Toxic warning tape would probably be a more appropriate addition to most bathrooms – but in the case of literal “silent but deadlies” this crime scene toilet paper will do the job.
Bible stories for boys: Samson
I finished my “cool stories from the Bible” kid’s talk series at church this morning with the story of Samson. Before I get onto posting the story there were a heap of cool parallels between Jesus and Samson that I didn’t cover in this story – he’s betrayed by someone close and taken to enemy headquarters for the purpose of mockery before dying to save God’s people. I covered the last bit – but not so much the betrayal/public spectacle. Check it out.
Do you want to grow up with big muscles? I do. Have you ever seen those really big strong warrior guys who have arms so muscled that they look like they could lift just about anything? Do you want to be strong? Well, today’s story is about the world’s strongest man.
His name was Samson. We’ll start this story before he was born. Samson’s mum was old and didn’t think she could have babies. But an angel came to visit Samson’s parents to give them some good news.
The angel told them that they would have a special baby. Who would be set apart for God. This baby was not allowed to cut his hair. And he would grow up to save Israel from their enemies. By being big and strong.
Samson grew up to be big and strong. One day a lion attacked him and he ripped it apart with his bare hands.
One day he went out to fight the Philistines. He tied a fiery torch between the tails of 300 jackals – animals a bit like wild dogs – and sent them running, with their tails tied together into the Philistine’s farms – burning all their food. He was very clever. Then he killed lots of them.
Samson was so cool. He was a bit like Batman. He lived in a cave.
The Philistines didn’t like Samson very much. They got an army together to march to Israel to demand they hand Samson over to them. They wanted to kill him.
So the nation of Israel decided to hand Samson over to the Philistines. They tied him up. But do you know what happens when you tie up a really strong person? They flex their muscles. And the ropes break.
So that’s what Samson did. He was surrounded by Philistines. He broke the ropes. He escaped. But he didn’t have a weapon. So he picked up a donkey jawbone from a nearby skeleton.
And he used it to kill 1,000 Philistines.
Samson got into a bit of a pickle. He trusted a lady Philistine – who wanted to kill him…
He loved this lady Delilah – so eventually he told her his secret. And she betrayed him. The Philistines cut his hair while he was asleep.
Then they captured him and poked out his eyes. And they turned him into a slave.
The Philistines were so excited to have caught Samson they decided to have a party.
They brought Samson up to humiliate him.
Fancy buildings in those days were held up by stone pillars. Samson asked the guards to place him between the pillars so that he could stand up. And he prayed to God to give him strength one more time. His hair was growing back.
Samson prayed to God, and then reached out his hands and placed them on the two pillars. He pushed. And pushed.
He pushed with all his strength and the whole building came down. As he pushed he prayed “let me die with the Philistines”. And he did.
And you know what, Samson was very strong, but he actually wasn’t the world’s strongest man.
Do you know who is? Samson stretched out his arms and died so that other people. God’s enemies. Would die.
Jesus died so that God’s enemies would become God’s friends. So they could live. And he came back from the dead. Samson couldn’t do that. Jesus is the world’s strongest man. His strength is enough to save you, and me, and the whole world. Samson couldn’t do that.
Samson might have been really cool because he lived in a cave – but Jesus is heaps cooler because he came back to life in a cave. And he’s heaps stronger because by doing that he saves the whole wide world – including you, and me.
The End.
How to have a blockbuster wedding
I like this wedding invitation. I saw it today for the first time and Robyn said she had seen it on TV. I don’t care. It’s my blog and I’ll post what I want to – even if everybody else has seen this already…
I’m officially unemployed…
As of 5.30pm yesterday I am officially no longer employed in the secular workforce. My employment status in the unsecular workforce is undetermined (I have to fill out some forms and get a medical before the Presbyterian Church will pay me to be a student).
We’re leaving for Brisbane on Thursday, we should arrive on Friday. We still have some packing and cleaning to do, and myriad farewells and goodbyes to say.
I loved my job at Townsville Enterprise. I’ll miss both the work and the people.
