Category: General

Cats seem to find comfort in the most uncomfortable places. Here are a couple of examples from around the house.

Bruce in the tube on his cat tree (snug, but not long enough):

Lolly (Heidi’s parents’ cat) sleeping with her forehead on the seat:

At first, I just thought that she was looking at something.

It’s time to pack up and move back to Perth. That means packing my computer (and router, and everything else), and that means goodbye to you, Internet.

Keep in touch, Internet. I’ll see you on Sunday… or maybe not for a while. 🙁

Ah, we had some good times sharing our obsession with cats. (Although you can get pretty creepy sometimes, and you’re prone to borderline stalking.)

Upbeat or downbeat? I’m not sure.

Here are the lyrics.

It was a beautiful day, so I decided to take some photos. One more week to go…

This video was highly recommended by Dan on twitter:

Here’s the video description:

Professor Philip Zimbardo conveys how our individual perspectives of time affect our work, health and well-being. Time influences who we are as a person, how we view relationships and how we act in the world.

It’s an interesting speech that is well worth your time.

I was particularly interested in the assertions regarding education. Probably because both major political parties in Australia are advocating a “return to basics” approach to education, which Professor Zimbardo implies is destined for failure.

I’ve been reading a lot about transgender issues.

From Wikipedia:

Transgender is a general term applied to a variety of individuals, behaviors, and groups involving tendencies to vary from the usual gender roles.

Transgender is the state of one’s “gender identity” (self-identification as woman, man, neither or both) not matching one’s “assigned sex” (identification by others as male, female or intersex based on physical/genetic sex).

Importantly, it has nothing to do with sexual orientation.

Gender transition is one of the most overt and visible aspects of transgenderism. The concept that people can change their gender is interesting, and seeing results of the process can be astonishing.

Photo series are intermittently posted to online forums; usually either by someone interested in gender transition themselves, or by someone fascinated by the results (hopefully without moral judgement).

Here are some that I have come across online:

These results may not be typical, but they do show that gender transition is achievable with medical treatments such as hormone replacement therapy. They demonstrate that there are options for people who want to change their physical and social gender. (Although they may lead to unrealistic expectations regarding results.)

Fortunately, there are more balanced transgender resources online. Lynn Conway has an informative site documenting her own experiences and including galleries with links to other personal stories (rather than spectacular photo series without no broader context) which often describe issues faced by transgender people.

It’s interesting to read about how transgenderism is viewed by different cultures.

Most western cultures traditionally treat transgenderism in much the same way as minority sexual orientations: as something of which to be ashamed. Although it does appear that most societies are becoming increasing progressive and accepting.

Some Asian cultures consider transsexualism to be rather novel and entertaining, which could be construed as better or worse depending on your perspective. Here’s a video of Thai “newhalf” Nong Poy appearing on a Japanese television program:

Transgender issues generally represent conflict between personal liberty and social expectations. People have a right to live life as they want to, but most societies strongly define gender roles. As a result, there tends to be broad social stigma associated with transgenderism (which is disappointing).

Popular culture seems to be consistently intrigued by transgenderism.

Artists and writers have utilised it as an interesting theme for exploration or documentation (eg. Ranma 1/2, Transamerica, The Iron Ladies). However, there’s a fine line between interesting media coverage and derogatory exploitation in popular culture (eg. There’s Something About Miriam, tabloid coverage of Lana Wachowski).

While intriguing, many people also seem to find it rather confronting.

Fortunately, the Internet allows anyone to engage with transgendered people (eg. via personal online videos) without intermediary mainstream media. This is particularly beneficial in improving understanding within the general population, and in providing information and solidarity for other transgendered people.

This video (while professional produced) tells a personal story:

Ruth eloquently explains that:

It’s immensely uncomfortable to have people perceive you as male, when you feel that you’re female.

That’s a plain and straightforward assessment which is very difficult to argue with in any objective way.

