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.

How to get over a broken engagement with poise and awesomeness

This guy had a leftover engagement ring he didn’t know what to do with. So he sold it on ebay and bought a Master Chief suit.

“Eventually, unable to sell the ring in-person to anyone, the canary yellow diamond found its way to eBay, sent away in a priority mail, insurance stamped box. Distancing myself from the process made it easier. The funds in my PayPal warmed my heart for the most part, but lurked there, reminding me of what I lost and where that money came from.
I had to get rid of it.
And not just some of it, but every last penny. On something I always wanted, but could never afford. Something that would make me feel a little less empty inside.
So I immediately spent the money on a suit of Master Chief armor.
This wasn’t as sudden or spontaneous as it sounds. The Halo armor was a long time coming. For years, I’d mused over the idea, driving my closest friends mad. One day when I have the money, I’d say, thinking about that canary yellow diamond. I have to be responsible right now.”

Via the Bygone Bureau

January 3, 2012

Coining the offside rule

The British Mint is producing a series of sport related coins for the Olympics. This one will be welcomed by husbands/boyfriends/brothers/fathers everywhere.

My wife assures me she understands the offside rule. So I’ll just have to use it to teach my daughter.

Via One Plus Infinity.

January 3, 2012

A(nother) new blog: Hey Soph

So I am a father. With a daughter. That’s going well for me. I’m also a blogger. So putting two and two together, I give you Hey Soph, a blog where I’m collecting things I think will either amuse my daughter now, or in the future. Mostly its animals. Cute animals. At this stage.

I like to think that St. Eutychus exists to amuse my inner 10-12 year old boy. So this is a bit of a change of pace for me – though I will be trying not to enforce gender stereotypes. So there will be Lego. I’m sure.

January 3, 2012

Bests of 2011

This isn’t necessarily indicative of release, it also includes stuff I discovered this year.

Best Music

Best Concert
Boy and Bear, supported by Jinja Safari was pretty amazing. But I can’t go past Gotye playing live at the Powerhouse in Brisbane. Sonic gold. The Whitlams playing with the Queensland Symphony was also pretty special.

Best Album
There were a few cracking releases this year. Gomez. Gotye. Radiohead. Jinja Safari. The Fleet Foxes. Boy and Bear. I’m going to give it to the Fleet Foxes by a whisker – but only because Gotye got best concert.

Best Film and TV

Best TV Series

Community. Hands down. Is probably my second or third favourite comedy series of all time. Up there with Black Books and Arrested Development.

Best Movie

In a year where the Transformers franchise stormed back to form with more alien robot carnage than you can poke a stick at, and when I caught the highly entertaining Scott Pilgrim vs the World, the best movie I saw, hands down, was Four Lions.

Best Books

Biography – Steve Jobs
Funny – The Brick Bible
Fiction – the Game of Thrones/Song of Ice and Fire series.

2011 on St. Eutychus

My highlights:

Your Highlights
The ACL posts linked above did well, they were some of the most popular posts this year. Also ranking well:

  • Why I bought Logos not Accordance (and part 1)
  • A Guide to Missionary Dating
  • Guy Mason’s Sunrise Interview
  • Driscoll on Video Games

    • Google’s Highlights
    My Armchair Guide to Planking
    Dance Like Thom Yorke T-Shirt
    The Origins of a Fake Martin Luther King Quote
    Instagram Web Profiles

    Favourite Tags
    Tumblrweed
    Taxidermy

    Stats
    63,051 visitors made 87,160 visits and 119,111 page views.

    January 2, 2012

    What to do with the waffle iron that’s gathering dust in your cupboard

    The answer, to not wasting possibly the world’s third least useful/used kitchen appliance – is cook eggs. Sure beats a fancy egg cooker.

    This fancy egg was discovered by the Novice Chef Blog in the course of putting together a pretty cool croque madame recipe.

    January 2, 2012

    The Cheeseburger: Exclusively modern fare

    For some reason I have a batch of food related posts today. I found this reflection on an attempt to make a cheeseburger from scratch somewhat inspiring.

