Marriage Equality

If you've been here before I'm sure you know I support marriage equality. People should be allowed to marry the person they love, regardless of gender. This weekend there will be a vote on this issue, so I am posting a link to a page where people can send an email to the Labor Party in favour of equality for anyone who may want to send one and/or pass it on.

http://www.australianmarriageequality.com/laborconference/

And a pie-chart (because everyone loves a pie chart), on what will happen if gay people are allowed to get married.

I think I got the pie chart from Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal but in case I actually ganked it off some random tumblr, credit to whomever made it.

Another 30 Years And I Can Retire!

It's my birthday on Wednesday. I'm not having a party because I hate parties. (At parties I'm the person who's either huddled near the few people I find bearable in crushing social situations, or scanning the bookshelf, wondering if anyone will notice me stealing a book, then hiding in a quietish spot to read).
I'll be going to the movies with a friend, then having dinner with friend and brother. Friend says she's making me an amazing chocolate cake. Yay.

I will be 35. And somehow, I don't yet live on a private island, in a medieval castle*, surrounded by a moat that's patrolled by a fire-breathing guard-dragon. I'm a little disappointed about that.

*Castle is, of course, upgraded to have proper plumbing, electricity, hot water and internet.

Not The Holidays I Had Planned

I'm on holidays from work for the next two weeks. I always take holidays near the end of November, because I don't believe anyone should have to work on their birthday. Luckily it's easy to get time off because everyone else is trying to get time over Christmas. As I'm full-time Monday to Friday, I get all the public holidays off anyway, so it's not an issue for me.
This week my landlord is doing repairs in my bathroom and kitchen. Which they need, since we've all been putting it off, but he's here at 8.30 in the morning, so no holiday morning sleep-ins. Plus the awkwardness of having someone else in the house when I just want to laze around, read my books and have a Farscape marathon. (Which I'm still doing, it just feels weird when there's someone working in the next room). Plus having to watch what websites I'm visiting, in case he sees the screen as walks past to go to his truck for supplies. It may be ridiculous on my part, but I don't want my 73-year-old Orthodox Catholic landlord knowing that I sometimes hang out at Fuck Yeah Pervy Fangirls, and other such Tumblrs.
And I can't leave my house to go anywhere, because I don't like people being in my house if one of the full time residents isn't also around.

I also feel bad whinging, because the work is needed, lots of people don't even have jobs to take holidays from, and there's masses of people with problems way worse than 'can't fully relax while reading and watching TV'. But still, it's not the holiday I had planned.

It's Kinda Creepy If You Think About It That Way

Christmas. The one time of year we think it's okay for the fat old man who's been spying on us all year to sneak into our house while we sleep and give us presents for being 'nice'.

TV Tips

We all know I watch a lot of TV. A lot.
And because I'm a total spoiler-whore I spend a fair amount of time hanging around internet forums so I know what to expect from my shows.

Lately I notice more and more people seem to be coming to these forums for no other reason than to bitch about the show. How they hate it now, how all of the characters are horrible, how the writing isn't as good as it was in the early seasons/episodes. Complaining that the characters they ship* aren't hooking up, because both characters are involved with someone else, etc.

Here's how to deal with this:

1: Understand that the show is not being written specifically for your enjoyment. There are millions of other people watching, and while the show also isn't being written specifically for them, they may be enjoying what happens. And of course the writers are also, at least somewhat, writing to please themselves. I watch Vampire Diaries. I would love to see Caroline and Katherine become best friends and go off on some awesome vampire road trip. I'd also happily see Stefan fall into an active volcano. I know these things are not likely to happen, because it's not all about me.

2: Understand that the couple you ship may not be the couple the show ships. Or other viewers. I will admit here I don't understand the Pete & Myka shippers over on some of the Warehouse 13 forums. Everyone involved with the show has spent the last three seasons telling us they have a brother-sister relationship, so I find the idea of them together kinda gross, but I respect that other viewers have a right to want that, even if it squicks me entirely. Personally, I ship Myka & HG, and I know there are plently of people who don't like the idea of them together. I watch Criminal Minds. I know a lot of viewers want to see Hotch and Prentiss hook up. I don't. They are my anti-ship. I would happily see either of them with any of the other characters, but not together. However, I don't go online and bash all the H&P shippers. If you really want two characters together, go read some fanfic specific to your ship, but know that it may not happen on the show, because it's not all about you.

3. This is the most important tip: If you are not enjoying the show anymore, if you hate all the characters, and find yourself incandescent with rage by the end of the episodes, STOP WATCHING!
Find a new show, buy the seasons that you did enjoy and watch those, write some fanfic or start a Tumblr made up of stuff from when you did like it, but don't waste an hour of your time with something you hate and then even more time bitching about it later. Just stop.

TV is supposed to be an escape. A way to relax, and disconnect. Like in so many situations, if you're not enjoying it, you need to stop, and find something that pleases you more.  

*for anyone unfamiliar with term: 'ship' is short for relationship. You want to see two characters together? You ship them. You're a shipper.
And while most contractions have an apostrophe to demonstrate that it is a shortened form of something, in my experience ship usually doesn't.

Things I Wonder About

If a call to 000 or 911 brings up the caller's address within seconds, why, in ransom situations do people need to keep the caller on phone for over 3 minutes so the cops can trace the call?

The waiting period to report a healthy, non-challenged adult missing is 24 hours, so the police aren't swamped with missing persons reports for people who are just running late, or have gone out without leaving a note, which I understand. But we're also told that in any crime the first few hours are the most crucial for gathering evidence. If you can't report the disappearance for over 24 hours isn't the most crucial evidence gone by then?

Cars, boats, jets etc. are considered to be phallic objects, so why are they normally given female names? Most men don't name their actual phallic object something like 'Mary'.

When Superman changes in a phone booth, where do his clothes go? They're not under his Superman costume, and you never see a pile of clothing left on the floor of the booth. If he was changing in the TARDIS I could chalk it up to the science magic of time and space manipulation, but he's not so I can't.

If I had to choose my own name, what would I choose? I love the name Alex, for either gender, but I don't feel like an Alex. I don't often feel like a Kathryn either though.

Does the body & brain know exactly when it's going to die and plan its midlife crisis accordingly. Like it has no way of letting the conscious mind know, so it gives you all the midlife crisis signs and if you can double your time from exactly when you started having the crisis, is that when you're due to go.

A Melbourne Cup Post

I don't live in Melbourne, but my work does a Melbourne Cup thing anyway. Everyone brings in nibbles (I bought choc-chip mars bar cookies), and we do sweeps and whatnot. I didn't win. Nor did I win on the actual bet I made at the TAB. I'm not a gambling person, so my system consists of putting $5 on the horse with the biggest odds, because I figure if it loses, I've only lost five dollars, but if it wins, I've made a bunch of money. So far this has failed me, but one day it may work.

As I was looking at the names of horses, I started wondering how people come up with the name for their horse. When I name pets, I name them after TV characters from shows I watch. To me this makes sense, but it does lead to me being asked questions like "Hey, why do you have a fish named Tami Taylor?".

Speaking of, I'm probably getting more goldfish soon, and I can't decide whether to name them Fauxlivia and Lincoln Lee, or Pete and Myka.

Back to the horses, some of the names seem really non-horselike to me. Lost In The Moment & At First Sight both sound like they could be crappy over the top romantic comedies. Probably starring Kate Hudson.
As for the winner, Dunaden, I wouldn't want to name my horse something that could be shortened to Dunny.

Although now that I think about it, if I were raising a horse specifically to be in horse races, I probably would deliberately give it a name that would be really embarrassing for an announcer to call. Just because it would make me laugh.