This is cool. It's a game that lets you escape from detention centres. I want to get that game.

Robert sent the link in a e-mail to people about 10 minutes ago. I read it in the paper about 20 minutes ago. I thought that needs to go in the blog and I haven't stopped thinking about it since. I think this is going to be a popuplar game judging by the reaction in this house.

And I figure while we're doing the screen shot thing...

This is a shot of what REC looked like.

James R took this shot. I'm down the front. The image on the screen is my filming. I think that was in the middle of a guitair solo. I was having fun down there.

I captured a shot of the puppet video we were making last Wednesday.

This is Brian the British Backpacker from Bobbingtonshire.

Ryan showed me this site once. Every now and then I go back. When I'm bored in front of a computer like tonight.

It is the bomb though.

Exploding Dog

And this one is one of my faves.

We wrote a thing of aims for our youth group last Tuesday. They were all very good. We forgot to put on "To glorify God" though, and that's punishable.

But I think we mean to anyway, even if we forgot to say it in the meeting.

Today I got the worst mark for an assesment I have ever got.

Today I got the best mark for an assesment I have ever got too.

I got two good marks and one bad, so the bad out weighs the good. My parents can be more impressed with me than disappointed. And the bad mark was for a journal, and I really don't like journals, so that kinda makes it ok too.

Or not.

Anyway, it was kinda strange.

I just read Ryan's account of his fabulous car chase. I'm so proud of him for being involved. Not by his own choice, but that makes it even better.

Maybe I'm not proud, I'm just impressed.

I just finished the conclusion on my last essay. How happy am I?

A bit.

I still have a bibliography to write. But I should be in bed by twelve.

And up at 5:30.

Yay.

I'm in the middle of assesment number one. 641 words in. I have to find another 359 words to put in there. At the moment it's all seeming very waffley. Shame really. I'm envisaging a pass plus, or something like that. I got a pass plus once for Chruch Histroy. I wrote about a Tertullian:After having disagreements with the Catholic church, Tertullian turned to Montanism where he continued to be a strong influence on Christian thinking.

I had no idea what monatism was, but that was ok. I later found out it was a heretical group who had sex a lot. I now don't think it would have been that good having Tertullian influencing Christian thinking. Doesn't matter I passed.

Today I have two assesments to write. I'm not sure if I will do them very well. I'll try, but I'm feeling quite perplexed by them.

I went to Jo's for dinner last night. Rob, Ryan and guy called Roger also came. It was a good night. Roger was cool. It was fun seeing my sister's new house. My parents are thinking of moving out of this house and leaving it to Rob and I and other people to stay in. That would be kinda cool, we'd have a boy's place with DVD players and sound systems all around. Perhaps not quite that, but it'd be cool.

But I like having Mum, Dad and Hannah here too. So either way I'm happy.

Ryan was really excited about my letter from Pam. He ran up to me yesterday and said "That letter from Parn (he misread the name I think) is so good. That girl became a Chirstian and everything" (that's not a direct quote, that's an inessence quote. He even wrote about it in his blog.

I felt bad telling him it was made up.

I went and saw Dreamcatcher last night with David. I wasn't exspecting a very good movie but I liked it. It wasn't some dumb horror film, it was smarter. It wasn't really smart, but it was good. It was a fun movie to watch, the plot kept going and it wasn't predictable. So I was pleased.

There was an Animatrix short before it which was cool too. It was cool just sitting there and seeing the Warner Bros. logo in it's Matrix green. But the film was pretty cool too.

While I'm on the subject...

Monday

Yes Monday. On Monday I planned to format the hard drive. I didn't. Instead I went with Jo, Ryan and Jemma to Villawood Detention Centre to visit some of the detainees there.

