Saturday, November 14, 2009
9:22PM - Things that made me happy today![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
splatchtrock reports on the creation of a new and improved version of the old favourite "Rock, Paper, Scissors" And no, it's not "Rock, Paper, Scissors, Lizard, Spock", although that is also cheering :P
70 Baaaaaby Animals!
Some very clever and sligtly disturbing photo manipulations by digital artist Jan Oliehoek. They're awfully impressive, but some are freaky, like the zebra-frog o_O I want to live in the house :)
Now I am about to watch Sky High with splatchtrock and pink_crayon16. Whee!
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
4:28PM - My icon has never been more appropriate!I had my driving test today (take 2, as I failed the first time). I passed! After a year and a half of rather expensive lessons, three goes at the Hazard Perception Test (OF DOOM), one test missed due to illness and one test not passed and thus rescheduled, I am finally allowed to drive my car all by myself :D
I have spent all day realising new and exciting things this means I can do (Going to the shops whenever I want! Getting to uni in half an hour instead of an hour and a half! Going swimming at uni without having to carry a giant extra bag! Getting to carolling gigs by myself!) and being gleeful about it all over again. Whee, I can drive!
accomplished
Sunday, November 1, 2009
12:01PM - Picnic in the park( Here's what I spent yesterday afternoon doing )
Current mood:
creative
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
12:40PM - You play doctor but I've lost patienceDear world of entertainment,
Please, please stop using fat as visual shorthand for evil, ugly, stupid or dirty. It's lazy writing and it's amazingly insulting. We get it, you think we are disgusting and hideous, you really don't need to harp on about it.
This message brought to you by the letter F (both for "Fat" and "FUCK YOU"), Liz Evans' book Cue The Easter Bunny and Merlin episode 205.
No love,
A fat woman who is nice, intelligent, clean and nice-smelling, and trying not to call herself ugly any more, thank you very much.
I need an awesome fat woman icon, I think. Any suggestions?
fed up.Current music: This is Where it Ends - Barenaked Ladies
Monday, October 19, 2009
8:56PM( WW post, insert ubiquitous ED trigger warning here )
Current mood: enraged
Thursday, October 8, 2009
9:57PM - Hey Hey It's Racism!Q&A is on TV, a panel show on the ABC where a selection of people talk about topical events, and they're talking about the blackface incident on Hey Hey It's Saturday recently. And I am SO FURIOUS I may have to turn the stupid show off.
We have a smug white journalist (Janet Albrechtsen from The Australian) talking about how "we" (Australians) insult everyone in comedy (fat people! old people! school girls! nobody finds that offensive!) and she thinks it's good to mock everyone and people should be less "precious" about it (also, guess what guys, blackface on TV has no relation whatsoever to racist violence!). We have Germaine Greer derailing the conversation and making it about sexism and British people being mean (!?!) instead of racism. And we have a stupid politician saying "this is Australian humour! We push the boundaries! This has been blown way out of proportion! None of the non-white people I know have ever complained to me about racism in Australia so it's obviously not a problem!"
The only sane person on the panel (on this issue, anyway) seems to be Todd Sampson, who pointed out that we are kidding ourselves if we insist that there is no racism in Australia and, like me, is utterly baffled that all these people on the panel are so invested in asserting that Australia is totally devoid of racism.
NEWSFLASH: Blackface is racist. Defending your right to watch and laugh at blackface, in the face of numerous complaints that it is offensive, is racist. Yes, racism is alive and well in Australia, the fact this argument is even happening is proof of that, and no, incidents like the Cronulla riots and the recent attacks on Indian students are not isolated.
angry
5:35PM
I want Neil Gaiman's House
Otherwise, the world is making me ANGRY at the moment. Particularly the sheer mind boggling hypocrisy of feminists pulling the tone argument and refusing to educate themselves when they get called on their able bodied privilege (I don't watch Feministing usually but logansrogue posted about it and I got drawn into the rage - the trainwreck is here). It's seriously depressing to be able to play privilege bingo on a feminist blog. I know there's an established critique of (Western) feminism as a movement having some seriously problematic issues with focusing on female oppression and forgetting about other axes of power and privilege, but seeing it happen so very viciously was kind of horrifying.
