I am a thirty something married gay boy living in Sydney, almost on top of the gay scene but not in it!
Why Sometimes blue?, because I love blue, but also I am sometimes blue :)
more about drew
How annoying my favorite Hardware House Store nearby is on fire as I type!
Just think of all of those exciting boys toys, electric power tools etc that are all going up in smoke it's horrible!
And even more annoying, we were suposed to go there ont he weekend to pick up some stuff for maintenance around the apartment.
So where do we go now?
Just terrible terrible!
Update
It's not my favorite hardware store (thank goodness - it's a nearby timber lot). Thank goodness for that I tougt I would have to do without my regular fixes of wandering around the cavernous inside of the Hardware Warehouse!
We tried a few places but in the end decided the new Trash Art Work Silent Witness should go at the end of Kitchen. And if my elderly parents ask... it's above the Trash Can!
I have another POP ART panel piece from a friend Rodney Love (I designed his website years ago and he did a n artwork for me) that I need to have framed and installed, but I have not had the inclination yet...
And apart from that the boy has a seriously bad reaction to some of the pieces, like 'I just wanna die with a big cock in my mouth'.
The problem with working all weekend is by the time the work week officially starts you need a break. But looking at the workload for the next few weeks / months I need to work harder and smarter to keep everything going.
One of the roles I am seeking is for a Junior Website Designer, they need to have DESIGN skills, not a Masters of Information Technology.
The majority of the responses were from candidates whose country of birth is not Australia, further their natural language is not English and it painfully shows in their application letters.
The use of 'Hey I wants applications to positions eligible' is not likely to do much for their interview prospects.
But does it make me racist?
I hope not, I just want someone with the required skills.
I think in future I will create an online application process that forces the applicants to detail the experience and skills I require and not the ones I don't.
Whilst I found some of the past work experience in all sorts of service industries fascinating I don't need four pages on that experience I need relevant experience.
Talking of which having some one state that they are Muslim on their job application is problematic. It would be a bit like me stating I am Gay on a job advertisement (unless it was relevant).
Number one I have a dog in the office (which many Muslims have issues with) (well there are two actually) and two most strict Muslims I have met have had significant issues with people who are Gay.
I suppose all you can do is be totally objective and use a score card for the required skills etc and match the requirements with the applicant.
It would be similar if someone put on their application that they are an active member of the Hillsong Church. Their beliefs and my beliefs would significantly conflict and they would therefore not have the required skills for the role.
Thus far though the only two people that even came close do not come close enough and so I am reticent to do any more with them than the initial telephone interviews I have done.
I'm off to the gym tonight for the first time in weeks and I am not looking forward to the wimpy workout I will end up doing tonight. But that's what happens when you don't work out with regularity.
I have two open positions in my company at the moment, one for a junior designer and the other for an experienced programmer with a quite specific computer language.
I have been advertising for about a week or so on one ad and about three weeks on the other.
So far I have had no responses from anyone who I have been impressed with.
More importantly I have not had anyone apply that actually has the required essential skills.
Let's analyse this shall we?
OK
Essential skill - design knowledge & portfolio of work to demonstrate experience seems to have been read as:
Covered HTML in my degree
I use the web
I am open to learning new technologies
Essential - Australian Work Visa or ability to work in Australia, this seems to be a very loose requirement indeed. It seems that there is some sort of lost in translation that means my company is willing to sponsor someone to work in Australia.
But what really annoys me the absolute most is the total lack of care in writing the covering letter / note. Sure the responses are done online, but this should not mean the language used is any less important.
Look I understand that for most of the applicants English is not their first language, however you would think that you could get someone who is proficient in English to draft a standard covering statement?
My absolute favourite was the guy who sent me a link to his online portfolio of work, first off the link was just slightly wrong, which is OK because I could correct it. But the entire 'portfolio' was full of broken links and images.
When I was in Brisbane Last week I did buy this book on Warhol, so far I have only had time to read about 25% of it and am hoping that I will ahve more time this weekend!
Former residents say separation contracts, a ban on physical contact and teachings by an 'ex-gay' are part of Mercy Ministry's attempts to stamp out lesbianism in its flock, reports Ruth Pollard.
