Consciousness – Page 21

Blind justice

We won. Justice might be blind – but it finds it extra hard to see both sides of the story if one isn’t present.

Our long running feud with John Gribbin Realty came to a close today – and I can’t bring myself to think badly of them any longer. Our overbearing landlord received his comeuppance in absentia – and I’m really relishing the thought of the conversation he must be having with the agents.

We arrived at the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal at 11.00, waited half an hour to front up before the judge (though I’m not sure what you call the person at that level?). He tried to phone the agent twice – it went through to message bank both times – so he asked for our side of the story. We conceded $150 worth of damage (an oil stain, some chipped tiles (that I think happened when we were setting up some furniture), and a broken shelf (that Robyn stood on briefly – though we’re not sure that’s what broke it). We probably could have fought for all of those. We walked away with $1,100 (and hopefully our $90 application fee).

We argued that the rest of the damage was fair wear and tear – and didn’t even have to present any of the evidence I stayed up until 12.30am preparing. He ruled in our favour almost straight away. He seemed to think that trying to keep all of our bond while only claiming against $600 of it was pretty unreasonable. We agree.

John Gribbin saved the day. I thought this might happen because they never answer the phone when you try to ring them. Clearly they’re in need of a better telephony system… but the moral to the story is that if John Gribbin Realty in Townsville try to take you to the cleaners (literally and figuratively) over your bond – fight them. They’re bullies. They have a reputation (I’ve spoken to plenty of other people with similar experiences in this saga) for bullying – but like most bullies they don’t handle things well if you don’t back down.

Don’t rent a unit through them in Diprose St – the landlord is particularly aggressive and vindictive. And I really am chuckling at what I think will be his reaction when he hears the court ruled against him mostly because his representatives didn’t front.

April 1, 2010

I gave courting a chance

We’re off to court today to fight our nasty landlord and nastier real estate agent. 11am. I’ve been revisiting episodes of the Practice in my mind – and the plots of every John Grisham novel I’ve ever read.

I’m going to plan B our egregious landlord. He broke the range hood. That’ll sow reasonable doubt.

I meant to post this before I retired.

April 1, 2010

Farewell

Readers, I always knew this day would come. I just wasn’t sure it would come this soon. After some 3,200 posts and four years of baring my soul online – I’ve run out of interesting things to say. I’ve said it all. Sure, I could blog about bacon every day. But that would not be fulfilling.

I’m riding off in to the sunset – to blog here no more. I’ll still respond to comments, and I’ll keep the domain open – but I’ve achieved everything I wanted to achieve out of blogging. I got me a wife, I got me an audience, and I found my voice. Johnny Cash would be proud.

And besides, I peaked with this post – I can’t possibly improve on it.

Thanks for the memories.

April 1, 2010

The awesome unawesomeness of Paul

Paul really was awesome. I’m writing an essay about the early church which is turning into an essay on the church in Corinth. Which has brought me to the point where I am arguing that Paul borrowed from some structures that existed in the first century in order to not be too much of a Christian weirdo – but that he was very keen not to borrow the easiest structures – the one where he’d be some big noting keynote speaker who crowds would flock to see. That seems to be the desire of the Corinthian church for Paul. And he’s at his most vitriolic when he’s correcting that expectation. This is from 2 Corinthians 11 and 12. I love the bit in parenthesis in verse 23…

⁵But I do not think I am in the least inferior to those “super-apostles.” ⁶I may not be a trained speaker, but I do have knowledge. We have made this perfectly clear to you in every way. ⁷Was it a sin for me to lower myself in order to elevate you by preaching the gospel of God to you free of charge?

…

¹²And I will keep on doing what I am doing in order to cut the ground from under those who want an opportunity to be considered equal with us in the things they boast about. ¹³For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, masquerading as apostles of Christ. ¹⁴And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. ¹⁵It is not surprising, then, if his servants masquerade as servants of righteousness. Their end will be what their actions deserve.

¹⁶I repeat: Let no one take me for a fool. But if you do, then receive me just as you would a fool, so that I may do a little boasting. ¹⁷In this self-confident boasting I am not talking as the Lord would, but as a fool. ¹⁸Since many are boasting in the way the world does, I too will boast. ¹⁹You gladly put up with fools since you are so wise! ²⁰In fact, you even put up with anyone who enslaves you or exploits you or takes advantage of you or pushes himself forward or slaps you in the face. ²¹To my shame I admit that we were too weak for that!

What anyone else dares to boast about—I am speaking as a fool—I also dare to boast about. ²²Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they Abraham’s descendants? So am I. ²³Are they servants of Christ? (I am out of my mind to talk like this.) I am more. I have worked much harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again. ²⁴Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. ²⁵Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, ²⁶I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my own countrymen, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false brothers. ²⁷I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked. ²⁸Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches. ²⁹Who is weak, and I do not feel weak? Who is led into sin, and I do not inwardly burn?