    “Further reflection revealed that it’s quite impractical—nearly impossible—to make a cheeseburger from scratch. Tomatoes are in season in the late summer. Lettuce is in season in spring and fall. Large mammals are slaughtered in early winter. The process of making such a burger would take nearly a year, and would inherently involve omitting some core cheeseburger ingredients. It would be wildly expensive—requiring a trio of cows—and demand many acres of land. There’s just no sense in it.

    A cheeseburger cannot exist outside of a highly developed, post-agrarian society. It requires a complex interaction between a handful of vendors—in all likelihood, a couple of dozen—and the ability to ship ingredients vast distances while keeping them fresh. The cheeseburger couldn’t have existed until nearly a century ago as, indeed, it did not.”

    I am glad I live in the post-cheeseburger era.

    January 2, 2012

    Walking Taco/Nachos: A brilliant idea

    Revolutionary. From the Zen of Making. I wonder how the typical corn chip bag would cope with hot mince.

    January 2, 2012

    Granny wins a car with a high odds hockey shot

    This is pretty cool.

    January 2, 2012

    2011 in Legos

    It’s that time of year again. The time when we wrap things up, reflect, and write lists.

    I’ll put together my mega 2011 in the next day or so. But in the meantime. Here’s a Flickr Set from The Guardian compiling newsworthy events in Lego.

    Rupert Murdoch cops a pie.

    The Occupy Protests

    The Situation Room – the day Obama got Osama.

    The casual pepper spray cop.

    Steve Jobs

    Libya

    December 29, 2011

    How to get past slow walkers

    Brilliant.

    December 29, 2011

    Ba Broom Tiff: Priests go hammer and tongs with broom sticks

    That heading sounds like the punch line to some sort of joke. But this story is true, though not really in the spirit of Christmas. Some Orthodox and Armenian priests were cleaning the Temple of the Nativity in Bethlehem. One thing led to another. And they started hitting each other with broomsticks.

    Higher quality video footage would lend itself to a Star Wars remix – the guys are already in robes.

    Gary has his take on the matters at hand here. Via BoingBoing.

    December 29, 2011

    Walking in a kitchen wonderland

    These animals are wanted house guests, and this macro photography project called Wonderland is pretty charming. It’s the work of a wunderkind named Aimish Boy.

    Here’s what he says about the project:

    “The WonderLand series, still under development, is being composed by using a unique but rather simple and elegant artificial lighting and household objects (from vegetables to plastic bags).
    The photos are shot (mostly) in a miniature studio on my kitchen’s table with a Canon EOS 60D Camera, and a Canon 100mm f/2.8 Macro lens and Flashes, they are real and NOT a digital manipulation. The outcome is a beautiful and magical set with a fairy flair to it. The small models were found in my apartment and on plants outside my window, none of them was hurt during shooting.”

    Makes me want to buy expensive photography gear. Here’s a gecko hanging out on set.

    December 28, 2011

    High speed droplet photography

    December 28, 2011

    Urban Speaker is art that lets you shout it in the streets

    Dial a number. Harrangue a crowd. Fun when you’re tucked up in bed and want to feel like you’re out on the streets. This is the premise of Urban Speaker.

    “The Urban Speaker resembles construction signage and blends in with its urban surroundings. It consists of a tripod with an amplified loudspeaker, smartphone, battery and a traffic sign. The signage instructs passersby to dial a phone number to speak in public. Users who place the call get an automatic answer and can speak their mind for sixty seconds after which the call is terminated. A QR (Quick Response) barcode on the sign allows some mobile phones to instantly access the urbanspeaker.mobi website for location, event and other details as well as quick dialing of the installation’s phone.”

    December 28, 2011

    Chuck Testa says no to knitted Taxidermy

    Chuck Testa was one of my favourite internet finds this year. He’s a bona fide taxidermist. Not like Shauna Richardson, who knits her mounted animals.

    There are more. Via 22 Words. The taxidermy tag on St. Eutychus is one of my favourites.

    December 28, 2011