Not a Belieber

Okay, I do NOT understand the phenomenon that is Bieber. WTF?? There is something about this kid and his know-it-all attitude that is seriously getting to me.

I know that I am not an over-stimulated, hormone driven 15-year-old girl anymore, but this kid seriously is out of line with some of the crappola that is coming out of his mouth.

What is concerning is that his God-like status amongst everyone under the age of 17 (and many others much, much older) gives him a free ticket to do/say/sing what he likes.

This week a new interview between Rolling Stone Magazine and Bieber was published. The ‘teen sensation’ was asked about girls, love, sex, politics and everything in-between, and his responses (in my opinion) were….. well, you decide.

Sex: “I think you should just wait for the person you're...in love with”.

Aw, that’s nice Justin, but not how the world works, honey! At least this is a positive message for your younger fans.

Politics: "I'm not sure about the parties," Bieber says. "But whatever they have in Korea, that's bad."

Wow… um okay. Embarrassing much? For someone looking for world-domination you would think he would actually know what is going on in that said world? 

On America: The Canadian-born boy calls Americans “evil” and has no plans to become an American citizen. He also disses the US health-care system (or lack, there of).

On abortion: “I really don't believe in abortion" Bieber says. "It's like killing a baby." How about in cases of rape? "Um. Well, I think that's really sad, but everything happens for a reason. I don't know how that would be a reason. I guess I haven't been in that position, so I wouldn't be able to judge that."

No, that’s right Justin, you haven’t been placed in a situation like that and you don’t know how it feels, so please don’t give your opinion! PUNK! These comments really upset me!

PalindromicGirl on Twitter says: When Bieber is old enough to become pregnant herself, then maybe she'll understand.

I totally see now that people share my same confused frustration with this kid making comments about life issues that he has no idea about. I also understand the 'Bieber is a girl' references.... because as a 16-year-old boy commenting on girl issues - he has NO clue.

I just think that if you’re going to be in the lime-light and take a stance on issues that you feel are important, maybe first take a step back and think about how your comments come across to the public and fans. And maybe, if you don’t know what you’re talking about; don’t say anything at all.

How about you just stick to singing and get through that awkward phase when your voice breaks… you can also fill more of your time copying Usher’s dance moves.

Justin – your uneducated and frankly out of line comments are not welcome here.

Quotes from:
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/justin-bieber-talks-sex-politics-music-and-puberty-in-new-rolling-stone-cover-story-20110216

Being a good friend is hard sometimes...

It’s really hard when you have a friend make decisions that you don’t think is in their best interest; to say something and confront it has got to be a seriously hard thing to do.

In a round-about kind of way of explaining what I’m talking about, what do you do if you don’t agree with the decisions this person is making? What if you have a gut feeling that they are doomed and want to talk to them about it; is it really your place to or should you just not go there?

I know it sounds overly dramatic, but this is the pickle I have found myself in. I have had to contemplate having awkward conversations with a couple of friends lately and am not sure what approach to take... there are so many factors.
If only we could be telepathic and send warnings or messages to our loved ones that would send them down a safer path. Nothing like “hey, don’t go for that person, they’re not good for you” kind of obvious message, just subtle little hints that make them think twice.

We recently had a good friend move to London indefinitely, giving his family and friends just over one week’s notice and basically dropping all of his responsibilities to run away to an imaginary degree/job/life…. (he has high aspirations for himself and didn’t think he could achieve any of his dreams while living in Australia).

We couldn’t really say “you’ve got no concrete plans, no money, and no-one to support you over there” so we just wished him well in the hopes that he will figure his life out while living there (I would have chosen a cheaper place to run away to than London to have a quarter-life-crisis, but that’s just me!).
So I guess that while writing this, I’ve realised that it’s probably best to just be a supportive friend and hope that they are happy with the decisions they make in life. You can’t tell people what to do/say/date/live/work etc, and I’m not trying to force anything on the people I care about – I just wish that sometimes they’d open their eyes and bit a bit wiser to what is going on around them.

I will adopt the new mantra – if you’re happy, then I’m happy – to all my friends from now on. I guess that’s all you can do, right?

Grammy Awards

Although not my favourite Red Carpet event (I am holding out for the Oscars on Feb 28) the Grammy’s did not disappoint with the rockers and pop-princesses dressed to the nines for the music industry’s night out.

Best dressed women:

Jennifer Hudson in Versace – she looks so stunning.

Selena Gomez in J Mendel – even though she’s only 18, she looks so demure and grown up in this sexy gown.

Jennifer Lopez in Pucci with Cartier jewellery (wow I hope I have a body like that after I have kids!)

Ciara in Emilio Pucci

Best dressed men:

Bruno Mars was a notable mention for the gentlemen

Rocker Lenny Kravitz

Matthew Morrison from Glee

Love is in the air

I just wanted to dedicate this quick post to my parents-in-law Doug and Toni Veivers as it is their wedding anniversary this Saturday!

May you continue to have a loving and happy marriage!

