The incedibly mundane and rare ramblings of Benji

No Gender December: Abbott criticises bid to end gender stereotypes in toys http://gu.com/p/43nm5 Not just in toys, but in clothes and stuff too. The weight on children to conform to gender stereotypes starts really early. Girls should like certain movies, boys should have certain haircuts. If you don't think this pigeonholing of children affects the diversity of our adults you are fooling yourself.

So, the most hectic thing is nearly done. For a little while at least. No doubt something else crazy will come to take its place. It is good to be so close to the light at the end of this particular tunnel though. I think this is the most phone calls and emails I've ever sent outside of work. Hopefully big announcement Friday. I know you are all waiting I impatiently. All meaning probably no-one, I often feel like this blog is just a meditation to myself. Related, it occurred to me today to put my Twitter on holiday and cut down to just this and instagram until the new year. That could be interesting. If I do it.

My wife's writing is so solid. She is amusing and engaging. It is a shame she hasn't blogged for a while. It is much better than this. Hopefully she'll find time to write again soon, because I miss it, and I think she has thoughts worth sharing.

I always forget the Melbourne cup public holiday. Not a huge drama, since I work in New South Wales now. I still find it mystifying that we have a public holiday for a horse race. I think it is weird. You may have guessed, I'm not a fan of gambling. You're correct. I find horse racing bizarre. Most other sports seem to happily exist as a diversion or entertainment for people, but I have never met anyone who watches horse or dog racing without financial involvement, most likely because if you are not betting, it is fucking mind numbing. So those are my thoughts on the Melbourne cup.

How do people even buy houses without having nervous breakdowns ?

Now I'm starting to get anxious. Meeting the bank this afternoon. Get to see if they will give us money or not. It feels kind of like a job interview. Not a fan of those. Need to keep the rambling under control Benjamin. Three hours to go. Hopefully I run out of energy to continue to be anxious. We will see. Anxiety is annoying. At least there is a reason today. I was fairly chilled last night. Now my brain has gone crazy. Need to stay busy. Back to work in a minute. Later bloglings

Currently swinging between stress over everything, and calm in the knowledge that you can't change things outside of your control. Have to try to let the calm win out. The littlest monkey is learning to swim, so that is exciting. Does anyone read these things? Leave a comment or something. Feedback welcome.

I'm so glad that wifekins and I are generally on the same wavelength, but don't have identical views. I love that we have similar but different interests,and have learnt to enjoy the things that the other is into. I can't imagine how boring it would be to be married to a clone, or someone without opinions or interests. So,if people tell you you're incompatible because you don't like all the same things, tell them to shove it, sometimes learning about the things that makes your spouse tick helps you learn how they tick. This post is bought to you by our shared love of Tetris (because sometimes it's nice to like the same things too).

I'm so glad that wifekins and I are generally on the same wavelength, but don't have identical views. I love that we have similar but different interests,and have learnt to enjoy the things that the other is into. I can't imagine how boring it would be to be married to a clone, or someone without opinions or interests. So,if people tell you you're incompatible because you don't like all the same things, tell them to shove it, sometimes learning about the things that makes your spouse tick helps you learn how they tick. This post is bought to you by our shared love of Tetris (because sometimes it's nice to like the same things too).

You know what is a pain? Trying to buy a house. Every time we find something, it is already under offer. It feels like there is a bunch of people out there falling over themselves to rip you off. There is no real step by step guide of how to do it, it what to expect. Everything on the internet is trying to ensnare you into some modern house and land package with a tiny block and a giant house. I don't like this universe where a half metre strip between your house and the fence counts as a yard, unless you have fantastic public spaces for people to use. Or maybe I'm just annoyed today. Oh well, we'll keep trying.

Last night boo, who is 5, and I went to see Seussical the musical at the cube, put on by livid productions. She loved it, was entranced and excited the whole time and clapping enthusiastically at every song. But to get there was quite the trial. How much time does one need to set aside to get pizza at a nearby restaurant? Apparently and hour is not enough. Dinner ended with us powerwalking to the venue while eating pizza out of takeaway containers. After telling them we were in a hurry they still managed to seat and feed people who arrived after us. It was crazy. So after eating a couple of slices, we threw the remaining pizza in the car and got into the venue in time for the show. Upside, I got pizza for lunch today. Doubtful we will be frequenting Hollywood's again, they are just too slow when you're feeding kids. Seussical the musical was fantastic. My highlights were Boo's eyes lighting up when the cat in the hat came on stage, and an excited "i've read this ...

Taking Boo to the theatre for the first time tonight. Seussical the musical. Wish me luck. She wants to take popcorn, you cannot do that with live theatre can you? And how many stuffed toys can you take with you? I think one is ample. Parenting is weirder than you can possibly imagine sometimes. Hopefully one day wifekins will write her book about it.

There is a guy on the front of the Herald Sun looks like a bloke I used to work with. Wouldn't have put it passed him to be financing terrorists either. Probably not those terrorists but if the right ones took his fancy. Probably more of a join up and do it himself fella to be honest. You come across some interesting characters in life, don't you ?

I really do not use this often enough. Should I use it more? Should it go the way of my Facebook? Do I have anything interesting to say? What do people want from a blog nowadays. Opinion? Prose? Long form life updates? Rambling nonsense? Musings on the nature of blogging? Weird thing. I resisted instagram for a long time, and it may be my favourite social media now. So few of my tweets are original content now, it is odd. My feed has also drifted quite left. Not that it was ever super balanced. Isn't social media a strange thing? The internet has enveloped so much of our day to day. Writing it in the internet for the sake of irony. There was a housing estate up here with no internet, people were saying how it was ruining their life. There is no distinction between online and meatspace, both are aspects of peoples 'real life'. It took me a lengthy disconnect before I disabled my Facebook. I never liked it the way I liked Twitter, so not sure why I stayed as long as I did....