Had our first work outing for the year today. As per usual I had the chicken kiev. I have that every time, I really should have something different next time.

Also got spammed with high school reunion emails. Yes if I've gotten the email once, I don't need to get the same email another three times. This reunion even has a website. I'm quite surprised at the number of missing persons - lots of people I would have thought would still be contactable by their friends after all this time. I also saw the name of my best friend in Year 7 - Nicole Vasek, who I haven't talked to since 1986 - it'd be lovely to try and find her again. There's also lots of names I barely recognise, and lots of names that I recognise but can't picture their faces. I'm gonna have to raid mum's photo collection and try and fit names to faces.

I'll prolly go to the reunion.. I think I'll regret it later.. but apparently only half the year is married, so can't be all that bad .. we'll see I guess :/ Even if it's all good, how the heck am I going to catch up with 100 people? Even 50?? Barely be enough time to just say hello to everyone, let alone find out what they've been up to for the past 12 years..

The picture on the right says it all really.

From SMH:
Nine people are confirmed dead, and 39 injured in hospital, after a peak-hour commuter train derailed in Sydney's south today. The driver was killed, many people remained trapped in the wreckage and it was feared that the death toll could rise.

Initial reports were that it was a south-bound train (heading away from the city), but there were conflicting reports, and I worried about some friends of mine that live in Helensburg and catch the train to work. A mobile phone call later confirmed they were ok.

In a way it was a good thing that it was a southbound train, as the casualties could have been a whole lot higher if it had been a citybound train.

My brother (who works for Cityrail) got to the site, he said it was pretty bad.

For some bizarre reason this affected me a whole lot more than the Glenbrook train disaster - prolly cause this is so much "closer to home".

I really do have more meaningful stuff to say today.. like that I got my support mail job back at cia (yayyy).. and the search terms used to bring people to my blog are just as crazy as the search terms used within it (eg kazza when people really mean kazaa - don't even get me started on that).. and the plants in my fish tank are growing like crazy.. and I hate microsoft with a vengeance (unpatched sql system=secure; patched sql system=vulnerable).. but it's This or That Tuesday (Wednesday by the time we get it), so here we go.. :)

1. Kleenex or tissue? Tissue
2. Soda or pop (or tonic or whatever)? Lemonade?
3. A sandwich on a long roll: sub or hero (or hoagie or grinder, etc)? Roll (unless it's at Subway, when it's a subway :) )
4. Glasses or spectacles? Glasses
5. TV or television (or boob-tube, or telly, for our friends across the pond)? TV or tele
6. Movie or film? Movie
7. Sofa or couch? Lounge
8. Stove or range? Stove
9. Remote control or clicker? Remote control
10. Supermarket or grocery store? Supermarket

Oh well, it wasn't even a very interesting one this week

And this was in the Sydney Morning Herald a few weeks later:

By Jenny Sinclair
August 6 2002
Next

Australia's new domain naming system brought in a lot of firsts - the first truly personal domain name, the first of the new com.au names and the first "reserved" or offensive word allowed to be used in an Australian URL.

The first Australian personal domain name bought under the new system was not Smith or Jones, but the wonderfully Australian "Kazza". Sydney woman Karen Johnson, 28, bought kazza.id.au, in preference to karen.id.au, because Kazza is what her friends call her.

"I just though Kazza would be a good name to have," she says.

Johnson, who works in IT at the University of New South Wales, says she was talking to a friend at an ISP and made a spur-of-the-moment decision to buy a domain name. She didn't imagine it would be the first of its type to be issued.

Technically, id.au names have been available before, but they were only sold under sub-domains such as "wattle.id.au".

There isn't much at her site yet; Johnson, a confessed Internet addict, is considering moving her personal site there soon.

She also bought the name johnson.id.au. "I got that for my family," she says. "I can set my e-mail address for whoever I want, so I can have colin@johnson.id.au (for her uncle)."

The first page she's hosted under the johnson.id.au URL is a memorial site for her grandmother, Win Johnson, who died last month.

In Adelaide, Danen Lush, 28, was the proud owner of the first com.au name under the new system.

For her, the new system was little more than a delay; she'd applied for bodyjewels.com.au just as the naming system was suspended over the weekend before the changeover, and it was registered on July 1 when the system reopened.

Now, a month later, she's busily building inventory for her start-up business, an online shop. Lush is selling jewellery, both the conventional type and for attachment to body piercings - hence the name.

She plans to keep the business virtual, operating from home.

Western Australian domain-name speculator Brad Norrish, 23, began domain-name trading several years ago.

He is participating in auctions for some contested generic domain names that are being sold by auDA through online auction house stuff.com.au.

Last month he picked up what Internet industry watchers would consider to be a couple of bargains when he registered f--.com.au and music.com.au for less than $100 each, at retail prices.

Neither were put to auction.

He says this is a good result when the generic auction has seen some hefty premiums paid for some names.