WHEN Mercy Ministries says it helps young women with "life-controlling issues", it means in part that it aims to teach them not to be lesbians.
In line with the Hillsong Church's strict doctrines teaching that homosexuality is an affliction that can be cured, Mercy Ministries is keen to ensure there is no lesbianism under its roof. It issues "separation contracts" to young women who make friends with each other and prevents any form of physical contact between residents.
"While I was there, we received much teaching on the evils of gay and lesbian lifestyles," said Naomi Johnson, who spent nine months in the ministry's Sydney house.
As someone with no issues about her sexuality, she was perplexed by the ministry's continuing focus on the issue. "In particular, there was an ongoing teaching video series by Sy Rogers an 'ex-gay' - now reformed - married Christian," she said.
Rogers - an American who conducts speaking tours on Christianity and sexuality- spoke at Hillsong Church's Sense and Sexuality Workshop in Sydney last September and is due to address its Colour Your World Conference next year.
"Sy will bless you with his insights into identity and the heart," the Hillsong website says. "Happily, homosexuality can be turned around," Mr Rogers says in a clip of his show, Turnaround, on youtube.com. "Homosexuality is out of tune with religion; it is not what God planned for human sexuality."
On its application form, Mercy Ministries used to ask young women if they had been involved in lesbianism, next to the question on whether they had been involved in prostitution. They changed that in 2006 to ask "have you ever been involved in any form of same-sex relationships?".
Another former resident, who did not wish to be identified, said: "Girls were asked on the application form, as well as in a telephone interview, if they have ever had lesbian or bisexual relationships. They asked if I hadbeen involved in drug abuse, witchcraft, or lesbianism. They bunched them in together like that."
In the house, residents were prevented from having any form of physical contact - no comforting hugs, no shoulder to cry on - and even though there were three young women to each bedroom, they were not allowed to change clothes if another person was in the room, she said.
Mercy Ministries denies it runs an "ex-gay" program, and Hillsong has stopped running its "ex-gay" program, called Living Waters, although both organisations remain staunchly conservative - anti-abortion and anti-gay.
The Herald asked Hillsong to explain its teachings on homosexuality. No response had been received last night.
One former member of Hillsong, who held several "leadership positions" in the church, revealed that he was shunned when he disclosed his homosexuality.
"The ostracising that occurred by fellow worshippers was severe," said the man, who asked not to be identified. "As soon as I came out my entire social network decided the best way to deal with the situation was to stop all communication with me.
"The only hope I had was my family and friends who were extremely supportive as they were not Hillsong members."
Hillsong Church taught that the devil inspired people to act on homosexual desires, he said. "Hillsong believes that homosexuality is not normal and not a part of God's design for mankind - their belief is that it should be fixed and it's something that can be removed from someone's life." One option presented to the man was to force himself into a heterosexual relationship. In the meantime, he was removed from his leadership role in the church and isolated.
I didn't write much on the Warhol exhibition yesterday because I was still in immense pain and very groggy from this stomach bug.
I was pretty much impressed with myself that I even managed to get through the entire exhibition without falling over or something worse. But I am so glad I did.
I am pretty lucky in that a few of our friends have some original Warhols and I have been lucky enough to get up close and personal with them before.
But this was just so much more interesting.
My only one complaint about the exhibition was the obvious references for schoolkids under most of descriptions of the works. Which I found just a tad insulting.
However, some of the works were really interesting to see including the entire set of Mao, the set of Marilyn Monroe and the works featuring Jacqui Kennedy.
When you see one work in isolation you can appreciate that work, but when you see them all together you can really start to see the artists meaning in all of them.
I have decided though that Andy must have been compulsive obsessive (eating the same thing for twenty years at lunch and having a total fascination with replication).
The early works which were much more free hand painting were really interesting along with an unfinished Campbells Soup tin painting still with the masking tape which was used to mask the lettering. It's not often that you get to see the stages that an artist uses to get to their work.
The works were not his greatest works nor were they his most iconic, although they were well chosen and great fun.
This afternoon I am going to drop in on the Paradise Exhibition at the State Library of Queensland so will have a gander at that!