It's a weird place. When we got there we were told the guards would be really strict because there had been an "incident" the day before. We waited in line outside the outer fence for about ten minutes then were let into an inner fenced area. From there we were to go though a smaller brick building to be processed and searched and the like. It took us about half an hour to get in there. The only thing I was allowed to take with me was my drivers licence and that got kept by the guards. You could also bring food, but they had lots of rules about what sort of food you could take (I don't think they stopped you from taking cakes in so we could have hidden a file in there perhaps). After the metal detector they give you a stamp that you can't see but comes up in UV light. When Jo and I were through the metal detector (Ryan and Jem were still outside the gate) the guard looked through Jo's bag. Jo had some cake in a metal tin and so wouldn't be allowed to take the cake tin in and had to take the cake out of it. While Jo was doing that I, along with four other people, were directed into an airlock where they check you stamps and stuff. I asked if I could wait with Jo, but they wouldn't let me, so I got put through the air lock. On the otherside I got my name marked off and let through a locked gate and into a large grassy area surrounded by razor wire. There were lots of people in there but I had no idea what I was meant to do. I didn't know anyone there, and I had never been there before. I just had to find spot near the gate and wait for Jo to come through. For about 10 minutes (probably 5 but it felt like 10) I discovered a little of what it would be like to be put in jail. It was a really weird, bad dream, kind of sensation.

Eventually Jo came through and she took me off to meet her friends.

I met lots of people from Bangladesh and India (Jo like people from that area of the world). I met a guy from China who had been in Villawood for three years. I met a guy who looked, and sounded, and by most counts was, Australian. He had been born in Scotland and adopted by Australians when he was 18 months old. Now he's 21. He had permenant residency and had never bothered to become a legal Australian. He got convicted of a crime and sent to jail. Then after he was out he was told his residency was up for review. A few weeks later it was canceled and he was shipped off to Villawood. He had almost zero relatives in the UK and he had spent almost all his life in Australia, but the Government wants to deport him. He's a nice guy too.

There were a few other people who were visiting Villawood inmates there with us (there were lots there, but a few with us), and one of them started a game of hacky sack. We detainees and visitors were all appaling, but it was lots of fun. In the end the game decended into hacky sack with hands and we all did a little better.

At four thirty the detainees told us they had to go and get dinner. They offered to bring us back some. We said that would be good. When they arrived back they had three loaves of bread and 11 pieces of fish. It felt kind of Biblical except no-one wanted to eat this food. They also brought a chick pea concoction. I was the only non-vegetarian out of Ryan, Jo, Jem and I as so was given all the fish. The fish tasted pretty poor, a lot like camp food. The chick pea was alright. I had three pieces of fish and some of the other visitors had a little bit. We threw out the rest. I'm glad to say I've eaten Villawood food, but I don't really want to eat it any more. I wouldn't recommend it to people.

At around 6pm we said good bye (me to all my new friends, most of whom have funny names I can't remember) and headed for the airlock again. They checked our UV stamps to make sure we were genuine visitors and we went home.

It was a good day. A pleasant experience because I met some lovely people. But it was also interesting to actually experience what all this detention stuff is about. I hope to go back soon. I would like to see if I can do more for these people in detention.

Monday was a good day.

Now I am fully updated.

And I have posted many things today.

Can the media stop referring to the boatloads of people from Vietnam and other countries heading towards Australia as "asylum seekers" or "refugees"? As far as I know there are no wars or overly oppressive regimes in our region.

The truth is that these people are trying to gain access to Australia illegally and to a better way of life, and I would say 90 per cent of the people in the underdeveloped world would want to come here, too. So how many illegal immigrants do we want to encourage to make the voyage?

Ian Mossman, Kincumber, April 23.

This letter in SMH strikes me as being a little selfish.

Ryan e-mailed this to us and it made me laugh a lot.

At the moment I am procrastinating.

Now where was I...

Sunday

Yes Sunday. We woke up. We packed the car. We left at 10:08am. This was disappointing because we were hoping to get to Maccas in Nowra for breakfast. But we didn't make it. James P's Mum (who I thought was very nice) ran out just before we left to give us a bag and a half full of easter eggs. There were a lot of eggs. People ate them all the way home and I still have heaps sitting around the house.

When we got to Berry we filled up on petrol. I like filling up, it makes me feel good about driving the car when the tank is full. I was feeling a little sleepy so I let James R take over the driving. Next to the petrol station in Berry there was a doughnut caravan that sold doughnuts freshly cooked. Like really fresh. You had to place an order and they would go and cook them. I had two of David's and they were so good. They went down great with my Coke. I want to go back to Berry and get some of those doughnuts now.

