Not any more…
Of all the themes you could choose for a cafe who would pick the ‘toilet’?…
These guys… in Taipei
I guess the beauty of this place is that when you’re finished eating you could just pop the lid and push out a big one…
Anyone for chocolate ice cream?…
Makes you wonder, if their restaurant looks like a toilet then what do their toilets look like?…
There are days when skeptics like me get surprised and today was one of them.
This morning I downloaded my free full copy of Photoshop CS as described in the post below. After losing Photoshop in my re-install I was rather peeved and was just getting used to the idea of using a different program when this offer came thru via Rod’s blog
So the good news is that this offer is actually true.
Yeeha I say!download perfect assistant the good luck chuck divx online free 51st state the
If you go back only a couple of hundred years in time to be a missionary was a huge undertaking.
For most it meant going overseas to ‘non-Christian’ countries and for many it meant probably not returning.
There was great cost involved in missionary service and if you read the autobiographies of those from that era you feel a whole different mindset in operation. Many who went to foreign shores gave up the opportunity for marriage, or put their kids in boarding schools. They got sick and often died in their attempts to share the gospel. It was enormously costly work.
Yet read their stories and it seems they saw their struggles as a joy rather than a burden. Strange…
As I was reading Hudson Taylor’s biography and journals I genuinely wanted to say ‘Come on buddy – snap out of it!’ The way he took joy in his suffering read as completely foreign to me – almost dishonest. Similar with the journals of Jim Elliot and others from the 19th and 20th centuries. They wrote in a way that seemed to suggest their own wants and desires didn’t matter.
Ridiculous fanatics.
Thankfully we have come to grips with the fact that we need to be fulfilled in whatever we do and that the gospel ought to actually serve my own sense of achieving my destiny rather than getting in the way of it. Those old missionaries were well over the top and the level of irresponsibility and lack of wisdom they showed was appalling. Today we are much more concerned for ourselves, our families and our futures than they were.
Very sensible…
However as I have been preaching on Mark 15 last week and this week, and reflecting on the life of Jesus in an .acom Christology class I was facilitating, I couldn’t help wondering if maybe we need a bit of that old missionary spirit rekindled? But you knew I was going to say that didn’t you?…
In ch 15 Mark presents to us a ‘king’ – 6 times Mark tells us Jesus is the ‘king of the Jews’ – but a king who rules in a very different way over a very different kingdom. He allows himself to die for others when he could have summoned angels to his rescue. He suffers abuse, ridicule and abandonment when he didn’t have to. This king calls his followers to deny themselves and take up their
cross to follow him. He seems more in synch with those old missionaries than with most of us today.
I tend to think we have replaced the cross with the couch and the life of discipleship with what Bonhoeffer called the ‘happy religious life’. Even those of us who would hope to live differently are still trapped in a culture that has formed us and shaped us to look after our own needs first and to trust ourselves rather than God. We hope to live differently, but not so it impinges on our comfort.
It was Kierkegaard who said ‘It is much easier to be an admirer of Jesus than a follower’.
Whatever we think of the lives of those of those old missionaries and the sometimes bizarre choices they made, there was no question who was calling the shots in their lives. I fear for the generation to follow us, that they will know nothing of a gospel of sacrifice and self denial. If nothing changes in the contemporary Christian psyche then we are in deep trouble.
At least there is a vague memory still there in some of us that all is not as it should be, even if we struggle to reclaim the ground.
Its why we need our prophets – to keep calling us back to the world as God intends and to the life of discipleship as Jesus described it. We need the idealists who won’t settle for a pragmatic ‘oh well this is how it is’, because in their absence we seem to create a world that more closely resembles contemporary western culture with a religious flavour than the kingdom of God.
My watch battery died last week which was rather unfortunate. A ’10 year’ battery and I got almost 2 years out of it… I have since been trying to get it replaced.
What a challenge! You’d think I was trying to get a passport to Baghdad…
Here’s the process for replacing a watch battery.
Go to local jeweller 1 and ask if they can replace it
“Oh no. We can’t do that here. We’d have to send it away. It’d take 3 weeks”
Politely thank them and walk across the mall to Jeweller no.2 who says
“Hmmm… we’d have to send it away… 3 weeks… But you could go to Joondalup where there is a watchmaker and they could fit it for you.”
I go to the watchmaker in Joondalup.
“Oh dear… I’m not sure I’d like to open that watch up. I think you should take it to Casio in the city just to be safe.”
I wonder what is so mysterious about this watch and choose not to go to Casio in the city.
I surf ebay to get a new watch figuring it is easier than replacing the battery. I’d like a new watch. I like watches, but it does seem a stupid thing to do as I reckon the old one is easily fixable.
I then go back to jeweller no.1 to compare ebay prices and their prices. While there I ask them again about the battery. They could ‘supply it’ for $4.50 if I wanted to fit it myself, but they definitely wouldn’t recommend it.
I think a dead watch v an investment of $4.50 is a pretty good gamble so stop in and get a small set of screwdrivers to remove the watch cover.
The screwdrivers are too big or too poorly made to turn the screws. Bugger.
I return to to jeweller no. 1 with watch, manual and battery id in hand. I can see them doing watch repairs. I ask if they could remove the cover for me – no obligation to pressure test it.
Apparently they couldn’t do that. There wasn’t a reason…
I buy a battery, smile politely and leave.
I go to Tandy to try and get a new set of better screwdrivers.
