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.

Important news

Threadless has extended the $5 sale until the end of March.

Three posts ago I hit 1,000 posts. I’ll do some sort of best of those 1,000 posts to celebrate in the next day or so. To me, every one of them is like a wicket for Glenn McGrath – I remember them all. Maybe.

Speaking of Cricket. Australia has an all rounder. A bowling all rounder. Mitchell Johnson. He’s from Townsville you know.

Here’s Roebuck’s view on Johnson’s all round credentials:

“Several of the batsman had fallen foul of Harris’s Disease, the name nowadays given to batsmen who suddenly play boneheaded shots against apparently innocuous spinners. Hereabouts the main topic on spectators’ tongues concerned the tourists’ ability to take the match into a fifth day.

The next hour was startling as the Australian’s launched a two-pronged attack. Johnson’s innings is etched in the memory. After a quite start, he hurried to 50 in 51 balls whereupon he raised the tempo sufficiently to reach three figures in 86 balls. He did not swipe. He did not depend on luck. Instead he produced a stream of swashbuckling strokes all around the wicket, executed with a free and full swing of the bat.

Some of his strokes stirred the cricketing soul. Johnson took the ball on the rise and dispatched it through extra-cover or he stayed still and smote lifters into the 10th row at deep mid-wicket. Without exception his pulls and hooks went forward of square. Some of them dashed past mid-on. Moving in for the kill, the South Africans tossed the ball to Makhaya Ntini and Dale Steyn. Even Jacques Kallis had a crack and he, too, was swiftly swamped.”

UrbanTrends: Wake up cross

Here’s a clock that’ll keep you alarmed but probably not alert. First of all it sings Amazing Grace to you. Then it will read you a random bible verse.

It’s also tastefully printed with “The Prayer of St Francis”.

Our daily Fred: Coaster to coaster

These coasters are a sure way to make dinner party guests feel comfortable – hopefully not too comfortable or you’ll be cleaning up after their spills for days.

This bad boy’s even got a built in bottle opener.

Shirt of the Day Redux: The pick of the bunch

I’ve used my morning sorting through the Threadless sale so that you don’t have to. Here are my favourites. Click the image for the link.

Little sister number 3 has this one

Little sister number 3 has this one

Shirt of the Day: Interpretive Dance

Threadless is having a $5 sale – that’s $US5. Chief amongst the awesome cheapies is this one – but my size is gone, and there aren’t many left. And the sale finishes today.

It’s a shame I didn’t get onto this earlier – they would have made a great uniform for a dance ministry.

A bunch of links – March 23, 2009

UrbanTrend: a knife’s throw away

I suspect UrbanTrends is going to give worldwidefred a run for its money in little sister number 2’s books. She declared worldwidefred her favourite site yesterday. And yet here we are, looking at a different site – probably worthy of a rival series of morning posts. So for the next nine days they’ll go head to head. Starting with the coolest knife block ever. Cooler than the voodoo knife block.

I always said that if I could be anyone in the circus I’d be the knife thrower. And now I can practice at home.

If your bench doesn’t have room for a fully fledged knife throwing block – how bout the set of matching steak knives as an alternative

Toastered TV

Here’s a device that could one day make the weather man obsolete.

This contraption looks interesting you say. But what is it? Possibly the most awesome device ever to be posted on my blog.

No more reading tea leaves or chicken entrails for your morning auguries  (unless you have liverwurst on your toast) – It is a weather forecasting toaster. It prints the day’s forecast on your morning bread. It will one day be available in stores. It was launched at a Java conference eight years ago. I can’t believe it’s not out there in stores yet. It’s the ultimate convergence device.

Irregular Expressions

Dan has started blogging much more frequently – perhaps turning his clever blog name into a misnomer. This can only be a good thing. He’s done a little series recently on this Hillsong bus ad.

Which is worth a read.

Sanity prevails… maybe

iiNet has pulled themselves out of the cleanfeed trial citing an inability “to reconcile participation in the trial with our corporate social responsibility, our customer service objectives and our public position on censorship.”

Their decision came after wikileaks was blocked last week for publishing the ACMA blacklist. Which was meant to be a top secret “for government eyes only” document…

“It became increasingly clear that the trial was not simply about restricting child pornography or other such illegal material, but a much wider range of issues including what the Government simply describes as ‘unwanted material’ without an explanation of what that includes.”

No pun intended

I am totally taking up this hobby. Especially now I know puns are a mark of geekiness – not nerdiness. I am embracing my inner geek. With a little sci-fi I’ll be 10/10 in no time.

Can K-Rudd hear me

Some time ago I posted a link to one man’s audacious bid to be heard by google. Can Google Hear Me won the hearts and minds of millions. Including Google – who were interested enough to take this man’s journey to the next level.

And now – following news that the Federal Government will now trawl critical blogs I ask the question. Can Kevin Rudd hear me?

It hasn’t taken long for people to make a connection between trawling blogs for criticism and the clean feed/blacklist campaign – particularly because the Government’s own media release listed Whirlpool.net.au’s criticism of the blacklist as one of the examples the Government’s beady eyes were watching.

I have said several things about the Ruddster and his ability to make even the most clear things unclear through erudite obfuscation. That was Rudd speak for using simple words in a complicated way so as to make things impossible to understand.

Kevin, if you’re here, and you can hear me – of if your staff are and they can – let me know in the comments. Perhaps you’d like to give me a job making your unclear communication clear.

Who knows. Perhaps you’d like to read through all the things I’ve had to say about you in the past.

Regards,

Nathan

Miscellanea

The cartoonist behind this website is a raving atheist – but mostly a humourous one. Here’s a secular satire that could be extended to Christians who aren’t really prepared to back their beliefs by living recklessly and putting their lives on the line for the cause.

Here are some more good ones.

The obesity one is using data from 2007.

Godfather flow chart

I had a chance to watch The Godfather II with some guys from church a couple of weeks ago. I’d never really noticed this flow chart’s appearance in the movie (it’s not quite a family tree) – but I think it’s in the court hearing scene. Click it for a larger version.

There’s also this useful family timeline at the same site.

New math

I really really like morenewmath.com – here are some of my favourite mathematical equations of food and drink.