I'm Huge in Australia

My blog entry about gays and Grindr got picked up by SameSame.com.au, a gay and lesbian Australia news site. I'm flattered, and it is producing some healthy discussion, mostly about the general use of such devices in person-to-person social settings. Again, it's not about the application or the iPhone, it's about when it's appropriate to use such things. But I think people are learning, albeit slower than I'd like them to.

But the negative karmic backlash has been brutal. Since December there's been a massive comment SPAM attack to this blog and I've had to report and delete dozens of marketing SPAM attempts daily. It's pretty time consuming. Sorry if your comment might have gotten blocked in the storm, but I think I've been pretty careful weeding out the fake comments. But they're getting smarter and sometimes I have to go directly into the comment editing window to see if it's legit or not.

Then today I arrived at work to find my PC was gone, and learned that it's producing it's own viral crap. It's currently under quarantine but fortunately I have an irritating handheld device that allows me to check work e-mail and a backup laptop. Sometimes it's useful to be the emergency guy with a convenient set of deliberate backup devices.

And some time after the New Year rolled in, or perhaps due to the bitter winds that have been blowing so hard, our on-demand water heater has been on the fritz. Sometimes it produces a minute of hot water, other times a bit more, but usually it's ice cold (12-degrees to be exact, according to the device's readout screen). And the landlord is away on travel on the other side of the planet, so I've been showering at work and at the gym. But I got in touch with him and will be calling some kind of repairman tomorrow.

Anyway, my troubles are small compared to that of gays in Uganda. If you haven't read the tardy story in the New York Times or on other blogs, there is a proposed bill in the African country of Uganda that would legislate the execution of gays in that country. It's horrible, and apparently the idea had it's origins from evangelical missionaries, ex-gay conversion specialists and even our own elected officials. I guess if they're not having success in the U.S., they take their idea of God's Will to other countries. In this case their ideas have gotten out of hand, but that's what can happen if you actively proselytize hateful ideas. Sometimes people like those ideas and go with it. So it just goes to show that these American evangelicals won't ever stop until we're dead, legally. Sorry if the blog coverage on these issues gets you down, but its reality and these bloggers are doing a great service to us in keeping an eye out on these things.

In lighter news, here's a trailer for Beardo: The Movie. It's about people with beards. The original En Vouge has reunited! Night of 1,000 Stevies will celebrate it's 20th anniversary, and I'm gonna go this time. And President Obama has appointed the first transgender woman to a federal government position, and she has quite a resume. But look at the comments in the article and you will see we have a long way to go with awareness and protection for the trangendered as well.