I just swapped the font on our website from Verdana to Helvetica. It looks nicer already. I don’t know why it was in Verdana to begin with.
Speaking of our website – if you’re from North Queensland and haven’t spammed your local candidates and the party leaders to tell them to fix the Flinders Street Mall – you totally should. Here. Now.
Back in the 90s there was a spreadable product called “Gooba” which was simply premixed peanut butter and jam. By extension these sandwhich pillows are gooba pillows – but only if bought together. They’re sold separately. I don’t think they contain nuts so you don’t need a pillow epi pen.
Little sister number two is a big gooba fan. She even owns this shirt.
This one comes from a site called NerdyShirts – so I’m not sure what it does for my campaign not to be considered a nerd. Anyone who ever played the original Nintendo Entertainment System will appreciate this. Otherwise you need to know that to get the pesky things to work sometimes you had to blow in the cartridge.
Here are some others that I almost liked as much from the same site.
Being a supervillain and making demands for ransom ala Dr Evil is much easier now thanks to Google. You’ll be able to make realistic cash demands in proportion to your schemes knowing how much space you’ll need to store the payment just by using Google Sketchup. Google’s 3D modelling software doesn’t look quite as cool as Lego’s – but only because it’s not defaulted to using lego. I’m sure you could. You can provide a visualisation of one trillion dollars with ease (the little speck on the bottom left is a person). I haven’t used it yet, but it looks cool.
Tired of your precariously positioned Jenga tower collapsing as you carefully slide a block out of place. Well – blast those fears away with this Jenga cannon found here and with a making of guide here. And possibly take out your competitor’s eye in the process – helping you win every time.
The Campbells, fairly or unfairly, have a reputation for cheating to win so this will be a popular stocking filler next Christmas.
Whoops.
Letters to God from young children.
On Saturday afternoon I caught the Watchmen with a bunch of guys from church. Having not read the Graphic Novel I wasn’t sure what to expect. Having caught the movie I now want to catch the graphic novel.
The movie was violent. Graphically violent. And had a fair bit of sex – so it’s hard to “recommend” to Christians if that’s likely to cause you to stumble.
But it was eye-poppingly rendered. A beautiful, dark, film noiry feel – complete with a fedora wearing trench coated detective like protaganist narrating entries into his diary.
It also asked questions of the human condition and asked questions about the nature of an omniscient almost omnipresent, omnipotent “god” in the form of a blue supercharged superhero. It certainly generated conversation amongst our group – and most of us enjoyed it, despite some of us not being entirely keen for a thought provoking cinematic experience.
The film has divided Christian movie critics. Movieguide is a pretty terrible “family centred” (think Focus on the Family) film review centre – and this movie is not “family centred” in content or intention. Here’s their list of reasons not to see the movie (I love how they open with “anti-capitalist” as though that’s unChristian:
“Strong anti-capitalist content with a strong environmentalist conclusion and homosexual references; 44 obscenities and 27 profanities; hyper-extreme, gory, bloody violence includes lots of gore with fingers cut off, arms cut off by a rotary buzz-saw, man’s head graphically cleaved with a meat cleaver, pointblank shootings, boy bites into boy’s cheek and takes out hunk of another boy’s cheek, woman beaten savagely, people electrocuted, people dissolved, people shredded, pregnant woman shot pointblank, people cut with broken bottles, women raped, people poisoned, martial arts fighting, man’s body transforms in gory ways, etc.; very strong sexual content includes several sex scenes, lesbian kiss, prostitute exposes her breasts, rape, character fornicates with his girlfriend by dividing into two characters, heroes fornicate, little boy’s mother is a prostitute, overt suggestions of sadomasochism, and discussions of sex; extreme nudity and strong sexual nudity includes major male character walks around nude showing his private parts throughout the movie, upper female nudity and upper male nudity; strong alcohol use; illegal drug use by one of the criminals; and, vigilante beliefs are carried out, revenge, idolatry, Egyptian pharaoh worship, false gods, blackmail, etc.”
