Author: Nathan Campbell

Nathan runs St Eutychus. He loves Jesus. His wife. His daughter. His son. His other daughter. His dog. Coffee. And the Internet. He is the pastor of City South Presbyterian Church, a church in Brisbane, a graduate of Queensland Theological College (M. Div) and the Queensland University of Technology (B. Journ). He spent a significant portion of his pre-ministry-as-a-full-time-job life working in Public Relations, and now loves promoting Jesus in Brisbane and online. He can't believe how great it is that people pay him to talk and think about Jesus. If you'd like to support his writing financially you can do that by giving to his church.

On the Passive Aggressive Link comment

Sometimes my blogging friends post things that I’ve posted months before as though they’re original, or exciting.

This hurts my precious blog ego. Until I remember that I post so much stuff that sometimes I forget it, and I don’t read 90% of other people’s posts fully (except for you, dear reader).

To draw their attention to the fact that their post is old news I post a nice, agreeable comment. Including a link to my take on the post from months back.

It’ll read something like this…

“Oh yeah, I totally agree, especially in this post I wrote about the same thing four months ago”…

This is the ultimate passive aggressive blogging action. It uses one of Simone’s blog love languages (the comment) to gently rebuke the recalcitrant reader while simultaneously asserting one’s own superiority.

I will try to stop this. My last passive aggressive link comment was last week. I think I’m doing better already.

December 7, 2009

A Biblical world view

Here’s an infographic of the world if the Old Testament was read completely as a literal and scientific document with the spiritual realm housed in the physical.

From Flickr.

December 7, 2009

The rules of Shotgun

Here are the official rules of Shotgun. In case you were wondering.

Though I think there should be an exception that comes into play when someone actually has a shotgun in hand. They should get the seat. This is not included in the rules.

Here is one rule I didn’t know about…

The Balk
This rule is applied when you have called Shotgun and are waiting for the doors to be unlocked. If you lift the handle while the doors are being unlocked and therefore cause the Shotgun door to remain locked, then you are “voided” for that ride. At this time Shotgun is available for all of the other passengers to call.

December 7, 2009

Totally gay flowchart

Here’s one man’s summary of the arguments for and against gay marriage in flow chart form.

The moral to this story is that when Christians are dealing with political issues we need to keep a healthy balance of “love” with our “truth” – and we need to stop saying stupid stuff.

It’s mostly an American thing – but it’s an interesting way to present both sides of an argument.

Via here.

December 7, 2009

Socialist pigs

From Aaran, in the comments on an earlier post:

In a bid to be politically correct and not scare little children the message has inverted to promote the foolishness that the original was meant to warn against. Now that the first two don’t get eaten it promotes a welfare mentality; you can get away with being lazy because there is always someone you can bludge off when you need.

It made me laugh. Have any other fairy tales or fables been hijacked.

December 7, 2009

Venn Jesus

Mark Driscoll likes to criticise people’s “zen” Jesus – the hippy who runs around making pithy statements.

I wonder what he’d say about this Venn Jesus.

December 7, 2009

How to not get caught cheating

It’s a sad indictment on the state of our cultural morality that most techblogs I subscribe to are using the Tiger Woods infidelity story as an opportunity to help their readers not get caught cheating*. Because, you know, it’s so much harder these days with all the avenues of monitoring people. What if a photo gets put on Facebook? What if you forget to delete incriminating messages.

Here’s how to not get caught cheating in one easy step.

Step 1. Don’t cheat.

It’s that simple. It also works for not getting caught doing all sorts of wrong things. “Do not commit adultery” is one of the Ten Commandments for a reason. It’s not a nice thing to do. You probably shouldn’t. If by chance you’ve googled “how to not get caught cheating” and arrived here – think twice. If you’ve googled it, and arrived here, and you’ve already cheated, go to step 2.

The best way to avoid the surrounding furore, in the event that you fail in achieving step 1 is to take step 2…

Step 2. If you do cheat, confess.

That way the media/everyone you know doesn’t have a field day at your expense. And they don’t feel like they have to dig through your dirty laundry. Full disclosure is the best PR policy.

*I won’t link to the articles – they’re dumb and I don’t want to help anybody in this pursuit – unless you’re cheating at cards… I’m ok with that… unless it’s for money…

December 7, 2009

When to use your iPhone

We all know that iPhones are the world’s most awesome piece of technology. They’re proof that God exists and wants good things for his creation. We don’t need the Large Hadron Collider. Shut it down now. Actually, wouldn’t the LHC be cool if it was controlled by iPhone. We had an Ergon person speak at a function recently and he told us they use an iPhone app to control and monitor substations in remote areas. How cool is that?

Anyway…

Here’s Gizmodo’s helpful iPhone usage flowchart.

December 7, 2009

Peddling Townsville

Given that I’ve only got another month or so of official duties “peddling” Townsville to the world, I think it’s a good idea to get out and enjoy the scenery while we can.

