24 Hour Megaswim

Multiple Sclerosis is a disease of the central nervous system affecting more young adult Australians than any other neurological condition. Your donation will help to minimise the impact of multiple sclerosis on all individuals affected by the disease by allowing us to offer a wide range of assistance, in the form of Scholarships and Financial assistance for home improvements, vehicle modifications and equipment.
So, here's how we went.
After 24 hours we had swum a total of 83km, soundly beating the other 30 teams (the next closest was 1.1km behind) and guaranteeing we'd require physiotherapy for the next four weeks.
My personal distance was 6.3km.
It was, of course, worth it. Over $160,000 was raised by the teams, a brilliant effort, all very proud. Thanks so much for your contribution.
Now, as for next year...
Your support is greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Gordon

Second Life Libraries

Second Life Libraries are Great!!!

Second Life Libraries are a great concept and the sooner we move to them the better. It’s an inevitable consequence of Second Life itself, as after Second Life clubbing, holidaying, boutique shopping and real estate dealing, Second Life education and careers must surely follow.

A Second Life library can offer an extremely attractive Noosa- style resort like ambiance, with the Pacific Ocean crashing on golden sands on three sides of the building, and the subtropical jungle visible on another, quite unlike the grim buildings that we currently occupy in Melbourne. In fact we can eventually abandon brick and concrete buildings altogether, with their tatty collections of printed materials and ugly plastic furniture.

Within our virtual library we can deliver virtual reference, create virtual displays of art and valuable materials, present virtual lectures by famous intellectuals, artists and designers, attach a superb virtual theatre, cinema and restaurant as well as offering virtual child care to the virtual families. We can create virtual relationships with the world’s leading museums, galleries and institutions. The library staff will not be aging, graying and overweight, no, they will be young, athletic and beautiful, just like the clients. I imagine a team of blond dancing queen reference staff wearing pink jumpsuits with sequined belts, dancing from floor to floor, fielding questions with ease.

I am very excited about Second Life libraries, and admire the attempts that have been made to date, but these surely are early Second Life days.

The past catches up with you...

I was quite surprised to find this reference to one of my former lives while browsing on the web...

112. The Tyger.
(Brisbane, Tony Woodyatt, [1976]) 2 nos.
The Tyger was a short-lived Brisbane literary periodical which published poetry and prose and had reviews of art exhibitions as well as essays. Tony Woodyatt was a Brisbane law clerk and Queensland University student who mixed in Brisbane’s avant-garde literary and artistic set of the time. As well as editing The Tyger and arranging exhibitions of artists such as Gordon Turnbull, now at Swinburne University in Melbourne, Tony also made an experimental movie in 1976.

It is from a 1999 catalogue of an exhibition at Monash from their Rare Book Collection "Modern Australian Poetry" curated by Richard Overell.

Tony, who is an old friend, had the radical idea of sending his periodical randomly to people in Brisbane selected from the phone book, which resulted in some indignant and hostile recipients.

Tony is now coordinator of the Queensland Public Interest Law Clearing House. He has been prominently involved in public policy and legal work in Queensland since 1976 - as a lawyer for the Aboriginal Legal Service, Executive Director of the Queensland Police Review , Director of the Caxton Legal Service, Director of the Parliamentary Criminal Justice Committee which was established after the Fitzgerald Inquiry and has also worked for the Prisoners Legal Service.