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This is a test
August 11th, 2009Test
January 13th, 2009
The Only Thing That Doesn’t Change Is Change Itself
August 22nd, 2008Hey all. Again, I apologies for the lack of updates.
They say “the only thing that doesn’t change is change itself” and that is true for me and this blog. Things are changing, just slowly. Now that I’m working full time I don’t have the same amount of time to edit and tinker and generally develop this site as much as I want. I have started countless (well 2) new templates which have never been finished.
Please bare with me. I haven’t forgotten about this site, just it has been at the bottom of my priority list I’m afraid. Stay tuned though in the next couple months. Things will pick up pace alot
Lost! - Coldplay
June 30th, 2008Just because I’m losing
Doesn’t mean I’m lost
Doesn’t mean I’ll stop
Doesn’t mean I will cross
Doesn’t mean I’m lost
Doesn’t mean I’ll stop
Doesn’t mean I will cross
Just because I’m hurting
Doesn’t mean I’m hurt
Doesn’t mean I didn’t get what I deserve
No better and no worse
I just got lost
Every river that I’ve tried to cross
And every door I ever tried was locked
Ooh-Oh, And I’m just waiting till the shine wears off…
You might be a big fish
In a little pond
Doesn’t mean you’ve won
‘Cause along may come
A bigger one
And you’ll be lost
Every river that you tried to cross
Every gun you ever held went off
Ooh-Oh, And I’m just waiting till the firing starts
Ooh-Oh, And I’m just waiting till the shine wears off
Ooh-Oh, And I’m just waiting till the shine wears off
Ooh-Oh, And I’m just waiting till the shine wears off…
Mini Rant
June 24th, 2008There is nothing worse than watching a crap film.
Nothing!
That feeling as the credit roll and you realised that you have wasted a good two hours of your life watching a poor film. Two hours that you can never get back.
Today I watched Casshern. Based on an old 1970s Anime series I thought it could be quite good. It wasn’t. Not only was it ridiculously confusing due to the combination of very little (sub titled) dialogue and an odd story line that jumped from assumption to assumption.
I also had problems with the DVD. Pretty much missed out the majority of Chapter 10. Got the jist but still it didn’t help my already bad judgement of the beginning of the film.
Ah well! Win some, loose some.
Thus ends the mini rant.
What movie made you want to rant?
Steves’ Philosophies on Life
June 16th, 2008This weekend I moved back to my parents from Aston Brook Green. My time at ABG was quite simply amazing and it has defiantly been the best year of my life. All the people have been fantastic and I have many fond memories!
If you did not know already, I will be leaving at my parents house for the next 18 months or so. I am going into my third year at uni which is a placement year. I have been very lucky to get a job with Made Media in the Jewelry Quarter. The descision was made to live at home because there was very little options. Either live with students (who will be going to bed at 3am and getting up at 1pm) or pay alot of rent for my own place. As my parents live jsut by Shirley station, which has daily trains to the Jewelry Quarter, it seemed to make sense to stay at home.
So this week is pretty much set aside, apart from a trip to see Nat on Tuesday, to sort my life out. This includes de-cluttering my room, sorting all my stuff out, storing things I will need for final year (such as kitchen utensils etc) and buying my new laptop. I will also be attending my first Small Group with Vineyard, meeting with Nigel and attending a Budgeting course that the church are putting on. So a finally busy week all round.
While tidying my room I stumbled on a small A5 piece of paper with 8 points scribbled down entitled “Steves’ Philosophies on Life”. Quite frankly it is very bizarre! They range from down right cheesy to the most silliest things ever. I have no idea why I wrote these, however I’m sure Steve Bates had some form of inspiration! I thought I would share them with you:
Steves’ Philosophies on Life
- Don’t look in linear lines, take a step back and look at the bigger picture. (ok so I started well)
- Sometime you have to go back to go forward. (Really!?)
