January 2010 – Page 9

The Bard’s Lebowski

Have you spent any time wondering what elements of our culture will be around in 300 years time? Who is our Shakespeare? Who is our Bach?

A case could be made for the Coen brothers. Which makes this little experiment – recreating the Big Lebowski in Shakespearean language – a worthy excercise. It stacks up pretty well.

A sample…

WALTER
In sooth, then, faithful friend, this was a rug of value? Thou wouldst call it not a rug among ordinary rugs, but a rug of purpose? A star in a firmament, in step with the fashion alike to the Whitsun morris-dance? A worthy rug, a rug of consequence, sir?

THE KNAVE
It was of consequence, I should think; verily, it tied the room together, gather’d its qualities as the sweet lovers’ spring grass doth the morning dew or the rough scythe the first of autumn harvests. It sat between the four sides of the room, making substance of a square, respecting each wall in equal harmony, in geometer’s cap; a great reckoning in a little room. Verily, it transform’d the room from the space between four walls presented, to the harbour of a man’s monarchy.

WALTER
Indeed, a rug of value; an estimable rug, an honour’d rug; O unhappy rug, that should live to cover such days!

January 10, 2010

You’re thinking “you’ve posted so many of these games in real life things that they no longer impress me”… and you’d be right. But the team at cracked.com have taken their rendering of five classic game characters to new levels. Justifying the elements of the drawing with well thought out zoological assessments of the lifestyle of the character involved…

Here’s why Pacman should have teeth.

“Though he was a fearsome hunter, Pac-Man was also an omnivore–he fed off live prey as well as vegetation (see cherries). Therefore he probably had a set of teeth quite similar to a human’s: Longer, sharper incisors to the front, with molars to the rear. Because Pac-Man didn’t have the razor-sharp claws or other grabbing capabilities we see in most land-based predators, he probably ate most like a snake. This connection strengthens when you notice his trademark gaping maw, which allowed him to swallow prey more quickly and use his stomach to do most of the digesting. This also accounts for the unusual shape of Pac-Man: We’re only familiar with the fuller, rounder body because his handlers obviously wanted to use a sedated, well-fed creature during gameplay to help limit aggression and the potential for violence.”

January 10, 2010

Putting the pieces together

A couple of chess sets for your viewing pleasure…

This Typographic one comes from Andrew (ages ago)…

This one has Muppets…

While this set just seems needlessly complicated.

January 10, 2010

Bible Stories for Boys: Ehud the Left Handed

For the next three Sundays at Willows Presbyterian the “kids spot” is going to be filled with my favourite stories from the Bible.

I’m kicking it off with Ehud and the Moabites. Ehud is cool because he’s disabled (left handed) and a ninja. I’m going to use Brick Testament pictures.

In the Bible there’s a book called Judges.

It’s about some people God uses to save his people from their enemies.

They’re not special people – most of them are normal people, just like us.

In fact – some of them weren’t even normal – one of them was left handed – are any of you left handed?

His name was Ehud. Being left handed wasn’t much fun. He was different to the other soldiers in Israel’s army.

When Ehud was a young man Israel was being treated very, very badly by a very, very, very fat king called Eglon. Eglon demanded that the Israelites pay him lots of money so that he wouldn’t do nasty things to them.

Ehud and the Israelites didn’t want to serve this king – they wanted God as their king – so Ehud came up with a plan.

He made a short sword and put it on his right thigh under his cloak – because in those days guards didn’t expect to see many left handed people they only really looked on the right.

He marched in to see fat king Eglon with the payment from the Israelites…

…and he told him that he had a secret for his ears only.

The bad King Eglon sent his people out of the room.

And Ehud took out the sword – and buried it in his tummy.

King Eglon was so fat that the sword disappeared.

And Ehud snuck away. Like a ninja.

The guards thought the king was in the toilet – so they didn’t disturb him.

Ehud got back to the Israelites and they attacked the fat dead king Eglon’s army and killed them all. They were free from the bad king Eglon and free to serve God – their king.

Ehud had saved God’s people – even though he was left handed.

The Jesus bit

We are a bit like Israel – we need God’s “judge” to save us from a bad king that’s ruling our lives. We are being ruled by our sin. We want to push God to the side and treat sin as the fat ugly king of our lives.

We need to get rid of this fat ugly king just like Ehud did. And you know what – we have a ninja savior too. Jesus is a bit like a ninja. He dealt with sin in a sneaky way. People were expecting a strong and powerful saviour who would come and kill sin.

Do you know how Jesus got rid of our sin?

This was something a ninja would do. It was sneaky – because people weren’t expecting it. And it was effective.

We need to stab sin in the heart. In fact, the Bible says that if we want to follow God we should cut the sinful parts out. It doesn’t mean
with a sword.

We need our own saviour to cut that sin out – we need Jesus.

January 9, 2010

Chewing the fat

KFC pulled its “racist” ad this week. And apologised. Dumb.

American cultural imperialism is perhaps the most annoying thing about our buddies in the coalition of the willing. Especially when they are ascribing flaws in their own character to the rest of the world. Nobody else thinks fried chicken is “black people’s food”. We all kind of missed that.

What I’d like to see KFC do is produce a follow up ad. A man standing in a crowd of angry fat Americans. A crowd he calms by the power of fried chicken.

That is all.

January 9, 2010

Oops, I did it again…

Yesterday’s quest to comment on 100 different blogs had an unexpected side effect. I became embroiled in a “discussion” on a post on the Friendly Atheist. One where a contributor suggested that the heinous acts God allegedly commits in the Old Testament should be rewritten as a Mafia drama.