After waiting for 15 minutes they finally serve me but don’t have any.
I make towards jeweller no.2, ready to be very convincing should they find the removal of the back cover on a par with heart surgery, when I pass Just Spectacles and remember that the screws in my glasses are of similar size to those in the back of the watch.
I stop in and ask Mr JS if he has a screwdriver that would fit. He is only too happy to help.
We unscrew the rear cover. I pull the old battery out and put the new one in.
It works.
It wasn’t rocket science.
So the moral of the story is next time you need to replace the battery in your watch go to the optometrist. He’s a nice man and he will not make you wait three weeks.
But I love this more
If you haven’t been watching the Gruen report then you’ve been missing some very clever humour from those people who trick us into buying stuff…
You can download the past episodes here.
The new car has been brilliant.
It has plenty of grunt and does all the things I hoped it would. The only negative is that it isn’t quite as roomy as the old 60 series, but then it was humongous!
However there is a rattle/creak noise from the rear area that I can’t seem to track down. I have loosened and tightened everything I can get my hands on, but still to no avail.
Its amazing how annoying a small noise can be!
I will track this thing down though – if it kills me…
Ok, so I will admit Aussie usage of the word ‘bastard’ can be a tad confusing to those of other cultures.
In a land where your best mate is a ‘real bastard’, it can be easy to misuse the word.
But if your car is a bastard (in the negative sense) then this is the product for you…
And yes – you can buy it at your local auto store!
Confused?…
A few weeks back I did a ‘factory reset’ on my laptop and in the process discovered that my photoshop software disc is corrupt, so I have been pondering ever since what to do. A real bugger when its a program you use a lot…
So when this offer came along you can guess who was smiling!
I’m always wary of anything that looks too good to be true, but this looks like the real deal. if you’re chasing some great software here’s a way to get hold of it free.
For the month of July, an initiative has been developed by BA Software with the support of their partners, friends and members to give away licenses for three software titles.
You can choose between:
Microsoft® Windows Vista UltimateMicrosoft® Windows Vista Ultimate (UPGRADE with SP1)
Adobe Photoshop CS3Adobe Photoshop CS3 (including optional plug-ins, sample files, textures, web swatches and stock photography)
VMware Workstation 6VMware Workstation 6 for Windows
So how do you get yours?
For website owners or bloggers:
* Write an article about the offer on your site and be sure to link to back to the BA Software article.
* Subscribe to the BA Software website for updates via email.
* Stumble and review the BA Software article.
If you don’t blog or have your own website:
* Write at least five quality reviews (or comments) for five distinct software titles listed on the BA Software website.
* Subscribe to the BA Software website for updates via email.
* Stumble and review the BA Software article.
Once you’ve finished, send an email to admin@bastillwork.net from the same email you used to subscribe to their email updates.
In that email you should include:
* Where you’ve posted about the offer on your site.
* Your StumbleUpon nick name.
* Which one of the three software titles you’d like.
The license for the software will be emailed to you after 48 hours.
Anyway, I’ll let you know the outcome.
I don’t get excited about ‘too good to be true’ offers until they materialise, but in this case I live in hope!
It was a big day in many ways today, but the most spectacular was the surf. A huge swell hit the coast today and it took me a long time to get home from preaching this morning because I kept stopping to check out the waves.
Here are two pics of ‘Toms’. Probably 40 guys in the water, but some hefty lefts rolling thru for the willing!
As well as some great surf I was able to get ‘that sermon’ out of the way. It was by far the busiest week of the year for me and then I added a sermon on top of it. Dumb dumb dumb…
Then tonight Ellie led our church and did a brilliant job. From teaching to discussion leading to running activities with the kids she really stepped up (for a 7 year old) and I have to say I was amazingly proud of her gutsy effort.
There are days when you think “I am just not cutting it.”
This week has been ‘one of those days’
Danelle left for Bali last Friday night and I have been trying to cover all of my paid roles as well as being dad to the kids and preparing a sermon in my ‘spare time’ while she has been gone. This is one of those weeks where I have to say ‘nope – didn’t cut it’.
Before the compassionate among you hit the ‘comment’ button and tell me how nice I am, (like you really
know me!) I should add that this isn’t a cry for attention or a moment of self pity!
I think sometimes we just don’t do what we are supposed to do and we need to accept that. Apart from 2 solid days of landscaping work I have been facilitating an acom class for another 2 days as well as another day of meetings. In between I have been looking after the kids and then in between ‘in between times’ I have been preparing a sermon.
A long time ago I learnt that I am pretty good with people so long as I am not under stress and strain. Then I defer to ‘get the job mode’ and can be short, sharp and very directive. Its felt like that this week.
I’m not sure if the kids have been any more chaotic than usual, but I have found myself regularly irritable and grumpy because they just don’t move fast enough, or because they ‘behave like children’. I have important ‘adult’ stuff to do and they drag their feet.
I haven’t been in this place for a long time now. I really did learn that I am a bastard when stressed so i stopped getting stressed – worked less – created more space – but this week has reminded me that the ‘bastard’ is alive and well if I allow him the space to operate.
I will be really glad to have Danelle back tomorrow as I feel like I need a break from the non stop attention required by kids. I also need to get my head around a sermon for Sunday and so far I don’t feel like I’m close to being satisfied with it.
Today as I was laying turf I was reflecting on the task of being a single mum or dad and I could only imagine the difficulty that must bring. A week is usually long enough for me…