³⁰If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness. ³¹The God and Father of the Lord Jesus, who is to be praised forever, knows that I am not lying.

Refreshing and inspiring at the same time. This is why Paul makes the grade in my ten Bible stories for boys… though he probably wouldn’t want to…

March 23, 2010

Leave of absence

Dear readers,

I will not be blogging much this weekend. I have an essay to write, a church camp to attend and a debut to make for Kustard FC – the Baptist League’s most brilliantly coloured football team. That is roundball football. I am very excited.

I look forward to catching you on the flip side. I trust that you won’t feel withdrawals as much as I will.

March 19, 2010

Expanding (and relocating) the blogroll

So my loyal minions readers, I know some of you have been looking for the blogroll that used to rest snuggly in my sidebar. It’s gone from there. Very observant of you – though it turns out some of you have a routine of clicking from blog to blog that I have disturbed. I had put the list in the drop down menu (in that black bar up there ^)… but I don’t think anybody actually ever clicks that – in fact, quick survey:

Question 1. Do you use the menu bar up the top of the page?
a) I click that menu all the time. I love how it moves in and out – it’s like an accordion.
b) I once clicked it, thought it was nifty, but have never used it again
c) menu? what menu?

Question 2. Do you ever use the toolbar that floats on the bottom of the page (it’s white and called the “wibiya toolbar”)?
a) Sure do, I share your posts with all my friends and the whole world using the button it offers and love how I can subscribe to your feed and search your blog both at the top and bottom of the page.
b) It annoys me, floating there, looking at me…
c) Toolbar? Are you on drugs?

Anyway, I was trying to clean up my design the other day and decided to move the links from the menu bar that nobody ever clicks on to the footer that nobody ever scrolls to. But you should. It has pictures. And you can become a fan of St. Eutychus on Facebook (and then share funny things from the internet with your friends who will think you mildly annoying – though less annoying than intrusive spam and friend requests from people you don’t know). Anyway, the links are now there. Check them out. Ai.

Also, while I’m on the subject of links, I am adding some links to the blogroll there as we speak. Welcome to the following additions:

Al Bain – one of those Taswegians – Paradoxically Speaking is a good read with regular posts. Check it. Al was even kind enough to add me to his blogroll today.
Pete Whittle – tumblogs are beautiful. Pete’s is nice. He’s a fellow QTCer, he’s from Dalby, and he’s a muso.
Dave Bailey – told me today at college that he couldn’t figure me out, and told me the other day that my posts are too hard to sift through for the good stuff. Started a blog last week. We’ll see how he goes at filling it with content (his post on prayer in church (or a prayer in church) is a cracker).
JeffK is a QTC grad and a Pressy minister. I’ve met him a couple of times in the real world. He made me laugh.
PeterY has been blogging for a while, he’s also a muso, he’s from Lismore, in real life I had one of my favourite conversations of all time with him and Kutz on a mid year camp a few years back.
Gary has been commenting here lately – his comments are pretty on the ball (for a QTC grad and Pressy minister) and I’ve enjoyed having him around, and enjoyed his blog. Especially today’s post on how to conduct a funeral.
Stuart has also been commenting here for a while – and I particularly appreciated his comments on the church planting metaphor and country ministry stuff a few weeks ago.
Luke got here via Izaac’s blog I think – he doesn’t post that often, but his Google Reader shared items are worth following.

And, it’s quite remiss of me, but I haven’t previously had Mikey’s Boxed Sets or Christian Reflections on that blogroll (though I think they’re on the link page). That is now fixed.
Welcome to the blogroll boys – I don’t feel bad about the male domination of that list for two reasons:

a) I’m a male and more inclined to read stuff by males.
b) I have heaps of females on my blogroll already. Eight. That’s plenty.

March 9, 2010

Five things that annoy me

In no particular order.

Interjections in lectures that are “questions” that end up being statements, that end up being reiterations of the thing we’ve just been covering. Though I suspect my constant stream of stupid comments, puns and dad jokes are just as annoying.
People who park in clearways. One day I will run into one of these cars to see who is at fault legally.
Comment moderation and word verification on blogs. I am statistically less likely to comment on your blog if I don’t see my comment straight away (so that I know it has worked) and if I don’t have to jump through stupid steps to get it there.
That the people who invented the Greek language didn’t just stick with one set of paradigms for nouns, one set for verbs and one set for adjectives.
Flies. I hate flies. I killed about 20 in our kitchen this afternoon. Luckily we have a resident frog who will eat the flies I offer on the little table I’ve set up for him in a fishtank on my desk.

March 9, 2010

On preaching about Eutychus

I preached for the first time as an employee of a church yesterday. It was so big a milestone that my gran and my mum and my wife came to watch. My wife would have been there anyway I guess.

