Still Flyin'

"With Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young introducing a private members Bill into the Senate seeking to grant same-sex couples equal marriage rights, it is well worth looking at the recent Galaxy poll on this very issue to demonstrate just how far behind the Australian population our political representatives are.

The Galaxy poll taken on the 29-31 May 2009 asked the following question: Do you agree or disagree that same sex couples should be able to marry in Australia?

In 31 of the 32 demographic cohorts measured, a majority of Australians support same sex marriage with only the over 50’s being the odd cohort out, where in that unique case the against held a plurality lead of 49 to 45."

More graphs at Crikey's article on same-sex marriage statistics.

I've been working hard the last few days, doing not much except for my freelance gig. It's getting a bit tiring - I've got stuff I'd really like to do on the blog, but for the last few months I haven't had time for anything except the bare minimum.

But, we did take the time to go to the Sugar Blue Burlesque graduation show on Saturday night. The advanced class puts on a show at the end of their course, with a few of the regular performers making special appearances. Unlike the regular shows, this one was smaller and mostly family and friends of the class.

I had a great time. The performers were adorable, the drinks were cheap, and the crowd was a lot of fun. The presenter, Fanny La Rue, was funny and did a great job of getting the crowd to shout out appropriate encouragement for the performers. It's a shame she's heading off to Europe for a year, she really makes the event special. They also did a double-entendre competition, the crowd got to submit words that sound dirty but aren't: the winner was Volvo, but I was cheering for "Want to join my Emissions Trading Scheme?".

Afterwards we helped Greg pack up and then toddled off to DeVille's for a drink and a catch-up. I got to chat with one of the regular performers, who'd done an act to The White Stripes' "Ball and Biscuit" that I'd really enjoyed. Home by 2am, which is the latest I've been up for ages...

If you're in Perth, and you need to get rid of a bed, call the Lifeline/People Who Care group - they give them to elderly people who need assistance. I had a nice chap come and take our old one away on Friday, which is a relief because between the new and the old, we've had a bed in our hallway for the last month!

Had a nice quiet weekend overall. Have finished all of the existing Doctor Who now, particularly enjoyed the S4 finale. Not looking forward to waiting until November for more though! Must get some icons or something.

And had Adam and Ant around for dinner last night. We made lamb shanks and they turned out pretty well. Adam said they were as good as the ones we had at Dusit Thai, which is quite the compliment cos he loved those.

Realised last night that I'm sadder about running out of Doctor Who episodes than I thought I'd be! And about how Donna's story ended :(

Links to good Who icons, fanfic, sites, etc much appreciated. Should I go back and try to watch some of the classic series? My mum loved Tom Baker's Doctor, but the theme tune scared me out of the room when she watched :) A bit of old-fashioned, cheesy, monster fun might be good.

Managed to completely fill up our long weekend with all sorts of stuff!

• Dave's parents were in town on Friday, but went out shopping all day so I got plenty of work done.


• Went to the Broken Hill pub for dinner with them to celebrate Dave's birthday. Good food, shame about the cigar-smokers downstairs though.


• Invited ourselves to Big Dave and Jacqui's place for dinner on Saturday night. Big Dave makes a fantastic casserole, and Jac had found a delicious butterscotch pudding that's my new favourite now.


• Went to the zoo with Aiden, Andrew and Lucas on Sunday morning.


• Clothes shopping (got a brown jacket, couldn't find black skinnies that fit), then back home just in time for Greg B to bring us some more Dr Who.


• Aiden and Andrew took our old freezer


• I took some photos of Lucas. The pics turned out really well! (see previous post)


• Adam and Ant's place for dinner on Sunday night


• Ripped up a lot of lawn so we can have a bigger vegie patch. Put in lettuce, carrots, radishes, and broccoli.


• Dave's sister and her family popped in for a visit, since they were up in Perth for the long weekend.


• I copied and pasted images all over the place for my new blog style - there's a lot more work getting it to go than I realised.

This is my favourite of the photos I took of Lucas on Sunday. There's a few more on the site.

Baby otters!

Finally got around to watching Brokeback Mountain on the weekend. I don't usually like tragic love stories. But Ang Lee is always an interesting director with plenty to say, and I'm always happy to watch Jake Gyllenhaal do just about anything, so I figured I'd enjoy it.

