su·per·cil·i·ous·ness

A very busy day today. After one day of veging out yesterday it was full on again today. I have so much to get done tomorrow and into the next three days that I am totally worried about just how many hours I am going to have to do. So as a distraction I decided to head out tonight and watch Sunshine Cleaning at Dendy. The film comes from the same producers as Little Miss Sunshine and shares the same kind of quirky sensibility - which I think will probably make it more popular in the UK and Australia than the limited release it got in the US. Anyway, anyone who can make the whole issue of crime scene cleanup into a touching little comedy like this is good in my book. I thoroughly enjoyed it - with a series of very likeable characters and a totally believable story.

Loads of town planning news today with word that the NSW government is going to trial new smart traffic lights which judge traffic volumes in order to help improve vehicle flows as part of the Smart Transport and Roads project. The system uses cameras, infra-red sensors, radar and weight activated sensors at each intersection. The trial is going to happen at an Albion Park roundabout to pilot the scheme - with the neighbouring traffic lights moving from the existing pre-programmed time-of-day sequence to the new system. The tip is that eventually out in car navigation systems could be linked into the system to inform us of major delays, availability of spaces at parking stations and the running times of connecting buses and trains (but they did drop the year 2030 into the equation - why wait 20 years?).

Meanwhile you have developer Nectar Efkarpidis saying that it is time to look at building purpose build dwellings for different segments of the population - including single parent apartment block floors with a creche, student-friendly levels with broadband and gay-only areas with bars. He says that the community had a growing number of niches and we should be catering to them - but I tend to agree with Nicole Gurran from the University of Sydney who warned that we might end up with ghettos which further divide us up. Why shouldn't every apartment block have family friendly spaces and places to socially interact?

Time to get some sleep I think. This week is going to be a killer.