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.

Great burger review. Gets autotuned.

I love a good burger. So does this guy. He has a whole channel dedicated to burger reviews.

The autotune guys love this guy.

Both these videos were found via Stellar.io.

As a bonus, here’s his review of the Burger King’s Bacon Sundae.

You know what day it is?

Sometimes you need something like this to shock you out of whatever stupor you’re in and to remind you just how inane the lyrics to a song are.

Watermelon meets rubber bands

Been meaning to post this for a while.

I love slow motion.

Via Meet Jesus at Uni (Facebook page)

Buy coffee, help Tanzanians meet Jesus at uni

Pairing up coffee with good causes is something I like to do from time to time. A few years ago we used Indian coffee to help Dave raise money for clean Indian drinking water, last year we used coffee to buy beehives and grain through Tear’s Really Useful Gift catalogue, and now, you can buy some delicious Tanzanian coffee – a premium kind of coffee (it’s more expensive) – to help partner with Arthur, Tamie and Elliot as they head to Tanzania.

You’ll even get a magnet!

I have about 12kg of Tanzanian coffee up my sleeve, and would love to roast it all as part of this little initiative. So keep reading – and then buy up at the end – you can use Paypal, or, if you’d prefer, contact me by email to order some and pay via bank deposit.

I will be mailing this coffee out a little differently – I’m planning to send it on Mondays or Fridays (my days off) – so order close to one of those days if you want it fresh.

Here’s some more about the project – you’ll find this content duplicated on a dedicated page – and the Tanzanian coffee order form will sit where the old fashioned order form sits in the sidebar for as long as I’ve got coffee left to sell.

Help Tanzania Meet Jesus

The Davises

Arthur, Tamie, and Elliot, are heading to Tanzania next year aiming to introduce a generation of Tanzanian leaders to Jesus. You can purchase some delicious coffee to help them out, and to get better informed about what’s going down in Tanzania, and what they plan to do there.

They’ve renamed their blog, what was Cyberpunk + Blue Twin is now meetjesusatuni.com, and they have a Facebook page that I highly encourage you to like so that you can follow along on their exodus (most people would use the word journey here. But that’s so cliched).

They’re raising support – and I’d encourage you to get on board, especially if you’ve benefited from the wisdom they’ve shared via their blog over the years.

Here’s a little video, because lets face it, at 25 frames per second, a 3 minute picture is worth 4.5 million words (that’s 180x25x1000).

So. That’s all well and good. But I’ve lured you here using coffee, and now you’re wondering what’s the go with that.

Let me tell you.

Tanzania is home to some pretty special coffees – especially from the Blackburn Estate (here’s Cup Coffee’s tasting notes for Clouds) – we’ve got 10kg of Tanzanian coffee from this estate – in two lots – “Clouds of August” and “Pick of the Harvest” that we’re going to offer as a way to support Arthur, Tamie, and Elliot. We’re not looking to raise a huge amount of money – probably just enough to cover their postage costs for a year, or something like that. But here’s the deal. This coffee is a premium variety. It costs about double what I’d normally pay for green beans. So that’s why this little project is a bit more in line with the prices you’d normally pay for small batches of roasted coffee.

When you buy these beans you’ll get a little bit more info on Tanzania, some tasting notes, and a magnet to remind you to pray for Arthur, Tamie and Elliot as they prepare for life in Africa.

Here are some tasting notes for each lot (from Ministry Grounds).

Clouds of August

A bright, sugary and lively coffee with nice peach acidity, notes of red apple and cocoa. A beautiful mandarin balance.

Pick of the Harvest

A complex and layered coffee with a buttery mouthfeel and notes of plums and red fruit.

Here’s the Order Form – which you’ll also find in the sidebar of the home page.








Amount and Delivery Method
Variety












I don’t know why the spaces are so big in this order form. Sorry about that.

Book spine poetry (and theology)

So ages and ages ago, Ali tagged me in a meme. I liked the meme. I wanted to participate. And then Andrew participated, and one thing led to another…

I made some poems, that felt a little more like prose. I’ll write out the titles below each picture so that you

Like this attempt to capture the Zombie Apocalypse.