On the way down we noticed the Sizzler in Kogarah. We all loved Sizzler when we were young so we decided to go there for lunch on the way home. All the way back we talked of Sizzler, and since we didn't get any breakfast we were extreamly hungry. When we got to Sizzler though the carpark was full and there was a huge que snaking around the inside of the resturant. That was a part of Sizzler that we had forgotten. We all decided that Maccas would have to be the go, which was sad because my McOz was quite dissappointing.

We arrived home at around 3:30 and I had a sleep till around 5:30. I went to church at 6pm and came home again, and that was my Sunday.

For another view of the weekend...

I just caught the train into the city to buy many, many tickets to The Matrix Reloaded but when I arrived there there was a big sign up saying I couldn't by advance tickets at George City. We had already rung ahead to check that we could. What a bugger. Now I'm going to have see the film elsewhere, and George St is the traditional Midnight venue. It's very sad.

On my way home I met a person who told me that the Anglican Church was in disarray and said that Peter Jenson was just like Saddam Hussain.

I did get lots of study done on the train though.

Osama, Saddam, Bomb making instructions, John Howard, CIA, George W Bush, Iraq, Anthrax, Jihad, assasinate.

I hope the CIA or ASIO start spying on me now.

Today (Wednesday) Robert and I went around the city and filmed things for youth group this term. I had a puppet and he talked to the camera. The puppet was Brian the British Backpacker from Bobbintonshire. I was a really bad puppeteer.

I look forward to the day that my computers are all networked then I will be able to stick screenshots on my blog and people can see what the Brian looks like.

Dear Tom,

I have been reading your blog for a few months now and I am finding it very interesting. I like to hear about your life as it unfolds. In December I became a Christian after I was convicted by one of your amazing blog entries. I was touched by the way you talked of God and Jesus' love for everyone. You really changed my life. Since then I have been going strong and I am now planning on going to Bible college next year, just like you, although I plan on going here in California.

I just thought I'd let you know how important your blog is to me. I shared some of your entries with a friend and now she too is thinking of folowing Jesus. My family all read you blog and they too have come to faith.

I think I also have a crush on you. Your wit and wisdom are amazing. You have made my life so special. I cannot wait to find out what is happening in you life. I feel I am sharing it right there with you, I wish I was. You must be very handsome. I hope that maybe one day fate will bring us together and we will fall in love.

YSIC,

Pam

A usual occourance in my daily e-mail.

Most people compliment me on my spelling too though.

Saturday

Saturday morning I woke up at around 7:30 or so, but we hung around the flat (where James lives) for a while taking a long time to wake up and have showers. James was already gone. James' shower had this thing where we had to wait 20 minutes between showers so that meant we took a while. But that's ok because it was very relaxing staying in bed.

We were all in Ulladulla to film a concert that James was putting on for Easter called "Reclaiming Easter for Christ" or REC. There are some bands that come down from Sydney for the show and they play on a stage at the front of the Church with lights, big speakers and big screens, it pretty cool.

We all arrived at the church at around 10:30 to begin our set up. We worked our way through that slowly while we solved problems like cameras without connecters to mains power (James R (Not from Ulladulla) made a cable which fixed it) and having the wrong connectors on the end of the video leads. We were finshed setting every thing up but the cameras by about 2:30. This meant we had time to put U2 Elevation on and whack it through the sound system on the stage (maybe its more technical to say patch instead of "whack"). That was cool.

They had a sound check during the after noon where we tested the cameras, found shots and I practiced it my cable boy. I was on front hand held camera so I had a kid who run behind me making sure I didn't get my cables tangeled up. It was usful because I had my video cable, my power cable and my coms (headset communication stuff, they were cool, when you put them on you got to say "Tom is on Coms" and feel very professional). The kid and I praticed for a while walking up and down next to the stage and then on and off the stage, so he could get used to rolling and unrolling the cable quickly. He did alright, he a was good kid.

Following sound checks we set up the projectors that were projecting onto two big screens either side of the stage. When they were set up they looked very cool. I was most impressed.

At 5:45 we had a prayer time. At 6:15 we started a video that played on the screens. At around 6:45 we all took our places, Robert on mixing (with a very cool, posh, professional video mixer), David on back camera, James R on middle camera, and me on front. At 7:00pm the concert started and off we went.