- Don’t mess with Granmas plants. (I stand by this one!)
- Life always looks better through a smile. (Pure slice of Cheddar right there)
- You will never think of a good idea when trying to think of one. (Holds some truth I guess, not much though)
- Michael Robert Heyes is always the exception. (LOL!)
- Women are always wrong but the wife is always right! (Where the heck did this come from!? Maybe Dad had some influence on that one! Ridiculous.)
- Positive thoughts = positive life. (A bigger slice of Cheddar)
Wow…
I thought it would be funny to here some other peoples pockets of golden wisdom so let me know. Lets face, they can’t be much worse!
One Laptop Per Child
May 22nd, 2008
So over the past year or so I have seen a number of news post of the BBC Technology section about the so called ‘$100 Laptop.’ The idea of this laptop is that is so cheap ($100/roughly £50) that it can easily be distributed in Developing Countries to children as tools for learning.
My first reaction to this project was “Why the heck do children in developing countries need laptops? Surely food would be a better gift?” However, this just emphised my naivety of the culture and situation in these countries.
After researching on their website, I found that actually a laptop for these children may be useful. As it is a learning tool, it teaches kids to use computers but not just in the sense of how to use Word or send an email (in fact in doesn’t have Word at the moment). It teaches children how to write computer programs and how to code. This will then enable them to get a job, and therefore be able to provide for their family.
The Laptop itself, the XO, is actually pretty sweet. It uses a strand of Linux, however can now have Windows XP installed on it. You can decided for yourself if that is a good thing or not. Everything has been thought about in the design in this laptop. It is waterproof, dust proof and drop proof. It has a built in web cam type camera and the screen swivles round and then flattens to create a type of tablet. Go to youtube and just type in ‘XO laptop’ or soemthing and have a look. This video is pretty good.
One frustrating thing about this project hasn’t got anything to do with the project itself. More the fact that the laptops cast $180 (they couldn’t quite get it down to $100) and it has amazing functionality. Also, the new model (XO2) as far as I can tell, is completely touch screen and they are aiming for the same kind of price. Its annoying that I am looking at getting a new laptop and having to spent a few hundred on one! Ah well, for a good cause I guess!
The thing that I like about this project the most is that it is technology based. As a techie, and a Christian, I often think how can I help people in Developing Countries or similar situations with the skills I have. If I was a doctor or nurse, then my skills would obviously be useful. But i thought that coding and making websites would not really be very useful. Maybe soon, techies like myself will be able to go over and teach these children how to code, breaking the cycle of poverty in these countries.
OLPC is not, at heart, a technology program, nor is the XO a product in any conventional sense of the word. OLPC is a non-profit organization providing a means to an end—an end that sees children in even the most remote regions of the globe being given the opportunity to tap into their own potential, to be exposed to a whole world of ideas, and to contribute to a more productive and saner world community.
Amen to that.
Birthday!
May 15th, 2008Last Friday was my birthday. This was no ordinary birthday however, it was my 21st! Due to exams, we could not do a huge night out. However I did alright despite this!On Thursday (8th) was Becky W birthday Pub Golf Crawl. So I went along with everyone to various pubs and bars round Solihull, seeing in my birthday with style.
It was a real good night and I had a lot of fun. It was great to hang out with everyone back home and an awesome start to my birthday!
The next day, my bro and I drove into town and met John and Emma for sushi at Mt Fuji. After we met Ken for his break and went to a coffee house. Basically just chilled out!
After I got back to ABG, I had a birthday nap while Mike and Ducky went to a Chinese super market. After we all piled in, and after a short trip to the NEC (blame James’ directing), we all went to Starcity. While there we had dinner at La Tasca and went to Vue to watch Iron Man. It is a good film. Well, good if you like watching a robot beat the metal out of another robot. Which I do. Therefore it was good. We then went back to Gosta for a few drinks and laughs.
Good day all round! Thanks to everyone for everything. Thanks for your presents and gifts. But just generally thank you, as 21 one years would be pointless without friends like you.
Sentiments over, back to revision.
Where have you been?
April 16th, 2008Please forgive my lack of posts. University is rather busy at the moment with 5 pieces of coursework due in for the next 2 weeks. I will be reading and replying to comments on previous post (practically ‘Good Friday’ which is very interesting) but will be a bit quiet for the next few weeks. Bare with me and pray for me ^_^ Feel free to check my Twitter to see what’s going on day-by-day and check out some stuff on my del.icio.us links. Some really interesting articles to keep you amused!
Good Friday
March 21st, 2008As with the majority of my fellow Christian bloggers, I am going to write something about Good Friday. There are many things I could (and may) write about, however there is one thing that has bugged me about the Crucifixion story. Steve Bates pointed it out in his last post:
“He became the embodiment of sin; God himself turned away, leading to those impassioned words, eloi, eloi, lama sabachthani. I think this must have been far more painful than any beating he took that day.”
I added the emphasis on the “eloi, eloi, lama sabachthani” part myself because this is what I have a problem understanding for years. Now, disclaimers. This is not a silly attack on what Steve Bates has said. I have a lot of respect for Steve and I only use his quote because it captures everything I wanted to talk about really well. I could also get into the sticky area of doctrine here but I don’t want to. I don’t have a problem with Jesus dieing on the cross. There had to be a sacrifice and sin had to be dealt with. I’m not wanting to go down that road.
The road I want to go down is this odd Hebrew phrase “eloi, eloi, lama sabachthani” which, when translated, means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” For a while I didn’t understand this and it seemed very odd that God would turn away from something that he set up. A lack of commitment because it got to hard, like he couldn’t see it through. Also, if God turned away because there was ‘too much sin’ on Jesus, how much sin would it take for God to turn away from us? Is this right? I always saw it as God giving Jesus a raw deal. We could get into the nature of the Trinity hear and maybe that may help this understanding. But I don’t think God did ‘forsake’ Jesus. Let me try and explain why I think this.
God loves us and is love. He has said that “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” I may be taking this way out of context and please say if I am. But doesn’t seem there is a bit of a contradiction here? God promises that he will leave forsake us, and yet not only does he forsake someone, he forsakes his own son! There has been a lot of talk over the past couple years of Cosmic Child Abuse, and I am not claiming that. I’m just pointing out that this idea that God turned his back on Jesus at the cross doesn’t add up.
Maybe I don’t fully understand what is going on here but someone explained something to me which helped a lot when wrestling with this. Our troubling phrase “eloi, eloi…” is only found in Matthew and Marks gospel. This is not surprising that its in both, as Matthew uses a lot of Marks gospel as its base. Matthew, however, was written primarily for the Jewish community. The Jews at the time would of recorgnised our phrase. They don’t have the nice Chapter and Verses and paragraph headings in their scriptures as we commonly do. So instead, particularly with Psalms, they would use the first line to identify parts of the scriptures. This may or may not be a coincidence, but “Eloi, eloi…” is actually the first line of Psalm 22. Give Psalm 22 a quick read and you may also find some interesting things in there. Here are a few:
Dogs have surrounded me; a band of evil men has encircled me, they have pierced my hands and my feet. I can count all my bones; people stare and gloat over me. They divide my garments among them and cast lots for my clothing. But you, O LORD, be not far off; O my Strength, come quickly to help me.
Psalm 22:16-19
Now this sheds a very different light on the situation. Is Jesus reminding us what is actually going on rather than a cry of anguish? Is it actually a victory cry of what is being fulfilled? Is it a cry for help and has God, instead of turning his back on Jesus, answering Jesus’ cry and got his arms wrapped tight around him whispering “I’m not far off, my strength is here, come on Son.”?
I pray you have a good Good Friday as we remember what Jesus did on the cross. Remember though… its not over yet…