Our friends Izaac and Sarah are visiting us this week. So tonight we’re having dinner with Andrew and Simone. A chance to turn the virtual into the real. Should be fun. I told Simone she had to come up with some controversial conversation topics. Shouldn’t be too hard.
Stay tuned for reflections on what it’s like to meet those people in real life, from the other people.
When a television show channels its inner Happy Days and features something as ludicrous as the Fonz jumping over a pair of sharks on waterskis those in the media biz know its days are numbered. It is said to have “jumped the shark”… this is a pejorative description of the act of doing anything to garner ratings and attention. Or it was. Until now. A Serbian man named Dragan was swimming at the beach and decided that it would be fun to jump off a high diving board. He landed on a shark. A man eater. Killing it. Here’s the news story, corroborated on the New York Post’s website.
Here’s a snippet:
“Dragan climbed on the jumping board, told me to hold his beer and simply ran to jump. There was no time for me to react or to try to stop him, he just went for it” says Milovan.
“Dragan jumped high and plunged down to the sea, but didn’t make as much splash as we thought he would”, explained Milovan.
The reason could be because Dragan Stevic ended up jumping straight on the shark which was lurking near the beach, probably looking for its next victim. Dragan had nailed it right in the head, killing it instantly. The Egyptian police found the shark washed out on the beach that morning.
Sadly. The story is a fake. Not even a good one. And it’s an indictment on the state of modern journalism that the New York Post decided to run it just because it had already reached a viral tipping point online. They have jumped the shark.
If there’s one thing Toy Story (the first one) taught me it’s that toys are made for being melted. Well, especially plastic soldiers. I was more inspired by the nasty neighbour’s treatment of his mangled army of toys than by good old Andy’s treatment of his coterie. So I had a collection of melted soldiers, and the associated burns on my legs and arms. Plastic and fire don’t play nicely together.
Little did I know that what I was doing could probably be classed as “art”… and sold on the internet as a “bowl” that “makes a statement” for almost $200.
Livescribe is my next Christmas present. Unless I change my mind in the 350 days or so between now and then. It would take all the pain out of lectures. Because you can scribble and draw little bits and pieces – and the whole time it’ll record the sound that’s going on in the background. Sounds useful.
This could possible be the most intricately designed set of Halloween costumes known to man. The guy didn’t just make one of these Halo MasterChief costumes for himself – he helped out his friends too.
Details on how he did it, and a photo essay of sorts, can be found here.
Right now I’m just going to bask in his glory for a second. Wow. Lucky he made costumes for everybody or he may well have ended up single. The best bit, is that these are actually all the characters from Red vs Blue.
Helping out a street preacher:
My friend Steve Tran is a pretty top photographer, bloke, and coffee drinker. He wrote this post about Facebook photo albums that is worth thinking about if you’re the type of person who puts photos on Facebook. Like everything else in the world that’s good – he subscribes to a less is more philosophy of sorts. Read it.
He took this photo of me that I like so much I turned it into the background for my new about.me profile.
Here’s the reciprocal photo I took at the same time…
If Steve wanted to guest blog his photography tips from a presentation he did on our Toowoomba mission earlier this year I reckon that would be pretty worthwhile. Maybe I’ll ask him in this paragraph.
Hey. Guess what. I sell roasted coffee. No doubt some of you know that. What you don’t know is two things.
I now have a snappy looking rubber stamp so my coffee bags are branded.
And also, you can now pay for the coffee as you order via Paypal. You don’t even have to have a Paypal account. Just a Credit Card. You can order from this page here. And I’m thinking I might even put the form in the sidebar on the front page.
Cool hey. I suggest you order away. You won’t regret it. Millions of people have already enjoyed coffee from St. Eutychus Coffee. And that’s the only exaggerated sentence in this post.
Robyn spent the earlier days of this week on her parent’s farm starting the clean up after serious flooding in Dalby. Most farmers out there have insurance coverage that doesn’t include flood cover. The floods damaged crops, wiped out seed for the next harvest, and caused some serious erosion to the dam walls. Not to mention destroying a bunch of household goods.
Robyn shot some footage that she’s putting together into a lengthy production. Here’s an iMovie trailer I put up on Facebook.
Please keep farmers around Queensland in your prayers, and if you haven’t already, please give generously to the Premier’s Flood Appeal.
Remember ASCII art? No. Well. You’re not a nerd then.
But this collection of typed art leaves most of that ASCII stuff for dead – because it’s produced Old Skool. On a Typewriter.
More here, at artist Keira Rathbone’s portfolio.
This video just goes to show that peas and cues matter.
I posted something about Christian Wrestling somewhere before (the “Christian Wrestling” tag below will take you there). There’s a documentary about the industry coming out, a little too late to capture the zeitgeist inspired by Mickey O’Rourke’s The Wrestler.
Wrestling For Jesus Trailer from Nathan Clarke on Vimeo.
Interesting. And slightly oddway. You can follow the story of Wrestling For Jesus: The Tale of T-Money here.
I guess God wrestled. In Genesis. So it must be ok. And it was pretty “fake” too – so far as the outcome being scripted and the in ring storytelling being the most significant part.
22 That night Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two female servants and his eleven sons and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. 23 After he had sent them across the stream, he sent over all his possessions. 24 So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak. 25 When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man. 26 Then the man said, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.”
But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”
27 The man asked him, “What is your name?”
“Jacob,” he answered.
28 Then the man said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with humans and have overcome.”
This is doing the rounds of the blogosphere, but is too good not to post:
Benny Hinn and the Force.
Almost as funny as Benny Hinn and the song “Let the Bodies Hit the Floor”…
Steve at Communicate Jesus dug this up. Tagxedo. It makes shaped tag clouds. Beautiful.
Here is a dove shaped cloud from the sermon I preached on the Beatitudes for my “trials for license” in Townsville.