I scored a good bit of swag in the leaving process. It’s a strange thing that employers give gifts to people who leave and not to those who stay. I scored a watch, my iPhone and some cufflinks. I was blown away by the generosity of my employers and the nice things they said about me.
I managed to keep my tough guy veneer in check though.
Unemployment does have its benefits though – I can now say whatever I want about people, places and businesses in Townsville – and will be doing so with my own hottest 100 (things to do in Townsville) which I’ll start writing in the car as we drive to Brisbane.
10 WordPress Plugins I love
I love WordPress for much the same reason that I love Firefox (and almost the same reason that I love the iPhone – except that it’s not Open Source). Plugins. Plugins make the world go around. There are 8070 WordPress Plugins in existence today. That’s a lot. They do a lot of stuff.
I’ve found ten that I will install on any blog or website I build using WordPress – and I’m planning to use WordPress for any blog or website I build ever. A few of them do almost exactly the same thing. But I keep them installed as a permanent testing phase for cool things I can use elsewhere.
These aren’t in order of usefulness or importance. They’re all good. I’ve left off all the popular ones that everybody should install straight off the bat (the Akismet spam filter, WP-Super Cache, and anything SEO related (I use this one)). These are the fun ones that make your life easier and your blog better.
- Post Highlights – The little box on the right of my homepage with nice pictures and a link to an old post is produced using this plugin, there are a couple of options that do the same thing – but this one didn’t clash with a couple of my other plugins. So I installed it.
- Sexy Bookmarks – The little icons at the bottom of each post which let you share my work with the world via a bunch of popular bookmark services come courtesy of this baby. They look nice. I like them. I’d like more people to press them.
- Shashin – I installed this last weekend. It’s a great Picasa to WordPress plugin. It’s really easy to use.
- Insights – this bad boy lets you search old blog posts with ease while you’re creating a new post. It means if I want to link to something I’ve written a long time ago I don’t have to search through the archives using the site search feature and then copy the link… it also lets you search other blogs, for videos, for images (from Flickr), for News, Wikipedia articles and books…
- IntenseDebate – I know some people hate my comment platform. But it’s the way of the future – and you can just deal with it or get on board. IntenseDebate lets you link your comments to your Facebook Profile, Twitter Account, IntenseDebate Account, or just your website. It lets people rate your comments. It has its own plugins. And it lets you embed YouTube videos into your comments. I like it.
- Sliding Panel – has anybody ever hit the little thing that says “open” in the black menu bar at the top of the page? No? Oh well, if you had you would have found a really cool jquery powered sliding panel. It looks nice opening and shutting. I could just sit there and do it all day.
- Twitter Tools – When I decided to re-enter the world of Twitter I did it using this plugin that has so many features that I’m unlikely to use. But its core functionality is also really useful. Especially if you’re like me – and want the benefit of posting your content onto Twitter without the hassle of actually visiting the site.
- Wibiya Plugin – You can never have too many options to let people share or search your content can you? Wibiya is the little bar that sits on the bottom of the page. I’ve had it installed for ages. I’m not sure that anybody actually uses it. But if you bothered you’d be surprised at how handy it is.
- Post Star Ratings – This puts the stars at the bottom of the posts so that you can tell me if you like, or don’t like, what I’ve written without having to navigate the commenting system. It’s similar to I Like This except that giving a post one star is a way to voice your displeasure.
- What would Seth Godin Do – I like the idea of converting people who land on a post via Google into people who subscribe to everything I have to say. So I installed this plugin that welcomes first time visitors with a nice little message and an invitation to subscribe.
Do you use WordPress already? Have you got any favourites that aren’t on the list?
What to give the Bible Geek who has everything
So you bought your family Bible geek the Proclaimer (audio Bible) last Christmas. Now what? What could possibly have more geek cred than a solar powered talking Bible?
Well, in the interest of providing you as many alternatives to just your run of the paper mill physical Bible, here is Bible Navigator X – the Bible for XBox.
