VolaciousNet

By ~talithia

Nobody said life was easy, did they?

First off… the exam on Tuesday went better than expected. I don’t know whether it was an easy exam or not, but I answered all the questions, and was confident about perhaps 70-80% of them. I recognised the questions I could do, did them first, then finished off the rest. I finished the paper with 45 minutes to spare, and so had enough time to check over everything and make sure everything was ok I counted up the amount of marks allocated to the questions I know I answered well… ’twas enough to pass Onto the next one!

Shortly after said exam, the immune system finally gave in and the sniffles and aches started. I had seen it coming… feeling cold all the time, sore throat… usually big omens. But yesterday it hit me hard… core body temperature just above 34 degrees… I was freezing! Even last night… electric blanket turned up full, electric heater turned up and being wrapped in Adam, still felt cold. Wasn’t going to turn up to work today, but with major problems occurring, I put duty before self. Last time I’m doing that! I felt like shit today.

So now there’s 2 more days to go… last exam ever! This one won’t be easy by any means. Thankfully, I know that the lecturer is a lazy arse and always uses questions from previous papers or tutorial questions (of which he hasn’t changed in the last 4 years). As with most engineering papers, it’s all about practice questions, over and over and over.

Meanwhile Adam’s watching Last Chance Learners, for those of you who don’t know it’s about complete and utter idiots who have taken years and many many attempts to get their driver’s licence, and are put on a reality show so we can “laugh” at their pathetic driving skills, crying fits and temper tantrums.

Is it just me, or are there enough idiots on the road as it is? I reckon that if you fail your driver’s licence 3 times, you should thus be banned from ever sitting it again.

Who’s with me?

Not all bloggers on my reading list are prime reading material. One of the blogs I signed up to months ago was DREADNAUGHT, by John Heard, maybe you’re familiar wtih his writings. I don’t know if you’ve heard of him because he’s famous, or infamous, it doesn’t matter. His writing style (in the 3rd person) indicates that at least he thinks he’s someone of importance, and indeed his voice must be getting out there as I have seen a fair few references to him in the common media.

John takes the viewpoint of a gay conservative catholic, which I found interesting at first because a) there are very few conservative gay blogs out in BlogLandâ„¢ and I always like alternative viewpoints and b) I was curious as to how he reconciles “conservative” catholocism with his sexuality. Interestingly enough, his blog doesn’t take comments, for I imagine if he had he would have had a difficult time fending off abuse with some of the self-promoting propaganda he appears to pen out.

It was his latest post that really riled me up, titled “DREADNUMBERS: Galaxy Poll On ‘Gay Marriage’ Is A Joke, Crikey & Silly Numbers”, where John attacks the recent Galaxy poll that was funded by GetUpâ„¢, which found that 71% of Australian people supported giving same-sex couples the same rights as heterosexual de-facto couples., and 57% supporting gay marriage. With a survey size of N = 1100 and a politically motivated commissioning body, it’s hardly a valid survey I’ll agree, but then neither is the NewsPoll survey completed 3 years ago which showed that only 38% of people were in favour (not including the 18% that were uncomitted in their answer), as it had a whopping great survey size of N = 1200.

In order to validate his claims that the NewsPoll survey must be the more correct figure, he rubbishes a statistic run by GLRL Victoria, and as he states in his blog:

Like the one that sampled attendees at drug-fuelled ‘gay’ dance parties / ‘gay’ pride events and found, hilariously, that upwards of 80% of ordinary people support ‘gay marriage’.
-John Heard

Follow that link the quote… you’ll find that John “neglects” to realise that a) nowhere did it state “ordinary people” or give detail of methodology or mention “dance parties” and b) the survey was intended to show that that majority of GLBTI(XYZ) people, not “ordinary people”, prefer marriage over other forms of formal recognition.

His best quote is

Any group can buy a poll, define the key terms, manipulate the questions and spin the results.

