Wally Cup Lore

Readers of the weekly Wally Cup digests will surely recall a November 4th publication which was deftly titled November 4th Article and penned by the GM of Mark's Mafia. This humours tome outlines the torrid tale of Wally Cup mayhem that played out at the wedding of the GM of Todd's Hitmen. We now take this opportunity to tell the tale in pictures.

The story starts on the morning of Todd's wedding with the 'game day breakfast', which of course included an appearance Lord Wally's cup.

Big Sexy admires Big Sexy - who's walking who?

We fast forward to the wedding location, of fitting Victorian origins, in Toronto's Distillery District. The initial placement of the cup is highlighted in this image below - anybody who's versed in the ways and whims of Occupational Health and Safety may feel their Spider Senses tingling at the sight of this image. But Wally Cup GM's have no fear.

"This should be safe - gravity's not that strong! Let's grab a beer..."

With the Wally Cup successfully installed in the wedding location we pick up our heroes, here pictured the GM's of Todd's Hitmen and Cross's Sisters, preparing for the events of the big day. These would of course include moments of hilarity and tears, but first the business of the cup.

Pre-game hops as we prepare to get our dunks in

Pictured below is the Commissioner of the Wally Cup, just moments after this day's "Houston, we have a problem" scene, reminiscent of the Apollo 13 mission. Just before this picture was taken the man of the day reported to the group that he, "didn't want to alarm us, but the Wally Cup is missing".

The rest, as they say, is history and here is the first exclusive picture to prove it. The Wally Cup had taken its plunge - the favourite act of the day - and has the battle scars to show. Many who were present on the day believe that proof was shown that if a Wally Cup falls in an old Victorian warehouse, and no body's there to hear it, it does not make a noise. However there is strong evidence to suggest that the Wally Cup screamed, "I'm going to Sydney...!!!" as it plunged towards its eventual destination.

On what turned out to be the Wally Cup's "Night of Nights", hilarity ensued and Wally Cup GM's - past and present - pounded the drinks and cut some hard core tile.

Two guys who've never won the Wally Cup

A real triumph in the art of self portrait taking

MC Mafia - the day before the day

The Sister's GM, Warming it up with the I-Guy (left)

The GM of the Indians shows his true colours

(Not at all related to the the night in question...)

The Wally Cup's First Champion carves it up

And with this, your faithful correspondent will close the photographic tale of the Wally Cup's great tumble. But not before noting that the final picture on your correspondent's camera is one which is truly worth 1000 words. Perhaps this was an effort to entice the original Wild Bor back to the Wally Cup? Or perhaps an effort to ensure that public opinion on the Wally Cup's tumble did not spiral out of control? Perhaps we'll never know, and for sure wonders will never cease.

Wally GM's share the love...

Does Compute

During a recent trip to Melbourne, I was exposed to three separate experiences which emphasized the evolving and dynamic nature of progress in the computing world. The start of my experience was at the Melbourne Museum. The museum is a very interesting place - which in itself is not that surprising - filled with the proud history of Melbourne, Victoria and their parts in the development of Australia.

There is an excellent display on the Bunjilaka people who occupied the land that Melbourne sits on prior to the arrival of European settlers in the 1800's. There are also interesting specimens from Charles Darwin's explorations of the South Pacific and Australia, and a great exhibit on the ongoing evolution of our understanding of DNA as well as the human body.

One rather modest exhibit in the museum caught my eye however - a small room on the main floor of the museum which houses the original CSIRAC computer. (No longer functional, but they did add some flashing lights for good effect...) Having grown up during the emergence of the "Home Computer", when computers were something that were plugged into your TV (seems like we're coming back to that these days...), seeing this remnant of the early days of computing was a very eye opening experience.

My Walk Through of the CSIRAC Computer

The sight of one of the dinosaurs of the computing age - the kind that your father told you about that "was good enough to get man to the moon and back", and the kind that your grand father could scarcely imagine - took me by surprise. I knew of these pre-digital vacuum tube running beasts, but to see the start of the evolution was a quirky, inspiring and humbling experience. If anything, it emphasized that progress and success was determined by the same things then as it is now: hard work, perseverance and a faith in your vision. The architects of this binary beast could scarcely have envisioned where their work would lead, but for them 1000 calculations per second - contrasted with the millions, billions and trillions to follow - was a lot of computing power.

CSIRAC Computer's Disk Drive

The sight of the hard drive, I'm sure state of the art at the time, evoked images of my 6th grade wood working class and grinding out a rolling pin on a lathe.

A short time before my visit to the Melbourne Museum, I had visited the (excellent) Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI). The ACMI has a games lab, which focuses naturally on the domain of video games and video game development. At the time of my visit the ACMI games lab had an exhibition on "hits of the 80's", which naturally meant that Texas Instruments, Commodore and other early 80's "Home Computers" were on display. What was of note is that they were on display behind a glass cabinet.

The Commodore 64 - Behind Glass

Seeing the Commodore 64 of my childhood behind a glass display case brought into focus how much has passed in the computing game. Memories of wrestling with tape drives, copying computer programs out of the back of magazines, BBS's, and finally the advent of the disk drive and the modem...

The third experience, which put all this computing history into perspective, was a quick walk past the window of a mobile "phone" shop. Where for a cool $29 per month, you can get a mobile computing platform which can connect to the broad corners of the Internet, reducing the cost of international calls to zero and allowing the storage and access of countless amounts of data and information.

Get Google, Skype and eBay on your mobile for $29/mo

I guess this is the natural conclusion of Moore's Law, and a few other major innovations over the past, but its amazing how much of it you walk past on a day-to-day basis without even taking a second glance. John Culkin said, "we shape our tools and thereafter they shape us". Its very difficult to see how the amazing leaps in power, scope and reach of computing haven't had a massive effect on our society to date, and won't continue to do so far into the future.

Thankfully all this technology can also help us remember where we came from...

Fed Square Jazz Cops

This scene would be almost comically surreal to people from states where the Police spend their resources bashing and repressing the people. I happen upon an amazingly sunny, peopled Federation Square in Melbourne, Australia, and who's churning out the syropy-smooth jazz standards, but a 30-piece band of coppers! The ladies and men in blue are carving it up, funky and flowing as any underground culvert in the back alleys of Prague, or the block-clubs if upper Manhatten.

The slide trombones cast off their paperclip appearances as they groove away into the afternoon sunshine. What is this state where people live this way in harmony with the police? Message to the coppers of the world: trade in your guns for saxes, and blow the world away that way instead!

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George Dyke
Sent from Blackberry

Everyone decides to walk bridge, wear orange hat on the same day!

This past Sunday, March 18, the Sydney Harbour Bridge was closed for a 75th anniversary walk across memory lane. Here are a couple of my snaps from what was all and all a very special and interesting day. As was said on the day, "sometimes I like humanity..."

Aboriginal Smoking Ceremony + Interesting Proposed New Aussie Flag

Felt like you were 'inside' the bridge at times...

Play it like a harp...
The darker, smokier side.

More on the darker, smokier side.

Stark colours.

And abstract lighted orange hats...

The Grand Olde Lady of the Harbour.