i'm going to the movies

i'm going to the movies, originally uploaded by nettsu.

It's funny... I haven't been the movies for well and truly a year. I was trying to remember the last time we went to the movies and it may have been for the last James Bond movie or X-Men Wolverine. I really can't remember!

I've been a massive fan of Neon Genesis Evangelion since the 1990s when SBS first screened it. They screened anime in prime-timeish... Monday nights at 9:30. I was working a split shift and I'd be in bad by 8:30pm most night. But Monday nights I'd stay up to catch Neon Genesis. Fanboy/Geek/Nerd... that's me ;)

Then fast-forward to 2009 and I discover (rather belatedly) that there's been a remaking/re-imaginging of Neon Genesis. I hunt high & low for the DVD (well I fib I looked on ebay) so I got Evangelion 1.0 and I was blown away. I was back to where I was when I first saw Neon Genesis Evangelion all those many many years ago ;)

And as I follow madman entertainment on twitter - I found out that Evangelion 2.0 was part of reelanime (an anime festival) so I then proceeded to debate about whether to go or not.

Couple of problems:
Time. When? Trying to coordinate a time with Larry who's travelling a bit with work. The nanny and when she works. Trying to find a baby-sitter. It was almost too hard.

Did I really want to drag Larry to something he has no interest in.

So I decided to basically just get a ticket for myself for this Thursday. I have no problems going to the movies by myself - always have done - quite comfortable with it :)

So this Thursday I will be geeking out and since the nanny started a couple of months ago I will be doing something for myself... I will be doing something not baby related... how odd...

xo
michael

Same-sex couples face injustice on adoption by Verity Firth

This was in the Sydney Morning Herald today and I'm just reposting it (lazy I know!)

Same-sex couples face injustice on adoption
Verity Firth
September 1, 2010

I recently met a family in my local electorate, Balmain. As in many
families, both parents work and go to playgroups and weekend sport. Their
cupboard is full of prepared gifts for the endless cycle of year 1 birthday
parties. They are expert in keeping the peace between their bossy daughter
and her baby brother.

The difference between this family and most others is the parents are gay.

Both men have the telltale bags under their eyes that come with juggling
work, raising two young children and trying to remember what a social life
was like. These are decent people who clearly have a deep love for their
kids and strong commitment to each other.

They came to talk to me about the inability of same-sex couples to adopt in
NSW. The issue affects their family directly. Despite raising children and
sharing their life together, only one is a legally recognised parent of
their children. The other has a parenting order, conferring many of the same
legal responsibilities, but there is no legal mechanism allowing his
parenthood to be properly recognised.

I left the meeting with two lasting impressions. The first was an easy
recipe for a bechamel cheese sauce to make recalcitrant four-year-olds eat
their veggies - which proved successful with my daughter. The second was a
deep sense of injustice about the existing adoption legislation.

Many arguments against same-sex adoption stem from a belief children have a
right to, or are best served by, a mother and a father. For most of us who
grew up with a mother and a father, perhaps this is an understandable
reaction. But it fails to acknowledge that many children grow up with single
parents or grandparents, in joint custody situations or with gay and lesbian
parents. When we deny these kids and their families legal rights, we are not
protecting children, we are punishing them for their family not resembling
the nuclear ''ideal''.

Research has repeatedly shown that kids growing up with gay parents are no
more likely to be gay, suffer from mental or physical illnesses or be
unfairly disadvantaged. In fact, one recent study suggested kids with two
mums were more likely to be well-adjusted and have higher self-esteem.

In 2008, I proudly supported the NSW government's recognition of lesbian
co-parents of children born through assisted reproductive technologies such
as IVF. The government has now removed every piece of discriminatory
legislation against lesbians, gay men and their families - other than the
Adoption Act.

The member for Sydney, Clover Moore, has introduced a bill to Parliament
seeking to remove adoption discrimination. I applaud her efforts. Both the
main parties have allowed their members a conscience vote on this, and it
looks like the vote will be close.