Here are some of the things the “friendly” atheists at that site had to say about me during the discussion…

“The man’s an ass. A potentially dangerous ass who seems to admire Hitler.”

“Your view is just asinine.”

“I was gonna feed the troll but thought the better of it, especially since he’s shown his psychopathic nature. Besides there were some beautiful arguments put forth here that he ducks instead of addressing so I don’t see much point. Instead, he’s rather like Linus clinging to his blanket but not as benignly.”

“Nathan your arguments have been nothing but equivocating, never answering the questions you were asked, and when you do (and attempt to explain something) you shovel out contradictions one after another.”

“As I said Nathan is hopeless. lol, this only makes me laugh now. sigh.”

Reading back through the thread there were plenty of things that I said that I probably wouldn’t in hindsight. The stuff about Hitler was dumb. And I probably strayed off message a little too much.

I find atheists who get in a huff about how a God they don’t believe in did evil things to be one of the oddest inconsistencies. They’re so passionate about the actions of a being they don’t believe exists. If they’re right, and God is a delusion, then shouldn’t the people who committed the actions be the ones they’re angry at?

I wonder if atheists would take their position on the actions of the deluded (or those thinking they are doing God’s bidding) to the natural conclusion and move to remove the defence of insanity from all criminal proceedings.

January 9, 2010

My five favourite posts about branding and PR from 2009

My “Twenty creativity insights from the guy behind the “best job in the world” campaign“
Rebranding God – a look at the Jesus: All About Life campaign
How to talk to the media without looking/sounding like an idiot
PR lessons to learn from the Cronulla Sharks
Six steps to speaking like Obama

January 9, 2010

My five favourite posts about living in web 2.0 land in 2009

Web 2.0 stuff occupies my thoughts both professionally and personally. Here are six posts (or series) from this year that I thought were vaguely useful for understanding the world of social media…

My top five tips for blogging (all the posts in full)
My “essay” on where you should put stuff online
A list of “new rules” for the web
Some posts about behaviour around the web – how to lose friends and alienate bloggers, how not to lose friends and alienate bloggers, an exploration of the nature of blogging
A look at the “five types of bloggers“.
A look at oversharing in your status updates – for Christians and for everybody

January 9, 2010

My five favourite “how to” posts from 2009

I like finding tips around the web – and I like making up my own tips and posting them as lists. Here are five that I particularly liked from 2009.

My “Recipe for Sizzler’s Cheese Toast“
My “five non essential skills”
My “Tips for writing complaint letters“
My “Tips for finding a good cafe“
My “How to make scrambled eggs with a coffee machine“

January 9, 2010

My six favourite arguments from 2009

The little post that stirred up a hornets net of atheists and caused a shift in service providers was almost worth the effort of blogging for a year all by itself. Here are my six favourite debates from 2009…

Five things that would make atheists seem nicer
The one where I admit to not enjoying U2 and then suggest some alternatives
The one where I suggest it’s ok to treat subjective issues objectively.
The one about an “open source” approach to producing ministry resources (music especially) that sprung out of this amazing discussion at Simone’s blog.
The one where a pastor I don’t know took my doctrine of creation to task – and I didn’t like that very much – and my apology for being rude about it.
The one where I dared to suggest parents shouldn’t overshare on Facebook.

Thank you to those of you who commented here throughout the year – I do enjoy a good verbal stoush.

January 9, 2010

Benny on “Experts”

Another thing I would like to touch on is quoting experts in arguments. I don’t like it when people argue that, as their stance is backed up by the word of an expert, they must be right. Most knowledge is quite readily and easily obtainable. Most people who do research have a tendency to promote their findings (I know, it’s crazy). So, if anyone is willing to really find out about a topic, if they are willing to spend the time to trudge through the literature, there wouldn’t be too many points of view, arguments and supporting evidence they wouldn’t have stumbled across. Researchers may add to the pool of knowledge, but I think most people will be able to understand the current pool of knowledge, and make their own inferences once properly informed.

January 8, 2010

Benny on the environment

During the campaign of the last federal election, the top issue of the day was the environment, specifically climate change. My friends and I used to bicker about the usefulness of having so much campaign time dedicated to the issue of the environment. They were of the belief that finally politicians were focused on something that mattered. I was of the opinion that the hysteria building around the campaign about the environment was leading to mostly empty, reactive bantering, and no matter how much focus was put on the topic, the additional impact on Australia’s environmental policy was going to be minimal.

I don’t think it has been the governing domain where any perceived failures in environmental activism have occured. I think, prior to becoming a media staple, the environment received adequate consideration by government. I would even go as far to say that the government was the platform where much environmental awareness was raised, discussed and launched.

Then came along the GFC, which took some of the momentum out of the environment’s pillar of current issue drive.

A lot of people have been quick to say that climate change is such an important issue, other issues should be given very low consideration in saving the environment.

One idea raised was that Australia should stop exporting coal.

During the GFC and its aftermath, job retention became a key issue. I still believe that Anna Bligh won an election by stirring peoples fears of lowering job security. In 2008-09, coal represented well over half of Queensland international merchandise exports (PDF).

I still think a lot of people need a reality check when it comes to the impacts of some of the policies being flouted. Proposed energy trading schemes, taxes, quotas, etc etc is going to have a real impact on the costs of basic provisions. Queensland is already suffering from heightened costs associated with basic infrastructure (transport, water). Queensland’s future is looking increasingly precarious. It’s strong population growth, inadequate and increasingly expensive infrastructure will need to be repaired over the coming decades, and Queensland needs to ensure that it can cope with a changing landscape of the resource sector.

January 8, 2010