We’re doing a series on Acts at church at the moment and when Andrew asked what I wanted to preach on I naturally said “Acts 20”. Because I wanted to talk about Eutychus. Acts 20 isn’t really about Eutychus, he’s a peripheral figure. And I actually ended up preaching a mammoth passage from Acts 18:18 to the end of Acts 20 – Paul’s whole mission to Ephesus.

I would much prefer preaching a mammoth passage to preaching a mouse sized passage – it’s far better to have to leave stuff out than it is to have to make stuff up.

Here’s what I said about Eutychus. For the record…

And in verse 7 we have possibly my favourite story in the Bible. If you’re going to go down in history for something it may as well be being bored to death by the world’s most famous evangelist. And Eutychus has that honour.

Because in chapter 20 of Acts Paul preaches what could still be a world record for the longest sermon. From dusk until dawn Paul is preaching his passion – the Ephesians might have been able to fervently chant for two hours [in Acts 19] – but chanting six words over and over again has nothing on being able to preach ALL NIGHT teaching.

Paul could have spent hours talking about tent making – and you can bet there would’ve been more fatalities – he could have spoken at length about his travels. If you’ve ever watched a friend’s holiday slide show you’d be aware just how excited some people can be about where they’ve been and what they’ve seen… but that’s not what Paul is excited about. He just wants to talk about Jesus.

Scots Presbyterian in Clayfield enjoys a visit from the boarders from the local Presbyterian Girls’ school about once in a blue moon – and yesterday happened to be it. So between the morning service and the night service I removed the flesh from the skeleton of my talk and reshaped it into something almost purely evangelistic. This is surprisingly easy to do when you’ve put some hours into exegeting the text and figuring out the ways to point people to the gospel – so Gary Millar’s advice was invaluable.

Eutychus played a more prominent role in this talk… just thinking about his story made me aim to not bore my audience of teenage girls. I was glad there were no open windows because I’m not sure how many of them would have tottered out.

My sermons still suffer from slightly trite application (as trite as urging people to live for, and preach, the gospel can be) and I’m always left wishing I’d dug the knife in a bit deeper to cut some real change into people… hopefully that’s something I can work on. Memorable application is important. I feel a tension between creating a memorable understanding of the text and a memorable application of the text – though I’m not actually sure the two should be separate.

One of the bits of preaching I find most memorable was a refrain from an NTE talk on Ezekiel from many years ago where I think Donny Kwan spoke and kept saying “God will be God, and you will know it” is the big idea of Ezekiel. A mantra like that is helpful – but it hasn’t really been profoundly life altering.

So, preachers who read this blog, how do I move my application from the general “live like Jesus” to the specific “live like Jesus by…”, any tips? My guess is that I need to understand the people I’m preaching to and what they’re struggling with so I can metaphorically push their buttons. But even that seems a bit apply by the numbers.

March 8, 2010

I can’t go past this video

You’ve no doubt seen the new OK Go Rube Goldberg music video by now. If not, here it is…

Watching it yesterday on Amy’s blog I was skeptical about its origins. I thought it might be a bunch of videos stiched together or some sort of CGI. But it appears to be legit.

Here’s the story behind the film clip on Wired.

March 5, 2010

Filtering the feeds

Some people (well, Dave Bailey who now has his own blog) have complained about their feed readers being overpowered by my posts. To help I’ve decided to point you all in the direction of the following options – you can, if you like, subscribe just to the feeds of individual categories – or you can subscribe to this feed I’ve just created using RSS mix that excludes the Curiosities, Coffee, and Sport categories and just has the serious stuff about my life, college, Christianity, tips for communication and any “cultural” insights I might come across.

Here’s the new megafeed.
Lucky you. Here are the links to the feeds for individual categories:

Consciousness
Curiosities
Communication
Culture
Christianity
College
Sport
Coffee

March 5, 2010

Things I would do if I had an annoying little brother

This made me:
a) wish I had a little brother.
b) glad I don’t have a little brother.
c) laugh.
d) all of the above.

UPDATE: I posted the wrong video – I’ll leave both up.

February 27, 2010

Hi, ho, hi, ho, it’s off to court we go

The saga of our unreturning bond continued today (as part of the larger epic tale of woe that results from dealing with Townsville’s worst real estate agent – J0hn Gribb1n realty). I will update this post with the correct spelling once our case is over.

Not only did we suffer through two years living on site with the landlord from Hell – he wants us to pay for every paint chip, cracked tile and wall mark in the house (otherwise known as wear and tear). Better yet, he wants us to pay him $370 to conduct the repairs. Does anybody else see a conflict of interest here? We asked the real estate agency if we could have quotes from other tradespeople in Townsville and were told that it was too late – that the work had already been completed while the mail was in transit. Dodgy city.

