While people make this world rather crappy, they also make it wonderful. I do enjoy people.

I also enjoy living on my own. I had my first conversation with a man in the lift today. My first comversation at these appartments with anyone who isn't a Concierge. I hopped in the lift and it went like this:

Man: Hi
Me: G'day
Man: How are you?
Me: Good. How are you?
Man: A bit tired actually. (Honesty, I like it.)
Me: Yeah it's late. You've got your shopping there. (He's holding two bags of shopping but in conversation with strangers it's good to state the obvious to establish that you aren't stupid)
Man: Yeah I didn't want to starve.
Me: Good idea
Lift: *Ding*
Me: Well, have a good one.
Man: Bye

Now I feel like I have a friend on the fifth floor.

Jo and I had breakfast today from 12pm-2:45pm, it was good. Yay for Jo.

Today I have blogged, eaten some Coco-Pops, watched 2 episodes of The West Wing, done the washing up, walked to the video store, then watched 2 more episodes of The West Wing. It's been a good day.

It's 1:42pm and I haven't had breakfast yet. I also haven't decided if today is a day off or tomorrow is. It think tomorrow. I'm not feeling very productive today.

The Week in Photos

Ulladulla
Tuesday


Mitch and Graham play at Funland


Funland in its Glory


The Early Incarnation of those Dancing Machines


A Lock

Boxing
Wednesday


Before the Boxing


After the Boxing

Donny Jaffa Plays Again!
Thursday


Donny with Fan


Donny with my Mum (Happy Birthday Mum)


Donny says "Make Poverty History!"


Donny Performs


Donny Rocks Out

Just before I go: You'll notice in the background of the stage there are poles. Those poles are Marrickville RSL's brand new Pole Dancing Poles for their adult entertainment. They had not yet been properly used on Thursday night but during my performance I got to dance with them. I got to dance on a genuine pole dancing pole. Of course my clothes stayed on and I couldn't do much as I was holding an air guitar but it was rather fun. I would have been a dream come true had I ever thought to dream of pole dancing.

Last night was one of the hardest preaching experiences I've had so far. I've never come off feeling quite as bad as I did last night. I felt like I was one of the few people in the room who didn't feel like dancing. But last night was probably one of the more important experiences I've had too. It was great to see people dancing in the isles.

I'm also glad Tim didn't die on his hamburger.

"Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom
or the strong man boast of his strength
or the rich man boast of his riches,
but let he who boasts boast about this:
that he understands me and knows me,
that I am the Lord, who exercises kindness,
justice and righteousness on earth,
for in those I delight"
declares the Lord.

Jeremiah 9:23,24

Home from camp. Week over. Sleep in. Hooray!

Donny Jaffa moves through to the Semi-finals of the Big Bang Air Guitar Competition at Marrickville RSL...

..as did everyone else who competed. Pfft.

Manliness Quotient Increasing



So Matt and I went to the boxing tonight, it was great.

Before the boxing we went to Eating World in Chinatown and ate Chinese and drank beer. We felt beer was appropriate. A steak would have gone better than Soya Chicken, but it wasn't bad. And the food was cheap and good.

We went into the Entertainment Centre which was filled with cops and macho young men. I decided it was a very different crowd from when I was there last to see Norah Jones.

Before the main fight between Mundine and Kessler there were 5 other fights on the undercard.

Most of them weren't majorly exciting but there was one guy, Mick Katsidis who fought last before the main fight who got a knock out half way through round 2 of a 7 round fight. He was pretty full on. I'd be happy to follow that man's career. Undefeated with 15 wins and 13 KOs, yeah baby.

Mundine vs Kessler was great. It was a very pro-Mundine crowd. I was going for Kessler myself. I think because he deserves respect. He came into the fight undefeated with 35 wins and 27 KOs. That's pretty good. I didn't like Mundine's chances of still standing by the end.

But they went the full 12 rounds. It was very exciting. Kessler fought better but everytime Mundine did anything remotely good the crowd go off. It's nerve racking watching them fight because the intensity just increases. By the last round I was on the edge of my seat, making all the right noises, going for Mundine. The crowd won me over, and I realised Mundine was going to loose, so the underdog factor got me. Sadly he lost on points but he stayed in, which is more than most of Kessler's other opponents have done.

