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.

Why Cemeteries Confuse Me

I'm trying very hard not offend anyone with this post.

I fully understand the need to have a way to say goodbye to someone who has died. Personally I like the idea of a gathering that celebrates my life, rather than a maudlin affair that mourns my death. And funeral-wise I have always been completely in love with the idea of a Viking funeral. Ever since I saw one in a movie when I was a kid, I thought being loaded onto a boat with all your possessions, set out to sea, and then having people shoot flaming arrows at the boat until it catches fire and burns to nothing, was the most awesome funeral idea. I still think that, but given that I live in Australia, where I'm pretty sure that's not allowed, I will probably never have one.

I don't understand the burying people in the ground and then visiting them. I don't mean to offend anyone who does that, it's just that most people I know who visit the graves of people they have known, also believe that once a person dies the soul goes elsewhere.

Out of 10 people who I know who visit graves, 6 of them believe the soul goes to heaven, 3 say rebirth, and 1 says she doesn't know for sure, she just thinks they're out there somewhere. Which brings me to the bit I have trouble with. If you believe the soul isn't in the body anymore, why are you visiting the body? Would it not make more sense to plant a tree in honour of the person (unless they hated trees in life), or go to an area you know they loved, where you can just sit and think about them, and if their soul is out there somewhere, they'd know about it.

If you do visit graves, feel free to explain to me why, and please don't think for a moment that I'm trying to cause trouble, or invalidate your choice. I just don't get it.

A Halloween Question

Halloween is almost upon us. I've heard a lot of grumbling about Halloween being an American thing, and we shouldn't be copying them and blah blah blah wingecakes, but I have Celtic and European blood, and they were celebrating All Hallow's Eve long before the Americans had anything to do with it, so I don't have a problem with it, and any doorknockers go away with mini milky ways or chupa chups. (sidenote: I babelfished Chupa Chup the other day, translating in a variety of languages, to see if it actually meant anything. In both Spanish and Portugese it translates to 'absorber of chup' which seems really odd.)

I've seen, in a fair amount of TV shows, and read in a bunch of books, children on Halloween being warned not to accept apples in case they have razor blades hidden in them. Sometimes these warnings are accompanied by a story about how a friend of a friend knows someone whose cousin's kid got an apple, bit into it, and had their mouth cut open by the razor blade.

This has always confused me.

Question: How exactly does one get a razor blade into an apple without it looking like the apple has been tampered with?

I'm not planning on doing it of course, but really, I wonder. Get an apple, get a razor blade. Shove the blade into the apple. I'm pretty sure there'll be a big visible cut in the surface of the apple where the blade got pushed in.

Why I Hate American Idol

Just to be clear I'm not a fan of reality shows in general. I like my tv scripted, my actors paid, and when situations are being staged I like knowing it's because that's how a writer and director chose to have it done, not how a producer wants us to believe it happened naturally.

I also have nothing against the winners. I'm a fan of Kelly Clarkson. I think she has an amazingly powerful voice, and in interviews she still seems really normal, not all famey. I also like Carrie Underwood and Chris Daughtry. I never actually saw any of these people perform on Idol because I don't watch the show, I came to their stuff afterwards, but I don't begrudge them their beginnings. (And wikipedia tells me Chris didn't win his season. I don't know who did.)

This is why I hate Idol, specifically the American version, but that's because I don't know how the audition process works over here. If it's the same, then my hate extends.
We spend so much time talking about bullying lately. How damaging it can be, what it can do to people, and all of that is valid. Then we have shows like Idol.

Before any of those people get to see the three judges in the televised audition process, they audtion for some producers. The producers decide who gets to go on TV and be seen by the judges. Some of the people who audition are clearly delusional. They honestly think they can sing, despite sounding like a cat being skinned, and they are completely crushed when the judges tell them they're hopeless and say a whole bunch of other mean stuff.

We all know while some people at home are cringing in embarrassment for these people, some people are outright laughing at them.

These contestants, who should never go past the producer audition stage, are given false hope and told they have a chance. They are being deliberately set up by the show to be laughed at, made fun of, and openly mocked.

It is cruel. It is heartless. It is bullying.

I Want...

...an Ice Cream Maker (and also masses of other things, but this thing in particular is within my financial grasp.) I've thought about it on and off, mostly when realising that by the time I get my store bought ice cream home on the bus it will be all melty, and it always goes kinda weird when it's re-frozen.

Then I thought about it even more when I heard a mention of butter-pecan ice cream, thought it sounded really nice, and couldn't actually find it here in Australia. I looked up the recipe and it seemed fairly easy to make. That, of course, got me thinking about all the other flavours I could experiment with. And I'd definitely use it, at least until March, now that we're coming into summer.

Does anyone out there already own an ice-cream maker? I'm looking for suggestions of what's a good brand to buy. Decently priced, easy to use, not prone to break-downs and whatnot.
And if you have any interesting and innovative flavours you'd like to share, do so in the comments. As long as they don't involve pineapple, passionfruit or coconut, all of which I hate with the fiery passion of a thousand burning nuns.

Weird Dreams Are Weird

I had a dream. Not a noble dream about fixing the world, although that would be nice, just a normal (normal? for me maybe) weird dream.

I was in a barn with Olivia Wilde, filling crates with styrofoam packing peanuts. There was nothing else in the crates, just the packing material. After we'd finished filling the crates and nailing them shut, we went back to my house for a cup of tea. (My normal dream house that I live in every time I dream about a house.)

We'd just settled down in front of the television with our tea when we heard a noise from upstairs. I headed up to check it out, and found a couple I'd never seen before, having sex in the second-floor bedroom. I stand in the doorway and shout "What the hell?"
The woman responds with "It's alright, I'm the real estate agent."
I point out that her being a realtor doesn't actually make it okay, and she says "Well, from an ethical standpoint I can't sell the house unless I've tried out all the rooms."

As I was telling her the house wasn't for sale I woke up.

A Fashion Look I Hate

Store bought cut-off shorts with the pockets hanging out.

I don't have a problem with people wearing really short shorts. If you've got the legs for it, good for you, and feel free to show 'em off all over the place.

It's the pocket thing that bugs me. It looks stupid, the bottom of the pockets, poking out from the leg of the shorts just resting on the thigh like that.
I know they're meant to emulate cut-offs that were made at home from an old pair of jeans. But they're not. They were made in a damn factory, so get rid of the stupid looking pockets.

And if you're one of those people that can wear short shorts, get the kind that don't have the pockets. Your legs will look better without them.