And I did, with the exception of laughing out loud at the "I wish I could quit you" line and some cheesy symbolism of dying embers in a fire. Oh, and taking half an hour to get the hang of the mumbling and accents, which is my problem, not the movie's. I loved that in every conflict, everyone was right in a way. Except when Ennis had a go at Alma for not wanting his kids - that was a low blow. Pretty much everyone did a fantastic job with the acting. And the scenery was beautiful and bleak and rich, fantastic stuff.

I cried when Jack's mother told Ennis to visit again, and when Ennis's daughter came to visit at the end. And I nearly cried when Ennis and Alma were fighting after their divorce - it seemed very realistic to me. Not that I know anything about finding out your marriage is a sham, but I do know about parents who have horrible fights.

I sort of get and don't-get the marketing and reviewers saying that "it's not about gays, it's about love". Obviously, a wider audience will see it than if it'd been sold as an arthouse made-for-a-gay-audience movie. But really? The only reason the movie didn't end at the halfway mark was because Ennis didn't want to die from a gay bashing, so he rejected Jack's ranch plan. There was gay sex in it. It was about the consequences of being gay in a community and time when that was not an option. How much more gay does it have to be before you can say "it's about some gay guys with awful timing"?

Just because they weren't voting for Harvey Milk or moving to the city to become drag queens, doesn't mean it's not about gay men. I guess the reviewers really meant "it's not like Will & Grace or the gay stereotypes you're used to in mainstream media".

Apart from that, I had the same issue I have with all tragic love stories, which is that I often wonder if the star-crossed lovers would get along all that well, in that day-in, day-out kind of way, if they actually could be together. Would Romeo have been annoyed at Juliet's taste in music, or would she get tired of him leaving his doublet all over the floor, if they'd been married for more than a few days? Maybe Ennis would have gotten annoyed with Jack's pie-in-the-sky plans, and Jack would have been annoyed that Ennis never watched him at the rodeo because he had to work or whatever. But then again, maybe the star-crossed lovers would be glad to deal with the ordinary problems for a change, instead of always having to be tragic and dramatic.

Yesterday was kinda fun...

We were eating lunch at the 4th floor corridor/bench when the storm front hit. We've got big bay windows up there, so you can see all over the city. It had been raining a little, but then a giant wall of wind and water just swept across from the west and within a minute you couldn't even see past the next street.

And then the power went out, and the (tiny handful of) emergency lights went on. Again, having the big windows helped with the natural light, but Louis hadn't come up yet and we were a bit worried he might have gotten stuck in the lift. But within a few minutes he popped up from the stairwell, and by that stage everyone was milling around.

I was too lazy to take the stairs down to the first floor, so I called Big Dave to see if they had an ETA on fixing the power, but he said they'd had no word yet and he'd call back when they did.

At which point, the leaky ceiling that supposedly took 8 months to fix decided to demonstrate that it was not, in fact, fixed. Water was... not pouring, exactly, but it was more than a drip... it was streaming out from the roof and over our printer/photocopiers. And also out from one of the light fittings.

Then one of the non-development managers came up to breathlessly inform us that Dave was stuck in one of the lifts. I was pretty sure he'd have mentioned it when I called, if he was, and Jaz suggested that maybe it was a different Dave. And so it was, one of our graphics dudes - he was stuck in there for 40 minutes, with one dim emergency light, between floors.

Within half an hour the storm had stopped, but the power was still off. Quite a lot of people went home, but if you left before a time was given for the power to be restored, it counts as taking leave, so I hung around and chatted with a few people I hadn't seen in ages. At 2:30, they announced that the power wouldn't be back on until at least 3:30 or later, so we could all go home without it being taken off our time.

I had a lovely rainy walk/bus/train/walk home, got into my jammies and ugg boots, and pottered around. I wouldn't want it to happen every week, but it was kinda fun :)

My weekend was a bit different than expected!

[-] Missed out on the Dockers vs Hawks game with Dave's work crew on Friday night, because I had a fat, drooly lip due to a cold-sore. I was too embarrassed to go out, and pretty tired anyway from working too hard. Stayed in and had an early night instead.

[+] Put off doing grocery shopping to see Star Trek at the movies. Enjoyed it, not quite getting the enthusiasm of some people though. It was a bit like watching Muppet Trek Babies in Space :)

[+] Watched the Lost Season 5 finale. Very good stuff, suprised by what was in the box, saddened by The Incident taking out people I like. Have got a theory about Jacob, which I'm sure is the same theory everyone else has.