I think I'm officially a boxing fan. I want to go back.

Boxing tonight. How exciting!

There's a man standing on my balcony. I wonder who he is.

What do I want to be when I grow up?

There are so many things I would love to do when I grow up. Well maybe not so many, but I often have thoughts that go through my brain and I think, that'd be cool to do that. I'm happy doing my life at the moment. And I have no immediate plans to go anywhere (unless I get fired or something). But in a few years time or so, it might be time to move on. I am continually ticking over ideas for my next life. I'm hoping I can do at least some of them. They're not in any particular order.

Go to TAFE and learn to fix TVs, DVDs and Sound Systems and stuff

Then I could open up a little store and fix things. That'd be fun. I'm not sure that I'm smart enough for that but I sure do like fixing stuff. Well I sure do like replacing batteries, and that's pretty close to fixing stuff.

Live and Work in America

I'm fascinated by America. I know I've said that before. But I am. I'd love to work in a church in America. Probably because the American Christian culture is pervasive in the Western church. And the Moral Majority has such an influence on how this world plays out. And I think people would like my accent.

Be a Husband and Father

Yep. I like women and I like kids. What more could you want?

One day I'd like to see if all my pontificating about marriage and relationships is really worth anything.

Work in a Developing Nation

Maybe I'm just trying to ease my guilty conscience but I think I'd like to learn from, and be inspired by, people who are poor in this world but rich in the Kingdom of Heaven. I'm not sure that I'd be all that helpful. I don't know if I have many skills that they can use of mine. But I'm happy to smile at them as say encouraging things like "Keep going" "Go get 'em" and "Will you pose for my digital camera?" Every poor community in the world needs a leachy, guilty westerner to support.

Become a Famous Speaker

I think it'd be fun to fly around the world speaking at conferences. More and more, the greatest appeal of this job is that you can peddle the same 6 six sermons and get them to perfect delivery. None of this stuff where you write a new talk every time and try and stumble your way through it. Oh no. You can have just a few and everyone will think you're great but really you're just well practiced.

Plus I could write books to sell at Koorong.

Be a stay at home Dad

I figure I could do this while I'm not speaking. I could write my bestselling books like "Teen Purity Again" and "The Prayer of Jabez for House-Dads" then go and pick the kids up from school. I could do a bit of house work, help them with their homework, cook some frozen meals for dinner. Sweet.

Make feature film

I'm waiting for the day when God says "Ok you did what I wanted you to do, now here's $10 million, go make a film" And I'll make a feature film that will be a small critical success on the festival circuit but won't get a distributor.

Be a Youth Minister in a struggling town in Western NSW

I'm sure I'd burn out within a week but they need people out west so desperately that they'll take anyone. The perfect place for someone like me. I'd like to take my training and experience where there is one youth minister for a whole diocese rather than one in every three churches. Or even two in one church (such as mine). I might be needed out west.

Be Bono's good friend

When Bono and I become good friends, and I regularly hang out with U2, I hope none of them read my blog because I'm going to be a little embarrassed when they read things like this.

Be an Army Chaplin who jumps out of Planes

I think I'd like to combine my love of the military with my love of God. I'm not sure how this would fit in with my pacifist leanings, but I really like guns, planes, tanks and combat fatigues.

Be a Chaplin in a Private Anglican School

I think there's an appeal to working in a "Christian" environment where you get to evangelise every day. I'd like to try and make Chapel fun and the challenge of nominalism interests me. Plus it's still youth ministry stuff.

Work in a Church as a "Man devoted to Prayer and the Ministry of the Word"

I don't want to run a church but if they ever had a job open for a full time preacher, I'd apply. I'm note sure how it would work, but I think I'd spend all week hanging out with people from the congregation, working in the community, reading newspapers and books, and researching and writing sermons, and praying.

