Category Archives: Quickie

On bodies and such

December 23, 2011

I originally posted this on Tumblr. But I thought it might be a bit tl;dr for over there.

I am a cis-gendered hetro man. I have been known to see a lady in passing and notice that they have fantastic eyes, or great hair, or a nice body. I’ve been known to think to myself “mmm, nice x”. X could be hair, eyes, butt, smile, boobs, or something else.

I like to think of myself as a “progressive man of the world”, whatever that means. I would like to think that I’m a feminist, at least in training. And yet I’m still out there noticing women and going “mmm, nice x”.

When I catch myself, I feel a little guilty on the inside. On the other side of the coin, I figure that it is natural to notice people around you and to find some features of a person attractive. I think it would be totally awful to wolf whistle or cat call or whatever anyone, or to stare at someone and make them uncomfortable. Basically I wouldn’t want to be a creep.

So that leaves me with the thought that perhaps even seeing someone and thinking that they look nice could be considered creepy. Where’s the line? The obvious line to me is at least taking any action that makes someone uncomfortable. But is there a line that is even earlier than that – is thinking that someone is attractive, or a feature of their body is nice, crossing the line?

Just the stuff that goes through my head from time to time, that’s all.

Posted in: Commentary,Quickie
Tags:,,,

Census 2011 – Let’s use religion to scare the Christmas carols off you

August 9, 2011

I’ve seen this on Facebook a few times and it really gets my goat.

AUSTRALIA WILL BE HOLDING A CENSUS IN AUGUST
DO NOT LEAVE THE “RELIGION” SECTION BLANK. BE SURE TO AT LEAST TICK CHRISTIAN (OR YOUR OWN FAITH).
1,000,000 MUSLIMS WILL TICK THEIR BOX.
10,000,000 AUSTRALIANS WILL LEAVE IT BLANK THEN WONDER WHY CHRISTMAS CAROLS ARE BEING BANNED IN SCHOOLS!
PASS THIS ON TO ALL YOUR FRIENDS.
IT’S NOT ABOUT RELIGION, IT’S ABOUT KEEPING OUR WAY OF LIFE .

I wonder what would happen if the following was sent out:

AUSTRALIA WILL BE HOLDING A CENSUS IN AUGUST
DO NOT LEAVE THE “RELIGION” SECTION BLANK. BE SURE TO AT LEAST TICK MUSLIM (OR YOUR OWN FAITH).
1,000,000 CHRISTIANS WILL TICK THEIR BOX.
10,000,000 AUSTRALIANS WILL LEAVE IT BLANK THEN WONDER WHY RAMADAN IS BEING BANNED IN SCHOOLS!
PASS THIS ON TO ALL YOUR FRIENDS.
IT’S NOT ABOUT RELIGION, IT’S ABOUT KEEPING OUR WAY OF LIFE .

I can imagine the uproar.

What I would prefer to see is this:

AUSTRALIA WILL BE HOLDING A CENSUS IN AUGUST
IT WOULD BE GOOD IF YOU COULD FILL IN THE RELIGION SECTION AS THIS WILL GIVE THE GOVERNMENT A TRUE PICTURE OF RELIGION WITHIN AUSTRALIA. TICK NO RELIGION IF YOU ARE NOT RELIGIOUS
BUT SINCE WE LIVE IN A FREE COUNTRY, IF YOU CHOOSE NOT TO FILL THAT SECTION IN THEN THAT’S OK TOO.

I’m glad to see that there is still room for the use of religion to scare people into doing what you want. Which is what this is all about. *sigh*

Posted in: Commentary,Quickie
Tags:,

[Postponed] Australiasian Fat Acceptance Conference Call – Tonight

February 2, 2011

I realise this is short notice. I’m going to be hosting a conference call tonight at 8pm AEDT. That is 7:30pm ACDT, 7pm AEST, 6:30 ACST, 5pm AWST and 10pm NZDT.

Add freeconferencing.com on skype and send me an email through the Contact Form. I’ll forward you the codes later this afternoon.

I want to talk about the current state of Fat Acceptance in Australia and what we can do to move it forward.

Reason for the short notice? Well I just feel like tonight is a good night. Don’t worry if you can’t make it. We’ll do it again soon.

Notice is way too short so lets do this another night. I’ll organise it proper like.