Upper male nudity? Oh no. Head for the hills. I wonder how they’d mark the Old Testament. Anyway. I can’t say I noticed the lower male nudity of Dr Manhattan as much as many reviewers critical of it did.
There’s a shining review of the Watchmen from the “Gospel and Culture” blog that balances out Movieguide’s response:
“Inviting a Christian audience to consume either version of Watchmen may seem irresponsible, especially to pop culture-weary brothers and sisters in Christ. While the story does contain more than its share of sexuality and violence, it simultaneously wrestles with important and weighty theological and philosophical issues. Countless sermons could and should be preached on Watchmen’s nuanced and allegorical treatment of predestination, miracles, the existence of God, human depravity, justice, and salvation. Few mainstream artistic texts so inventively grapple with these many important questions.”
They make the same criticism of Christian criticism that I just have too:
“And how exactly did the depiction of sex and violence become the third rail of Christian criticism? While not for everyone, certainly not for children, Watchmen goes places familiar to the grittier passages of scripture. Nothing in Snyder’s film, for example, equals the bleak sexual violence depicted in “The Rape of the Concubine”(Judges 19). This is not to suggest that the film is blameless. Snyder crosses the border into gratuitous territory by making the love scene between Silk Spectre II and Night Owl more sexually explicit than in the discrete, shadowy panels of the graphic novel. The same could be said of the frequent, if admittedly, humorous reappearance of Dr. Manhattan’s glowing blue genitals. Unnecessary. But, like the horrific passages from Judges in which a young woman is raped and dismembered, Watchmen deserves to be considered within its larger narrative context.”
Amen. A worthwhile movie – if not a wholesome one. It certainly raises more questions than it answers and is a conversational launchpad. Kudos to to Flickr minifig creator Sir Nadroj for his lego rendering of the Watchmen characters.
I haven’t played Tetris for some time. I’ve been busy. I broke my Tetris drought with a round of hi-def Tetris. I don’t think I’ll ever play again. But maybe you should try it.
If this isn’t your thing perhaps this “Tetris in real life” concept gets you more excited. An artistic project from Chrissie Macdonald.
Your thoughts in the comments – is the scarcity of political talent around an indication of market failure and a justification for closing down State Governments?
I think so. The Labor Party is so desparate to fill out all the seats around Queensland they’ve picked a Brisbane uni student to run in Hinchinbrook who won’t do recorded interviews with the ABC – the Premier had to chastise him via the media.
But the problem is widespread – NSW isn’t much better. The downside of abolishing the states would be State of Origin would lose its significance without the premiers being able to make their annual wagers.
The latest roundof election ads are out – the ALP has gone negative. They’re telling us that despite poll results the other guy – Lawrence Springborg – is not ready to lead us.
Labor seems concerned. Government media releases (still being sent via Government distribution lists despite “caretaker mode” being in full swing) are consistently refering to the LNP as the Nationals.
Springborg on the other hand is trying to claim the “change” mantra. I just saw an ad that pretty much ran with the “time for a change” motto.
LNP: B+: change + positivity + pointing at debt as an indicator of bad economic management are winners as we’ve seen in other elections (for example the US Presidential Election and last Townsville City Council election).
ALP: C+: Uninspired rhetoric – except perhaps the ad where Anna Bligh acknowledges that a deficit is needed to fight recession. Brave. Also somewhat reckless in the face of poll results and the LNP’s relentless use of debt as a campaign issue.
In other news – we are running a campaign on our website that emails candidates with respondents feelings on the Flinders Street Mall within a form letter. Clever hey. But Labor had the email addresses for Mandy Johnstone and Lindy Nelson-Carr wrong on their campaign page. They don’t even know how to spell Johnstone’s surname. Fail. D-.
That last post was number 900. This is 901. Seems like only yesterday I was pointing out number 600. 1000 should be up sometime next week. It’s probably a cause for celebration.
While introducing myself to the iMonk website I came across this great essay on doubt. Particularly Christian doubt. It’s helpful, I think.
