This is a most impressive piece of photography. Found here.
A bunch of links – June 28, 2009
- sentimentality
- 15 Must-Have Web Apps for Students
- Top 10 Productivity Basics Explained
- Reasons people mix up “you’re” and “your”, “there” and “their”
- Women Happiest at 28
- Ever Wondered What The Most Common Names On Facebook Are? Here’s A List
- Google Wants You To Become A Gmail Ninja. Or Look Like A Huge Nerd Trying.
- Final Frame: Color Scheme Designer
- Right to Rebuke?
- Centuri0n Vs iMonk: On Driscoll’s Need To Repent
- Christian facebook updates
I missed this post of Simone’s the other day – but it’s great. I commend it to you. Both as a tip for communicating ideas – and for not being an airy fairy song leader at church…
Overt advert
Outdoor advertising is perhaps the best landscape for expressing creativity in marketing. The world is a canvas. This post is a collection of impressive campaigns. Here are some of my favourites. 
I don’t know what this one is for. 
Reviewing History
I’m a little behind on my unread items queue in Google Reader. So I was shocked at first when I read this story – but then I realised it was written on the 24th.
“I am sure fans of Michael Jackson would know that he wore a dress or jacket or gloves worth much more than the one million pounds he is going to spend. I would say, wherever you are in this world, don’t miss to go and attend his final mind blowing concert!”
This is no doubt of real comfort to the millions of people grieving his passing. Knowing that he was going to wear a million dollar coat.
Odd, as I was writing this I was watching a recording of “Talkin’ about Your Generation” from last Tuesday that opened with a Michael Jackson joke.
Is it still funny to make jokes about the previously living Michael Jackson?
A bunch of links – June 27, 2009
- Stop masking passwords
- Potter, Stars Trek and Wars, Matrix all the same movie
- Megachurches and corporations are alike
- 20 Unusual Yellow Submarine Items: Beatles
- Top Media Outlets
- MovieStinger Reveals Which Movies Have Scenes After The Credits | Lifehacker Australia
- 5 Geeky Ways To Ask Someone To Marry You On The Internet
- Photograph Your Food Without Being A Jerk
- Be A Better Photographer On Vacation
- Study Suggests Eyeballs Like Bing, but Google’s Familiar [Search Engines]
- Check your Website Color Contrast with CheckMyColours
- FRED on Facebook
- In Defence of John Piper and N.T. Wright
- Exit stage left
- Saying every Christian is a missionary can be downright offensive.
- After the Sermon
Japanese cultural convergence
The Japanese – famous for a love of baseball, over-exaggerated television programming and Samurais.
A bunch of links – June 26, 2009
- Death And All His Friends
- What colors do you see?
- 35 CSS-Lifesavers For Efficient Web Design
- Famous people who died on the same day
- Question Time
- How a cup of coffee can prevent bad breath | Mail Online
- Coffee tasting 101
- C.S. Lewis on the basis of his atheism
- C.S. Lewis on the basis of his atheism
- Homeward Bound
- Why Mark Driscoll Shouldn’t Bug Ya
- I Like What the Bible Teaches
- PCQ State Assembly
- Why is pastoral ministry so stressful?
The title may be confusing – CS Lewis was an atheist before he was converted.
Transformers 2
We saw Transformers 2 last night. It lived up to all my expectations. People (critics) who complain about Transformers movies forget that the movies are based on action figures – and Revenge of the Fallen replicates just about ever Transformer battle my imagination ever produced when playing with the toys. There’s a slight spoiler in the third paragraph – don’t read it if you don’t want to.
The plot was a bit bumbling – it really was just a vehicle for bringing the vehicles together into gravity defying alien robot Wrestlemania. Some of the fights copied the WWE’s playbook – there were submission moves, power moves… it was awesome. If wrestling involved robots I’d get cable TV and watch every week. It felt a bit like watching a National Treasure movie just with awesome robots. Really awesome robots.
The basic plot (without spoilers) involves the reluctant “messiah” Sam having the typical “central character doesn’t want to undertake the task they’ve been pre-ordained to perform” identity crisis – popular since Gethsemane. If I wanted to Christianise this review I’d say isn’t it great that there’s such a powerful allegory – Sam even “dies” at one point only to meet the Robot gods in heaven and be flung back to earth. There’s a bit of messianic confusion because Optimus Prime also dies and is resurrected.
Go see it though – you won’t be disappointed the explosions are bigger and there are more robots and more robot fights than the first one (and a few laughs along the way). I gave it an 8/10 because I’m capable of ignoring the stuff that critics look for in awesome robot carnage fests.
Transformers Revenge of the Fallen (Final Theatrical Trailer) from Bay Films/Michael Bay Dot Com on Vimeo.
Piper on movies
John Piper has an interesting take on consumption of culture – particularly trivial culture – similar to Philip Jensen’s thoughts that I posted a while back, and quite different to Mark Driscoll’s. Mark Driscoll should get a comission from Tivo he talks about it so much… Piper says he doesn’t watch TV because it’s trivial – but if he does he takes the following position…
I have a high tolerance for violence, high tolerance for bad language, and zero tolerance for nudity. There is a reason for these differences. The violence is make-believe. They don’t really mean those bad words. But that lady is really naked, and I am really watching. And somewhere she has a brokenhearted father.
I’ll put it bluntly. The only nude female body a guy should ever lay his eyes on is his wife’s. The few exceptions include doctors, morticians, and fathers changing diapers. “I have made a covenant with my eyes; how then could I gaze at a virgin?” (Job 31:1). What the eyes see really matters. “Everyone who looks at a woman to desire her has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:28). Better to gouge your eye than go to hell (verse 29).
This is one of those points where I come down on the Driscoll side of the equation – I think understanding culture involves understanding what people are filling their minds with. But I tend to feel the same way as Piper. Violence and swearing don’t really bother my Christian sensibilities.
Smells like mean spirit
An atheist blogger has suggested a new product line… Richard Dawkins cologne. Its odour is no doubt offensive to Christians everywhere.
Word word locator…
Ever wondered how often and where a particular word occurs in the Bible? Well, here’s a nice little webapp that lets you track down every reference to any word. Pretty awesome stuff. Here’s an example of the results searching for “faith”. There’s a nice guide for why you might use this here.
Church Planting Conference
Dad is speaking at this Moore College conference today. I was surprised to learn that. I thought he was just attending. I only realised that he was speaking because Nigel Fortesque is liveblogging it on Twitter and kept writing things @philcampbell – only, the Phil Campbell on Twitter is not my father. He’ll no doubt be very confused with the series of messages arriving in his Twitter inbox.
That amused me.
The conference looks interesting – and I’ll be following along.