The great Australian race was held last Tuesday --- the Melbourne Cup. With its $6 million purse, it is Australia's richest horserace and the championship handicap race. Run every year since about 1861, it has become known as the Race that Stops the Nation. In Victoria, it is a public holiday, as it used to be in Canberra as well until this year which means I don't get paid double. It really does stop Australia in its tracks as everyone watches to see who'll take the Cup. It is estimated that 80% of the Australian adult public has a bet on the Melbourne Cup.
Needless to say, this is one of the busiest days of the year for ACTTAB and it was most assuredly all hands on deck. I would be pulling a double shift that day that started at the racecourse. I was stationed with a friend of mine, Thamizh (ta-MEER), in the Hut, a wooden structure used only once a year and not redecorated since it was built sometime 40 years ago. There are actually old betting slips there from the time before ACTTAB employed electronic betting. Well, when we arrived we endeavoured to make our station available for betting only to find that the computers would not cooperate. After intense investigation, the opinion of our technician was that the problem was with the uplink with ACTTAB's racecourse server and although only the Hut was affected, to correct the problem would necessitate taking every ACTTAB station in the racecourse offline for at least 5 minutes. Deciding that this was too high a price to pay for this one station, we were told to close the Hut and I went to the Auditorium (a small club and bar area) and Thamizh went elsewhere.
At the Auditorium, I was stationed with Scott, someone I'd never worked with before. We got along fine and everything was going smoothly until 5 minutes before the Melbourne Cup was to run. Our computer screens began flashing "Alfa Queue Full" and we were unable to place any more bets. Unsure of the situation we told people to wait and see if the system would come back up. Things went from bad to worse when our computers kept telling us that the host server was down. Not only was our station down but so were all stations in the racecourse all outlets and branches throughout the ACT; this was a total system failure. All we could do was wait for the system to reboot. In the meantime, the race ran and it was taken out by Americain, who even though racing at nearly 11:1, was still one of the favourites. The favourite, So You Think (3.90:1) finished 3rd. Because so many of the favourites won, the trifecta was a pittance as compared to recent years, only a little over $300; last year it was about $9 500 and the year before about $22 000. Nevertheless, the system failure at that particular time means that ACTTAB lost probably several hundred thousand dollars.
There's still no word as to what caused the crash, although the consensus seems to be a system overload from too many bets but we haven't had this problem before. One of my floormates suggested a denial of service hack but I don't think that's likely. The new system that is to be in place in the next few months should prevent this from happening again and I look forward to reading the explanation in the next ACTTAB newsletter.
The system came back online about 5-10 minutes after the Melbourne Cup ran and even though people could still bet, the main even had finished. On a typical Melbourne Cup, ACTTAB sells over 10 million individual bets (though that may be tied in with Victoria) by sometime around Cup time but this year we didn't even reach that number. We'll see if there's any fallout from this.
My day wasn't over and as soon as I was finished at the racecourse I biked to the Garema Place outlet to assist them there. When I arrived there were still plenty of people in the outlet but that faded over time. I stayed until closing by which time there were only 2 people left. Another Melbourne Cup done and another one for the books. I'll remember this one for a long time I should think.
I did get some good news recently in that I had been selected as one of 2 bus drivers for Fenner Hall next year. The term "bus" is a little misleading and what it really is is a large van that seats about a dozen, maybe a few more. I'd actually been shown how to operate it last summer but as I didn't become an office holder subsequently, I wasn't allowed to continue in that role. It's a fairly easy job involving driving students to Fenner-sponsored events and the occasional shopping trip. It also means I get a 50% rent subsidy for the coming year, which is also quite handy. I think it will fit well with my ACTTAB job and the work load of the GDLP.
With my Equity exam coming up, I had a rather scary moment in that I actually had a dream about equity. I don't exactly remember what happened in my dream only that equity was involved. It must have been a sign that I was letting it prey on my mind too much. The next day, though, was my Equity exam.
The Equity exam was held in the large Melville Hall and as I took my seat I wasn't quite sure what to expect. As I read through the exam I was slightly reassured to find no questions on resulting trusts or the presumption of advancement; if you know what they are, you hope that you never have to deal with them. I walked out of the exam feeling confident although I didn't get to finish the essay question, but I think I got the main points across. I spoke with a friend afterwards and we both discovered virtually all of the same issues so I'm pretty sure I've at least passed the exam. In any case, it's out of my hands now. If I ever hear the words "resulting", "constructive", "trust" or "equity" again, it will be 20 billion years too soon. Although I enjoy the law, I'm just so tired of this degree and I want it finished. I also want to graduate with my parents and my brother here. As much as I will enjoy having them here and us travelling around together, the enjoyment will be significantly diminished if I do not graduate. And everyone keeps saying things like "You'll be fine" or "You'll pass" but nothing is certain. It is in my nature to feel anxious and nervous about these things until the end.
In one more bit of happy news, I found out that one of my favourite artists, Amanda Marshall, has reappeared after years in "hiding". On November 5th, she gave a concert at Casino Rama in Orillia, Ontario. From an online Toronto Star article, I learned the shocking truth of her unintended exile. While still popular in Canada and by no means over the hill of her career, in 2002 Amanda Marshall had a disagreement with her record label and management team and fired them. This set off a series of unfortunate events that turned what was supposed to be a short break into a long one. Her record label/management team (or at least I assume it was them) instituted litigation against her for what I assume is a breach of contract or something vaguely similar. However, for some reason, the matter still hasn't been settled and information cannot be gotten from Amanda Marshall or the other parties since the matter is still ongoing, which prevents anyone from disclosing anything but the bare fact of litigation. It also means that Amanda Marshall is prevented from working for another record label or releasing any new songs because the other party probably obtained a prohibitory injunction (something I learned in Equity) against Amanda Marshall. In essence, a prohibitory injunction prevents the subject from breaching a negative term (a term requiring that something NOT happen) in a contract. An example of such a term would be "Amanda Marshall agrees to only write and music for X", the implied negative term being that Amanda Marshall will not write and release music for anyone else. These injunctions are pretty easy to get, especially if they are meant to be temporary (subject to a final court case/decision), although subject to some other technical conditions and considerations. Whatever the case, I'm happy to hear that Amanda's back and maybe my sudden interest in her a little while ago was a premonition of this return. I wish her well, look forward to hearing from her and offer her my legal services should they be required.
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