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.

Arrested Development is the Godfather… apparently

This is amazing. Mind blowing. I’ll never watch Arrested Development in quite the same way again…

Take, for example, a comparison between the two lead characters…

Michael Corleone

In The Godfather, Michael Corleone wants to leave his family business behind and find a normal life on his own terms. However, he is forced into the family business when an attempt has been made on his father’s life, as he is the only one qualified amongst his brothers and sister to continue the family business. Michael is practically the only one who looks after his father, helping to evade further attempts on Don Vito’s life while he is incapacitated in the hospital. He has a spouse that dies during his stay in Italy, and is unable to sustain a functional relationship with his girlfriend/wife Kay because of his devotion to family affairs.

Michael Bluth

In the pilot episode of Arrested Development, Michael Bluth wants to leave his family business behind and find a normal life on his own terms. However, he is forced back into the family business when his father is taken to jail, as he is the only one qualified amongst his brothers and sister to continue the family business. Michael is practically the only one who looks after his father, visiting George Sr. frequently in jail. He has a spouse that died at some point in his past, and is unable to sustain functional relationships with various women because of his devotion to family affairs.

The similarities don’t end there. My mind blown.

 

July 18, 2011

Banana peeling machine

Not from the people who bought you the awesome chicken cutting robot (if you want a really disturbing food robot google pig decapitator) comes this invention that peels a banana.

July 18, 2011

Graphiti: Get your pie chart on with this graffiti stencil

Want to make a political statement on the streets in the form of a pie chart? I know I do. Want to do it in regulated (and regulation) stencil style? Just download this handy PDF, grab some spray paint, and hit the streets.*

You’ll need:

  • 1/8″ (3mm) thick sheet material, suitable for lasercutting. I used MDF, but acrylic is fine.
  • A one-inch 1/4″-20 bolt, wing-nut and suitable pair of washers.
  • Scotch tape or masking tape (to hold the letter in the stencil)
  • 1 quart-capacity Ziploc bag (for storing the letters)
  • Spray paint
  • A laser cutter! (or a really steady hand and a sturdy knife)

Via fffffat

*Actual hitting of streets and actual graffiti is neither endorsed or encouraged any reference to such behaviour is figurative and st-eutychus takes no responsibility for any consequences if you choose to enact said ideas literally.

July 18, 2011

Bury your head in this Ostrich Pillow

I want one. Or perhaps two. This, paired with a snuggy, is pretty much heaven on earth.

“OSTRICH offers a micro environment in which to take a warm and comfortable power nap at ease. It is neither a pillow nor a cushion, nor a bed, nor a garment, but a bit of each at the same time. Its soothing cave-like interior shelters and isolates our head and hands (mind, senses and body) for a few minutes, without needing to leave our desk.”

From Studio-kg.com

July 18, 2011

A piece offering: guy makes stuff out of Lego

Ahh. Lego. If there’s one thing I’m looking forward to when it comes to parenting. It’s playing with lego.

I’m sure somebody mathematically minded could figure out some sort of equation for the number of possible combinations for these 58 pieces of Lego.

This guy made 50 thingos.

Like these:


Check out the whole lot on Google+

July 16, 2011

A bit of deliverance: Friday night banjo

For some reason this song was in my head last night.

And watching that clip, I found this one. That’s some impressive banjo.

July 15, 2011

Mr T Raps

Over at Vanishing Point Ben has been pondering the point of Twitter. Well, here it is. Ben shared this link on Twitter, and now I’m posting it… Mr T raps…

Be Somebody – I Am Somebody Rap – watch more funny videos

July 15, 2011

How to beat a room full of chess grand masters without knowing what you’re doing

This is clever. One man, not a chess player by any stretch of the imagination, pits himself against 7 chess whizzes, and comes out witha winning record. It’s a clever little trick, but YouTube embedding is disabled. So you’ll have to click the link.

The other way to do this is Chess Boxing, but some of those grand masters look tough.

July 14, 2011

Tumblrweed: Fastest possible drawings of things

If there’s one thing I like about this particular tumblr, fastest possible, it’s that it shows its possible to build an audience for one’s art without actually being good at it. I’m horrible at drawing. Pictionary only works for me if I figure out subtle ways of cheating. One time I was playing pictionary online with some friends. We were all sitting in the same room, on different computers, playing against people from the other side of the world. And we’d just draw a bunch of random stuff and guess right, that memory still makes me laugh. Anyway. Fastest possible… the aim is to recognisably represent a thing in the fastest way possible. Perfectly fusing minimalism and pictionary. Some samples…

July 14, 2011

Tumblrweed: Broship of the Rings: Lord of the Rings vaguely retold hipster style…

A Nazgul on a fixie…

Hipster Hobbits…

More here.

July 14, 2011

Correlation or causation?

Correlated.org combines seemingly disparate positions on social issues to build odd profiles of people by looking for statistically anomalous overlaps. What that means is they ask random groups of people a bunch of questions to figure out odd relationships. Take, for example, people who try to raise sea-monkeys. They are. Would you believe. More likely than average to dye their hair.

“In general, 44 percent of people have dyed their hair at some time. But among people who have tried to raise Sea-Monkeys, 63 percent have dyed their hair.

Based on a survey of 326 people who have tried to raise Sea-Monkeys and 1174 people in general.”

Love it.

July 14, 2011

Bay and switch: Transformers scenes taken from older Michael Bay movies

Michael Bay could probably make a blockbuster just out of the off-cuts of his previous works, so it shocks me that he resorts to using bits that aren’t off-cuts at all. Well. Shocks is the wrong word. It’s just clever.

But you can’t get away with it in the YouTube age.

July 12, 2011

Wok and Roll: The Hang Drum

If I had welding equipment probably the fifth or sixth project (after the requisite coffee tinkering and transformer building) would be welding some woks together to make hang drums like this. I had no idea what a hang was until tonight. Now I know that it is a drum that sounds cool and looks like two woks.

July 12, 2011

YouTube Parties: Social gatherings 2.0

YouTube Parties. Have you been to one? Some dinners at our place in recent times have turned into such occasions. Especially because of the awesome power of the Apple TV… Anyway. At a YouTube party each guest shares one of their favourite YouTube clips hoping that it’s new and mind blowing. It’s pretty much the reason I blog. And it’s the reason you should send me any terrific clips you come across. Because I wouldn’t want to lose any of my 2.0 street cred.

Anyway. XKCD demonstrates the tension beautifully.

So. Got anything good to share? Lets have a Social Gathering 2.0 2.0. A virtual meeting of the minds. A sharing of treasures.

July 12, 2011

Sports Night: Like Studio 60, only older and about sport

Seen Aaron Sorkin’s Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip? Loved it? Sad it got the axe after a season? If you’re in that boat then you should get a copy of Sports Night. Which ran for more than one season. And is pretty much what the West Wing would look like if it were about American sport, with slightly less compelling characters.

July 12, 2011