…ironically, that’s exactly what he is doing in his post, in order to put his “controversial” point forward that gays and lesbians really don’t want formal recognition, and that it’s a waste of everyone’s time talking about it when it’s never going to happen anyway. It’s all those “homoactivists”, apparently.
The intonation of his writing foretells that he has the facts, and quoting his favourite and often-mentioned Private Lives report by LaTrobe university, which interviewed approximately 5,000 gay men and women and found that “most of them” (52%) were not interested in a formal committment ceremony or otherwise. In fact, John quotes this figure many times in his arguments that Australia should not have gay marriage / formal ceremonies, because gay people simply don’t want it (not to mention too expensive, darlings!).

Again, a true hypocrite, he carefully omits the part where it states that only those in a current relationship (44% or so) answered that question, and it took no account for those not currently in a relationship who would one day perhaps like a formal ceremony, should they find the right partner. Only 33% of respondants actually lived with a partner, so accuracy again must be questioned on all counts.

So it seems anyone can bend statistics, my friends. Including those who jump on their high horse and accuse the “homoactivists” of doing so themselves.

My word of advice is don’t believe a thing you read in the papers, and definately don’t be influenced by polls with head-counts less thatn 20,000 and without a proper methodology and distribution. Always question the “facts” !!!

Image by ~vulcania

So the countdown begins… Hell Weekâ„¢ has started again, hopefully now for the last time ever.

I’m finally starting to get enough panic set in to make me stay at my books for long enough to actually learn something… Lord knows it’s been about time. The trick now is to balance the “good” anxiety that disciplines me to study with the “bad” anxiety that makes my brain shut down and/or freak out completely.

I’ve scheduled in at least 4 hours of study every night after I get home from work… I reckon if I can keep to that schedule, as well as a blinder of an effort this weekend, I might be able to pull it off. The thing I’m going to remember this time is that I actually need 8 hours sleep a night, or the study won’t work. For some reason that didn’t make sense before.

I’d sit here and ask myself “Why do I leave it to the last minute”, but I’ve been doing this for the past 15 or so years. Suffice to say… it’s just the way I am

Like the pic? It’s fractal geometry or something. I thought it looked cool

Image by ~Aideon

I’m getting older. I must be. Hangovers aren’t mere waking annoyances anymore… now they last the entire day, or more!

I swear I didn’t drink that much… but looking at the bottle of scotch the next morning and noticing that the bottle of vodka was gone as well… evidence speaks for itself!

Just 2 days ago I went and bought a patio heater from Aldi… you know, those big outdoor burners that run off an LPG bottle. Powerful one too… 10MJ more powerful than most I could find in Bunnings. So there we were… 3 of my best friends (including Adam, of course!), drinking and playing cards outside whilst it bucketed down rain, all the while toasty and warm Deadly mix though… I guess what goes on at the card table stays at the card table

Meanwhile the rain hasn’t boded well for all of our family. Little Sammy passed away because of the extreme weather. We can also officially declare our backyard dead and write off most of our possessions in the garage after it flooded quite badly.

Meanwhile Adam and myself have been keeping ourselves warm the only way two boys know how… but it’s causing me to always want to sleep afterwards, so my study is not getting done. 9 days until exams… the pressure is on !

So today I had the pleasure of waking up before dawn, and OMG I don’t think it can be denied that Old Man Winter has hit with a venegance. So a quick hop on a plane, I’m in Canberra, and *meh* it’s only -2 degrees Celcius. The cabbie reckoned it got to -8 overnight according to his home weather station, and I’m inclined to agree with him! Next time I go to Canberra I’m going to remember to put on underwear…

Meanwhile, my day was brightened when waiting in the taxi rank at Sydney Airport… a 6″3′ cute blonde boy in a tight-fitting flashy suit approaches… and boy did I get the eye! And of course, so did he There was a definite look of “knowing” between us, and I couldn’t help but break out in a big grin. I’m sure business cards could have been exchanged had our prospective colleagues not been standing there with us

Made my day!

Ow!

Ow!
Owowowoowowowowow
My tooth hurts, and I’ve only myself to blame for letting it get this far.

I’ve known for the past few years that I have one tooth that is still a baby tooth i.e. an adult tooth never grew in its place. But it never fell out, serving its purpose for years but always knowing that one day it would have to come out and I would be left with an unsightly gap.

I went to see a dentist about getting it removed at the end of 2005… he gave me the options of a) having a plate with a false tooth or b) having a permanent implant. I don’t want the hassle of dealing with a plate for the rest of my life, so I always knew that the only option is to get the implant.

