I occasionally get asked how I ended up with such a non-woggy name like Brian when both my parents were born in Italy. Recent events have led me to believe that now is the time to share the story.

I was born about a year after my parents migrated to Australia from Italy. From day dot they basically decided that since they were in a new country, they would give their new son (me) an “Australian” name and do their darndest to make English my first language. Upon reflection I am really quite impressed with my folks, I think that their attitude was really forward thinking for migrants of that era. Most of the migrant kids I grew up with were wogs to the core – and don’t think for a second that I’m suggesting that that is in anyway a bad thing – but I always felt like the world’s least woggy wog at school.

Anyway… When trying to work out which Australian name to give me, they heard the song “Little Ray of Sunshine” by Brian Cadd on the radio. They liked the song so much they thought that Brian would be a good name for me. So there you have it.

Back in October, a couple of days before my 30th birthday I was driving back from the marriage celebrant’s place and saw that Brian Cadd would be performing at a pub out in Ferntree Gully on the night of my birthday. Now I already had plans for the night so I wasn’t going to go, although the idea of doing so seemed kinda symbolic.

The next day I went to Brian Cadd’s website and relayed him a shortened version of the above story.

A couple of days ago I got a repy. I was thrilled.

—–Original Message—–

From: Brian Cadd [mailto:brian@briancadd.com]

Sent: Tuesday, 30 November 2004 1:34 PM

To: Polli, Brian

Subject: Re: General Enquiry…

Hi Brian,

Firstly, let me apologize for taking so long to answer your email. We have been experiencing website problems for some time. Recently, however, they have been completely straightened out and Jess

(info@briancadd.com) is now taking care of all correspondence and mail-outs, including merchandise purchases.

Thanks for your great story. I’m very flattered. I hope the name has brought you luck!

Please stay in touch with the website as, in the new year, we will be releasing a new studio album and also touring around. So maybe next gig in your area, we can say hello to each other.

Cheers

Brian

OK, so it was half reply, half plug – I don’t really care. I was quite chuffed to hear from him at all.

Who knows, I might just go to his show next year and say g’day.

I LOVE GADGETS!!

I decided over the weekend that my PC needed a little TLC. After all, it was taking me about half an hour to burn a DVD – which is far too long as far as I’m concerned. On top of this the power supply in my beast was intermittently failing, which is a shit at the best of times. So now I’m the proud owner of a brand spanking new DVD burner, as well as a new power supply. The best $166 I’ve spent in a while.

The main thing I’ve learned out of this is that there are all sorts of cool (and ridiculous) bits and pieces you can add to your PC. I never realised how many gadgets you can buy which serve to make one’s PC run more quietly. Now really, it’s not like PCs are that noisy are they? They just hum along in the background, right? You can basically get “silent” replacements for your power supply and just about any fan that sits in your computer. I’ve never really thought about it, until now. I’ve got my new power supply installed, and no it’s not any quieter or louder than my old one – but now that I know that silent fans are available – I can’t help but think of a Cessna aeroplane engine whenever my PC runs. Once the study is properly set up here and I’ve got a little room to move. I might just pull the beast apart and work out where all this noise is coming from. Let’s see how quiet I can get this machine to be.

How times have changed from the days of the standard beige PC case. There is some cool (and once again ridiculous) options – the link shows some of the more “interesting” models available. You realise it’s only a matter of time before the “Dalek” case comes out. This will probably make more sense once you’ve looked at some of the models at the above linked page – they are not that far off.

Now I’m thinking that a new graphics card might not be a bad idea. With technology changing so fast it’s hard to work out when the best time to buy is. There’s always a far superior and cheaper model just about to come out. I suppose it’s like any other computer part – buy what you can afford at the time and deal with it.

I love web sites deisgned by people with too much time on their hands. There is a lot of cool (and) crappy stuff to discover out there.

Check this out.

Go to ‘playthings’ then select ‘xylophone’. I’m particularly partial to that one.

Please turn the volume down if you are at work, there is some unsavoury language.