MikeFitz with overflow bit set…

It’s early Sunday morning.  I wonder whether Rupert’s Rags are going to throw another non-story onto the nation’s front yards in a couple of hours time.^*

Last weeks non-story, Rudd admits to US strip club visit by Glen Milne dredged up some 4-year old non-news.  This part raised alarm bells …

Reports of Mr Rudd’s behaviour reached senior Australian diplomats serving in the US at the time.

One of those diplomats, who insisted on anonymity, confirmed to The Sunday Telegraph a version of events involving “inappropriate behaviour”.

To me, this smells (no, stinks) of the involvement of our foreign minister Alexander Downer.  Sadly for Mr Downer and John Howard, none of the mud stuck — except to their own hands.

On Monday, our local ABC radio station was interviewing the man in the street and the majority of responses were favourable to Kevin Rudd: “It shows he’s human after all.”  “He’s just like one of us.” etc.

Bob Brown landed the best punch

Mrs Fitz & I were watching Lateline on Monday night when we saw Australian Greens Leader, Senator Bob Brown deliver this…

“Four years ago Kevin Rudd got drunk and took himself into a strip club.  Four years ago John Howard, sober, took Australia into the Iraq war.  I think the electorate can judge which one did the more harm.”

Mrs Fitz howled with laughter when she heard it.  Take that, Johnny.

Aurelius blogged about it straight away.

By Thursday, everyone was pretty relaxed about the story.  One of my brothers sent me this picture of a billboard outside an establishment across the road from his workplace.

Glen Milne?

And why did Downer’s flunky in DFAT choose to leak the story to Glen Milne, of all people.  Maybe it’s because he has had first-hand experience of drunken behaviour?  Who can forget his performance at the 2006 Walkley awards?

I think the Howard government mud-slingers are going to have to try harder than that.

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^* Actually, I’ve just checked. Today’s top story is…

Flu outbreak hits racing
A DESPERATE race is on to contain a highly contagious horse influenza virus that has the potential to cripple the $8 billion Australia racing industry. …

While not wishing any harm to the horses, some filter in my head translates this story as…

Punters keep their money
FAMILY BUDGETS make ends meet and economy booms. …

A couple of weeks ago I had occasion to accompany #2 Son on my first expedition into our local IKEA store.  It’s big… really big.  I remember the construction effort disrupting local traffic for nearly all last year.

The Ickier experience starts when you negotiate the Rwanda-sized carpark.^*  One discovers that the set of stairs closest to where you eventually find a parking space brings you up into a whole ‘nother building^**.  Not to worry; we had our running shoes on.

We were also aware of Ickier’s devilish floor plans that ensure that every customer has to walk past every item in the whole store.  But the nice lady who gave us the map at the front door let us in on the secret, “There are SHORTCUTS”  Yay!  But you have to keep your wits about you; they’re deceptively signposted.

Have a look at the simplified plan below.  Our store is actually about 8 times bigger than this and on TWO levels.  And, yes, you must traverse both levels to get to the checkouts.

Simplified IKEA floor plan.  To get from A to B:
If you use a “Shortcut”, you have to swim upstream to find the next one.

Here’s the really evil part…

The merchandising maniacs ensure that if you successfully negotiate one shortcut, you must then swim upstream to find the next one.  Fiends!  How do little old ladies cope?  In fact, we did encounter a group of little old ladies wandering around, dog-tired, convinced that someone had cut the end off the last shortcut they took and almost resigned to dying in the store.

The horror is even worse after viewing the offerings and deciding to purchase elsewhere.  There is no quick way out!  You are trapped!  You might as well buy something.  Aaargh!

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^* I stole this term from GBE.  She and her beau went to Ickier between Christmas & New Year.  It must have been horrible; their relationship hasn’t worked out.  If only they had seen this warning from Jon at PantsOfDeath.com…

Cartoon by Jon at pantsofdeath.com.

Did you see GBE’s map of Noosa Beach?  Hilarious.

^** Actually, this turned out to be a good thing.  In that other building was a real furniture store where #2 Son successfully purchased the item he needed.

This month’s QMSDNUG meeting looks at an interesting range of technologies; first Vista Gadgets and then PowerShell.

First-up, the official prize presentation and mini-showcase of the winning entry in the Microsoft Innovation Centre Queensland Vista Sidebar Gadget Competition.

Then, our main speaker this month is Mitch Denny, speaking on “PowerShell for Developers.”

About Mitch:
Mitch has lived in both System Administrator and Developer worlds, embracing both to the max.  He was an early adopter of PowerShell and, as you can see from his blog, has now built up some considerable experience.  Need to automate system administration functions?  Mitch can show you how a developer would do it.

These details are also available on our QMSDNUG website at www.qmsdnug.org.

RSVP
All invited; attendance is free; pizzas, drinks supplied.  An immediate rsvp by email to mike@fitzsimon.com.au will help with planning.

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Afterthought: Yeah, I know.  I thought it would be a long time before this blog post gets a hit from a search engine looking for “Vista Gadgets and PowerShell”.  One is a desktop technology and the other is a server technology.  But follow the PowerShell link above and see that it has been done already.

Off to Tech.Ed 2007 this week.  For the first time ever, it sold out - weeks ago.  This is now the only way to get in…

Zip me up, Scotty!

This will be my last LOLCat!  Frank Arrigo started this Tech.Ed LOLCat! meme and now he “can has leave the country”.  This week will be the last chance to catch up with him  Good Luck, Frank!

Tech.Ed is being held at the Gold Coast Convention Centre from Tue 7 to Fri 10 August with deep-dive workshops starting today.