The other thing that hasn't made me nearly so angry, but a bit uneasy, was the most recent episode of Merlin. Merlin is my happy fluffy time show and while it has some fail I think it has so far been reasonably mild apart from the "PoCs are always servants/evil/dead" rule (*sigh*). I don't want to be angry about every single episode of this show, though (that's what Supernatural is for!) and I'm concerned by the direction in which Morgana's plot arc is headed.
( The rest is spoilery for episode 203, spoiler cut for your convenience! )
More happily, there's an awesome fictional-and-non-fictional-people-of-co![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small}
choc_fic for spring/summer (or autumn/winter, I guess, if you're one of those weird northern hemisphere types :P), 100 Days of Colour. Looks like fun! Thanks to glockgal for pointing it out :D
ETA: Oh, and I like this post on Shapely Prose - Shrödinger's Rapist.
stressed
3:38PM - Help!
Hi guys, I need a bit of help for a research project I'm doing. Part of the project involves doing an analysis of Craft magazine and I can't find copies of it anywhere. I am able to get hold of issues 6, 8 and 10 but my local library and the uni library do not stock it. I can buy back issues from the website, but they're US $14.99 each and I don't really have that kind of money at the moment. So my need is thus: if you have any issues of Craft you'd be willing to lend me for the next month, I will love you forever! Alternatively, if you have some you'd like to sell me, you can suggest a price and I'll see if I can fit it into my budget :) Please comment here so we can work out a time/place/date for me to pick them up!
If you could pass this request on to people you know who might be able to help, that'd be great.
<3!
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
8:06PMI was a bit skeptical about Celebrity Master Chef at first. I loved the original Master Chef Australia and I thought adding the gimmick of celebrity contestants was a bit silly; the show is supposed to be about people who really love cooking. But so far I'm pretty psyched about who's going to be on the show.
I'm a bit perplexed by the format, though. Did I miss the start, or have they just jumped straight into the middle of the show? I guess they didn't need to do auditions and selection rounds. It's a bit weird having only three contestants introduced at a time.
Plus I am enjoying perving on Indira Naidoo while she gets her hands dirty making meatballs. You've got to love an intelligent, sexy woman who loves food <3
splatchtrock <3
Are you:
a) dying to display your knowledge of the almost totally useless?
b) wanting to take part in a fun and exciting event?
C) enthused by the prospect of winning fabulous prizes?
d) any/some/all of the above?
Then the MonUCS Trivia Experience is for you!
Taking place on the 17th of October in the fabulously appointed Redeemer Lutheran Church (25 Cypress Ave, Glen Waverley), the Experience will be a thrilling night of trivia, minutiae, nit-picking and split hairs. Assemble your team of 6-8 people and turn up at 7pm for a night you'll not soon forget! If you can't make a full table, come anyway and meet new people and help them to win fabulous prizes! FABULOUS PRIZES!! They're fabulous. This will be a great chance to introduce your other friends to the choir. Bring your parents. Bring your friends' parents. Bring your parents' friends. Bring your friends' parents' friends. "How much will I pay for this literally once-in-a-lifetime opportunity?" I hear you ask (I have very good ears) and to you I say "15 dollars!". There will be snacks and nibbles! BYO alcohol.
To recap!
MonUCS Trivia Experience!
Saturday October 17
Redeemer Lutheran Church, 25 Cypress Avenue, Glen Waverley
Starting at 7pm
Cost $15 per head
Tables of 6-8
Got a question? Comment below.
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
3:18PM - A Little Bit of Art
elightful "daily drop caps" by illustrator and typographer Jessica Hische. What a fun way of spicing up an otherwise uninteresting blog post, like a story about my cat or another dull ramble about how behind I am in my work. Thanks for making my post a little less depressing, Jessica.
If you want to add a fanciful drop cap to your blog posts, you can find out how right here.
Meanwhile, I'm still woefully behind on all my work, still suffering from "writer's block" if there is such a thing, despite trying a whole bunch of alternative work processes and thinking therapies to break said block, and being given even more things to worry/stress/feel crap about. Whee.
Thank heavens for Big Bang Theory and Merlin, that's all I'm saying.
blah
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
9:17PMWatched Merlin season 2 opener with pink_soprano.
THEIR LITTLE FACES!!!
