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Year View| Summary| Highlights| Month View| Tuesday 14 September 2004 (Day View)

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14.09.2004 – Tuesday 14 September

• I was at uni by eight o’clock, which isn’t much fun, to attend my COMP2801 practical. We were supposed to have completed our individual parts of our group assignment by now, but only one of us had actually done that. I felt guilty for over two moments, but then I got over it. I then managed to spend the rest of the day adeptly avoiding COMP2801. I tutored, which went well, and attended my COMS3200 lecture, which made me very sleepy. I drove into the city with Sméagol, Clint and Kipps, to drop Kipps’s unwell LCD monitor at a repair place, bought food from the Ville, and generally did many non-study things. I did end up staying late working on COMP2801, catching the second last bus out of uni, and arriving home quite late (and angry).

12:12am

• I have just arrived home. I am very, very angry. The train home was, for some reason, rather busier than usual. It was one of the new style trains, with fewer seats due to their wheelchair accommodation. I was sitting, along with several other blokes, towards the end of one carriage, on the bench seats parallel to the carriage wall. Several Samoan types, along with an aboriginal man and woman, and a white boyfriend of the aboriginal, were also sitting there, discussing, among other things, wanting to “do over” some particular service station. Just before the train stopped at Woodridge, they got up and surrounded a young bloke – probably eighteen or younger, and the white boyfriend of the aboriginal woman stole his bag, and jumped off the train. No one was paying particular attention to them – I had, almost subliminally, assumed they knew the young bloke and were teasing him. It makes me very angry that I – along with several other people, were sitting within a few seats of all this – and could probably have prevented it. We got the young bloke to go talk to the guard, as the trains do have closed-circuit video monitoring, but the chances of anything coming of that are, I suspect, very slim. I guess this is a good lesson or warning – I haven’t expected anything like this to happen under such circumstances before. There are always circumstances where one is wary – but I have never considered this type of thing happening on a well-lit, semi-crowded train before. He obviously didn’t steal the young fellow’s bag for the money, as there was a businesswoman and several other obviously better targets sitting nearby. The whole suddenness and confidence factor – and probably fear, must have prevented the young bloke from saying anything – as he didn’t call out or do anything at all. Everyone was asking after, if something had actually happened, as it seemed somehow surreal. After, on the walk from the station back to here, I got talking to another young bloke around my age who had been sitting in the next carriage down. He asked me what had happened, and was as disgusted as I. Interestingly, he said the person he’d been sitting next to had been worried, as he’d been in a similar situation, with the same people, before. Apparently, he’d been on a train, and sat near these rejects while they talked about their various illegal activities, and then been followed to his father’s car. People like that deserve to have their legs broken, and if I see something like this happen again, I’ll do my best to ensure they do.

Comment by Cassie – Wednesday 15 September 2004, 12:29 AM

  I agree. D*ckheads.

Comment by Maz – Wednesday 15 September 2004, 12:32 AM

  count me in. some people should accidentally find themselves in front of speeding trains.
  give em one for me.
  Maz

Comment by Kipps – Wednesday 15 September 2004, 12:37 AM

  As someone of aboriginal origin, I am offended

Comment by seed – Wednesday 15 September 2004, 8:37 PM

  is it just me or should all the people of aboriginal descent be sent to the centre of austrlia and set free? i mean they don't really belong in the cities as they get hooked on the alcohol and drugs and as a result they do things like this. but then again, i am a synical bastard with short tempter and lack of respect for anyone else who is not me.

Comment by to seed – Wednesday 15 September 2004, 8:55 PM

  Haha, learn to spell "cynical" you idiot

Comment by martin – Wednesday 15 September 2004, 9:08 PM

  While obviously this was a terrible thing to happen in a train I think Seed's comments are racist and insulting in the extreme. Notice that some of the assailants were samoan and one was white. Do you think white people should be sent to the centre of australia, or maybe back to where they came from (europe)?

Comment by Matt – Wednesday 15 September 2004, 10:37 PM

  It should be quite clear that the white fellow was under the influence of his aboriginal "friends" and did not want to take part in the theft, it just kind of happened.
  
  So no. Seed is right.

Comment by Ned – Thursday 16 September 2004, 2:33 AM

  I saw no evidence that any aboriginals were involved. The person who stole his bag was Caucasian, and while his girlfriend was aboriginal, assuming that she caused him to steal is far-fetched. Whether or not he was attempting to impress his friends does not change the fact that he was the sole instigator and assailant. I am unsure whether his friends intentionally assisted by surrounding the young bloke, or whether that is just how it ended up. Obviously, they are partly to blame in that they did not stop him (and assisted, at least indirectly), but inferring anything further than that would be baseless given only my description.

Comment by Reubot – Thursday 16 September 2004, 12:10 PM

  Glad I'm not on Beenleigh line...

Comment by seed – Saturday 18 September 2004, 8:16 AM

  in case you haven't noticed...there was a little bit of sarcasm there and who needs to know how to spell anyways?