What is everyone doing for Valentine’s Day? We have no plans as yet, but hopefully will do something nice as it is our first time celebrating the 'loveliest' day of the year as a married couple : )

xx

Gisele slams use of sunscreen

I just read that supermodel Gisele Bundchen has just been quoted that she doesn’t use sunscreen because she won’t ‘use that poison’ on her skin.

I have so many problems with this statement. She is a woman that millions around the world look up to, so she really should be watching what she says in the public arena.

Sun safety is regarded as a very important factor in the way people live their lives in Australia, and I’m sure the Cancer Council would be livid with celebrities making comments like this.

The reason Gisele doesn’t use sunscreen is because she refuses to use anything ‘synthetic’ or anything that contained chemicals on her skin. Rather, her approach to sun safety is to avoid being in the sun after 8am in the morning.

Being a supermodel, you would think that there are some women out there that aspire to be like her physically (hell, I would love to look like her) and have gorgeous tanned skin like hers. I just think this is taking things too far.

She is a mother with a small child – does she extend this same rule to sunscreen use on her son’s delicate skin? And not everyone has naturally olive skin like her – we are not all Brazilian and do not have the same tolerance of what the sun could do to our skin without adequate protection.

People in a position of ‘power’ should be using their celebrity status to do some good and relay smart messages for the greater good.

With all the information out there about the benefits of using sunscreen and being sun smart, this is no winning fight for Gisele. If I were her publicist, I would be getting her to retract those comments ASAP.

I just wanted to make a point that I have a family history of skin cancer and melanoma that has directly affected people I love very much – so screw you Gisele – I thought you were different, but after this I just think you are an air-headed model stereotype.

Making a house a home

So Ben and I are still on the journey to find the perfect house plan that will suit our needs both as a couple, and eventually, a family.

I have got to say, there are so many options out there, and I guess the thing that really gets me is that it is so easy to get excited and caught up in everything.

We went to a couple of displays yesterday and there were some amazing homes on show. If I weren’t a writer, I would definitely be an interior decorator. Some of these homes had the most beautiful pieces of furniture, colour schemes, hanging art, lighting features… I could go on and on.

So naturally, yesterday after we had finished meeting with the builders and looking at the displays, I grabbed a House and Garden magazine and crazily started visualising what I would buy and making mental notes of colour names, furniture stores and storage ideas.

Hit the breaks. I think I need an intervention.

We are so excited about building this house, that I do tend to forget that no matter how big or small or how beautifully decorated it will be; it still will be our home. So I am actually not going to worry about the decorative stuff for the time being, I need to just worry that this design will have enough space for us to make happy memories with our family and friends.

It’s hard when you get ahead of yourself and start to visualise living in a house and then something happens, i.e. the builder won’t build on your block because it’s sloped or their site costs are outrageous… and then you’re left with no fantasy to dream of.

That actually happened to us and going back to step one sucked. We are back on track now with a different builder and design, so finger’s crossed this one is a goer!

So I am just taking it one step at a time – Ben doesn’t have this problem because he is more level headed than me. I am not going to lose my mind when I walk past a Freedom store or make excuses as to why I took the exit to Ikea for no good reason. I will also stop mentally decorating a house that we may or may not build.

First thing's first – we need a house built and then I can go shopping for the pretty stuff!

Weathering the storm

I just read this opinion piece written by Courier Mail journalist Mike O'Connor. It's a great view in to Anna Bligh's performance during the recent Queensland weather disasters.

THERE was a time when political leaders appealed for calm in the face of a gathering storm.
Perhaps somewhere they still do. Not in Queensland, however, where the strategy, as evidenced by Premier Anna Bligh's performance last week, is to scare the bejesus out of the populace with apocalyptic predictions of impending doom.

The reasoning behind what became an unintended stand-up comedy routine is transparent enough and can be found in the hope that has grown in the bosom of the Bligh camp that her on-camera performance during the floods may have saved her political hide.
That she performed in a creditable way, doing the job she is paid to do, is undeniable although one might ask why so many people were surprised when she did so.
This less flattering view aside, she did well but a politician has yet to draw breath who believes that it is possible to have too much of a good thing.
Thus the temptation to revisit the scene of her triumph, the dramatic press conference, was too strong to resist when Cyclone Yasi swirled on to the weather radar, bringing with it wind, rain and that most blessed and most sought after of commodities, potential political capital.
Here was another chance to occupy centre stage as Fearless Leader, directing operations from the command bunker as the cyclone approached the coastline.
You get cyclones in north Queensland at this time of the year which, I imagine, is why they call it the cyclone season, but this was a big one.
Big, however, was not going to do it for the Bligh PR machine. It had to gigantic, enormous, stupendously large.
There was no point in the Premier hauling out her special, freshly laundered flood jeans for her press conference if the very existence of north Queensland was not to be threatened and so the process of talking up the threat posed by Yasi began.
I don't question for a moment the ferocity of the storm. I sat through a cyclone as a child and still recall the banshee wail of the wind.
What was entertaining however, in a sadly predictable way, was the deliberate choice of language by the Premier words chosen not to reassure, but to paint the most vivid images of imminent destruction possible.