<3<3
Saturday, September 19, 2009
10:27AM - Yuletart! And Life.You guys, yuletart signups are up! Is it that time of year already? Yikes! And also yay! I still squee every time I look at the beautiful (NSFW) Buffy/Satsu art dualbunny drew for me in last year's exchange.
Today I am writing an essay about representations of gender in Australian magazine advertisements for domestic products in the 70s and the current year. Very specific. I'm not sure if I find that helpful, or hindering. Hmm. The problem is tracking down the older ads, as I have left it really late to work on this in any detail. Too many other commitments in my life, it seems. I think it will be fine, but I would have preferred to use an earlier era than the 70s, and now I'm stuck with the 70s because that's what my mother has examples of in the house.
In general life is pretty good, albeit busy. I have multiple assignments due and several social events on next week, and a test that I'd completely forgotten about on Monday (luckily it's open book), but so far things seem mostly under control. I think.
I finished therapy last Wednesday, which was kind of exciting. In the past eight months my DNA test score has gone from "extremely depressed" (and moderately anxious and mildly stressed) to not depressed or anxious at all, and only mildly stressed due to recent actually stressful events. I haven't been not depressed at all for about ten years, so it's kind of an awesome feeling.
busy
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
11:26AM - The closest thing I have to a singing icon.I'm not sure why I didn't post this weeks ago, but I have a concert coming up this weekend! My choir is performing a bunch of excellent songs from musicals throughout the last century, from Pirates of Penzance and Gershwyn to Sweeney Todd and Avenue Q. I even have a small solo, which is pretty exciting. You should come and see it, because the music is an awful lot of fun, and also because the tickets are really cheap! Just $20 for an adult ticket, and $15 if you have a concession of some kind (student, health care card, pensioner, etc.).
It's this Saturday September 12 from 8pm (I suggest arriving at 7:30 as seats are not allocated) on campus at Monash Uni Clayton in the Music Auditorium. It's right near Robert Blackwood Hall, and there will be signs so you can track us down (or just follow the sound of Awesome). There are several methods of ordering tickets as you can see below.
Sorry if anyone caught the version of this post with the GIANT print quality poster. Eep.
cheerfulCurrent music: the seaweed is always greener in somebody else's lake...
Friday, August 21, 2009
4:16PMI haven't posted in ages and I haven't got much of value to say, but I feel like I should...touch base or something. I haven't had a great week, it's been busy but largely unproductive. I had a lot of stuff to do, and some of it I did, but sometimes I played computer games instead. My mood was pretty rubbish.
Today I've done none of the things I was supposed to do. I have a few excuses as to why, but they're just that, excuses, not valid reasons. As a result I am feeling fairly bleh.
Toast is not really a satisfying meal.
blah
Sunday, August 9, 2009
2:26PM - Tasty NomsLast night I went to the Shanghai Dumpling Restaurant in Tattersalls lane and had a fantastic dumpling banquet. All you can eat dumpling feast for $12 per person (for 7 or more people, I think)! The restaurant is cramped and crowded, there's hilarious neon signage to the dingy toilets, AWFUL piped music, and there's amusingly bad (or just confusing?) service (Tsingtao = spring rolls? We don't have lemonade, only Sprite. HAVE SOME MOAR DUMPLINGS!) and communal self-serve tea in a huge vat with plastic mugs, but the food is delicious and it's really cheap (apparently if you buy the vegetable and mushroom dumplings alone it costs $6.50 for a plate of twenty o_O). I highly recommend those mushroom and vegetable dumplings, by the way. Om nom nom. Also, they let us take home leftovers, so I had dumplings and fried rice for breakfast, while watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles :D I'm extremely mature.
I also did my homework, though, so I'm not just eating dumplings and watching cartoons. Productivity abounds!
cheerful
Thursday, August 6, 2009
9:00PMAttention Australian and New Zealand peeps: We Love Colors is offering free shipping to Australia and New Zealand until the end of August when you use the special code "runway". Brightly coloured tights, shoelaces, leggings and other stuff, including totally glorious tights that go into plus sizes (up to 6ft tall and 375 lbs/~170 kg). Go forth and buy exciting hosiery! Thanks to naturalredhead for the tip :)
I have been officially granted 6 credit points for one of the subjects I studied at Melbourne, so I don't have to take a summer semester subject and, provided I pass everything this semester, I can safely apply to do Honours next year. Yay!