Now we are going to the Small Claims Tribunal – now known as QCAT where I get to put everything I have learned from years watching legal television (and from a little bit of a Law Degree) into good use. Legal representation is not allowed – but I will get our friendly neighbourhood lawyer to have a bit of input into my preparation.

In conclusion – do not live at unit 1, 11 Diprose Street. The landlord not a very nice man who takes great delight in yelling at his tenants for no logical reason, and do not rent with J0hn Gribb1n – who advise their landlords that a 25% reduction in costs of a piece of broken kitchen equipment (that can’t be logically demonstrated to be broken because of the reckless, negligent or malicious actions of the tenant) constitutes negotiation.

February 25, 2010

Internet loop

Have you ever tried to procrastinate for just a minute and ended up in an infinite loop of social networks. I try to create my own loop by sending all of my posts to Twitter and Facebook – and then sharing them in google reader and sending them to Twitter again. People must get so sick of me if they follow me everywhere… but that’ll teach you. Stalkers.

If I enabled one of my plugins that creates a new post from every tweet and the other plugin that creates a new tweet from every post I’d have some sort of perpetual internet motion going on.

Anyway, here’s a nice flow chart that documents the phenomena.

February 21, 2010

How to eat cheap steak, cheap skate.

If you’re not already familiar with this secret it’ll blow your mind/tastebuds.

I think I learned it from a segment on the today show – but this cooking site has diagrams so it’s much more scientific and believable. The key to making an expensive steak taste good is salt. The other secret is to buy the fattest cheap steak you can find.

Steak Recipe: Massively salt your steaks 15 min – 1 hour before grilling.

Notice that I didn’t say, “sprinkle liberally” or even “season generously.” I’m talking about literally coating your meat until you can’t see red. It should resemble a salt lick.

Let that meat be totally overwhelmed with the salt for 1 hour or less. Rinse, pat dry dry dry and then you’re ready to grill.

All of you who season JUST before grilling – this is what you are really doing to the meat. Did you know that? All the water comes to the surface and if you don’t pat super-dry, you’re basically STEAMING the meat. Plus, your salt just sits on the surface of the steak, leaving the interior tasteless.

You can thank me – and the orignal writer – later when you taste just how good salty steak can be. Salt really is the world’s most magical substance.

February 20, 2010

Mad Skillz: Dave on how to argue with me…

I meant to post this yesterday – I think I may have mentioned that Dave Walker was contributing two Mad Skillz. Here’s his second. It’s timely – perhaps – given some of the discussions this week. And I didn’t even bag out U2.

If you have a Mad Skill and would like to contribute I would be happy to keep posting these as long as material keeps coming in – feel free to go for a second bite of the cherry.

Anyway, here’s what Dave has to say. I don’t necessarily agree with all of it – but I’ll let the disagreements slide.

Nathan is one of the best people I know to have an argument with. You cannot argue with Nathan without being forced to think about what you’re saying and to consider fresh, creative, and insightful ideas. But arguing with Nathan can be a bit of an art form! Having been a sparring partner with Nathan in the North for the last four years, here’s my 5 tips for friends ‘down south’ on how to have a good argument with Nathan:

Don’t. At least sometimes. Arguments with Nathan sometimes end with (metaphorical) blood on the floor on both sides, so a level headed assessment of whether it’s sensible to enter the fray is well worthwhile. Nathan will argue for arguing’s sake, so a release valve is important.
Remember that the thinner the basis for Nathan’s position, the more strenuously he will defend it. You might think it’s stupid, but he really likes to do that. It helps him work out whether there’s anything in his position that he wants to hang on to, and whether your criticisms of the idea have any merit to them. Nathan’s whole philosophy is to test ideas to their absolute limits — so rather than be exasperated by that, just enjoy watching him defend the (sometimes) ridiculous. But don’t think that just calling an idea ‘ridiculous’ will somehow cool Nathan’s enthusiasm for it — it will do quite the opposite!
The better the point you make, the less likely Nathan is to acknowledge it out loud. This is related to #2 — he’s not looking to agree with you, he’s looking to test ideas. So when you make a good point, he’ll ignore it and argue his point on different (and sometimes only loosely related) grounds. This can be very frustrating, but don’t bite on the deflection unless you think it’s relevant and call him on it if he needs it.
Tell him to pull his head in every now and then. Nathan needs good friends who can see through his obstreperousness and self-confessed moments of arrogance, and remind him that there are often real people attached to the ideas he’s arguing against.
You can never end an argument with Nathan. He is not interested in finding a position of agreement (see point 3) and he is psychologically incapable of letting you have the last word. So when it’s time to finish, make your point, let him have the last word, and either shrug your shoulders at him or say ‘thank you for highlighting that we don’t agree’!

February 20, 2010