At some point, most people will feel that their body doesn’t match up with who they are inside. Rather than gender, these feelings may result from relative weight, height, age or any number of other factors. Although relatively minor, these experiences may facilitate greater empathy with transgendered people.

Anyhow, I’ll end this post with one of my more interesting findings:

The Australian Sports Commission overtly discredits the assumption that “males will change gender in order to reap rewards in women’s sport which they are unable to obtain by competing in men’s sport”. Wow. It’s amazing that they even have to discuss such ridiculous assertions.

Han Hoogerbrugge is responsible for some superb interactive artwork.

I can’t believe that he’s been active online since 1998, and I haven’t heard about him until now. Maybe I’ve seen his stuff before… but I didn’t realise the volume and quality of his work. It’s like discovering nekogames or vectorpark for the first time.

Here’s the first work I came across (via reddit) and here’s an example of his style in a music video for “You’ve got to…” by The Young Punx:

Magical stuff.

There’s a cat in the neighbourhood with some very distinctive markings. I call him “Batman”. Fittingly, he tends to hide in shadows while stalking our cat, Bruce.

Since Mao passed away, I’ve been slowly working on a children’s book about her. I’ve written the text, but I really need to improve at drawing cats in order to hit the level of quality I hope to achieve for the illustrations.

I feel that I’m making progress, but I’m not there yet. At the moment, I’m focussing on learning shape and texture by sketching in greyscale. I want the final illustrations to be more stylised and simplistic (and colourful obviously!)

I tend not to use commercial software (I don’t have Photoshop or Painter). So I’ve been using MyPaint, an open source painting program with a great range of brushes and an “infinite” canvas. (There’s a good introduction here).

It’s taking a while to learn the ins and outs of the MyPaint, but I can see a lot of potential in it. I get the feeling that I need to: find a set of brushes that I like; and work out how/if I want to use layers. Aside from that it’s all practise I suppose.

Hopefully, my time at the cat sanctuary in Langkawi will help me improve quickly. I probably won’t have a tablet and PC with me, but I will have a sketchbook!

Heidi and I went to see “Rev on The Road”, a local presentation of some films from the Revelation Perth International Film Festival.

The double bill included: The Family Jams, a music documentary focussing on Vetiver‘s 2004 tour with Devendra Banhart and Joanna Newsom; and Stingray Sam, an episodic musical space western.

The Family Jams had a rather disjoint start, but later revealed itself to be a wistful and charming travelogue that manages to sincerely capture the life experiences of a close group of musicians and friends.

My favourite song from the film was probably “Bridges and Balloons” by Joanna Newsom. Here’s a video for it:

Stingray Sam was more focussed on entertainment with imaginative writing, good humour, and balanced pacing. The musical numbers (from the Billy Nayer Show) were particularly entertaining.

Episodes 1 & 2 of Stingray Sam are online on Cory McAbee’s homepage. My favourite song from the series features in episode 2; here’s a video:

Heidi and I have just finalised plans for our next holiday.

We originally planned to go the US (including a week-long stay at a dude ranch), but then decided that we’d rather have a short relaxing journey somewhere nearby (leaving visiting the US until we have at least a couple of few months free).

Given that we’ve seen a lot of Thailand and Singapore this year, we figured that we’d try somewhere new in South-east Asia. Bali was an early consideration, but we were concerned about how touristy it is meant to be, and about the possibility of a dengue fever outbreak. So we opted for Langkawi instead.

It took a few days of planning (tripadvisor and Wikitravel were invaluable), but I feel that we’ve put together a great holiday for a reasonable budget. It includes: boutique resorts, wooden villas, kelongs, a few days in Kuala Lumpur, full-recline airplane seats, and a whole bunch of cats.

I searched flickr for a few of the places we are planning to stay at, and the photo indices reassured me that we have made the right choices. Below are some thumbnails from various searches.

Cats at the Bon Ton Resort, which includes an animal shelter and sanctuary:

Kelongs at the Langkawi Lagoon Resort:

Add good food to all of the above, and I’m really looking forward to it! 😀