I have Merlin on DVD and am currently watching the first episode with my mother and the cat, while eating chicken parma and drinking bubbly. Good times.
Sunday, August 2, 2009
7:24PM - We are people too.Yesterday I went to the Same Sex Marriage National Day of Action rally in the city and it was pretty damn awesome. Unfortunately, the Prime Minister "guaranteed he will resist any attempt [...] to allow gay marriage or civil unions that mimic marriage" (article here, emphasis mine) so the 65 marriages that were performed at the end of the rally will remain illegal for the foreseeable future.
I feel inarticulate with rage over this issue and the fact that our government is resolutely stuck in the dark ages despite the fact that according to several polls a majority of the people they are supposed to represent support sex marriages. Rudd claims that he won't support an amendment to the Marriage Act, despite the fact that it was a recent amendment to the Marriage Act that specifically banned same sex marriages in the first place. That's right, marriage was not legally defined as "between a man and a woman" in Australia until 2004, the Howard government made a decision to specifically deny homosexuals and bisexuals the civil right of marriage, and all the legal protections and privileges that entails.
Recently, laws were changed such that cohabiting same-sex couples can Sure, you guys can have de facto relationships, but marriage is SPECIAL and we don't want any filthy homos in our little club. I just do not understand what difference it makes to them, why they have to make us feel like second-class citizens just because of how many penises or vaginas our relationships have. I can't decide whether I want to punch someone or cry (or punch someone while crying).
In my lifetime, I will not be able to marry the person(s) I wish to marry. Poly has a definite subculture going on (which I really should investigate at some point), but we're not very visible yet, and most people's understanding of polygamy is based on some rather sexist and sketchy practices. That's...well, not okay, exactly, but I can understand it. But damn it, it would be nice if my country could make some damn progress when it comes to marriage equality. I could marry a woman in Canada, Mexico, New Zealand, several states of the USA and numerous European countries, but if I brought her home to meet the family, our marriage would be as good as void as soon as we stepped foot on Australian soil.
Let's have a referendum on this, or at least some serious political debate, for goodness' sake. If same sex marriages don't pass a national vote, at lest I'll know it's a majority of voters that don't want them, rather than a handful of reticent politicians.
angry
Saturday, August 1, 2009
12:49AM - This icon has never been more appropriate!Oh, I meant to post about this earlier and then forgot, because I didn't think I was going to be able to make it. The circumstances behind me now being free to go kind of suck, but I'm glad I'll be attending this anyway:
National Day of Action for Same Sex Marriage
In 2004, the Howard government passed an amendment to the Marriage Act defining marriage as "between a man and a woman". While cohabiting same sex couples have recently been granted the same legal rights as male/female de facto couples, which is a step towards equality, currently same sex marriages remain illegal in Australia, and same sex marriages performed in other countries are not recognised here. If you're not sure why I have a problem with this, then you haven't been paying attention!
Tomorrow, on the fifth anniversary of the amendment to the Marriage Act, there will be rallies across Australia to protest the ongoing discrimination against gay, lesbian and queer couples in this country. In Melbourne, we'll be gathering at Federation Square from 1pm for a rally and mass illegal wedding! For information about what's going on in your capital city, check here.
Melbournites, it'd be real cool to see you there :)
determined
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
12:51AMHey you guys. Everything is slightly crazy and frazzling for the moment, as I tie up loose ends, get involved in new projects and try and get into the right frame of mind to start uni again for the semester (all my classes are cool, if slightly badly timetabled, I have just two rather busy days a week and the rest is all internet time! uh...self directed further learning time) and I have some art I'm quite pleased with that I'm looking forward to sharing once the Merlin Big Bang goes live. But for the moment I have a question for you all, based on the aforementioned uni thing:
What mobile/cell phone related behaviour annoys you most?
I'm doing a group project where we have to devise a modern etiquette for mobile phone use (for linguistics class, would you believe?) and I'd love some input on what you wish people wouldn't do with their mobiles. Hate people texting in the cinema? Loathe those who have one-sided conversations on the bus? Want to kill friends who win every argument by checking wikipedia on their iPhone? Tell me all about it!
busy