Posted in: Fat Acceptance,Quickie

DrupalDownunder 2011

January 28, 2011

I attended the DrupalDownunder conference which was held in Brisbane last weekend. Work paid for me to go since I have been working on a major Drupal project over the last couple of weeks.

Talking about Drupal and web development in general and attending all these great sessions have really driven home that my passion is in web development and web programming. Most of the development work that I do is in Excel so being able to shift into web development is going to take time and patience.

What normally happens is that I see some wonderful web programming and figure that since I can’t do that type of work that there is no room for me in the industry. What I forget is that the people with these skills have been working for years to develop their skills. If I start now, there is a chance that I can build up my skills and get into the game in the next year or two. So that is what I’m going to do.

Another thing I realised while at the conference is the massive community that surrounds Drupal and how being a part of such a community can bring such great benefits to someone like me. So many brains to pick and at the same time I can use my coding skills to add something back into the community.

So a big thanks to DrupalDownunder 2011 for reviving my passion for web development. Thanks for showing me how becoming part of the Drupal Community can only help me to grow. I’m looking forward to the next year of my life and seeing where it heads.

Posted in: Quickie,Technology

Remove the headless fatties from our media

December 9, 2010

It is high time that mainstream media around the world stopped using headless fatty shots with every article or video piece about fat people. I think there are a few reasons why they do this.

  • They know that if they asked people, they would say no.
  • If they have faces, it makes it harder to use them in generalised negative news pieces
  • If the fatty looks happy or really well dressed, they don’t suit a doom and gloom story
  • They won’t get sued for humiliating someone if you can’t identify them by their face

Yet when that person sees this footage of them being used in this way, it can cause pain and anguish become compare. It also dehumanises fat people and gives people power to pick on and attack fat people.

Are you a fatty? Would you like to be a non-headless fatty?

I’m starting a drive to find fat people around Australia who would be happy to be approached by media companies to appear as stock fatty content. Only certain people will feel comfortable about this, so I’m sure that only a few will be happy to do it. But would you like to?

Drop me a line in my contact form and we can go from there. We can start a list of people happy to be contacted by media for this sort of thing. Perhaps you’re also happy to speak to the media on fat acceptance issuse or on how you find being fat in a world that discriminates against you? Let me know – we often get requests through Axis of Fat for people to talk to the media.

All information would be held confidentially and I would contact you to ask you if you were interested and you would contact them. The other thing is I would set up an email list so you could be emailed about things coming up.

Don’t feel pressured to do this. Only a few people will feel comfortable about this, but for those people there needs to be a way to band together and try to get the media to change their ways.

Posted in: Fat Acceptance,Quickie
Tags:,,,

Quickie: Opinions, feel free to feel entitled

November 28, 2010

A bit of a quickie tonight as I sit up and wait for the after hours doctor to come visit. Yes, everything is fine.

Now that I’m living a little more enlightened, it has become clear to me that people very much hold their opinions close to their hearts. It doesn’t matter how many times you hear the quote “Opinions are like arseholes – everyone has one”, it seems that opinions carry a very big emotional value to the person to has it. I know that this is true for me, but it has taken a while to recognise this.

So when I challenge someone about their opinion or belief about something because it is sizist, or racist or bigoted, I quite often here the reply “But I’m entitled to my opinion.” So I wanted to clear something up.

My opinions make me who I am. They affect the way I live, interact with people, make purchases, vote at elections, etc etc. In fact the reason that I think opinions are held so close to the heart is that they reach into the core of a person’s being. They really do make me who I am.

Therefore, people have every right to have their opinions. They are very much entitled to hold it true if they wish. In the same way, I am entitled to view that opinion as bigoted and call them on it. And based on my opinion (which I presume I’m entitled to as well) that opinions make the person who they are, I will call them bigoted (or racist or sizist) as well.

I haven’t stop them from holding an opinion. I’ve just noticed that when I weigh it up, it’s not one I can agree with. And if it matches the accepted standard of a bigoted (or sizist or racist) opinion, then I think it is correct to call that person out on it.

Posted in: Commentary,Quickie

Depression sucks for friends

November 15, 2010

Depression sucks. I think I can say that most people know this. Recently I’ve been struggling with a massive bout of depression that I’ve been trying my best to work through. It hasn’t been easy and I haven’t always been successful, but I do the best I can. That’s all most people can do in this situation.