I very nearly didn't come to Brisbane today as I have a stomach bug and have been really unwell for the last couple of days.
But since I have been so excited about coming to see the Warhol exhibition I pulled myself together and managed to sleep most of the flight and sleep most of the day in between going to the exhibition.
In addition to destroying the lives of young women at crossroads in their life they also run a thinly veiled Ex-Gay program.
When will the Government act on the Hillsong 'Church' and undertake a proper investigation of their finances and operating principles?
This is not a religious organisation this is a big business which pays no Tax because of it's religious status.
Oh and the company Gloria Jeans provides funds to Hillsong and Mercy Ministry and the Franchiser owners are members of both the Hillsong Church and The Mercy Ministry.
I had seen this artwork in the gallery with nothing else in the gallery for the last few days as I walked by an my way to and from the office in blankspace.
Today on my rush home from the office they were setting up the exhibition and I wandered in. The piece I like was an amalgamation of two works, one a lamp with the word "Trash" and the other called "Silent Witness".
I just loved it so much and negotiated so well it's mine!
When the exhibition closes in two weeks I will find somewhere to hang it.
It's by an artist called Simon Lovelace and it's cute and perfectly suits me and my current art mood! It's kind a mix of Lichtenstein meets grunge! And since I have such a fetish for lights it is even better (Trash is a raised perspex with a pink neon light underneath)
I have seen his work before and thought it was fun then so now I have!
I am really keen on seeing this photography exhibition
Friday 14 March to Saturday 26 April 2008
Tue - Fri: 12.00 - 7.00pm, Sat & Sun 10.00am - 6.00pm
Gallery 1 & 2
Dutch photographer Robert Knoth has been visiting Chernobyl and other sites of nuclear devastation in the former Soviet Union since the early Nineties. The people in his photographs - many of them children and teenagers - are just like those in the rest of the world except that through no fault of their own they must grapple with the apocalyptic consequences of technological folly.15-year-old Annya Pesenko (or Chernobyl certificate no. 000358/) has been ill since a brain tumor was diagnosed when she was only four years old and now is bed-ridden. Knoth's straightforward photographs of people like Annya allow viewers to enter their lives and gain an understanding their stories without making a spectacle of their misfortune.
I made a huge mistake yesterday which is causing a lot of stress for me and the business.
I processed a credit card payment for a client on our new payment system but instead of ignoring the decimal point it stripped the decimal point out and charged them 100 times the amount.
Essentially maxxing out their credit card.
I immediately reversed the transaction (literally within moments) but it seems that refunds take some time to actually process.
I spoke to the bank and I spoke the Payment Gateway people, I also obviously spoke to the client immediately as well.
At this moment I have a very pissed off client with damn good reason I might add, and nothing I can do to hasten the process of getting the money back on the card any faster.
I feel like a total idiot and if I were in my client's shoes I would be pissed off too.
Sometimes I hate being busy because we do miss things like decimals being dropped from transactions!
This is what the puppy looks like with her cone of silence, poor pet.
The paw is healing really nicely, but every time I take the cone off she goes striaght back to her paw, so it needs to stay on until the paw is fully healed which shoudl be a few more days!
The Poor Puppy has an infected rear paw and is on a course of antibiotics for ten days. In addition to this she has to wear the 'shroud' again to make sure she does not continually chew and lick at the paw
She so does not like it and has this sad morose look on her face poor baby.
I also have to put a sock over her paw when I walk her, and I have no idea how the hell she is going to cope with that!
In addition once a day I have to shampoo her foot and twice a day I have to try and put on some cream on her paw.
If you have ever dealt with a beagle you will know that trying to do anything like this is a struggle!
For some reason at every party we have ever thrown someone ends up having sex in our apartment. I'm not kidding!
It so happens that in cleaning up during the week from last week's huge party I found an empty condom wrapper in the spare room by the sofa. Weird huh?
But what's even worse is I found out that one of the serving boys we hired to serve drinks and canapes during the event disappeared for ten minutes to go get his dick sucked in the fire stairs.
I am so annoyed!
On my time when he is supposed to be entertaining my guests he was doing an entertaining of an altogether different kind.