It was very much fun. I got to run around the stage, filming. Looking for shots. Rob would tell me when I was being "broadcast" on the big screens. I spent most of my time at the front of the stage, running up and down, getting shots from down there because the audience didn't move to the front of the stage. The first band were called Bodyworx, they weren't bad, but they weren't really good to film, they didn't play for the camera.

The second band was The Coopers and they were cool. There were three of them which made life easier for me, I had less people to worry about when I was on stage. The lead gutair guy was very good. I got to do the close ups of his gutair solos and he was the bomb. I liked filming them. They played for the camera.

It's exhausting work filming for two hours straight, because your brain is always active. You're always picking shots, shooting them, looking for new ones, plus your on your feet and you get no time off. You always have to be paying attention, and on your toes. I found I was exhausted at the end.

When the concert finished we then had to pack everything up. We had to put all the video gear in the back of my van. We had to roll all the cables, then we had to take down all the other gear. All the sound system and all the lights had to be taken down. Anything that could get broken had to be packed up.

So we set to work while the rowdy, Ulladulla night life wandered past (mainly drunk teenagers who swear and fight). We finished at around 12:30am. It was quite a job. While we were packing up James P (Ulladulla James) told me that someone had been murdered in Ulladulla that night. It was meant to be a drug thing. I was happy it wasn't me.

Back at James P's house we sat around for a while drinking soft drink and eating shapes. At 1:30 we went to bed. There were very few fart jokes on that night.

I just wrote a really long post about Friday but it disappeared.

Let me start again, in less detail.

Friday

Got up early, went to church was good.

Had a sleep, was good.

Picked up David and James, drove to Ulladulla, was fun.

Went to sleep in (other) James' living room studio thing, many sillyness, especially poo, was discussed before sleep, was fun.

I didn't get to read the paper today. I woke up too late. I set my alarm for seven am but because my clock turned itself off I reset it in pm in stead of am. So my alarm would have gone off twelve hours late. I woke up at 8:22 today.

I'm at Ryan, Jemma and Janet's house at the moment. I don't often blog from other people's houses. It's kinda fun. This computer is the sort of computer that one can blog from and check their e-mails and all that.

I watched the Matrix trailer with sound today. So the Bomb! Posh, posh, posh.

I went out to dinner tonight at the House of Chan with Becky and Michael. That was fun. I like the House of Chan. It's such a dinky little resturant. The food was a little cold, and there were only 5 other people there the whole night, but it was fun.

I think more people should go to the House of Chan.

I had dentention centre food today.

Truly I did. It tasted like camp food.

I'm not very good at blogging at the moment. I have a lot to talk about now. Ulladulla and now I have today to talk about. Very interesting day today. Maybe tomorrow I'll get time.

I'll see what I can do.

Well it's been a while.

I've been to Ulladulla and back. I've had a sleep. I've had fun. I'm listening to Third Day now. In 15 minutes I will go to church. It will be my Easter Sunday chuch service.

I'm hoping to celebrate the resurrection tonight. Friday was really good. I read the crucifixion account in Matthew and I went to church. It was a really good service. It was normal, prayer book, should have been boring, but I enjoyed it. I enjoy the prayer book these days. I guess the absence of it from my life and the appreciation now of what it says is good. I like the way it reminds you of what's going on, what went on and what should happen.

It was really important to me to understand the death of Jesus. And in a little way I did on Friday.

Now tonight, I want to understand, and be excited by the resurrection. It should be very exciting. It is exciting.

I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.

Philippians 3:10-11

He is risen indeed.

Christ is Risen!

I have nothing to say.

Tomorrow I am going to Ulladulla. On Sunday I am coming home. A bit like Easter. Jesus was crucified at around 3pm or something. I'm leaving for Ulladulla at four. Jesus rose in the morning on the third day. I'm probably coming home on Sunday morning. I think I'll have more fun in Ulladulla than Jesus did when He was dead though. But it depends what was going on when He was dead, and where He was. I don't know.

Easter is a an interesting thing. I'm not very good at connecting with it. I was listening to "Until the End of The World" on the way home. The song is all about Judas and Jesus. And it occoured to me that tonight was that night. It was after the Passover that Judas kissed Jesus' lips and broke his heart.

Right now Jesus might have been before a bunch of religous leaders. Peter may have been in the courtyard keeping warm. He could have denied Jesus once or twice. Tomorrow Jesus would have got mocked, people would have called for His crucifixion. He would have been nailed to a cross and he would have died.