Adoption is not a right. Making same-sex couples eligible would not entitle
them to adopt children.

But reform would provide a mechanism for same-sex couples to have their
parenthood recognised, and to expand the pool of potential adoptive parents.
Currently, lesbian and gay step-parents and foster parents caring for
children across the state are unable to formalise that relationship.
Allowing adoption would provide these children with the legal and emotional
certainty of two legally recognised parents able to make medical decisions,
sign notes for school and ensure the children were protected if one parent
died.

Adoption equality is not just about substantive rights and legal
protections. Removing discrimination is about respecting human dignity and
ensuring everyone has the best possible opportunities in life, regardless of
their sexuality or that of their parents.

I was about 14 when it dawned on me that everyone should be free to love
whoever they fall in love with, and that a civilised society would never
stand in the way of something as giving and fundamentally human as this.

It is my firm belief same-sex couples and their children should have all the
same rights, responsibilities and protections as heterosexual couples and
their families. Discrimination on the basis of sexuality is completely
unsupported by any evidence, and more importantly is unjust.

I am proud to be supporting Moore's bill to remove the last piece of
discrimination against same-sex couples and their families. I look forward
to a day soon when unjust discrimination is a thing of the past.

Verity Firth is the NSW Labor state Minister for Education.

some photography tips & tricks I did for some gay dads groups

Hi Folks,

Ok, for those who don’t know, I’m an amateur photographer, quite a keen one and also it seems quite a good one (but that’s entirely subjective) – I still have so much to learn and much further to go. Anyway, I’ve had work exhibited both here in Melbourne on numerous occasions and also once in New York in an interactive exhibition (that was very exciting!). I’ve also had a couple of photos published - which was also very cool.

So I was thinking that it might be a good idea to compile a tips & tricks document that will hopefully become organic in nature. I’m not the world’s best photographer and I don’t claim to be.

For those who haven’t seen them:

My two flickr sites

My own -> http://www.flickr.com/photos/nettsu/ (which pretty much has everything I do in it! The good & the bad!)

My family photostream -> http://www.flickr.com/photos/larryandmichael/

Now down to the nitty gritty…

Your equipment shouldn’t matter (how many times have you heard this line!). You should be able to achieve good photos with any camera. Better cameras don’t make better photographers. Please don’t even think that to take good photos you need to spend the money on a dSLR. Learn what your camera can do. Read the manual (I don’t think I’ve ever read a manual start to finish to be honest). Learn what each mode does and what you can achieve with it. Find what you like and run with it :) Or basically play. Select the mode, shoot a couple of snaps and see if you like the result.

Take multiple shots. Memory is cheap – buy multiple memory cards. I suggest multiple shots for a number of reasons, children move fast! I’ve learnt this. Also I think its better if your shots of people with their eyes open rather than their eyes shut.

Auto. This can either be a bug-bear or a saviour. Most “real” photographers will tell you not to shoot in Auto. Ignore them – as a friend of mine said – camera companies have spent millions on developing these modes, there’s no reason why I shouldn’t use them. I personally will only use Auto when I can’t the image I want to work using my presets (normally shooting in full sun).

Flashes… well yes. Not a fan. I think in the nearly 11 months plus of the girls life I have used the flash maybe 3-4 times. I really try not to use the onboard flash as they are incredibly bright and while I may be over-reacting I am concerned about the potential damage that incredibly bright light can do to little eyes. This is entirely personal choice! But this ties into my next point.

Be aware of light and where light is coming from. Use it to your advantage. This is one of the things in my mind that takes a photo from ordinary to extraordinary. Be aware of the direction of the light and what it’s going to put in shadow. Also keep in mind you are much better taking photos in the shade/indirect light then you are taking photos in full sunlight. Now post-processing can help (I use CS3 but I don’t know nearly a tenth of what it can do) some images but the old adage is really true – crap in, crap out (or garbage in, garbage out). iPhoto from what I understand also has some pretty powerful, basic photo editing tools. Not sure about PC based programs sorry – I haven’t used a PC in a number of years.