The only reason I found out was because the girl who performed the act on him is the flatmate of a friend of ours.
At our Mardi Gras Party last year, the two waiters at least waited till afger the event to take someone home (one was a Hungarian porn star the other an S&M escort).
The year before last two friends had sex in the kitchenette on the roof, someone got blown on the roof and some one had sex in the main ensuite.
And these are all "normal" nice parties no hanky panky!
My sleeping patterns have not yet got back to semi normalcy or what I call the ability to sleep for at least four hours in a row yet.
My head is congested and I have sinus pressure, which it seems almost everyone I have spoken to who was out on the weekend has similar.
But you know we do these things to ourselves so there is no reason to complain.. So I will just have to struggle through and get stuff done as best as I can while feeling a bit sluggish.
Being Friday I am looking forward to the weekend and I am not planning to do anything this weekend! I want a nice quiet weekend sitting around maybe doing some light excercise at the gym but nothing heavy!
I am mentally and physically exhausted even after a shorter than normal week.
With the weekend far behind me I have been head down tail up almost the entire rest of the week moving forward with work.
It's amazing how when you think about it work can be so totally consuming and can totally become the focus of your waking and sleeping moments.
I have to find a way to work even more smarter not harder per se, and I have to learn not to show my impatience in my voice to iodiotic clients who ask stupid or irrelevant questions and waste my time.
I am back at work today and have been dealing with the effects of the weekend both yesterday and today.
The weekend was awesome with one amazing party after another.
Starting off with the party at our apartment which was as much fun as ever with lots and lots of people dropping by at all different times to say hello and join in.
Amazingly the weather behaved itself for the parade and even though it was cold there was no rain until early int he morning (then it poured down but who cares we were all dancing away in one of the venues at the Mardi Gras Party).
The Mardi Gras party was just fantastic, great music, great vibe and great friends. My only one mistake was not getting back in to the RHI to hear and see Olivia Newton John perform. But I did make up for it by being there at the end to see Cyndi Lauper perform.
We then headed off to Toybox over at Luna Park after a couple if hours of sleep and I have to say that it was the best Toybox that I had ever been to. The music, the lights, the lasers were just superb and I enjoyed every minute of the party.
I did manage to get to Homesexual for a few hours but I was totally exhausted by then and only last to just after midnight before I went back home and slept till the morning.
Then I ended up at Phoenix for most of the day and chilled out at home with friends after it closed and then fell into bed for a very much deserved sleep.
I have to say that I was totally reminded how much Home nightclub and Homesexual sucks. The club absolutely stinks and they oversell it to crap, so much so that once you are there it is impossible to move or dance without having ten people all squashed against you.
I will absolutely have to remind myself that under no circumstances will I want to pay for an overpriced ticket for Homesexual.
Whilst Mardi Gras may be the "ultimate Australian" Gay & Lesbian event they need to improve their production standards and start giving more back for the money, better sound systems would be a start!
Toybox though absolutely outdid themselves and they learnt from last years debacle where people could not not get into the dance area by only selling tickets for the one area rather than the whole park.
I am partied out for a while now and am looking forward to a few months of no partying!
As the votes are rolling in for the delegates in the USA I can't help but think that as much as I love Hilary Clinton and want her to be President of the United States I think that Barrack Obama will get the nomination.
I do think it's obvious that the Republican candidate will be McCain and I am not sure that Obama can beat McCain.
It's going to be an interesting 24 hours in the USA.
I think like everyone else I am totally addicted to facebook and I spend a huge amount of time cyber stalking looking at friends pictures and profiles.
I am in total awe of the way it has so quickly become a mainstay of my online world and offline world too.
I tend to treat it a bit like my email appplication I am on all the time when in front of my computer. And I even tend to use Facebook over anything else for messaging friends and keeping in touch
I love the fact that I can upload all my photographs and tag them it just fully rocks!
The problem of course is that you can be sucked into the time wasting vortex of Facebook quite quickly if you let it.
I am a thirty something married gay boy living in Sydney, almost on top of the gay scene but not in it!
Why Sometimes blue?, because I love blue, but also I am sometimes blue :)
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