Here’s a blurb from the launch Media Release:
“This application will bring the Bible into people’s living rooms and onto their televisions in a completely new and innovative way,” said Aaron Linne, B&H Publishing Group’s executive producer of digital marketing. “The Xbox isn’t just secular entertainment anymore. We can use technology that other people developed to study Scriptures through a new medium. Some people are just more comfortable with a controller in their hands than a book.”
Not convinced that this is how you should be reading the Bible? This hilariously serious (and vaguely trinitarian review) from a gaming website will get you over the line.
The best lines are about the themes the program comes with:
“This one has green paint splattered all over it. You’d think that most people who’d be reading the Bible, or care enough to pay money for a version of the Bible on their XBox would probably be upset where there’s junk spilled all over the Bible, or maybe that’s just me.”
“This one is the oddest one of all. There’s a giant fake coffee stain down there. So, I mean, who’s going to set their coffee cup down on the Bible.”
Spiritual dinosaurs
Some people are worried that Avatar is promoting pantheism. Dinosaur Comics captured, in six frames, the reason I don’t think pantheism will ever catch on (past that odd new age spirituality movement)…
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Tangible Twitter
I’m using Twitter again (feel free to follow me). I stopped for a while because I didn’t have the time or patience to bother with it. But now I’ve set up little automated things that import anything I bookmark and everything I post here. And I can post what I’m listening to on iTunes as well. Exciting stuff. I like that I’m contributing to the noise to signal ratio on Twitter (on the noise side of the equation).
But that’s not the reason I’m posting this. The reason I’m posting this is to draw your attention to this infographic that considers the voluminous amount of information currently residing on Twitter’s servers. And imagining what would happen if you turned it into paper. This was put together by GOOD.is. They make good infographics.
When you prank you begin with “do Remi”
If you took the Annoying Devil character from Balls of Steel and combined him with the Chaser, and then made that combination French you’d end up with someone a lot like Remi Galliard. I’ve posted some of his stuff before. I think he’s funny. Especially when he gets on the field with sporting teams.
He has been doing his thing for ten years. Here are some highlights.
Pet sounds
There’s a character in Douglas Adam’s Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency who made his mark in computer world by writing a program that turned financial spreadsheets into music.
This guy wrote a program that turns pictures into music – taking the RGB values of every pixel and converting them into a three note harmonic.
It sounds clever – clever enough to be worth patenting. Only somebody else has already done that. So he’s closed down the program that used to be online. One day though people. One day I will hear the sound of turtles… they don’t actually make noise.
Bowl the zombies over
If zombies are taking over your neighbourhood and you want to welcome them with a piece of good old fashion hospitality you might want to serve up your delectables in a dish that looks like this…
From Etsy…
Know where you stand when you fall
Just in case you were wondering about the post death pecking order – chances are you’ll (until judgment day at least) be at the bottom.
When I use the word “chances” I don’t mean to suggest that there is any probability of zombies, ghosts, or vampires coming after you. But if you’re writing fiction and want to produce better characters then this will at least help you put things in perspective.
From here.
The bread of life
An artist who was perhaps tired of unverifiable claims of Jesus appearing in believer’s daily bread has recreated the crucifixion using slices of toast.
From here.
“British artist Adam Sheldon recreated Jesus’ crucifixion using some pieces of burned toast and a scraping knife. His work of art is now on display at the Anglican Church of St Peter, in Lincs.
33-year-old Adam Sheldon took on the project at the request of his mother, who worships at St. Peter’s Church. Before starting work on his 1.8 ,meters long, 1.1 meters wide masterpiece, Adam scraped the Last Supper on three pieces of toast, to perfect his technique.
He used a regular toaster to burn the pieces of bread, then dried and flattened them so they would fit in a giant frame. Using a scraping knife he managed to create the lighter parts of the artwork, and darkened the background with a blowtorch.”
I like traffic lights… except when they are red
Why has this idea not been put into practice yet?
Traffic lights with a progress bar. Brilliant.
From here.