VolaciousNet

Ok… this one is a classic!.
Not YouTubeâ„¢, but GodTubeâ„¢ !!!!

This guy makes a compelling argument, and his rhyming is conclusive…

Upon reflection, last night’s post was quite deep, but heartfelt. I apologise… I will make sure to bring you pictures of topless boys in upcoming posts:-)

Well, today was election day, and thankfully an end to the pitiful campaigns put up by nearly all the parties involved.

I love election activists. Just like their university student counterparts, I enjoyed riling up many of the goons giving out pamphlets as I tried to navigate the gauntlet to get to the polling booth. Everyone was there… Greens, Libs, Labor, Democrats, Independent, and most importantly Christian Democrats.

Several members of Ivan Tetch’s team was there, and proceeded to tell them they were wasting their time with a megalomaniac like Tetch. On the way in, I enjoyed talking to the Greens (I wanted to know if they were using recycled paper in their pamphlets), and Labor, who I think I said “not a freakin’ chance”. On the way out again, I proceeded to give Adam’s arse a big squeeze directly in front of the Deputy Premier John Watkins, and then tried to get back to the car.

However on the way out I was mobbed by a sea of organge-pamphlet waiving supporters of David Hicks, attempting to get me to sign up to a petition to free him. My words, quite loudly, were “Hell No! Keep him there!”. Oooohhhhh… that riled them up! Adam and I ducked the abuse hurled and managed to escape the enraged hippies. Not that I think David Hicks has been treated fairly… I just don’t want him back here, and certainly not freed!

But activists and lefties in general are so easy to stir… it takes almost no effort at all! Bring on the Federal election!

With my recent return to blogging, I’ve had to go back through 4 years of my journal and categorise them post-by-post. It’s so amazing just how much our lives can change over such a short time. Indeed, I think the last 6 years for me has easily trumped any other period of my life when it comes to change.

I know my own life has changed dramatically… from the shy (but loud) over-achieving boy at school with limited social skills, I went through extremely depressive reality checks that caused me to move out of home, date a girl and then come out to my parents, unlocking the next series of events in my life. Several more reality checks took place after that which also brought me crashing to my knees, and made me stop and look at things from a new perspective. Many of these changes brought me so low as to completely break me eomtionally and get to the point that I couldn’t even be bothered to take my own life.

Now as crazed as it sounds, I’m actually glad those major events happened and I was brought to the level where I would have to rebuild myself from the foundations. I found strengths that I never knew I had, and the ability to recover from it gave me the confidence to recover from later upsets. I’ve had so many major lifestyle changes that normally-dramatic events like losing a job, relationship woes or the death of a relative doesn’t phase me so much. It’s a part of life, and I will learn to adapt to whatever it throws at me.

It’s fairly morbid to be thankful for such devastating changes, and I’ll mention one more here which is the marriage breakup of my parents, and in the same week their diagnoses of cancer. A turbulent and stressful time, but one that has yielded surprisingly positive outcomes.

I came out to my parents when I was 19, at a time when I had just moved out of home and my parents were coming to terms with an empty nest. At the time, my mother blew up in anger (at me), and my father didn’t speak for about 6 months. The relationship for the next few years was strained at best, and contact was limited. Then again, the atmosphere was always tense and angry in the hosue, even before that happened. It was a reaction I did expect.

When the big crash happened (interestingly initiated through Mum reading one of my blog posts), I had only just started to date Adam. The poor boy was thrown in the deep end supporting me whilst I attempted to support my parents. Mum was affected the hardest, and she took an emotional battering that forced her to take stock and forge a new perspective on things.

Over the past 3 years, her relationship with her kids improved dramtically, and I’ve been closer to her now than I ever have in the 21 years preceeding the breakup. She has more or less come to terms with who I am, and has warmly accepted Adam into the family. He now gets invited to family dinners, Christmas, and what gave me the giggles recently was this attachment sent to me in an email yesterday. She now has a dog, goes on bike rides, lost a substantial amount of weight, has joined Rotary, and is generally happier than she ever was throughout much of her 33 year marriage.

I guess the point of this post is to highlight that it is sometimes only through drastic changes or events in our life that we can really take stock of who we are and what is important to us. Without change, we can go through life completely oblivious to the greater path. Only through those big crashes do we realise that the little things really aren’t all that important. Careers, possessions, fights with your partner, it’s all fleeting. Love and life are all that matters.

