Dan Makovec’s blog

I Just don’t get Dreamweaver!

Sorry, I just can’t figure this bitch out! I’m doing my site by hand. I’ve got the layout done by hand, a global template and CSS file ready for all the pages, and most of the graphics complete, but Dreamweaver just makes *no* sense to me whatsoever! How the hell do layout tables work for anything other than the most basic crap? What is with that CSS editor? Why is it all so hard??!! Am I just getting old or what? I’m going back to Perl hacking.

Why do we bother?

OK, in the past few entries my posts have taken on a slightly pro-gay political agenda, inspired partly by last weekend’s mardi gras. I’m getting a bit tired of the topic, but feel I have to make one last post before I move on to other things.

Yesterday I was out walking with a colleague and we were discussing my involvement in Saturday’s parade. After the regular “which way did you face/is your arse bruised from pinching/did you get any numbers” jokes, he asked me “so why do they still feel the need to put on a parade?” I explained that it was a predominantly a political protest march, but in camp tradition it was just dolled up as fun. He then suggested that there are a million other things that we should be having protest marches for, why do gays still feel it necessary to march? It’s not like they’re still discriminated against or anything in this century.

I calmly explained that there were still some major areas of discrimination that need to be addressed. The first one that came into my mind at the time was the issue of next-of-kin rights for relationships, and we left it at that.

The more I thought about his comments, the more I came to realise the importance of such demonstrations. There’s still a long way to go.

The gay populace is one of the few minorities that it is still ok to make fun of, albeit in a supposedly harmless way. Many people still use the phrase “that is so gay” in a derogatory manner. Even some close friends make occasional “harmless” jokes based on nothing more than passing references to people’s sexuality (usually in the form of a subtle reference to anal sex - I wonder how they’d like it if their sexual habits were constantly referred to…). In this century.

In today’s Metro I read of a RAF sergeant who was sacked despite an exemplary 20 year service record when his sexuality was discovered. It took four years for him to win a court case for unfair dismissal. In this century.

Last night I received a call from an antipodean friend I hadn’t talked to in a couple of weeks. I’d never heard him like that before - he was in tears. He’d originally had to leave his own country for London four years ago because not only did his parents not approve when they discovered his sexuality, they threatened to kill him rather than let him live as a disgrace to the family. Ever since he’d arrived, he’d had to keep moving every few months as members of his family learned his contact details and harassed him over the phone, again with threats of violence. This weekend it happened again. He’s scared and doesn’t know where to run to now. In this century.

A few months ago, I received a message from Andrew. He told me about an old Adelaidean friend, Ben. Having been kicked out of the family home at the age of 14 because of his sexuality in 1994, he’d spent the past few years living with other relatives and sleeping on friend’s couches. He had to drop out of highschool because of intimidation and violence by fellow students. He became depressed, and this year it all got too much for him. He took an overdose of drugs and killed himself. In this century.

This is why it’s still necessary to hold these protests. People need to know they’re not alone. People need to constantly stand up for the rights they have and push until they have the same rights as heterosexuals. Every person needs to push until they really are treated no differently to everyone else.

This takes the cake

Y! colleague Jeremy just posted a reference to an article about a New York school that has been set up purely to cater for gay and lesbian students.

How fucking narrow-minded is this?! I can’t believe anybody would be stupid enough to believe that this is any sort of a solution to discrimination and harrassment based on sexual orientation. Talk about your short-sighted do-gooders trying for a quick fix solution while sweeping the real problem under the carpet! People really can be thick sometimes. Now gays and lesbians are put into the same category as “special” students who have something wrong with them and need to be schooled separately. Have these people not considered the concept of putting money into general education on such issues, such as that being currently used to help control racism?

London Pride

It’s 12pm on Sunday, and I’m still in bed recovering from yesterday. Why the hell I’ve dobbed myself in for Riot this afternoon is beyond me, but some weird gravitational force is pulling me towards New Oxford St and more rediculously loud music…

Yesterday I got up at 7am. Yes, that’s about 2 hours earlier than I usually get up during the week. Once our happy household was all up and ready to go, we hit the tube and landed at Embankment, where we began our sign-in procedure for stewarding the London Pride Parade. The turn-out was huge - most probably because by stewarding got you a free ticket into the otherwise 25 quid Hyde Park after party. I was amazed by all the people I knew who were there!

After donning our bright yellow steward shirts, we were walked up to our station - on the corner of Picadilly circus, next to Tower Records, where each section of the parade had to stop and turn around. Crowd control was our objective, and frankly it was a bit of a challenge! Luckily for us, most of the roads around Picadilly Circus already have permanent barriers alongside them, so there was only one temporary fence put up to hold the crowds back stretching across the street. Nick, Ingrid and I were in a group of 7, stretched along the outer perimeter of the corner.

We had a great view of all the floats and marchers, and I only had a few minor altercations with people jumping over fences (although let me tell you that attempting to physicall block a determined bull-dyke from crossing from point A to point B takes some effort!). About 90% of the crowd were well behaved, and a lot offered me support as I attempted to handle the more difficult customers. As for the parade itself - it was a bit smaller than I expected, but apparently there were 30 floats in it. The scenery was enough to make even the most discerning punter’s jaw drop in utmost awe. I’m sure there’s still a little puddle of my drool somewhere in the middle of Picadilly Circus!

I had a great moment when a 30-something queen, clearly off his face on coke, tried to push his way past me, and I had to use all my non-physical powers of persuasion to hold him back. Eventually he started getting a little aggressive when a huge, friendly police officer came up beside me, gave me a wink and said to him “you heard the gentleman. You’ve been asked to leave, now do it or I’ll have to arrest you”. Ooooer, the law reinforcing my words - ah, the power!!

