Cancer, ADSL/ASX, Solstice, Wakerlies, KMFDM, Branch Stackers!

[tcpip]

A distressful event of the week. A old friend of mine has disclosed that she has breast cancer. It has caused me a great deal of sadness, not the least being because she is quite young (<25). Her spirits seem quite positive, so there's been either some positive diagnostics as I think it may be or she is being more courageous than is necessary.

Thanks to the generosity of my new-found employer this post is coming via ADSL. Speaking of which, guess who had to go into the data center of the Australian Stock Exchange this week? Wow, that place is secure. I've also be learning about an amazing little product called Nagios. It makes the life of a sysadmin very happy indeed.

As part of tradition, the summer solstice provides the opportunity to compose and reflect on the events in my life from the past year. 2004: A Year in Review. May I just take this opportunity to thank everyone who has been reading this journal and for all your kind comments.

Here's some good news! Carmela Baronowka won a Wakerly Award for her documentary, Taliban Country!... and some more good news, my old Perth-friend Brian Choo has recently had his amazing art published by Allen and Unwin in
The Big Picture Book.

Another interesting event of the week was meeting KMFDM and excessivepurple in real life. I was a bit of a fan of theirs about ten years ago and was pretty happy to see they were still going strong. Picked up their Sturm und Drung DVD and got the band to sign it like a real fan-boy.

Once upon a time, I worked, quite briefly for a certain member of the Victorian Parliament. He proved utterly impossible to work with for a whole variety of reasons and so I resigned and moved on to more sensible position. Some seem to think that he's up to some branch stacking. Some even suggest he's done it before with monies from dubious sources.

Comments

Hey, we may have met in a past life

[mrsbrown.livejournal.com]

My dad has been involved in the ALP in that area, and has similar issues with that parliamentarian. He was electorate secretary for the St Albans parliamentarian, before he moved to represent Mill Park.

I _have_ handed out how to votes for the baddy, in my deep and distant past, when I was 16

Re: Hey, we may have met in a past life

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Aha! I know your father from a St Albans branch meeting and from the Mill Park office! Now, if I could just remember his name! (Hey, it's been a couple of years)

I went to the St Albans branch meeting as a representative from Head Office because there'd been a few complaints about the conduct of the meetings. You know, member applications not be accepted because they're from the "wrong side", that sort of thing...

It was the meeting where the chair, when pulled on a matter of standing orders responded "This is not the Australian Labor Party, it's the St Albans Party!".

Seitz really is pretty rotten. I can just imagine what the press is going to be like when he retires from parliament and collects his superannuation and pension. He's been a backbencher since 1982 :/

My brain does work!

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Ken H! That's your dad, right?

Re: My brain does work!

[mrsbrown.livejournal.com]

yep!