Dum vita est, spes est

NZ trying to breed four-nippled sheep

— Sydney Morning Herald, March 21 2007

New Zealand scientists are trying to breed sheep with four nipples instead of two to cater to a growing tendency of ewes to have multiple births.

More ewes are having triplets, but one of the lambs usually struggles to survive because it cannot get enough milk from its mother, the Otago Daily Times reported today.

“A triplet, if he is the runt of the litter, is usually doomed,” George Davis, a scientist with the state agricultural organisation AgResearch, told the paper. “If one triplet is light, his two litter mates can bully him out.”

Davis said that 10 years ago, the average New Zealand ewe had one lamb, while today 100 ewes produced 120 lambs between them.

New Zealand is one of the world’s biggest producers and exporters of sheep meat.

…and they wonder why we make fun of them??

Ever made a Mentos and Diet Coke Geyser?. I haven’t, but now that I’ve seen this I have a strange urge to go to the supermarket…

Aren’t I angelic, daddy?

I got home at 8am this morning and sat down on the back deck with a nice scotch, and Shelton took that as an opportunity to show off his new talents for daddy. Apologies for the quality, phone camera n’ all and he never stays still long enough!

A common question I am asked is “How can you support the (Federal) Libs when John Howard hates you”, referring to Johnny’s firm anti-gay-marriage stance.

This is a question / statement that never ceases to irk me. It reeks of the last Presidental election in the United States, where gay marriage was seen as the most contentious issue to face the country. Screw fiscal policy, screw security and troops in Iraq, none of that is important if gays are / are not allowed to marry!

Can anyone else see how ludicrous, and selfish, this is? Sure… Adz and I would love to be married legally in this country, but is that going to make me happier than say, being unemployed or paying 15% interest on a loan? And what about for the good of the rest of the country?

Now this isn’t a post defending the Liberal Party, but rather a post debating why people tend to vote only on issues directly affecting one part of them. Surely there’s more important things to base your vote on?

Your thoughts..

Wish 1: Wireless Video Camera

Wish 2: Portable PVR

Whenever it gets close to my birthday or christmas time, and people ask me what I’d like, I can never think of anything. It’s only until a few days / weeks after that I start to have lots of ideas of things I really would like.

After going through all my photos the other day, I realised that I really want to get back into photography, but moreso the kind of the aerial variety. You can get some amazing photos of gliding, but the best ones require you to be outside the glider, either airborne or on the ground whilst the glider makes a fly-by.

Since then, I’ve been crusing eBay, looking for gadgets that would do the task. I found a wireless camera that I intend to mount on the tail of the aircraft, and inside the cockpit have a receiver and a camcorder that takes a video input (not easy to find cheaply!).

End result is something that will give a video like this:

Unfortunately, all this will have to wait for some time. Adam and my 3-year anniversary is in a few weeks, and have decided that I will finally get him a ring… something special y’know We decided on a design… we both liked this one, and will get it inset with a ruby.

My Friends List is waning. After looking through the “nudge” option that LiveJournal so kindly provides, it seems like many simply aren’t making posts anymore. I thought about doing a massive cull, but wrote that off as pointless.

Not like I should be able to complain… I haven’t actively gone out and “sought” people to be on the friends list… I’ve just accepted any offers that came my way. However, I think now that I should go out and find some willing victims to add to the list. Not that this is a popularity game or anything…. *blushes*

In other news, I’ve done a lot of work on my site and have now successfully integrated Gallery2 into my WordPress installation. For some reason I had to install the entire site from scratch again . What a pain!

The fun bit I guess was going through all my old photos from yeeeeears back and selecting what ones I wanted to put online. Doing a *.jpg search over all 5 HDD and 1TB of storage on this server took forever, and turned up some very interesting results! Have a poke around if you like, and please do tell me what you think!

Albulm: Black and White	Albulm: Gliding
Albulm: Holidays	Albulm: Artistic

There’s even a rating function there, so let me know which ones you reckon are best

Following Sam de Brito’s lead with YouTube Fridays, I’m going get one step ahead of him and give y’all a YouTube Thursday. Get that end-of-week time-wasting habit started early!

YouTube Thursady – Crazy Cats #2

I found this one quite accidentally, and if you’ve ever owned a cat you’ll most likely enjoy it as much as I did!

Tell me what you think!