Revelation Unravelled
An Outbreak Of Darkness
Gridlock
The Summons
Newspaper Blackout
To The Burning City
World War Z
A Furious Hunger
Serious Eats
Backyard Ballistics
One Last Kill

And these…

The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies Of The Apocalypse
Meltdown
A Furious Hunger
Help Lord The Devil Wants Me Fat

How To Be A Man
The Idiot
The Big Idea
Absinthe And Flamethrowers
Fools Die

How To Have A No. 1 Hit Single
Songs Of The Humpback Whale
An Outbreak Of Darkness
Backwards Masking Unmasked
The Whole Truth

Just Do Something
One Day At A Time
Jogging With Jesus
Run Baby Run
Slim For Him

And then I made some theology. This is pretty much the narrative arc of the whole Bible, though it’s also a summary of Genesis and then the solution to the problem of Genesis…

How To Read Genesis
What Is History?
The Origin Of The Species
Utopia
Picture Perfect
Calls To Worship
The Tipping Point
Help Lord, The Devil Wants Me Fat
Adams v God
Weasel Words
The Collaborator
Cry, The Beloved Country
Requiem
The Promise Of The Future

Deliver Us from Evil
Emperor: The Death of Kings
Divine Justice
The Great Exchange
Paradise City
This Other Eden

Blogging v Writing

I love this quote from a Daring Fireball post a couple of years ago.

“The entire quote-unquote “pro blogging” industry — which exists as the sort of pimply teenage brother to the shirt-and-tie SEO industry — is predicated on the notion that blogging is a meaningful verb. It is not. The verb is writing. The format and medium are new, but the craft is ancient.”

Other than the YouTube videos that keep my post count ticking over (or in the case of HeySoph.com are the entire content strategy) – this represents how I conceive of my sites these days. A place to write.

I’ve found my longer “essay style” posts actually get better traction and traffic than short form blog fodder so I’ve pretty much moved away from posts like this one, or posts about what I’m doing from day to day. I do occasionally miss having an avenue for that sort of thing, but that feeling is fleeting and is well and truly overcome by the satisfaction of trying to piece together a cogent 1,000+ word rant.

I read the Daring Fireball post because its a blog that celebrated its tenth anniversary today. That’s impressive.

I guess what I want to ask you, dear reader, is have you noticed the change? Do you care? Do you miss anything?

Sometimes the Internet is a sad place

Seriously. Somebody tweeted what I can only imagine was a semi-funny, semi-serious, question about the history of the Olympics. And wow.

Some of them are clearly joking. I hope. There’s an extended edition here with a little bit of a language warning.

Via someone named @Chrissymacc on Twitter.

Sheet music album where it’s at for Beck

Remember Beck?

No? Not the Ted Danson show. That was Becker. And it sucked.

Beck. This guy.

The guy John Safran “exposed” as a scientologist (he was already well and truly known as a scientologist).

Anyway. Now that the short primer on Beck is over – he’s doing something a bit cool, he’s releasing an album. As sheet music. Through McSweeney’s – and they’ll be featuring notable user generated versions of the music.


(this is a mockup.)

 

This is ultra low fi. It’s lower fi than a 4 track tape release. It’s also a really nice way to tap into the music culture of the internet – in a fashion similar to Gotye’s remix of covers of his own song – harnessing user generated stuff is my favourite way to use the power of web 2.0.

Gotye’s Youtube Orchestra

Gotye (aka Wally De Backer) is a clever guy. He’s put together a remix of his own song using covers other people have posted to Youtube.

Introducing: Dave Bailey’s Blog

My friend, colleague, and personal Yoda, Dave Bailey, has a new blog. Well. It’s the resurrection of an old blog.

This is an artist’s rendition of Dave’s face. It’s the closest we could get, because he is very shy.

He’s kept at it for about three weeks longer than he did last time, and there’s some gold there. Including these reflections from a recent visit to Hillsong.

A “viral” guide to “viral video”

Warning: There are some clips in here that may slightly, or significantly, offend.

Some guys who make really successful viral videos are talking about what makes a viral video, and the history of viral videos. Useful stuff if you’re thinking about making YouTube part of your social media mix as a church or company.

The “Viral storytelling” part about 5:30 in was, I reckon, particularly interesting.

It’s good stuff.

3D printed Fetus

I’ve been saying since we had our first (non 3D) ultrasound that the future is hooking up a 3D printer to the 3D scanner. Well people. The future is now.

“The result is a scale reproduction of your unborn baby, composed of an opaque white fetus encased in the mother’s clear, colorless abdomen. If you’re interested in procuring your own 7-ounce inaction figure, the price is ¥100,000 (about $1,275), and while that includes the decorative pink-and-white box, fetus keychains and cellphone dongles made with the same process will cost you extra.”

From theverge.com

High Res 3D Panorama of Mars

Incredible. Scroll your way around Mars. This is from a previous Mars Rover but was released by NASA last month. There are more panoramas like this here.

Screen Shot 2012-08-09 at 11.58.16 AM

Here’s a nice little bit of perspective for those people who are saying trips to Mars are a waste of dollars…

How to Public Speak

This is useful, even if Ze Frank, the guy in the video, needs to blink…

New Mumford and Sons

I’m excited. I preordered the new album when I bought tickets to see these guys later this year.