A couple of quotes:
These doubts have made me respect my honest, unbelieving friends. To many of them, it isn’t so much the content of Christianity that is ridiculous. It’s the idea that Christians are so certain; so doubtless. They find it untenable that anyone could bury their own doubts so deep that you are as certain as Christians appear to be. Our television and radio preachers, our musicians and booksellers, the glowing testimonial at church, the zealous fanatic at the break table at work–they all say that Christians no longer have the doubts and questions of other people. Only certainties. And for many thoughtful unbelievers, that appears to be lying or delusion, and they would prefer to avoid both.
So do I. I profoundly dislike the unspoken requirement among Christians that we either bury all our doubts out in back of the church, or we restrict them to a list of specific religious questions that can be handled in polite conversations dispensing tidy, palatable answers. Mega-doubts. Nightmarish doubts. “I’m wasting my whole life” doubts are signs one may not be a Christian, and you’ve just made it to the prayer list.
My doubts exist alongside my appetite for God. I believe no one has put forward a more cogent and persuasive critique of theism than Sigmund Freud. Freud’s contention that human beings create a God in the sky out of their longings for a perfect father and their fear of death has the virtue of common sense and realism. As a Christian, I do not doubt that vast tracts of human religiosity can be explained by Freud’s analysis. Yet, Freud is wrong. The Biblical God is not wishful thinking, but the center of the spiritual “appetite” of human beings. Billions of human beings would prefer no God exist. Billions of human beings would like to make God in the image of Santa or Oprah. Yet, Christianity, Judaism (and even Islam) persistently put forward a God who is terrifying to who we are. A just, holy God of judgment. A God of heaven and hell. Not the God of the wishful thinkers, but the God who is a consuming fire.
And it is this God that we long to know. This God who repulses us and damns us. This God who demands the purity of thought and action. A God who demands that we love Him with all that we are and love our fellow persons as His creations. It is this God that we long to know in intimacy. It is this God we long to be accepted by, to trust and to praise. This God is the source of all the notions of beauty, truth and goodness that we find in this universe. C.S. Lewis said that appetite could not prove the existence of food, but I don’t think that speaks for the experience of the starving person.
I’ve just finished reading through the condensed summary of this series by the Internet Monk on the death of the evangelical movement. It was printed/posted by the Christian Science Monitor (which has not much to do with science if you’ve never been there before). And then discussed by Justin Moffat and the Pyromaniacs.
“Theme” doesn’t really completely capture the nature of evangelicalism – it’s more a theological framework – but that didn’t rhyme with dream – which was essential for the title.
The original piece is interesting. The commentary too. Worth a read. Feel free to discuss here.
Robyn and I had a fairly long discussion last night over whether or not I’m a nerd. I think I’m a geek, but not a nerd. She thinks I’m a nerd. This post may well decide it. I give you the periodic table of video game characters. Which I think is clever. Nerd? Maybe.
Ben just sent me a link to this ABC story where Tony Abbott attacked Kevin Rudd for allowing changes to Australia’s aid policy and aid money being used to fund abortions.
The comments thread is telling. These discussions always bring out the rabid atheists who want to accuse Christianity of “holding back society”… I do like it when they put together a coherent argument.
Like this:
“Lets not forget that the bible tells the story of how god drowned every living person except Jonah and his family because he was annoyed with them. So to say the bible condemns murder is a very selective interpretation.”
Sadly comments are closed. So I couldn’t point out that Jonah was the guy eaten by a whale and people were saved at the end of the Jonah story because they repented. Anyway. There’s a lot of stupid Christians in the debate too. But Coloru seems to be a pretty rabid atheist, he says:
“Wakeup! If you cant find god in your own heart and mind then it doesnt exist. The bible isnt going to help.*”
*lack of apostrophes his own.
This again highlights the atheist’s fundamental misunderstanding of the place of the bible in Christian faith. It’s central – not an afterthought. It’s the way we find God. And hands up Christians who can find God in their own heart and mind…