Tomorrow won't seem like that. The sky won't go dark. There won't be any earthquakes. Curtains will not split in two. There will be no indication that tomorrow is any different from any other.

I don't know how I feel about that. Perhaps I want to go to church in the morning. Perhaps I want to remember what Christ did for me. I guess I want it to be special. I want it all to mean something tomorrow. I want to feel something. I wish the sky would go dark. I wish the ground would shake. It would be good to understand what it would be like to loose Jesus. If you had put your faith in Jesus. If He was your messiah, and He died, then you would be all alone. For the disciples, Saturday would have been terrible. They didn't understand and there would be no bliss in their ignorance. Saturday would have been a day of fear and without hope. No Messiah. No Jesus. No God. That's what I want to participate in. I want to know how important Christ is to me and what a momentous and terrible event Good Friday was.

If I understand Friday, then maybe I can understand Sunday too.

I guess I just want to know Jesus more.


Gosh. I didn't plan on writing all that.

I understand that nobody reads song lyrics on blogs, but I thought I'd stick them on anyway

U2 - Until The End Of The World

Haven't seen you in quite a while
I was down the hold just passing time
Last time we met was a low-lit room
We were as close together as a bride and groom
We ate the food, we drank the wine
Everybody having a good time
Except you
You were talking about the end of the world

I took the money
I spiked your drink
You miss too much these days if you stop to think
You lead me on with those innocent eyes
You know I love the element of surprise
In the garden I was playing the tart
I kissed your lips and broke your heart
You...you were acting like it was
The end of the world

(Love...love...)

In my dream I was drowning my sorrows
But my sorrows, they learned to swim
Surrounding me, going down on me
Spilling over the brim
Waves of regret and waves of joy
I reached out for the one I tried to destroy
You...you said you'd wait
'til the end of the world

I went to a Passover dinner at church tonight. It kept mentioning Jesus so I figured it wasn't the original Jewish version. That and it wasn't in Hebrew.

There was one guy wearing a skull cap though.

I put a comments thing on my blog for about 20 seconds yesterday. It looked ugly so I took it off again.

David likes to give special welcomes to people from exotic countries who he noticed visited his blog. I think I did that once for people from America. But he has inspired me.

A special welcome to all those people to whom I owe e-mails.

People are coming over to watch Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets tonight. I bought it yesterday, and I finshed the book yesterday. Tonight will be it's first ever dvd viewing. I'm getting excited. Only and hour and a half to go.

I have some editing to do before then.

I got Offerings II yesterday from Koorong. They sent it to me in the post. It's alright. Not the bombest cd around, not as good as the first Offerings. But it's alright.

I wish that I had the talent to play the piano really, really well.

I'm so glad to see that the US really is taking over the world.

Soon I'll be able to become a US citizen and travel anywhere in the world only crossing state borders.

Syria was not mentioned as a member of the "axis of evil" by US President George Bush in his State of the Union message in early 2002. But on Monday, an Administration official said that along with Libya and Cuba, Syria was regarded as a member of the "junior varsity axis of evil".

Cool. There are levels of Evil. Perhaps now that Iraq is out of the Axis of Evil they can start fielding appilications for someone to take their place. Maybe France.

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/04/15/1050172600074.html

I got this e-mail today. I also found Suzanne on the net looking for escourts. The number belongs to a pub though. Hmmm. I'm probably very rich.

DECEASED ESTATE PTY LTD
26 CASTLEREAGH STREET SYDNEY AUSTRALIA

PLEASE NOTE YOU HAVE BEEN MENTIONED IN THE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT
OF A DISTANT RELATIVE. WE NEED TO IDENTIFY YOU REGARDING THIS
DECEASED ESTATE

PLEASE CONTACT OUR OFFICE IMMEDIATELY TO VERIFY THE PERSON NAMEED
WE HAVE BEEN CONDUCTING AN EXTENSIVE SEARCH TO LOCATE YOU

DIRECTOR SUZANNE WOOD
02 XXXX XXXX

I went to Homebush today to shoot vox pops for church outside the Easter Show. I did it with a guy called Peter, from church. He interviewed, I filmed. Pete asked a bunch of guys who looked cool and had cigarettes in their mouths if they would answer some questions. They told him to grow up. I thought that was a little rude.