A few minutes later the guy turned up again, this time from inside the parade (he’d managed to get in somewhere further down the track). He ran right up to me against the flow of the parade and yelled at my face “You stupid obstructionist c*nt!”. I told him thanks for the compliment, and that I’d been called worse. He looked puzzled for a moment, then turned around and minced off at high speed down the road. I turned back to the crowd, many of whom smiled and clapped - so I took a little bow
The parade lasted about an hour and a half, and after the last marchers went past, all the stewards, in a sea of yellow, circled in behind and brought up the rear. We got to march all the way down to Hyde Park, doing the Hokey Pokey, to the cheers of the crowd! Not a bad afternoon’s fun.

Once we got to the park, got signed out and our party passes, and rifled through our steward goodie bags for anything remotely worth keeping, we went into the venue where there were 5 different stages belting out all kinds of dance tracks (although thankfully no Kylie or Madge!!). That’s when the weather turned. I swear I have never seen rain like that in London before. Within about 45 minutes the place looked more like Woodstock than a gay pride festival!

Fortunately many of the dance areas had been set up in huge circus-like tents, so we pushed our way into them. I had a lot of sympathy for the poor stewards who were trying to maintain crowd levels in the tents by stopping people from entering, having just been through that a couple of hours before - but that didn’t stop us, we got the hell out of the rain and into some serious pumping. Pretty soon we were doing the rave scene from Matrix Reloaded (only boys were kissing boys and girls kissing girls). I met heaps of great people there, and even got a few numbers!

The party finished just after 10pm, after which we had to make a mad dash across the park in the driving rain to the tube stations. I went off with Guy, a Zimbabwean I met at the party, down to the Fridge at Brixton, where the hard-house was so hard that it gave you whiplash. By about 1am we were pooped so headed our separate ways home, me via the good ol’ night bus. This time however I’d had such a great day that I didnt’ feel the need to sing Casey Chambers’ “Am I Not Pretty Enough” at the top of my voice on the upper deck of the bus to keep the other passengers amused (unlike 2 previous occasions).

So yeah, a fantastic day out. Even the pouring rain didn’t dampen anyone’s spirits, although I’ve just checked my clothes, and despite two hours of hard pumping at the Fridge, they’re still quite damp even now! I think I’ve pulled up ok, and now I’ve got another hour and a half to prep myself for today’s assault on the senses. Wish me luck!

You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry…

I nearly peed myself when this article just scrolled across my ticker. Apparently the new Hulk toys are not only anatomically correct, they’re well endowed! If only it were true for all dolls…

Faster still

OK, I’ve standardized on a 40 minute run, every other night. As of last night I’ve got my speed up to 12km/h for the entire 40 minutes. That’s 8km or 5 miles total distance. I’m online for a 48 minute 6 mile split - Ben baby, I’m catching up!

I think I’ll keep my time constant and work on my speed for the next month. If I can get up to 14.5km/h I’ll have the 6 miler under 40 minutes, which doesn’t sound too hard because I’m not really straining too much at current speed. At this point I really should book a flight to Seattle, because it means I’ll be actually be able to keep up with my rather mobile friend while jogging around town chatting about life, love and the universe!

Geographic blogging!

OK, this is way cool. I just stumbled across GeoURL while looking up information on how to mirror MT entries over to LJ (more on this later). I’ve set my blog up now so that somebody could click on this image () and find all the bloggers within a certain geographical distance from me! How’s that for excellent? I never knew my neighbours could be so interesting!

Light and fit

Ok ok, I know I said I’m not a big fan of Mardi Gras or anything like that. But if there’s one thing that’s common to all Londoners (as I’m starting to consider myself - I know all 13 tube lines and cook bland food), it’s that every one of us is a hypocrite.

So it’s in this light that I can make public the fact that I will be taking part in this year’s Pride in the Park. Well actually, I’ll be participating as a steward in the Pride Parade leading from Embankment to Hyde Park. Basically the job involves donning some tight jeans, a bright yellow t-shirt and keeping the parade moving by walking alongside the floats and helping keep the crowds at bay.

Of course my intentions are not entirely altruistic. By taking part in this bit of fun (which involves getting down to Embankment by 9.30 on Saturday - ugh!!) I get free entry to Hyde Park and the party, saving a 25 quid entrance fee! Rock on I say
From there it’s home for a nap, then the world famous Trade rave on Sunday morning followed by the equally infamous Riot in the afternoon. Oh dear, I feel a Monday sickie looming!

I’ll try to get some pictures online after the event. In the meantime it’s time to collapse. My 4 hours sleep have finally let me down, and I’m worn out.

Light and fit

I almost forgot to mention - because I took the day off yesterday in preparation for night shift, I hit the gym pretty early. I managed my longest run ever (40 mins at 11.5km/h constant) and hardly felt it. Then I jumped on the scales and checked my weight. At 79.3kg (174.8lbs) I’m now at my lightest since I was 12 years old!

Today I’m feeling a bit tired and sore in the leg department, but that’s probably a combination of yesterday’s running and my 4am late night. I did actually make it home earlier than planned - now all I have to do is get Y! to compensate me for the 16 pound cab fare.

Night shift

Well today is the day that the past 6 months have been leading up to. I”m off at the moment, but starting night-shift from 9pm till the first tube runs at about 6am. Yup, we launch our system today, and with a little luck, none of the public will be any the wiser. Of course, if it fucks up then we’ll bring half of Europe offline, but that’s the risk you take I guess
so it’s all pizza and coke for me tonight. This’ll be the first night-shift I’ve done since Tokyo in ‘01, and I’m not sure that I”m still able to handle it. On the other hand, I’ve been doing pretty well at the clubs lately, admittedly aided by some stimulants. Maybe I’ll be having double caff dopio’s all night.