those three years

Yesterday marked the start of my fourth year of keeping this blog. Wow. Thanks to all my lovely readers, especially those who've been along for the ride from the start. Here's to the next three years.

husbands and husbands and wives and wives

Talk about living in a nanny state. It's not enough for the Australian Government to discriminate against its gay citizens by refusing to allow them to get married in their own country, now it emerges that the Government is wasting taxpayer funds and everyone's time in infantile efforts to obstruct gays from marrying in other countries where it's legal (ie., the Netherlands, Canada, Spain and Belgium).
Why doesn’t Philip Ruddock just call a spade a spade, and call his certificate-of-refusal-to-issue-a-certificate a "Certificate of Impediment to Marriage (Gayness)"?:

The embassy provided Mr Kakucska with a stamped "certification" that stated:
"Following the advice of the Australian Attorney-General's Department we herewith certify that Australian law does not allow the issue of a Certificate of No Impediment to Marriage to persons wishing to enter into a same-sex marriage." He got a similar document saying the embassy could not provide a Single Status Certificate.

C'mon, at least have the balls to say "I'm Homophobic and Proud of It!" Because let's face it, you are.
Still, even if our Government, for moralistic reasons, can’t bring itself to issue a Certificate of No Impediment, it should still be able to provide basic demographic information to a foreign nation that’s asking—namely, that one of our citizens is considered to be 'single/never married' in this country. Either a citizen is considered to be legally single in Australia or they're not. That's all that's being asked of our Government. And yet, we have this underhanded style of intervention that reaches all the way around the world to try to control citizens’ behavior elsewhere.
Since if a gay person gets married overseas, that marriage would presumably not be legally recognised on Australian soil anyway, I do not get why the Australian Government even cares?
To withhold information like this is a pointless strategy in any case. In the Netherlands case, the Dutch government accepted the certificates of refusal as proof of singledom (and our Government’s homophobia), and the marriage still went ahead. So the whole thing is just a childish waste of everyone's time.
Elsewhere, Tim Blair’s mocking Islam for having rules, acting as if its different in that regard from any other religion, or for that matter, even from living in a Conservative run democratic society. Rules just differ depending on your worldview of choice. For example, in John Howard and George Bush’s Christian worldview, there are rules on the specific kinds of genitals that are allowed to be in your underpants as you approach a marriage celebrant. Weird, huh? And this from the Government that Blair touts as being about the supreme rights of the individual. Doesn't extend to freedom of sexuality eh.

around the traps...
Tim Blair's attack on me, in which he argues that because extremist fanatical Islamists are evil, our Government is immune to criticism of any kind, by simple virtue of paling into insignificance beside madmen. Great argument!

Tim Dunlop thinks along similar lines as me but takes it further.

the thought that counts

Thinking alot, but not typing much. MOre soon.

first action hero

It's either a coincidence, or she has stumbled across my blog somehow: a friend gave Harley a Batman cape for Christmas. He liked the look of his new cape, even though he has never heard of or seen anything Batman-franchise related yet.
"You're Batman," I explained to my kid. "He goes"--I turned to my friend, helpless--"What does Batman do again?" I punched a fist in the air. "KAPOW!!!!...Wait, I think that's Superman."
My friend shrugged. "I don't think it matters much at this point."
My son doesn't yet know about action heroes with superpowers. His heroes are still the working class variety: bus drivers, crane operators, firies, bulldozer drivers. He is obsessed by cars and trucks, and while people love to explain this is because he is a boy, I have my suspicions that it's actually because we don't have a car ourselves, so that they have a special mystique.

update: I’m told posting photos on my main page slows things down so from now on I’m just going to add pictures to this separate page, and just link to that if I update it.

update2: I wanted to congratulate Ken and all the others at Troppo for having won Crikey!’s Blog of the Year award for 2005. Well deserved so good on 'em. (Hope they got a nice statuette of a naked blogger too). But since they have gone and redesigned their site, I am perplexingly unable to view it anymore. I know it’s the fault of my dodo computer, but until I can afford to upgrade (which may or may not occur next century)(hang on, let me go get my wee violin…) this update will have to suffice as congrats to all the Armadillos.

it's all about meme

Happy New Year, everyone. Seems I’ve picked up one of those friendly little memes from a blog called Foxhow. Since I’ve resolved in 2006 to take Jozef's advice and take a few more risks (and finally stop giving a damn about whether I’m an insufferable narcissist by publishing a personal blog), I’ll distract myself from my lack of hangover for a minute and have a go...

Ten years ago:
Getting over some guy. Starting uni. Working in legal admin and pissing money up the wall. Going out dancing a lot. Obsessing over some guy.

Five years ago:
Getting over some guy. Working in the legal dept of Andersen during the whole Enron meltdown. Finishing uni. Obsessing over some guy. Getting over him.

One year ago:
Spending time with my inconceivably wonderful son. Swimming in the ocean a lot. Making new friends. Obsessing over and getting over some guy (0K, now I’m just playing for laughs...)

Five yummy things:
Oma’s Berliner Krapfen (traditional German New Year’s deep-fried jam rolls) and Stollen (Christmas cake).
Oma and Opa’s sourdough bread (my preference is for Opa’s, as he includes whole grains and makes square loaves). Particularly good with Leberwurst or honey from Oma and Opa’s bees.
Cheese.
Olives.
Wine.

Five songs I know by heart:
Strawberry Fields Forever
Emotional Rescue
Everybody Must Get Stoned
Hey, Ya! (was playing through Pethidine as I gave birth to my son)
She Sells Sanctuary (naturally)

Five things I would do with a lot of money:
Enjoy not being broke for a while.
Buy music, books, computer equipment, art materials and maybe a live model.
Get my roots done.
Donate a bit to good causes, hopefully.
Piss most of it up the wall, probably.

Five things I would never wear:
Panty-hose.
Gold jewelry.
A lacy black and red nylon crotchless teddy.
Hairspray.
Handcuffs.

Five Favourite TV shows:
Big Brother, Aussie Idol, anything featuring ‘ordinary people’ (haha).
Front-up (Andrew Urban)
The 7:30 Report
Australian Story
The Wiggles

Five things I enjoy doing:
Drawing.
Writing.
Singing and dancing.
Frolicking in surf.
Walking with my boy.

Five people I want to inflict this on:
1. Tim Dunlop
2. Tim Blair
3. Francis Xavier Holden
4. Helen
5. Rob Schaap. (Come on Rob, when you gonna reemerge from the shed? Vi haf vays....)