Some people don't like being interviewed on camera.

In Spike yesterday

Beauty contests Zanzi-barred

Beauty contests have been banned in Tanzania's semi-autonomous island of Zanzibar, where more than 95 per cent of the population is Muslim - they are irrelevant because "all Zanzibaris are beautiful".

"All women here are very beautiful ... there is no doubt about that fact," said Zanzibar's Education and Culture Minister, Haroun Ali Suleiman.

That is the feel good story of the week.

That was quite a post.

I got back from Canberra a few hours ago. It was very cool. I had fun.

I drove the van down with 6 other people in the car. I like car trips with lots of people. The passengers was fun to have them all. We played "I Spy" and some of the male passengers had discussions and competions concerning Fords and Holdens. I was generally quiet, but tended to help out the Ford bloke a bit as he was out numbered. (In case you're wondering I would be a Holden man, but I'm not all that concerned, I drive Nissans.)

We were encouraged to pay the tolls for the people behind us as we drove, as a small gesture of kindness. We did that and it was quite an activity. We pull up to the toll gates and I'd hand over double the amount needed and say "Can I pay for the car behind too?" and the toll-person would say "Yes" and off we'd drive. Then the whole car would watch the car behind to see the reaction of the following motorist as they were informed that the toll had been paid. It was a lot of fun. It's a kind thing to do and the whole car thinks it's a "hoot" (what a Grandma word). I think I'll do it more often.

One thing I noticed was that if you paid someones toll they would not overtake you. I guess I wouldn't want to overtake someone who paid my toll for no good reason. I would stay back and try and avoid eye contact.

In Canberra we met up at a church with a bunch of youth groups from there and we were sent out on our kindness projects (like big toll paying). The idea behind these is that we want to show Christ's love in a practical way. That doesn't mean we tell them the Gospel, but we do something good for them because Christ has done something very good for us. If they ask why, we say "We want to demonstrate God's love for you in a practical way" or something like that.

My group got sent to move firewood for a man who had a pre-arranged "kindness project". The man was in a suburb that had been affected by the Janurary bushfires. We were moving the wood from a tree that got burnt and had to be cut down. The man had lost his fence but his house was fine. He told us stories of when the fire came through and him and his neighbours fighting the fire which were just amazing. The man was a Christian and they were really good stories of God's provision.

The strange thing was that this man's house seemed to be in the middle of suburbia. The was bush around but nowhere near his house. The fire had just rippped through masses of suburb to get to where he was. The whole area was amazing. Every tree is brown and burnt. There is very little green. You drive through the suburb and there are frequently empty blocks of land with rubble and maybe a burnt out car or scorched washing line. Other houses houses haven't been pulled down yet and are just shells. And other houses seem compleatly un-touched. It really is very strange.

After we finshed moving firewood we went an washed a lady's car and she was very happy about that.

We all went back to the church and ate food and played soccer or talked. I filmed these activities and did a little bit of talking (about kindness projects and Coke cans mainly) and no soccer playing. For the evening we had a worship session and Matt (my boss) talked about the good Samaritan. It was a good talk. And the worship was good too. I filmed these also.

At the end of the night we retired to a motel where people did varous things. In my room we watched a Bruce Lee film on SBS that had been shot in english, dubbed in cantonese amd subtitled in english (I'm pretty sure anyway.) That was way cool. I like Bruce Lee.

All up it was quite a fun day.

Today I came home. This time with only five people in the car. It was again fun, but everyone was more tired and quieter.

So there you go.

I'll be off to church soon, to do churchy things.

I tried to have a sleep today, but only managed half an hour, much to my disappointment.

Blogs, a great way to pick up chicks!

My gosh.

What a cool trailer! And I couldn't even hear it! Bloody Quicktime wouldn't play the trailer with sound for me. But even silent, I can't wait for the film! YEAH BABY!!!

Wahhhooo!!!

There's a shot at the end which I think might be haveing a jibe at "Harry Potter" I'm not sure though. I am sure it's damn fine. My gosh.

Midnight March 15th. Who can wait?

If Jesus comes back before then, I'll ask him to sit in the waiting room.

Fully Sic! The Matrix Reloaded trailer has arrived!!!!

