brisbane transport system - I can top the balance up online and simply touch on and off buses and trains, and it automatically gets deducted (it's basically an RFID card like the Oyster system in London).

Anyway I had a look round for it this morning and couldn't find it, so I went online to check the last transaction. It seems some cheeky twat has been using it for the last 2 days. I can see that he/she got on a bus this morning on my route and got off in the city, obviously using my card to get to work and back.

I've rang up and cancelled it but of course, it's not as simple as cancelling the card and sending me a new one. I have to order a new one (which will cost $10), and then complete and post a form for them to transfer the balance of the account from the old card to the new one. All of which will probably take weeks knowing how council departments work.

I'm not sure whether I lost it or someone pick-pocketed me. I've realised it must have been Wednesday evening. I remember Wednesday evening because we had a monsoon. I got off the bus to walk the remaining distance home and got caught up in absolutely amazing freak weather conditions. Apparently during that brief storm, which lasted about an hour, we had over 3000 lightning strikes.

I've never seen anything like it. Only muggins here was stupid enough to be outside walking the streets in it. I remember having this gut feeling that I was going to be struck by lightning any second, as everyone else was inside or in their car (apparently your car is the safest place to be during lightning). Also, living in sunny climes I didn't have a jacket or umbrella with me so I was absolutely drenched by the time I got home. At least it was warm rain.

According to this Brisbane Times story it dumped down nearly 60mm of rain in that 1 hour and 32,000 homes lost power.

No comments: