Roadkilling me softly

I love it when disparate topical threads get brought together into a thrilling conclusion. That’s why I like movies like Lock Stock so much – here’s a combination of two of my favourite things – macabre toys and roadkill.

Roadkill Plush Toys. That’s right. Cheer up your kiddy (or your inner kiddy) with the thought that things could be much worse.

“Grind (Rabbit) Plush Toy

* He measures a healthy 12 inches from the tip of his twitching nose to his outstretched back paws, and 5 inches across the widest part of his body. His fluffy bunny ears add another 5 inches to his length. One is half-cocked vertically upwards, the other lies flat on the ground. In the middle he squishes out to 3 inches high with the blood and guts stuffed in, and 2 inches high with them out. He weighs a piffling 1.6 kilos. He won’t be the first to admit it, but as his modest dimensions show he was the runt of the litter. A litter which stretched to 211 brothers and sisters.

Splodge (Hedgehog) Plush Toy

* He measures a statuesque 23 cms from nose to tail, and 21 cms from outstretched paw to paw. And in the middle he flattens out to 13 cms high with the blood and guts stuffed in, and 11 cms high with them out. At 300 grams he’s slightly overweight for a hedgehog. This is due to his unhealthy obsession with bread and milk.

Twitch (Raccoon) Plush Toy

* He measures a healthy 15 inches from nose to tail, and 10 inches from outstretched paw to paw. And in the middle he flattens out to 2 inches high with the blood and guts stuffed in, and 1 inch high with them out. He weighs a piffling 350 grams. He won’t be the first to admit it, but as his modest dimensions show he was the runt of the litter.”

June 18, 2009

On foolishness

I’m working on my next sermon. For the night services at Willows on the 28th of June. Here’s the passage I’m preaching on – it’s in the context of a series on evangelism in the mornings… an imaginary Freddo Frog to the person who first guesses what direction I’m going in with this passage…

1 Corinthians 1
“17For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel—not with words of human wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.

Christ the Wisdom and Power of God
18 For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19 For it is written:
“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise;
the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.”[c]
20 Where is the wise man? Where is the scholar? Where is the philosopher of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe. 22 Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks look for wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 24 but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength.
26 Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. 28 He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, 29 so that no one may boast before him. 30 It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God—that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. 31 Therefore, as it is written: “Let him who boasts boast in the Lord.”[d]

1 Corinthians 2
1 When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God.[e] 2 For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. 4 My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, 5 so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power.”

June 17, 2009

Disagreeable spam

My awesome comment spam filter protects me (and you dear reader) from all sorts of online nastiness. Ads for drugs, the opportunity to lose weight quickly, and naked celebrities (sadly that phrase will probably produce a boost in hits – if you’re one of the people who arrived here googling “Naked Celebrities” then please visit your local church – or read this Mark Driscoll eBook). A lot of spam is encouraging and supportive. The spammer tells me they’ll be back regularly – and they often are. But some spam is just down right mean. Like this guy, Anthony Dip, who disagrees with me…

“In my opinion you are not right. Let’s discuss it. Write to me in PM, we will communicate.”

Strangely his disagreement was with the hard copy Wikipedia post, which was factual and almost completely sans editorial.

June 17, 2009

A bunch of links – June 17, 2009

June 17, 2009

Political segway

When Dick Cheney wasn’t busy being awesome shooting his friends on hunting trips he was being awesome riding a segway.

June 17, 2009

Iconic Coffee

Every website or desktop needs a collection of coffee icons. You can find a nice little collection here.

Found at cafedave.

June 17, 2009

Swiss Army Utensils

If you want your kitchen running as efficiently as a Swatch watch – and as secure as a Swiss Bank – then perhaps you need one of these utensil holders.

June 17, 2009

Ninjafy your wall

Shurikens make for awesome home decorating. They’re cooler if you throw them at the wall and they stick in – but these “coat hooks” are pretty cool.

“The Ninja Coat Hooks look will transform your hallway into the scene of a Shanghai back street stand-off. Each metal Ninja Coat Hook has one corner cleverly engineered into a screw, which allows you to fix securely to your wall or door, whilst making it look like it has been hurled from the hands of a deadly Ninjitsu assassin.”

June 17, 2009

Ninjafy your car

After you’ve got things in the kitchen to a dangerously ninjafied status it’s time to turn your car into a lean, mean, killing machine (figuratively not literally).

June 17, 2009

Ninjafy your dinner

All meals are better ninja flavoured. So these ninja salt and pepper shakers are just the ticket.

June 17, 2009

NES-SB

These are awesome. There are a number of Mario Characters available… the base and the drive are sold separately. You can get them here.

June 17, 2009

Drink coffee or bad things will happen

This is a series of actual ads from the 1950s. It is awesome. Here’s why they’re like they are…

“In 1957, Jim Henson was approached by a Washington, D.C. coffee company to produce ads for Wilkins Coffee. The local stations only had ten seconds for station identification, so the commercials had to be lightning-fast — essentially, eight seconds for the commercial pitch and a two-second shot of the product.”

June 17, 2009

Izaac thinks aloud…

Friend Izaac now has a blog. He has put a link to it in his gmail status so I assume that means it’s open for business.

You should check it out.

He’s funnier than me. But he’s a St George supporter so there’s a trade off.

June 17, 2009

Reader Poll – Into the future

Hello Readers,

I’d like your advice – yes – particularly you lurkers who never comment.

It seems increasingly likely that my geographically specific domain name will become redundant – and it’s problematic even if our geographical location maintains its status quo – because it gets picked up in all sorts of Google Alerts that I don’t necessarily want it to…

So, I’m plotting and planning a change. And I have two current conceptual options (to be narrowed down to specific domains) that would move this away from being purely a site for my personal ramblings and in to something more defined. I don’t want to write my suggested domains down in case some enterprising reader snaps them up and holds them to ransom.

But here are my options:

1. I like to think that the one thing uniting all of my disparate postings and rambling musings is an overarching appreciation of “cleverness” – some things falling into the “too clever” category. I see this site as almost a repository of other people’s clever ideas. This domain would have something to do with the study of cleverness pertaining to stupid and needless gadgetry, coffee and the rest… it also begins with the letter “c” which works given my categorical nomenclature.

2. I also am entertaining a mild fascination with the Biblical character Eutychus. Eutychus is the guy who fell asleep during one of Paul’s rambling sermons and fell out a window to his death – only to be raised by Paul (no doubt through some sense of remorse for being so boring). I hope this changed Paul’s preaching. I like to think of Eutychus as the patron saint of not being boring.

3. I could go down a more boring avenue and pick some other word, or combination that would remove both my name, and location from the equation – I don’t intend to become anonymous, I like the sense of transparency and accountability that comes from using my name. I would just like it to be able to be more permanent and less tied to a state of flux.

So, your thoughts – option 1, 2 or 3…

June 17, 2009

Visions of the future

If, over the next forty years, you want to keep a running tally of how closely Hollywood’s vision of the future matches our own – your job is made easier by this chart…

From Dan Meth.

June 17, 2009