Auspices

The big news in Australia has been the Soceroos' perceived underperformance at the World Cup. In their first game, against mighty Germany, the Socceroos fell 4-0, an inauspicious start to their campaign. Later, they tied 1-1 with Ghana and have kept their hopes alive but they now must win against Serbia. With Serbia beating Germany, that whole group is up in the air. It was Germany's first round robin loss since 1986. Of course, Australians are also upset at the dismissal by red card of their star Harry Kewel after only 25 minutes on the field. He seems to have hand-balled in the penalty square but Australia may appeal the automatic 1 match suspension that comes with a red card. It would be rather bad luck for Kewel who missed out last time with an infection and has been much hyped this time around. Auspices

Also on the World Cup, I've managed to collect all 6 McDonald's contour glasses. In Australia, and I assume elsewhere, McDonald's has been providing free contour glasses with selected meals. Each contour glass was a different shade and depicted a different aspect of soccer. I now have them all, still in their packaging, and may even use them one day.

Earlier on in the week, I was invited to an "engagement" party for one of my acquaintances from law school. She and her "fiancee" had a surprise for everyone, which turned out to be that they had already been married for 3.5 months and had kept it a secret until now. It was still a great party.

I also had a good performance review at ACTTAB this week. Although supervisor training will be suspended for a while, I have been given a pay increase such that I am now at the maximum level for my rank. I'll be earning $28.36/hr starting mid-July, increasing to $29.55/hr on September 1st, due to our union agreement. It feels good knowing that you're going to get more money.

During my performance review I was also informed about the new system we'll be getting sometime towards the end of the year. If you don't particularly want to read about this, I suggest skipping over the next 2 paragraphs. Essentially, in order to bring ACTTAB as close to the 21st Century as possible, a new betting system is being introduced. Each racecourse for the day will have an assigned number which we will input. Later, touch screen will be introduced as well as automated betting terminals. This will bring ACTTAB close to what other states have already. It's not yet clear if all of the features (such as PIN pads for depositing money into a betting account) will be introduced but it will be a vast improvement on what we have at the moment. The new system will also allow us to offer more species of bets, particularly ones that are popular elsewhere but are currently unavailable here.

The catch is that the new system, including new betting options, will only be available via the telephone service at first. This is bound to create some confusion but I hope and pray that it won't be too disruptive. Also, the trainees who will be trained as extra staff for the Melbourne Cup-Canberra Cup period will be trained on the old system as that is what will still be available. However, those that are kept on will have to quickly be trained on the new system. As you can see, there are clearly areas where problems may crop up but I only hope that the changeover will be less taxing than when we switched sporting events betting providers. We had an issue last Sunday where the betting went down on the day Australia was going to play Ghana. Luckily it was fixed in time but it did take a few hours. It wasn't even our fault but the provider's.

Saturday was a bit of a strange and dispiriting day. I woke up only to realize that my alarm clock had died during the night and I was late for an aussie rules game I was to be a goal umpire for. I made it in time for the 2nd half but I wasn't very happy. Later, I went to work at the Civic West ACTTAB outlet and our principal machine froze. My supervisor did not restart it, as it would have meant our entire outlet would be unable to function for a few minutes, but at the end of the day, none of the figures added up. My supervisor wrote an e-mail to Jenney, our boss, about the problem so I, hopefully, won't have to repay the $42 my till was under. I think that it was because of a system error.

Another party I went to was held at the Wig and Pen, a pub in the city. My floormate, Dimitris, had his birthday party there. Many people showed up and a fun time was had by all.

On Sunday, the Canberra branch of Plast had its annual Svyato Yuriya (St. George's Day) out at Uriarra Crossing, west of the city. The day was perfect and we had a barbeque lunch followed by a hike; I even saw a wedge-tailed eagle.

And finally, my brother has returned to Canada following the completion of his teaching diploma in New Zealand. Where he ultimately ends up is anybody's guess. I'm hoping he'll choose New Zealand.