Being a Posh Car Delivery Man

I once met a guy who worked for company that serviced posh cars. He used to go over to their house pick up their Mercedes, BMW or Ferrari, then drive it to his work to be serviced then drive them back to the owner's house. How cool would that be? I'd have to learn to drive a manual.


So there you have my rather long list of things that I'd like to do. I'm not sure that I'll end up doing any of them, I'll see what God wants, but I can dream...

One sermon down, two to go.

I'm so glad I don't normally have to preach every week.

I just watched bit of a documentary about buskers. That'd be a fun job. Unless you were one of those buskers with a mental illness. That would be hard.

I ate meat balls for dinner.

I had fun at First Sunday tonight. I really enjoy the people at my church. They're a good bunch.

I'm about to embark another of those weeks that make you think they're going to explode you have so much on. But most of it looks fun.

Can I tell you my week? I've been telling everyone.

Monday: Sermon writing, college, sermon, maybe a movie
Tuesday: Ulladulla to visit Jimmy
Wednesday: Work, Boxing with Matt
Thursday: Sermon prep, Air Guitar Comp
Friday: Scripture Seminars, Small Group, Camp
Saturday: Camp
Sunday: Camp, Preach
Monday: Sleep in

Tonight Jem and Jo told me that when I preach I almost sound American. I sound like a cross between Matt Gelding and Mike Pilavachi. Neither of them are American. But they're both good preachers so I'll take it as a compliment.

Living in the unit again is bringing back all the memories from last time I was here. All the smells and sights are making me remember how I felt back in October. Especially the smell of the shower and the toilet. Not that I spent much time there, but they have very distinctive smells.

I'm listening to Switchfoot now because I bought that while I was here last and I played it a lot sitting here at the computer. It has decidedly enhanced the nostalgic experience.

I'm hoping to create some new memories this time. I'd rather not spend the next two months reliving October. As much fun as October was.

Some new memories are:

Bath

Last night, I was struggling to find energy to write my sermon (hey I should be doing that now) so I had a bath. It didn't help the energy levels, it ruined them. But it was good. I haven't had a bath in years, literally. Living in a house without a bath will do that to you. But this was great.

Timezone

I went to Timezone this afternoon with 5 of the guys from my small group. It was good fun. I lost Daytona twice but won the last game. I couldn't handle being beaten in a driving game by 5 guys who don't even have a license. My ego wouldn't have coped.

I have sore hand now from doing so much shooting on Time Crisis 3.

After Timezone I did some shopping. I bought some Coco-Pops. I'm hoping to win the Light Saber spoon.

Since moving in here I have created three pieces of washing up. A knife, a fork and a glass. It's all about economy.

12:05am Yesterday

This is what I wrote on Wednesday Night/Thursday Morning. I thought I should post it because that was the idea I think.

So I’m currently sitting here blogging on my new monitor. Sadly I still have no internet.

I’m listening to Elliot Smith (I think), Louise lent me the cd. It’s not bad. I hear he’s dead this bloke, which is rather sad.

My new monitor is big and flat and I just realised that I forgot to get a receipt for it, so its three year warranty might be hard to redeem if it dies. I’ll have to ring up tomorrow and ask for a receipt.

I went on camp this weekend. I got to go away with the youth group. How fun are youth groups? Fun.

It’s rather late to write a debrief. It’ll have to come out in a rather exaggerated form in my autobiography in 40 years time. But it was fun. It really is good to watch people be changed by God.

Tonight at Bible Study we had a man called Daniel Shayesteh come and tell us about his life. He told us how he was an extremist Muslim, fighting in the Iranian revolution. How he was the leader of a political party in Iran that had 98% of the vote. How he got kidnapped and tortured but escaped death. And how he because a Christian and how Christ has changed his life. It was a great story. He was an inspiring man. Now all he seems to do is tell people about Jesus.

I went to primary school with his daughters but I didn’t know their story. I wish that I had.

I want to be as excited about Jesus as he was.

I am offically moved into my new temporary home in Chatswood. Hooray.

I'm house sitting my my Grandpa's apartment again. I'll be here till the end of July. Fun Fun.

I'm sitting in Core games now.

