real life

Twenty Five years.

by frogpondsrock on February 3, 2012

Wow internet that is a long time.

Well it’s not really a long time if you are a tree or a rock or a giant squid.

BUT it is a long time to have been married.

Today is my anniversary, The Spouse and I have been together for 25 years.

I often flippantly say that I found him on the side of the road and decided to keep him, well that is true, up to a point.

I didn’t really decide to keep “The Spouse” until four years later.

What I don’t say is that I only went out with The Spouse for a few months when I was seventeen.

“The Spouse” swears that for him, it was love at first sight. He says he just knew that I was the one for him.

At the fickle age of seventeen I just thought he was rather hot and very fuckable. I went out with him for a few months and then dumped him when he started to talk about long term plans.

At the words lets settle down,I went WTF and bolted.

I bumped into Jeff at the pub again when I was 18 or 19 and one look into those eyes of his and I was immediately smitten again. But once again he vowed and declared that I was the only one for him and I was off like a shot.

At the age of 20 I was living a rather torrid life. The share house I was living in was full of crazy people doing crazy people things. I was working night shift in a popular blues nightclub and I wasn’t just burning the candle at both ends, I was putting a blow torch to the middle of the fucker as well.

Enter “The Spouse” into my life again

Third time must have been the trick because on my 21st birthday I decided that maybe there was some merit to settling down with this bloke and so I jumped onto the back of his motorcycle and we have never looked back.

I like this photo very much, even though I joke that I should have moved the knife block a bit closer.

“The Spouse is often underneath my car fixing it for me.

I was telling him to pose for the camera and we got the giggles.

This is my favourite “Arty” shot of the Spouse.

Hey Jeffrey Foale. I do Love you!

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We can’t let the shouters, silence the rest of us.

by frogpondsrock on January 18, 2012

in Distractions galore!,potential insanity,real life

Melinda Tankard-Reist shouts a lot.

She shouts about porn and the exploitation of women, she presents herself as a feminist and campaigns against the sexualisation of our girls.

Playboy bunnies on eight year old girls knickers make me a bit shouty as well and I think we should all be making a lot more noise about the sexualisation of our little girls.

BUT

What Melinda Tankard Reist would prefer that we didn’t know about her is that she is a fundamentalist Christian.

A god botherer of the first order who attends a Baptist church.

I didn’t know this, because to be honest even though I follow Melinda Tankard Reist on twitter I find her hysterical screechings to be a bit exhausting and I only notice her occasionally.

Once I was made aware of Melinda Tankard Reist’s religious leanings a lot of her opinions were immediately put into context.

A context that Melinda Tankard Reist doesn’t seem to like me having.

And it also seems that Melinda Tankard Reist would prefer that her religious preferences aren’t talked about.

Melinda Tankard Reist says,

“She tries to follow Jesus, but she doesn’t want anybody focusing on her religion because that will distract from her work.”

I tend to disagree.

I think it is of critical importance that we have a context within which to frame our responses to Melinda Tankard Reist’s anti porn and anti abortion campaigns.

I think that Melinda Tankard Reist’s religion is very, very important to how I perceive her and her work. It doesn’t distract me from her work at all, it gives me the previously mentioned context.

Dr Jennifer Wilson has been persistent in her public questioning of Melinda Tankard Reist and Dr Wilson writes that she is now being sued by Tankard Reist for declaring on her blog, “No Place for Sheep” that Tankard Reist is a Baptist and attends a Baptist church.

MTR threatens Sheep with legal action if we don’t censor our posts about her immediately

In the conversation that ensued on twitter between No place for Sheep, Weezmgk and myself, I offered my public support to Dr Wilson

This conversation in turn inspired Machine Gun Keyboard to write this post in support of Dr Wilson

Melinda Tankard-Reist is not the internet nor sex police

So here I stand on my soapbox on my blog declaring loudly that I am Spartacus, because it is incredibly, incredibly important that WE DO NOT LET THE SHOUTERS WIN.

We the public should always, always question the motivations of high profile public campaigners,politicians or anyone else that purports to speak in our name.

I AM SPARTACUS!

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The problem with Paypal and why I am considering closing my Paypal account. A warning to other bloggers.

by frogpondsrock on December 28, 2011

in blogging,real life

In the middle of raising the funds for Annie’s iPad, unbeknown to me, Paypal limited my account. That is why some of you were unable to donate.

Luckily for us and for Annie, Paypals actions didn’t affect our outcome as the gorgeous Nathalie had teed up a discounted iPad from her local Apple Store.

Marita went ahead and purchased Annie’s iPad on her credit card, knowing that the funds that you had generously donated would be available.

Mission accomplished internet. Annie has her iPad.

Can you imagine my dismay that same afternoon, when I went to send Marita the money and I saw this message.

Basking in the happy afterglow of our achievement, I should have been skipping around the house saluting the generostity of my lovely internetz. Instead I was left with an administrative headache that I didn’t want to talk about online, in case it put a downer on the collective happiness we were all feeling.

I was presented with a series of hoops I was required to jump through in order to get my account up and running again.

I managed to confirm my identity without any problems. I then had to upload a recent bank statement which I was loathe to do. Giving paypal that sort of information about my recent financial history made me very, very uncomfortable, but I did it.

Then I really hit a stumbling block, as I had used a donate button I had to explain my charity’s mission statement. Oh dear. I am not a charity I am just a person who wanted to harness the power of the internet to give a little girl an iPad. This is when I rang Paypal and began the five day process of lifting the limitations on my account.

Luckily for me, Marita was happy to wait until the Paypal funds were cleared and she refused my offer of paying her the cash myself.

Five days from start to finish, three phonecalls and various administrative hoops later, your money internet, is in Marita’s bank.

And I am sitting here trying to work out all the reasons why I am grumpy with paypal.

I am grumpy because paypal took $27.00 in charges.

I wasn’t aware of these sort of fees being applied. When I have donated in the past using paypal I just assumed that all of my donation would go through. So I am grumpy with my own naivety as well as Paypals business practice.

When I was talking to one of Paypals customer service representatives he told me that blogs were in a regulatory grey area and that the sort of limitations that were put on my account were quite common. He gave me the usual spiel about terrorism and money laundering and financial laws, etc. etc.

As I went higher up the corporate food chain the attitude of the employees wasn’t exactly condescending but it was tinged with a subtle arrogance. There was an undertone in the conversation that suggested that I was swimming in murky financial waters.

I am writing this blog post as a warning to other bloggers to be careful when using Paypal to raise money. Because even though a Paypal donate button with the tracker widget is a lovely and convenient way to raise money. It is also quite a headache trying to get your account up and running again if Paypal decide to limit your account.

All in all 32 lovely people donated $725 minus the $27 in fees and I was able to transfer $698 to Marita last night.

Now the question I ask myself is, “Would I do it again?” Yes I would, but I would have to think of a better way to collect the money raised rather than being at the mercy of Paypal. I think the fact that I presented myself as “high profile” Australian blogger helped to hurry along the procedure. As once I started to google Paypal complaints I found that some people have been waiting a long time to sort out these sorts of issues.

Anyhow internet, once again thankyou so very very much for helping to make this Christmas so very special for one little girl.

And as for you Paypal, I havent quite decided what to do about you just yet.

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