Yasi was not only massive but gargantuan, colossal, immense, mammoth, prodigious and titanic.
Yasi defied the human mind to imagine its proportions. Who knows how many Sydney Harbours or Suncorp Stadiums, the internationally recognised units used when measuring anything of more than moderate proportion in Australia, it could hold.
Everyone knew it was a large and potentially destructive weather system. It was, after all, a Category 5 as stated by the Premier several hundred times for the benefit of those who were a little slow in appreciating the essential difference between 1 and 5.
I kept waiting for the Premier to remove a shoe was she wearing the R.M. Williams boots, de rigueur in time of crisis? and offer her toes to the camera. Five, got it? One, two, three, four, five!
When you are in a cyclone's path, whether it be a Category 4 or 5 is of largely academic interest. It's powerful, so people should be urged to take all prudent precautions but this was not the essence of the message.
Nor was it that, while this might be larger than previous cyclones, there had been plenty of time to prepare for it and all people had to do was follow emergency procedures, evacuate if told to do so and everything would be fine: "Don't worry. Do as, if you live in the north, you will have done a dozen times in the past and all will be well."

This, alas, was not what we heard. The Premier was predicting destruction on a truly biblical scale. The message was that north Queensland from Townsville to Cairns would be smote as if by the hand of God.
It was, she assured the population, a "potentially very deadly event".
By late afternoon television reporters, wired on the steady stream of foreboding press releases being pumped into their iPhones by the Premier's office, were hyperventilating on camera.
Cairns would be inundated. There would be a 7m storm surge that would sweep through the city. Palm trees from the Esplanade would end up in Mount Isa. Devastation would be visited upon the city.
What would have happened, I wondered as I listened to the Premier's increasingly bizarre performance, if, at the outset of World War II, Winston Churchill had gone running into the street shrieking: "The Germans are coming and the bombs they drop will be really big. Not just big but massive. They'll be the size of 10 Sydney Harbours. When they explode they'll leave craters the size of 20 Suncorp Stadiums!"
Fortunately for Britain, he chose instead to exhort them to fight on the beaches and in the streets and never surrender. Then again, Churchillian dialogue has never been a hallmark of Queensland politics.
The Premier should forgo the amateur dramatics and let Emergency Services Minister Neil Roberts do his job.
Her performance was overblown, unnecessary, reeked of political opportunism and was not, to borrow once more from Churchill, her finest hour.

Dude looks like a lady

Nineteen year old Andrej Pejic has long blonde hair, high cheekbones, enjoys wearing makeup and heels, and looks great in a dress.

But this Serbian expat who has lived in Broadmeadows, Melbourne since the age of eight, isn’t a she.

Andrej is the fashion industry’s biggest new face behind the androgynous look and is already in campaigns for John Paul Gaultier and Marc Jacobs.

He is part of the new ‘femiman’ trend, the latest in a new crop of gender-bending models who have risen to prominence in the last few seasons. According to reports, he is on the top of every casting agent’s list for the men’s shows for Paris Fashion Week.

Andrej is the leader of a new “gender fluidity in fashion”, in which traditional male and female attitudes are starting to matter less. It’s a message that is being slowly adapted industry-wide – and is resonating with consumers.

Growing up, he has been quoted as saying his transition to Australia was a difficult one, as he was forced to learn English and integrate with students who weren’t like him. He said that for all his physical differences, he was never bullied by his peers and instead felt only that he was the subject of “curiosity and attention.”

It seems as though the attention isn’t going to die down, with Andrej being revered by the fashion industry and general public alike with a huge fan base and online following from around the world.

He has become the face of the androgynous community worldwide who have been calling for greater tolerance of their lifestyle.

From the Herald Sun:

MELBOURNE's androgynous modelling superstar, Andrej Pejic, has blurred fashion's boundaries again, appearing on the catwalk in Paris in a haute couture bridal gown.


The 19-year-old from Broadmeadows created a sensation when he closed the Jean-Paul Gaultier womenswear show dressed as a bride, complete with a mohawk, black veil and long black gloves.


The gender-bending turn, in front of guests including French Vogue boss Emmanuelle Alt and actor Catherine Deneuve, came after Pejic closed Gaultier's menswear show last week dressed as a woman.


Pejic, who has been dubbed "James Blond", is also the face of Gaultier's new advertising campaign and appears in the latest Marc Jacobs campaign.


His look has made him one of the fashion scene's most popular new stars, according to Matthew Anderson, director of Pejic's Australian agency, Chadwick Models.

"The success and embracement of Andrej in the fashion world has been phenomenal," Anderson said. "No one is pretending that this is the new norm, but what Andrej is doing is providing a canvas for designers who have always pushed boundaries.

"I have about 60 requests in my inbox from around the world wanting a piece of Andrej."


I am really not all that surprised that the fashion community love Andrej – it really is an industry that embraces everything (yes, even curves for all you sceptics) and I think he looks amazing in the shows.