Get it here

You know in that picture of Baghdad down below. The guy standing up high on the far right looks like a young, Iraqi, 80s, Bono.

I hope we have more Iraqi pop music in Australia as a result of this war. What good is colonisation if we don't get new pop music?

Bob said "thersd nothing wronnng with my spilling?" on his blog. I think I can echo his sentiments*.

*If I spelt that wrong it wasn't intentional.

I like sticking pictures on my Blog. It makes it look colourful.

I had a good day at youth group today. I did a talk about Jesus and the kids were really quiet. I hope they were listening. It was a gospel presentation. I didn't do an alter call though. And I can think of many things I did wrong tonight, and didn't say. And many reasons why tonight may have been ineffective. But I'm trusting in the power of the Holy Spirit. He is more than enough to make up for my deficiancies. Amen?

Amen.

I didn't mean to sound like a preacher. But I reckon next time I'll preach I might do a bit of "Amening". I might even sing the sermon like some of these African-American preachers do. That would be cool. I could get one of the piano players at church to jump on the organ too. That would be fun.

Rocky has liberated Baghdad.

I think my computer has a virus that is deleting icons off the desktop.

I finished reading the first Harry Potter book today. Now my dilema is, do I read the second one before I buy and watch the dvd or do I wait and read it after I read The Two Towers? I think at this present time, I want to buy the dvd now.

Now I just changed my mind. Oh dear.

It's a hard life.

I'm procrastinating.

And it feels, normal.

This is what I wake up to every morning.

I haven't managed to format the computer yet.

I went to Hazelbrook today with Rob to get things for a live video mix in Ulladulla next Saturday. We took Hannah, drove the Pulsar and listened to Mini-Disks. I went to K-mart today too. I wanted to see if Harry was out on dvd yet. It's meant to come out on the 11th but K-mart have a habit of selling things early. They haven't in this case.

Now I'm not sure what to do with myself. I'm quite sleepy. I might go to bed kinda early tonight.

This computer is a dog.

I'm about to format the computer. If I disappear for a few days, blame the computer.

Maybe it will be a nice thing. Maybe it will be a good sermon illistration.

Someone put petals on the on the footpath for my walk home.

Probably not. But it was nice of them.

I'm forgiven.

Isn't that good?

Now this is a top notch story

I found this on Alfie's blog.

I don't know who Alfie, is but I like his blog.

I wonder if Saddam has any plan up his sleave or he's just doing really badly.

I'm a lot quieter about the war than I was before it happened. I guess not I'm observing it more than worrying about it. I'm in desensitised (how does one spell that?) mode. Now I don't have the energy to worry about what's going on. I don't like it but to worry about the anguish that has been inflicted on all the people who have been victims of this war is a lot of worry. I pray for peace. I'll go to the marches. I guess I'll do what I can. But it's a lot of work to actively feel about all these things, especially when I don't feel like it will make any difference.

We had seperate girls and guys fireside today. The girls went much longer than we did.

Well here I am at college. Again. It being Monday and all. Yesterday was Sunday and I went to church. I comitted myself to going to Canberra on Saturday too. I went to a picnic for people who were 20-30 and I took my Sunday morning group to McDonalds as a bit of an end of year thing. That was fun. As I get to know the kid's at this church better, I like them more. I guess that's how it goes. They're a good bunch.



We went to the shopping centre today after college. I wanted to go to HMV and get my diskman, redeeming my 15 Coke labels. Sadly there were none there. They had run out of diskmans till late May. What a bum. That'll be like after The Matrix Reloaded. My whole life is mesured around that film at the moment. That and the release of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets on dvd (Friday, yay!) and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix in the shops.



I pre-ordered my copy of the book the other day and bought the first book. I'm thinking I'll re-read them all before I read the fifth one. They're so cool.



Yay for Harry Potter, Neo, Trinity and Morpheus.

Well. I got an e-mail from Howie telling me to update my blog.

So rude.

I just got back from a wedding in Nowra. It was on at 10am so we (Graham, Mitch and I) had to leave at 5:30am to get there on time. Unfortunatly someone over estimated the time it would take to travel to Nowra and we arrived at 8:45am. It was not very nice thinking that we could have left at 6:30.