I sat up late last night blogging. I have a new monitor so I wanted to use it. I wrote to dodgy posts in word. They were long, but dodgy. I might get around to fixing them. I was just happy to have a new monitor. It's a 19" LCD. Very nice.

It's funny how when you have no net at home, you come to places like Westfield to use it, and you can't think of anything worth blogging about. But you feel the need to blog because you don't have all day.

All my useful thoughts are gone.

This morning I sat at home and did sermon prep listening to classical music. That was most enjoyable.

David and I had lunch at Satay Queen in Hornsby. It is the ultimate dodge. Wonderful. I love a good dodgy little Asian take-away. Except we dined in. Fantatastic.

I have to go to college tonight for my last ever Preaching class. I would have one next week but I have an Air Guitar competition to go in.

Well now that I have giving the internet more useless text. I must be off. I ahve a Donny Jaffa suit to reserve.

Everybody's doing it

() smoked a cigarette
() smoked a cigar
() made out with a member of the same sex
(x) been in love that really depends on how you define "in love", I've certainly had very strong feelings
(x) been dumped I wouldn't want to put it that harshly.
(x) shoplifted
(x) been fired
(x) been in a fist fight Not a big one
() snuck out of my parent's house
(x) had feelings for someone who didn't have them back
(x) been arrested Well I got a warning and juvenilele record or something
() made out with a stranger But I once kissed a man I'd only met twice
(x) gone on a blind date
(x) lied to a friend
() had a crush on a teacher
(x) skipped school
() slept with a co-worker
() seen someone die
() had a crush on one of your myspace friends
() been to Canada
() been to Mexico
(x) been on a plane
() thrown up in a bar but I've...
(x) thrown up in Westfield
(x) set a part of myself on fire
(x) eaten sushi
(x) been moshing/crowd surfing at a show
() love someone and miss someone right now
(x) laid on your back and watched cloud shapes go by
() made a snow angel
(x) had a tea party
(x) flown a kite
(x) built a sand castle
(x) riden through puddles on a bike
(x) gone puddle jumping
(x) played dress up
(x) jumped into a pile of leaves
() gone sledding
(x) cheated while playing a game
(x) been lonely
(x) fallen asleep at work/school
() used a fake id
(x) watched the sun set
() felt an earthquake
(x) touched a snake
(x) been tickled
(x) been robbed
(x) been misunderstood
(x) pet a reindeer/goat
(x) won a contest
(x) ran a red light
() been suspended from school
(x) been in a car accident
(x) had braces
(x) felt like an outcast
(x) eaten a whole pint of ice cream in one night
(x) had deja vu
(x) danced in the moonlight
(x) hated the way you look
(x) witnessed a crime
(x) questioned your heart
(x) been obsessed with post-it notes
(x) squished barefoot through the mud
(x) been lost
(x) been to the opposite side of the country
(x) swam in the ocean
() felt like dying
() cried yourself to sleep
(x) played cops and robbers
(x) recently colored with crayons/colored pencils/markers
(x) sung karaoke
(x) paid for a meal with only coins
(x) done something you told yourself you wouldn't
(x) made prank phone calls
(x) laughed until some kind of beverage came out of your nose
() caught a snowflake on your tongue
(x) danced in the rain
(x) written a letter to Santa Claus
(?) been kissed under a mistletoe
(x) watched the sun set with someone you care about
(x) blown bubbles
(x) made a bonfire on the beach
() crashed a party
(x) gone rollerskating
(x) had a wish come true
() worn pearls
(x) jumped off a bridge
() ate dog/cat food
() told a complete stranger you loved them
(x) kissed a mirror
(x) sang in the shower
() have a black dress
(x) had a dream that you married someone
(x) glued your hand to something
() got your tongue stuck to a flag pole
() kissed a fish
(x) worn the opposite sexes clothes
() been a cheerleader
(x) sat on a roof top
(x) screamed at the top of your lungs
() done a one-handed cartwheel
() talked on the phone for more than 6 hours
(x) stayed up all night
() didn't take a shower for a week
() pick and ate an apple right off the tree
(x) climbed a tree
(x) had a tree house
() are scared to watch scary movies alone
() believe in ghosts
() have more then 30 pairs of shoes
(x) worn a really ugly outfit to school just to see what others say well to church
() gone streaking
() played chicken
(x) been pushed into a pool with all your clothes on
(x) caught a fish then ate it
(x) caught a butterfly
(x) laughed so hard you cried
() cried so hard you laughed
() mooned/flashed someone
(x) had someone moon/flash you
() cheated on a test
() have a Britney Spears CD
(x) forgotten someone's name
(x) slept naked