Composition (or how you frame/shoot your photographs). At the end of the day this is what makes or breaks a good photo. A badly composed photo is a badly composed photo. We’ve all seen photos with people’s heads cut off etc… this isn’t really about that. This is more about space and negative space. Be aware of negative space and how you can use it to your advantage. As in if you have a child up against a wall maybe move back a bit to make it more interesting. Be aware of background elements in the photo you are trying to take as they can detract or add to a photo. Also don’t feel constrained to shoot in either a horizontal or a vertical mode. Mix it up a little, shoot on an angle. Get closer to your subject, get further away etc… again just play and have fun with it. Another idea is maybe try to get candid shots of people with your baby/babies. I think we’ve all seen the overly forced smile photos – you know the ones I mean where people either look constipated or in physical pain – a lot of people don’t like having their photos taken so try to be more obtuse about it and there is a certain sweetness or elegance that come through candid shots.

iPhone apps – there’s a number of iPhone apps that can be fun to use to create interesting and quirky pictures. There’s some for android equipped phones again but as I’m an apple fanboy, I have no idea about these things ;)

Amongst my favourites are hipstamatic for that wonderful toy camera feeling and Best Camera which allows a number of different treatments (fake polaroids for example). Cameraphones are very good for having on you at all times as you never know just what’s going to happen. I shot mostly with a dSLR but I have a point & shoot in the nappy bag and I always have my iPhone with me.

Further resources:

MIT has a bunch of photography related courses online -> http://www.petapixel.com/2010/02/16/mit-photography-courses-online/

The Melbourne Camera Club in South Melbourne has an introduction to photography course that we (Larry & myself) found quite educational -> http://www.melbournephoto.org.au/introduction-to-photography-course.html

The classes go very fast though! I think it’s $250 for 8 or 10 weeks from memory.

If anyone has any questions please feel free to fire away – more than happy to answer them :)

Cheers

Michael

Election 2010 and how I'm voting

I still haven't decided how I'm voting. There's 6 candidates in my safe(ish) labor seat. The incumbent Labor member, an openly gay Liberal candidate, a greens candidate, a family first candidate, an australian secular party candidate and an australian sex party candidate.

Apparently Melbourne Ports has since been classified as a marginal seat... Don't ask me I don't get it.

So first the no's

I'm not voting for Family First. I absolutely, completely refuse to on principle. This is a party that espouses family values are more important than anything else and they are generally the most narrow minded and bigoted people you will encounter. Like pretty much being told that me raising my family is akin to child abuse because I have denied my children the right to a mother and a father.

I am not voting for the Australian Sex Party. I can never work out if these people are serious or not. I really can't. It always feel like it's a piss-take of some description or another. From their policy statement "The Australian Sex Party is a political response to the sexual needs of Australia in the 21st century. It is an attempt to restore the balance between sexual privacy and sexual publicity that has been severely distorted by morals campaigners and prudish politicians."

The Australian Secular Party is another I just don't get. They're all for the seperation of church & state but their philosophy confused me.

So the Labor sitting representative. Now I've never seen my local representative. I get the odd newsletter here & there which is the usual crap about what a fabulous job he thinks he's doing... Now he is his party's representative so I am judging him on that. I completely disagree with the ALP's stand on the proposed internet filter, this is a democracy, the government doesn't not have the right to censor information without the populations knowledge. We have the right to discuss, question and contest it - as we do now with our current classification guidelines. I also think NBNCo is a massive waste of money - wee fibre to home networks when large numbers of people are moving to wireless technologies... Then there's the leadership coup, that left a really bad taste in my mouth as to what our elected officials are capable of. And then there's the cheap vote buying ala this was in one of my local papers this week - "Danby flags shift on same-sex laws. Labor Melbourne Ports MHR Michael Danby told a crowd of voters at St Kilda Town Hall that he believed a policy shift on same-sex marriage was "coming". Although he supported Labor's stance leading into the election. He flagged the possibility of "serious movement" on the issue, saying many politicians supported overturning the same-sex marriage ban introduced in 2004." I find this really insulting personally. I do.