[-] Have to wait until 2010 to find out what happens next!

[+] Caught up with Wendy (back in the country for a quickie visit), Kim and Steve for dinner at the Imp.

1. Have now got a grownup bar cabinet, instead of a bookshelf of unknown origins.

2. Have also got new console table that will be my laptop desk, so I don't have to sit at the coffee table to work. Needs a decent chair, though.

3. Am halfway through Season 3 of Doctor Who. I love David Tennant, but wow, the Tenth Doctor is kind of an oblivious bastard to the women in his life. And it's getting a little boring that nearly every woman he meets is attracted to him. Love the cat people though :)

Haven't updated for ages because I've been flat out working again. Got roped into the other team's project, to help with their deadline tomorrow. Not real keen on their methods - might have to remind them of the Formula (fast, cheap, good: choose two).

However, the freelance is on hold for a day or two, and Dave is out tonight, so I'm gonna relax and catch up on some reading.

Posted via LiveJournal.app.

Sooooo busy right now. But had a very entertaining weekend all the same.

Friday: went in to work, even though it was my day off. Met deadline, went home, baked cake. Went to Adie's place for dinner with Greg, met Adie's son Callum, and watched Harry's wedding dvd.

This was the best wedding dvd I have ever seen. Bulgarian flags, small bands marching down the street, drinking, wedding, that Greek-style line dance thingy, cake with giant sparklers that were very nearly fireworks, more dancing, speeches, dancing, small machine gun, line dance again, real fireworks. I have no idea why someone gave Harry a machine gun. It may not even be a machine gun, I don't know much about firearms at all. But it looked lethal, and Harry looked bemused.

Harry and Kari were lovely, big smiles all around. So happy for them!

Saturday: blog writing all day. In the evening, dinner at Dusit Thai with Dave's Thai clients. They said the food was pretty authentic, although the Tom Yum could have been hotter.

Sunday: freelance work all day. In the evening, saw The Drones at the Fly By Night with Kim and Steve. Really enjoyed it, great crowd except for the obligatory 2 drunk girls who danced as if Kylie Minogue was playing and seemed oblivious to the band. This totally pissed off the hipster dudes surrounding them, especially the two they asked to hold their bags.

Monday, public holiday: more freelance work, and catching up on all the bookmarks I've left myself on the net for the last week because I've been too busy to read anything.

Will likely be very busy for the next two weeks. Am looking forward to some time off in July, am tempted to go visit Wendy in KL but not sure if I can afford it.

My weekend hasn't quite gone to plan, but has been pretty good anyway. We were supposed to go camping with a large group on Saturday, then spend a couple of nights in Margaret River with Adam & Ant.

But Adam got sick, poor guy. And since we didn't know any of the other camping people, we skipped that. Then, rather than lose the deposit on the place we'd booked in Margs, David & I went anyway.

So yesterday we drove down, stopping in at his sister's place for lunch on the way. We had dinner at Wino's last night, and did the usual rounds of wineries today.

Posted via LiveJournal.app.

It was great.

Thursday night: saw The Boat That Rocked with Adam & Ant in Subiaco. Enjoyed it, especially the soundtrack, but really wish Richard Curtis would include a plot in his movies rather than a series of vaguely connected events.

Friday: sleep-in, breakfast at The Imp. Lazing around instead of writing as I normally would on a Friday.

Saturday: Shopping! Got a tea-thingy - it holds one serving of loose tea leaves and fits in a cup. Now I can finally bring in some nice teas to work without having to brew a whole pot. Also got a new bed-frame (by accident, we were looking for shoes but got distracted).

Saturday night: BBQ at Chris and Pat's place with the usual crew. Much fun was had by all.

Sunday: family lunch for Easter. My pumpkin, spinach, brie and walnut salad was a winner.

Monday: writing, then saw Mary and Max with Aiden. It's a feature-length Adam Elliot animation, and very much in the style of Harvey Krumpet, which means that I'm not sure if I liked it even though it's very good.

Reading: Plan B 3.0 by Lester Brown; Climate Code Red by some Aussie scientists who are pretty keen on the doom and gloom. Am struggling with Plan B on my Stanza reader on the iPhone - it's putting random numbers in front of every second sentence, which can't be seen on the original pdf and I haven't seen on any other Stanza book. Not sure what's going on there.