Robyn and I bought bikes a couple of months ago.

Yesterday we took to the streets (and parks) of Townsville in time to take some sunset photos at Aplin’s Weir.

December 7, 2009

World’s easiest scrambled eggs

I made the fabled “Espresso Machine Eggs” last night. Well, they’re not fabled. I’d been reading about people’s scrambled egg making exploits for some time. I thought I’d give it a burl.

Here are the steps involved.

  1. Buy an expensive coffee machine (one with good steam pressure)
  2. Put eggs (four) and milk (a dash) into your milk jug – I used my big one because I wasn’t sure how much egg spray there’d be. Give it a whisk.
  3. Steam the eggs like you’d steam milk.
  4. Serve with steak for the perfect lazy Sunday night dinner.

They were very fluffy. I’ll do it again.

Here are the photos…

December 7, 2009

Vampires and Mormons

Here’s an interesting article suggesting that Twilight is basically an apologetic for Mormon theology.

“Twilight is essentially .an allegory of one gentile seeker’s coming to the fullness of Latter-day Saint faith and life. Bella, though, as Mrs. Meyer’s stand-in, is also a modern American woman who struggles with Edward’s patronizing misogyny and over-protectiveness. Her mind is the only one in the book not open to him, which serves both as an indication of her reverential reserve towards him as God or prophet and her resistance to being totally subject to him. Though devoted to and in love with him, she sounds notes throughout the series that reflect something like feminism.”

Here’s an example of Mormon theology appearing in one of the books.

“A core genealogical belief of Mormons is that Native Americans are the descendants of Abraham through the children of Lehi. But in several articles written in 2002 and 2003, LDS anthropologist Thomas W. Murphy has argued that DNA studies show “no intimate genetic link . . . between ancient Israelites and the indigenous peoples of the Americas—much less within the time frame suggested by the BoMor [Book of Mormon].”

Mrs. Meyer’s answer to this scientific challenge to her faith comes in the climax of Breaking Dawn. The Volturi have come to the Cullens’ Mountain Meadow for a showdown with the “vegetarians” and their allies, and it looks very bad for the latter. What saves them from the vampire-papists is an inversion of the genetics argument against the Book of Mormon revelation: The Cullens are saved by the ex machina appearance of a South American aborigine whose DNA proves that the Mormon vampires are telling the truth. Genetics isn’t the enemy; it’s the savior.”

I suspect Mormon evangelism would work better if they bit their prey and infected them with some sort of terrible disease.

I can’t understand how the religion gains traction anywhere but in the United States where I think it can be explained as a case of misplaced patriotism.

Anyway, here’s a little picture I drew of a Mormon missionary Twilight style. Anybody got a number for Blade?

December 6, 2009

Anna blogs LOTR

Anna at Goannatree sat through a Lord of the Rings marathon yesterday. She blogged it.

Check out the series. It’s good.

I propose a Godfather marathon before we leave Townsville – anyone interested?

Here are the links and intro paragraphs as they appear in the final post.

Seeing Lord of the Rings in a new light

The hearts of men are easily corrupted History became legend, and legend became mythOn this inimical Scottish day,  with seven others, I have embarked on a Lord of the Rings maratho…more

Lord of the Rings Marathon Post #2
For those who have asked – we are watching the British extended edition. Apparently the only difference to the US version are the Easter eggs (the UK version doesn’t contain the Jack Black parody f…more

Lord of the Rings Marathon Post #3: On Saruman v Voldemort

So things are getting really interesting – 1.5 movies down! We are halfway through Two Towers. There have been walking trees and lots of ugly folk and the people (like Frodo and Gandalf) who die bu…more

Lord of the Rings Marathon Post # 4: The Logic of Merry

The closer I am to danger the further I am from harmThis is one of Merry’s aphorisms in Two Towers. It is a corker and it’s strange logic is worth teasing out. The harm of which Merry speaks cannot…more

Lord of the Rings Marathon #5: The endurance of the battle and a little humour

My marathon enduring abilities are somewhat less than they used to be but I am hanging in there – proud to say that I’ve seen all thus far.A friend informed me that he has not only done a LOTR mara…more

December 6, 2009

Adoration: 6 great ads

Here are 40 pretty funny adverts and here are 45 more (with some double ups).

Here are some of my favourites.





December 6, 2009

Snack attack

Bigger is better. Especially in the case of popular snacks. Like Cadbury Cream Eggs or Iced Vovos. Which is why it’s my pleasure to draw your attention to Pimp that Snack. Where common snacks become uncommon.



December 5, 2009

The Idea Killers

Here’s a cool little series of ads. Nothing kills good ideas quicker than some of these things.

Idea sent by email

Client thinks he/she is creative

Legal department recommendations

Here’s the Flickr set.

December 5, 2009