Then I'm torn between the greens candidate and the liberal candidate. I'm getting more conservative as I'm getting older (and also because I now have a family) which is part of it. I'm hestitant to vote for the Greens candidate as I don't want the preferences going to Labor and I really, really hate preferential voting. I also find the liberal candidate kind of endearing but also kind of irksome. He's "openly" gay but yet he refers to his partner in gender neutral terms, that annoys me...

I suspect I'll end up voting Liberal...

And I'm voting Greens in the Senate. I don't want either major political party with control of both houses.

Mumbai Memories

I really didn't like Mumbai.

It's hot, dusty, smelly, dirty, filthy, dirty, filthy. I know there's a reason for some of this namely poverty and being India's largest city people will migrate to it in the hope of making money or breaking free of the cycle of poverty - I admire them for that. But there was stuff that just made me shake my head. There'd be people squatting on the street and there'd be a toilet maybe 20-30 metres away from them (now I have never been in a public toilet in India and I feel that was probably a wise move!).

It really was a culture shock for me. I was confronted on an almost daily basis on the contrasts between the haves and the have-nots and just how people survive. I was miserable and I think I made your father miserable too! You also have the insanity of the Mumbai commuter trains. It's fun to watch (in hindsight) how intimidated tourists are to try to get on one of these trains. They are packed to the absolute brim with people still hanging out the edges and there seems to be some form of coordination to the chaos that took your father and myself a couple of trains to work out - we basically just took the plunge and jumped on the train. We were trying to get tickets to Delhi as that was the next place your father and I wanted to go to. This is where we met the next part of what I found to be really frustrating about Mumbai - everyone is out to scam you or alternatively there are just so many layers of bureaucracy it's crazy. So we were told that we had to go to a certain station to get tickets for the Rajdhani Express. So we go to that station - stand in a line to get a token, to then stand in another line to get to a ticket window to be informed we have to a different station (foreign national ticket office) to repeat the process... rinse, lather, repeat.

So we buy the tickets to Delhi. Your father wanted to go first class as the Rajdhani Express is meant to be quite an experience in first class. We ended up in Second Class as tickets are booked out months and months ahead for first class and there's only so many allocated to foreign nationals.

I will be honest and admit at this point that I love Indian Food, I especially love Indian Food in India (although I know it's not referred to as Indian Food). But it's so good, the thalis, the masalas, the sambar, the poha, the wedu... etc ;) I would get fat living in India! There was also a rather interesting restaurant that was attached to our hotel called Out of the Blue that did fusion foods. So a blend of western & Indian cooking - that was so good! I can still remember it a penne served with a creamy green chilli masala. Blew me away!

We did some of the typical touristy stuff before we left for Delhi - checked out Mumbai, the Elphanata Caves. India has such a sense of history that most places in the world can't come near and there's something very spiritual and humbling about it all.

We were in Mumbai for 3 days before heading off to Delhi. There was something else I was going to say I have completely forgotten now!

American Airlines

Just wow

Seriously

Just wow...

We left Dulles on the 9th for what should have been a relatively straightforward flight to LAX. Should have been... The plane had a damaged spoiler they decided to tie down which then meant that we had to stop in Tulsa to refuel. The woman at the Admiral's Club reassured us that we'd make our connecting flight as the refuel only takes 20 minutes - HA!

So we're on the plane.

It's the usual bitter, twisted, miserable and rude staff. Dear American Airlines Air Crew if you hate your jobs that much - find a new one! Please!

Everything is too much effort. Mind you were given free headsets rather than being charged the usual $2 for them. The sound on the movie wasn't working properly as Larry was rather curtly informed when he was the 20th person to tell the crew the sound wasn't working.

