I may have featured this before. But if you’ve got me in some sort of Secret Santa thing, or just want to buy me a Christmas present that I’ll enjoy… you could do worse than this XKCD special.
And on the back…
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.
Those Mormon ads, and how to kill a high profile media campaign…
I just saw the first Mormon ad to feature high profile league player, and grand final winner with the mighty Manly Warringah Sea Eagles, Will Hopoate. Sharp. They’re a great ad for Manly. And, like all the ads in this campaign, are visually appealing and tightly produced.
There was a higher profile League star than Hopoate – Dizzy Izzy Folau. Israel has been out of the spotlight in the last year because he made a big money switch to AFL. To a team that doesn’t exist yet.
Luckily the Mormons didn’t feature Israel in their ads. Because he recently turned his back on the cult, publicly, during this campaign.
And here’s what he had to say… and that, friends, is how to harpoon a campaign.
“I had a personal experience with the holy spirit touching my heart,” Folau told AAP.
“I’ve never felt that before while I was involved in the Mormon church – until I came to the AOG church and accepted Christ.
“It’s been an amazing experience for me personally and I know a lot of people on the outside have been saying stuff about why we left.
“And some people (are) assuming that we left because of money, and all that sort of stuff.
“I know for myself that it wasn’t.
“But I guess at the moment, the people on the outside don’t really know the main reason why we left.”
The 22-year-old instigated the change himself after researching the history of Mormonism, and said the move was easy to make.
Folau’s friends have been understanding and supportive for the most part, but he admits it has been hard on a few of them.
God will play a large role in Folau’s life as he attempts to secure a berth in the Giants’ side for their season opener against Sydney.
The “cult of done” pretty much involves half doing things…
Productivity is a modern idol. So too “getting things done”… Me. I just like “being effective.” That’s what I’ve decided…
Here’s a proposed manifesto for the getting things done movement. Illustrated.
- There are three states of being. Not knowing, action and completion.
- Accept that everything is a draft. It helps to get it done.
- There is no editing stage.
- Pretending you know what you’re doing is almost the same as knowing what you are doing, so just accept that you know what you’re doing even if you don’t and do it.
- Banish procrastination. If you wait more than a week to get an idea done, abandon it.
- The point of being done is not to finish but to get other things done.
- Once you’re done you can throw it away.
- Laugh at perfection. It’s boring and keeps you from being done.
- People without dirty hands are wrong. Doing something makes you right.
- Failure counts as done. So do mistakes.
- Destruction is a variant of done.
- If you have an idea and publish it on the internet, that counts as a ghost of done.
- Done is the engine of more.
What are your thoughts? Is prodigious production of products better than the production of polished products that do a job? I’m somewhere on that spectrum towards the polished product end. But I recognise that spending 80 hours on the last 20% of your product isn’t very efficient.
Dogs are the future of the Internet… and the planet
Ladies and gentlemen. I give you. Your future Dog President.
I laughed. Then I laughed some more. Beats the old stick your arms out from behind another person’s back trick…
Why your Youth Group needs to work on loving one another…
This is such a bizarre Christian propaganda movie…
National Geographic Photo Competition separates good photographers from great…
I know hundreds of good photographers (in the age of Instagram, everybody is “good”), and a handful of truly great photographers. Greatness is about more than having a nice camera and a good eye. There’s something ephemeral about the quality of thought and clarity of vision behind the photos in these entries to the 2011 National Geographic Photography competition.
Some samples…
It makes me a little bit sad at times knowing that while some of my photography might be “good,” it’ll probably never be great.
Timelapse: Glowing man in Tokyo
Love this…
A Cheery Christmas message from the Third Eagle
The lyrics and the backdrop present a little bit of a dissonant message.
A six minute visual guide to popular paradoxes
Is paradoxes the plural of paradox?
An update…
So, unlike all the other bloggers in Australian Christendom, or whatever sector of the blogosphere I occupy… I’m not taking any time off blogging wise over Christmas. In fact. I suspect a lack of sleep will mean I’ll be blogging more. Because blogging is what I do when I sit in front of the TV…
There are some big things on the horizon though. For Clan Campbell. Changes are afoot. We’re having a baby – any time in the next couple of weeks (or up until Christmas, if he/she really doesn’t want to come out). We’re moving house (not sure where yet). We’re changing churches (and sadly ending our time working for Andrew and Simone). But we’re off to Creek Road. Which will be different. I’m planning to hand in my last couple of pieces of college assessment for the year this week. We’re having a little holiday with family on Stradbroke Island at some stage in the next fortnight. And umm. I’ll be watching lots of cricket. Playing some Assassins Creed: Revelations. And eating banana paddle-pops. Also, my sister and her man became engaged today. So that’s also cool and newsworthy.
I blogged some coffee stuff at thebeanstalker.com this week (and I’ll post this semester’s essays up there when they’re all done and dusted), and some study notes at Venn Theology. And you canorder some roasted coffee with a “Really Useful Gift” kicker through the St. Eutychus Coffee Roastery between now and Christmas…
All in all a pretty busy couple of months in the pipeline – especially if you throw in a little bit of PR consulting (you can check out nathancampbell.com.au too, if you want to sling some work my way/me to sling some PR work your way…).
The Internet needs more dogs…
I’ve never gone for the LOL cats thing. Cats aren’t funny. Cats are horrible soulless things with fur.
But dogs. Dogs doing funny stuff is something I can go for…
Exhibits A and B… there you go…
Shirt of the Day: Venn Animals…
It’s a platypus playing a keytar. In Venn Diagram form…
From Threadless, designed by Tenso Graphics.
The history of the English Language (in 10 minutes)
If you don’t want to read Bill Bryson’s excellent Mother Tongue… just watch this video.