Depression affects everything that I do. I have depression coloured glasses, so to speak, so that everything I see is tinted differently because of my depression. My interactions with people are tainted by my depression. My inter monologue is shifted off centre by my depression.

People find it hard to deal with me when I am depressed. At least that is what I think. I could be wrong (see tinting effect above) but I think this is right. People can’t fix someone who is depressed so they feel uncomfortable because they don’t know what to do. Eventually they drift off because you are no fun.

True friends stick by you and understand what you are going through. They sometimes tell you to “snap out of it” but often just let you vent and get out what is going on in the knowledge that you are dealing with stuff that is dark and evil and unpleasant. Often they deal with their own demons so it makes it easier for them to understand

Posted in: Mental Health,Quickie
Tags:,

Angry Birds Cake by Lauren Lee

November 8, 2010
A cake which has characters and scenery from the "Angry Birds" game for iPhone

Click to see the full size image

Yo shorty, it’s ma birthday. We’re gonna party like it’s ma birthday. Well it is on Friday. Tonight I went and picked up what I can only describe as a very generous pre-birthday present from good friend Lauren from Cakes by Lauren Lee. It’s an ANGRY BIRDS CAKE!

What, you don’t know what Angry Birds is? Wash your mouth out with soap and go and check out the Wikipedia article on this awesome game. She has made all of the characters out of fondant including the cute piggies in the tower. She hand crafted the tower, the characters and even made the cake look like the bottom of the screen in the game.

Another picutre of the Angry Birds Cake

Click to see the full size image

This is a very detailed cake and a sugar overload waiting to happen. Well, it already happened because I had a piece just before

and it is DELICIOUS!

I’m very appreciative of this because I was eyeing it off the other day when she was making it and wished it was for me. Well, it ended up she didn’t have a home for it so I was lucky enough to grab it. Now to find a heap of friends to help eat it because there is no way Natalie and I can do it.

Thanks Lauren, I really appreciate the cake. And guys, she can make you a cake too so you should check out her site. And I get a 0% commission and an additional $0 if you order today, or ever.

Posted in: Commentary,Quickie
Tags:,,

I need your help – tell Flickr to help block stalkers!

October 8, 2010

I don’t ask for much but today I need some help. Flickr is a great medium for posting photos and my wife is a major user of it, especially for her art work and outfit photos. Sadly some douche is being a stalker and creating multiple accounts every time she blocks them.

Screenshot of Get Satisfaction page

Click the picture to make your voice heard on Get Satisfaction

I’m sure you can imagine that this would make someone feel very uncomfortable. But would you believe that flickr doesn’t have a block by IP Address option? In this day and age where static IP addresses are becoming more prevalent, this one step would help to eliminate her problem. Or at least make it harder for them to continue stalking.

I’ve posted an idea over at Get Satisfaction and would appreciate your help in getting this noticed. Spread the word that Flickr need to be more mindful of user safety and security. Or perhaps it is time to move to Picasa?

Posted in: Quickie,Technology
Tags:,,

[title of show] – seriously one awesome piece of musical theatre

October 8, 2010

I’m no theatre reviewer. In fact I’ve only been to the theatre two or three times in my life. I can hear the cries now of “uncultured swine” but theatre was never part of my upbringing and when you are on a budget, you can only afford to do so much.

Last night I went with a group of friends to see [title of show]. No, I didn’t forget what the name of the show is. [title of show] is the story of two friends, Jeff and Hunter, who set out to write an original musical in three weeks to enter it into the New York Music Theatre Festival. As the show puts it so well, it is “a musical about two guys writing a musical about two guys writing a musical”.

I will happily admit that the reason I attended last night’s opening is that one of my friends, Dash Kruck, is playing the role of Hunter. I didn’t know much about the show and didn’t know what to expect.

What I got was 100 minutes of pure entertainment.

From the opening number, the aptly named “Untitled Opening Number” to the more serious and deeply touching “Die, Vampire, Die”, this show will take you on a journey through the process of trying to write an original musical and take it to Broadway.

This is a unique show which I think no one should miss.

[title of show] is on at Visy Theatre in The Powerhouse in Brisbane until Saturday 16th October. Don’t miss it.

Posted in: Commentary,Quickie
Tags:,
Join our RSS feed Twitter