Wearing: Alba Fan Club t-shirt, denim shorts, Etiko sneakers. Oh, and Zovirax.

Planning: everything is up in the air. Might be going to see a movie with the gang tonight, might be downloading Lost after it airs in the US, might be sitting at home with cold and flu tablets.

Not going to try to fit too much into the Easter long weekend. Have got a family lunch on Sunday, and a bbq at Chris and Pats place in the evening. Might try to sort out the vegie patch on Saturday, if Dave's up for that. Would really like to get the new design up on my blog but dammit, haven't received the gfx yet.

I had a great weekend - hope you guys did too!

Friday night we went to The Brisbane for drinks for Adam and Ant's birthdays. I wore the outfit I bought earlier and Pats and Ant liked it, so I think it's a winner. The Brisbane has great drinks and food but snobby clientele and amazingly slow service. But we made our own fun anyway, I had a good time.

Saturday was another trip to the bank to cash our tax refunds from last year, then traipsed around some camping stores. We got a tent and two sleeping bags, because the weekend after Easter we're going on a trip down south with Adam and Ant.

For future reference: Ray's Outdoors is full of cheap gear and screaming children; BCF is good mid-range camping gear, fancy boating & fishing gear, and serious fishers (ie they've got petitions about bag limits, etc up on noticeboards); Ranger is for serious campers, backpackers and grey nomads.

In the evening we saw Monsters vs Aliens at the new Imax 3D screen at Carousel. It's a good movie, not relying too much on the 3D effects to make it fun. I liked that the plot was about a woman learning to love being super-strong and capable, even if it made her different from most people. Pixar take note: Dreamweaver has now made a kids' movie with a strong (literally) female lead. When will you do the same?

On Sunday, Greg B gave us free tickets to see Asterix at the Olympic Games, as part of the French film festival. It was good but not great: I laughed but it felt like the ending just wouldn't end. Then we had a late lunch at The Moon, mmm garlic prawns, and Greg showed us the new Sugar Blue studio for the burlesque classes.

I've been very efficient today.

1. Bank trip, to provide ID for loan purposes.
2. Quick shopping trip, since I was already in the city. Black dress ($40 off) from Esprit, black kitten heels from Wittner, black wristlet purse ($5 off) from Sportsgirl. Have now got an outfit for tonight.
3. Wrote 3 posts for G Magazine.
4. Did all my footy tipping.
5. Wrote 2 posts for GGA.

Now for a couple of hours of chilling out, followed by cocktails at The Brisbane for Adam and Ant's birthdays. I'm not terribly keen on the crowd there, but apparently it's less snobby on Fridays, and the cocktails are fantastic so I'm sure I'll have a good time.

I think I've done it again and over-committed myself. I've got part two of the freelance work coming up next week, but have also been offered another job with the same crew. 2 side jobs plus 2 blogs plus my day jobs sounds like too much work to me.

Might have to see about giving the 2nd side job to another freelancer, I think...

Posted via LiveJournal.app.

Friday: doctor's appointment, blogging, finished reading Sick Puppy. Very Ben Elton in style, but without the gloomy endings.

Saturday: sleep in, afternoon tea with my sisters and mum. My nephew and nieces are adorable. Alex, the youngest girl, is taking after me by refusing to crawl on all fours. She prefers to do what I did at that age, and shuffle around with little butt-jumps while sitting up. Obviously she is a genius.

Watched Nacho Libre that night - funny and sweet without being memorable.

Sunday: was planning on doing some work, but Mum called to ask for my company on a road-trip. Dad's car had broken down in Mandurah while visiting my cousin Mick, and he was dead broke. So we drove out to give him petrol money, plus a supply of clean clothes, etc. Both my parents were on their best behaviour, and Mick was a very gracious host, giving us a tour of the caravan park where he lives, and the estuary nearby. It was good to catch up with him.

Mum and I stopped on the Mandurah foreshore for lunch at a place called Egg-O-Rama, then checked out the market stalls there before coming home.

Spent the evening arguing with people who were being wrong on the internet, because Dave was out celebrating his cricket Grand Final win. I am so glad the cricket season is over. And that Dave isn't going to play again next season.