strata meeting: an extraordinary affair that brings together owners to discuss sometimes trivial matters that would have a significant material impact on the other occupants and owners who don't give a fuck about turning up


because i'm a concerned owner, i attend an extraordinary strata meeting on tuesday to decide on the colour they were going to repaint the building. nothing concerned me more than the right to exercise my vote against having that hideous baby blue that was on the list of colours.

so in a civil debate about the merits of the right colour during a meeting, mr colour pants declares the greys everyone has picked is too depressing and industrial. honestly, if you wanted to live in a building that had the colour scheme of toys-r-us, i'm sure there are many suburbs that would accommodate your colour of choice, mr colour pants.

i live in a building full of cold, unfriendly, inner city gays, frigid old heterosexual couples who have sex once a year and singles who want nothing more than be anonymous. so depressing and industrial colours are the only colours we want to reflect our inner personas. so we can continue to give each other fuck you looks in the lifts and ignore each other in the lift.

if you want to avoid sinking into the void of depression everyone else has in this building mr colour pants, i suggest you find another place to live where people have a sunnier disposition. maybe in queensland.

stereotypes - how much do i hate thee?

while making a drink with another boy at a party, a vacuous white twink comes in to ask if he could have one. sure, its a party, we're happy to share. VWT proceeds to say gosh you two speak much better english than that asian boy i was chatting with out there. i didn't understand a word he was saying. i handed him his drink feeling a little insulted and wanting to say why thank you, i had plenty of time to learn english while i was in a boat on the way australia when i was a child. but because i'm a gracious guest, i leave the kitchen biting my tongue.

sam de brito wrote an excellent opinion piece in the herald two sundays ago about stereotypes and how we are choose to hold on to perceptions around race. he talks about his perception of asian baristas making bad coffee which i'm sure isn't true since the september issue of the sydney magazine had two asians amongst the five photographed in an article on the best baristas in sydney.

i hate being stereotyped.

just because i'm gay and asian, it doesn't mean:

- i speak bad english.
- i am a gold digging mail order bride looking for a sponsor.
- i work in retail and have to go to work on sunday.
- i like older white men.
- i only like asian men.
- i only go to the midnight shift.
- i intend to seduce/steal your boyfriend because there is a dire shortage of good rice queens in sydney.

we could spend our entire lives putting people in compartments but i wish i lived in a community which isn't hung up on stereotypes. we already have other battles to fight sometimes just being gay.

so if you have your stereotypical views about gay asian boys, let me dispel some of them. and i might be speaking for quite a few of you too:

- i've learnt and spoken english my entire life
- i moved to australia on a skilled independent visa with no sponsorship required
- i have a fabulous career and make decent money
- i like my men smart, successful and in good shape -- age and race are not pre-requisites but looks are [shoot me]
- you will never hold a good rice queen down because they are built to wander

breathe. think happy thoughts.

1/ the buzz around new moon fascinates me. besides the fact its a twilight sequel and has crap reviews, everyone talks about it. but my only fascination with new moon lies with taylor lautner. how the hell did he get from reed thin to hunky bulky? maybe its a blessing to be 17yo - where all you need to do is eat every two hours and go to the gym five days a week to look like this. i like the little edward versus jacob camp that is playing out. honestly, jacob wins hands down. but what a girl in my office said is so true, its so wrong! i see photos of that boy and all i can think about is, i'd really like to put something in your mouth. but except you are only 17yo which puts me on the border of being...... and i'm not being a potty mouth, go watch the interview on youtube. growl. werewolves are hot.

2/ the boys at ksubi made me laugh. the tag on my new board shorts. how can you not buy this?

3/ please jesus, i know its only monday. but i'd like the week to be over please.

That familiar feeling has come to visit again
But I remind myself its no longer the same
It’s the past I’ve left behind
And it’s the present I can no longer claim
So when the dark clouds cast shadows of doubt
I find the strength to be in control again
I might comes across as if I’m being wicked
Or that I’m being mean
But I just can’t put myself back in those feelings again

dear libra

many things get stuffed in my mailbox everyday. bills, development applications, pizza menus etc. so i was quite surprised to find a sanitary napkin sample in my weekly collection of mail. if you've done a little more market research, you'll probably realise that i live in a gay neighbourhood filled with boys. i think they were just as surprised as me when they found your sample wrapped in plastic with a pamphlet touting your product range. i'm not sure how many more new customers you would have gained from this exercise. i've never needed a sanitary napkin and i don't intend to use one. i'm sure i speak for the other boys. we just don't really know what to do with those things. its a bit like stuffing safe sex packs in my hands when i leave a party. i don't have sex with strangers because i'm frigid so its a real waste of your resources. but if you were really resourceful and wanted to get my attention, you'd put things in my mailbox that i'd like to have. for example:

a round the world ticket with an unlimited credit limit on a card
some pharmaceutical drugs to help me relax and sleep at the end of my day
a handwritten note from kerry degman telling me he loves me and wants to marry me
a letter from the bank telling me my mortgage has been paid off

until then, you might want to fire those people who are wasting your marketing budget with this poor targeting.

on an occasion as rare as a sighting of the virgin mary, i wandered to nevermind on saturday. it was an impromptu outing driven by the sunny saturday afternoon and too much wine over dinner. every gay person and his dog would probably have a story about why they don't go out as much as they used to.

other than the fact that i like cocooning and having friends over instead, its no secret the bar scene is in desperate need of a facelift. or that oxford st is decrepit. i'm expecting visitors from the US and i've been shuffling in embarrassment over taking them to a decent gay bar which doesn't make our gay scene look provincial. a place which isn't busting in the seams playing 80s and 90s, culturally or tribally skewed or has a floor that doesn't stick from all the spilled drinks. so i've been saved this coming weekend.

now if only someone would take care of all the skanky riff raff on oxford st, a night out would be much better again.

dear labor party

i am sick and tired of this fence sitting. you are obviously not seriously about climate change and the ETS because if you were, you'd be holding a 2020 summit again to get the brightest and best to come together to discuss what is an equitable solution for the future generations. you would be involving every citizen in asking for their feedback on what they thought would be an agreeable target for emissions reduction. you would be telling every australian what is the environmental cost of doing nothing and how it will impact on their lives in the future. you would tell all those dirty extractive industries to suck eggs and invest in a clean tech economy.

instead you spend every waking moment looking at how you can grant concessions to industry and businesses who are going down the toilet for the horrible things they do to the environment. why are you hiding behind the "need to protect the australian economy" or that "you will act when the rest of the world will commit".

do you not have a price on the environment?

do you not understand the concept of leadership to drive change?

maybe if you sat in a train carriage baking in the sun on melbourne cup day on the harbour bridge, you'd have time to reflect and realise this could very well be the everyday scenario in australia with climate change in the future. that industry and businesses would grind to a halt because their workforce is stranded on a bus/train/road because the grid has broken from an overwhelming demand for electricity. or businesses would be sitting in the dark because data centres and telecommunication systems have shut down and australia is offline from the rest of the world for hours.

that little refugee standoff you are having in indonesia will hardly be an issue because we'd have tides of pacific refugees on the shores of australia because their islands have sunk under the rising tides because of global warming. or worry about whether china will continue to buy coal from us. because the answer is they've realised the problems developed economies are facing and would have evolved into clean energy and dumped coal. which is fine for us since we'd still be running those brown coal power plants that we can't compensate and we could probably use some.

its not too late to make a stand before copenhagen. its not too late to change.