After the wedding a few of the college crew went to a near-by park and played cricket. There was a kid in the park who joined us. Chook put on a cd in his car so we spent an hour or so playing cricket to dc Talk. Awesome.

I had fun. It's fun going on road trips with the college crew. I was, and am, a bit tired though. I want to play some Command and Conquer. How retro am?

Well what happened on the Pilgrimage eh?

It was very cool.

Ryan, Jem, Rob and I caught the train into the city for a 10am session of Just Married. That was a terrible film (Sorry if you liked it). It was just very un-inventive, and not very funny. Poor quality.

That finished at 11:45 so off we went for the first leg of the journey to Chatswood. We passed Town Hall just after we'd left the cinemas and there were lots of people there for the student peace protest. There were huge numbers of police there. Ready for the riots. It was very cool. I wanted to stay and watch, perhaps shout a little, but our next film started at 2:30 so we had to keep moving.

Ryan and I walked most of that leg together discussing spiritual things. Ryan asked lots of questions and I got confused. We stopped for lunch in Artarmon. I had a roast lamb roll. That was very nice.

We arrived at Chatswood at 2:20. Ten minutes to spare. We did good. There was time for a piss and a sit around in the cinema. We watched the trailer for Daddy Day Care for the second time that day and it didn't get any better.

We watched Maid in Manhattan which wasn't half as bad as we thought it would be. It was watchable unlike our previous film. Ralph Fiennes is always fun to watch, although I haven't seen The English Patient yet.

When that was done we chooffed of to Rosevile. We had forty minutes and we did the walk in 20 so we stopped and had a 20 minute drink at Roseville RSL. Very pleasant.

Ned Kelly was our third film, and I think the films were getting progressivly (I think that's spelt wrong) better. It wasn't a bad film although I don't think I could watch it again. Heath was cool. As was Orlando Bloom. He's a dude. I think he will always be a dude in my book. Anyway I'm glad I saw the film.

7pm we got out of the cinema and we had to be in Hornsby the 9:20. We really had to push it to do that one. By this stage we were pretty tired. We were about 14km down and we had another 12km or so to go. We were all starting to feel it. Once we got to Pymble we were buggered and we only had 50 minutes left.

We pushed hard though, and we made it. We got to Hornsby at 9:25. When we got to the Mall Ryan challenged us to a race to Greater Union. We ran for about 10 metres with great gusto before the security guard told us off.

I bought a really big Coke, went to the toilet and sat down, just in time, to watch Cradle 2 the Grave. That was probably the most enjoyable film for me. Ned Kelly was a better film but this one was more fun. And seeing as we had no more walking to do, it felt so good to be there. According to Where Is.com we had walked about 26.51km. The film had good opening credits and Jet Li is very cool to watch. It was just a fun film with some really bad exposition. I recommend it to anyone who as walked 26kms.

So there you go. Ryan and Jem dropped Rob and I home and I had meatballs for dinner at around midnight and watched the directors commentary on LOTR: Fellowship Extended Edition for about 20 minutes before hitting the sack. Very pleasant indeed.

Today I felt a bit sore. But satisfied. I'm looking forward to going next year.

There's an Adult Edition of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

That's a little worrying that thought.

I'm considering buying the Harry Potter box set. I may not. I may just buy the books one at a time and read them. I want to have them all read by the time the 5th one comes out. I'm turning into a Harry Potter freak. The DVD comes out on the 11th. Guess who's going to buy that?

Am I going to hell?

No.

Did Jesus?

I don't think so.

Does He like Harry Potter?

Perhaps.

Does He like witchcraft?

No.

Do I like witchcraft?

No.

Yay, we agree!

Last night for my bedtime reading I read a commentary on Genesis about Genesis chapter 9. I think that may be a little un-cool.

But I had fun didn't I? I did.

I went on a pilgrimage today. I walked from the City to Hornsby and watched 4 films along the way.

More tomorrow, when my feet don't hurt so much and I'm not so hungry.

My mum survived. That is goodness. I like my Mum. She's good value. Worth keeping.

My Mum has gone into hospital today for an operation. There should be a man with his hands in her stomach right now.

Robert sent me a message this morning saying "U2 are coming to Sydney in June for two concerts at the Superdome". How excited was I!

Then he sent me a message that said "Happy April Fools", that made me less happy.