However, after describing the procedure for the implant, I turned tail and ran, opting to leave it until the last minute when I would have no choice but to get it done. At that time, the dodgy tooth was just an inconvenience, and could stay as it was.

The procedure for the implant involves drilling a fuck of a big hole into my skull (about 40mm x 8mm), then fitting a prosthetic tooth on top. A quick wiki of the procedure made me wince. Also, with a “success rate of 75-95%, depending on the skill of the operator” made me worried, almost as much as the line “Patients who smoke experience significantly poorer success rates.”

Right now the tooth hurts, my gums are inflamed and my glands are rock hard indicating that there is an infection. And now I find out I’m meant to be on the 7am flight to Canberra tomorrow, as if it wasn’t cold enough here!! Grrrr.

I think I need to see a dentist soon and get this annoying f*cker ripped out.
Meanwhile I’m told that scotch is a great disinfectant…

In the past week between Adam and myself, we’ve been to Ikea 3 times, and spent well over a grand on “updating” our fineries. First came the bar, which I’ve been promising Adam for about 6 months now. Originally I was going to build it from scratch out of two-by-four, but decided it would work even better (and safer) to use Ikea bookshelves as a base, bolt them together, then attach a mirror to the front and a custom-made 12mm thick black glass slab for the bar top (with custom lighting from Jaycar, naturally!).

Next came my desk, which needed renovations because my current desk could barely fit the computer screen (LCD) and a keyboard, let alone any workspace. And now that I went and got myself another LCD screen, I now have two screens to play wtih on my desktop. I couldn’t help myself.. after having quad-LCD’s at Fox, and dual at my current work, a single LCD at home just seems so unproductive and retro. So now I have a massive glass desk (custom-made of course… I love Ikea’s ability to “mix-and-match” desktops, legs and accessories!), and dual-screen goodness

Last of all came the chest of drawers which we have needed for our bedroom… between us we have amassed an incredible amount of clothes, and never had space to put them. Because Adam and I are the same size, we can always justify buying clothes because it’s “for him”, and not a completely selfless act (well… almost). Of course, the chest-of-drawers match our wardrobe, because guess where that came from !

I guess you could call me an Ikeaholicâ„¢, but where else does one find funky new bits of furniture without having to worry about colour-matching, style-matching, and all the rest?

So as a result, the house has *finally* had a huge clean (thankyou to Adam… I’m not the best homebody!), and maybe after exams I’ll get around to the backyard and garage. After the recent storms and torrential rain, our garage was flooded with 2-3 inches of water, and contributing thanks to Shelton, half of our backyard is a swamp devoid of grass. So we’ve erected a “temporary” (i.e. not labrador-proof) fence, and sown some grass seed. Of course, he thinks this is wonderful, as fences are just mild obstacles and there’s nothing better than playing in the mud and afterwards greeting MumDad and Dad with big doggy hugs.

C’est la vie

Well it’s a question that pops up all the time, isn’t it? With every new job, you always wonder how the workplace and your colleagues will react to news that you are not like one of them. At my old workplace, this wasn’t a problem. After all, the place was unashamedly run by the Lilac Mafiaâ„¢, as are many media orginisations. However, in my line of work on the technical side of broadcast, gay people are rare. I think at uni I knew of 3 or maybe 4 gay engineers, 2 of which were fiercely closeted. I know a few more now, but their numbers are still few.

I’ve always gone by the old adage “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell”, in that I would be discreet, but essentially be myself, and if someone asked directly, then I would answer directly (and truthfully). What makes it difficult is being in such a small office… 6 people in total. They are all older, married (or nearly so), and popping out first-borns. So talk of partners abound, and all I’m left to talk about is my dog and my “flatmate”. And the amount of times I’ve mentioned my “flatmate” and had to explain why he had my car for the 4th time that week… I swear they must be catching on. Or are straight married people really as oblivious as my own parents were? I don’t know.

So I ask my dear readers… what are your thoughts on the matter? Are people oblivious and respectful enough to not ask questions, or is it something that will eventually be unearthed no matter what? What have been your experiences in the workplace?