Sorry I skipped ahead slightly.

The pilot had informed us that they had a choice of kicking 30 passengers off or flying slow & low and refuelling in Tulsa. They took option 2. Ok...

Refuelling took an hour...

We get to LAX an hour late. We obviously miss our connecting flight. We're directed from the international connections desk to the customer service desk. The girl at the customer service desk basically tells us that she doesn't care as her shift is over and there's not going to be anyone to replace her. So we have to go to the ticket desk to be reticketed... (I could have screamed at this point). Told everything is ok and that we'll be put on the next available flight to Melbourne (the following night) so in the interim we're being put up in the LAX Marriott for the night. It's currently after midnight LA time. So we head to the hotel... check in and there's one restaurant open and no 24 hour room service! Beyond that it was actually a very nice hotel.

So the following morning Larry rings Qantas to find out what is going on. They can't help us - so Larry rings American Airlines - they can't help us (this was about 2 hours on the phone). So he decides to head to the airport to talk to the Qantas and American Airlines desks. This was also an exercise in futility. Apparently there's only certain staff from American that are trained in the Qantas system so we had to wait for them to start.

So at 4pm we all track down to the airport (the cute baby factor can help!) to see if we can get home. So all seems well. We have tickets - we have bassinets for the girls. We also have a connecting flight through Brisbane but that should be ok. We ask after the luggage and are assured that everything should be ok.

So we head over to the airport again around 9pmish to wait for our flight. We get on the plane and all is easy. The girls sleep most of the way to Brisbane. And really it is amazing how different Qantas really is. We have to collect our luggage in Brisbane as we have to escort it through customs before flying to Melbourne. We're standing there and standing there and standing there... Larry had made a comment when we were walking through immigration that it would be funny if our luggage was lost.

Still standing there...

Larry wanders over to the lost baggage counter and I'm still waiting. I'm then informed that the last of the luggage is out. Our luggage is "lost".

FFS

It was en route to Melbourne on the plane we had originally been re-ticketed on... it actually beat us to Melbourne... The Qantas flight to Melbourne was lovely - all of the air crew were more than willing and happy to help us. So my fellow Australians the next time you whinge about how bad Qantas is - try flying American Airlines.

I really never ever want to fly American Airlines again!

Travelling... (Virginia Part 1)

It's a nightmare...
24 hours roughly of travelling.
The girls all things considered actually did really well. There was no major meltdowns. Louise didn't sleep much as she had to know everything that was going on. So she'd be asleep and someone would come talk to us about the girls and up would pop her cute little head - get a cheeky smile. It really is very, very cute.

I got the chance to watch 2 movies!
Which for a 15 hour flight is a scream - got to watch both Clash of the Titans & Alice in Wonderland, broken and interupted quite a bit but did eventually get to watch them. Enjoyed both of them.

Qantas I love you! The staff were awesome. The passengers were pretty good (better than our connecting flight). We were waiting for everyone else to get off the plane when we landed at LAX and we were getting congratulated on being able to deal with the girls as well as we did (which was a bit weird). Got patted on the back by a drunk bogan and got a resounding "well done mate". American Airlines - you suck. Larry and I get split up (nothing new for them) and we get put in seats that are nowhere near an aisle... yeah smart move with babies. I could have done with the smartass behind me though who quite loudly said great and rolled his eyes when he saw me with Olivia. I know travelling with babies is an imposition on a lot of people - but my girls are good ;)

We had a really nice moment at LAX when we were going through customs. My surname is different to everyone else in my family and the customs officer was a bit taken aback by that! That struck me as really quite sweet.

Oh and hire car shennigans! I wanted a Ford Fusion - you know a nice mid-size sedan. We got a bonus upgrade to a Saturn Vue. Which is a Holden Captiva in Australia which we looked at getting at one stage. Larry's impression of it - it's a boat! *giggles*

Oh and the internet is so fast here!