I'm at Commy Dinner now. I have to get my blogging fix in anywhere I can.

But as I'm feeling rather pressured sitting here to have something good to write, I don't have much to say.

I was thinking that maybe one day I should do that (x) game that everyone is doing on their blogs but I would want to tell a story for most of them so it would take a mighty long time. Plus I'd be using up precious sermon illustrations.

I've been really enjoying Futurama lately. Funnies. Heh heh.

So long and no blogging.

The internet is down at my house. And I've been away. Good combination.

But I haven't had any revelations recently. I keep thinking what would I write if I were going to blog and the only thing that goes through my brain is "I'm in love with me." But I've already posted that before and it wasn't true the first time. Tomorrow I may write that post I've been planning on writing for the past two weeks.

I'm meant to be house sitting Stephen's house at the moment but after two attempts with two separate sets of keys, it's not looking likely that I'm going to be able to get into his house. Oh well. It's cheaper to live at home.

I'm reading Nelson Mandela's autobiography at the moment. He's a good man.

Oi, What a Game!

I just watched the State of Origin (on delay because I was at Bible Study tonight). That was fantastic. Except perhaps for the Queensland win. But it was a cracker of a match.

Well done.

Go the Blues!

Take the Money, Kid

"I remember one day after school one year ago, my parents asked me if I'd rather meet the Queen or earn a million dollars. I said I'd rather meet the Queen." - 9-year-old Harris Wang

From here.

Question

"How is it that there can be so much disagreement about the Bible but it can still be the Word of God? Wouldn't he do a better job of being clear?"

I found that written at the top of one of the pages in my pad yesterday. I don't remember writing it. I wonder if I was having a crisis of faith that day or just imagining one?

Yesterday I forgot to take my Bible to College and I discovered how hard it is to borrow a Bible from a Bible College Library. Perhaps because if all the Bibles get stolen from the College it'll no longer be a Bible College. It will have lost its uniqueness. In the end the Librarian let me steal a Bible for 2 hours.

Emancipation

Today I handed in a form to withdraw from learning Greek. Oi! It's great to be free.

At least, for a while...

Books

Inspired by Lesley's Post:

Books I have read this year:
(Although I'm not sure I remember them all)

There and Back again: A Hobbit's Tale - Sean Astin
Seven Types of Ambiguity - Elliot Perlman
Tell Me No Lies - John Pilger (Unfinished)
Life Together - Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Unfinished)
Film - Sean Condon
New Issues Facing the Christian Today - John Stott (Unfinished - But I'll be reading that for years)
I Believe in Preaching - John Stott
Bono on Bono - Michka Assayas (23 pages to go)

I don't seem to be very good at finishing books. But I do have plans to finish them all.

Books that are in my Pile
(In the vague order that I plan to read them)

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time - Mark Haddon
Long Walk to Freedom - Nelson Mandela
Dirt Music - Tim Winton
The Cost of Discipleship - Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Maybe I should finish the other "Boffa" first, it's only 90 pages long)
The Satanic Verses - Salman Rushdie
Long Drive Through a Short War - Peter Wilson

And interspersed along the way:
Tell Me No Lies - John Pilger
New Issues Facing the Christian Today - John Stott

Continuing the Series on My Good Looks...

This is me in Kemp's glasses at Church last Sunday. I think I might become a student film maker with glasses like that...

Don't tell Helen but I can't find the DVD of "Aimee". They're performing it tomorrow. I'm sure it'll turn up.

That's not a very good title. But what can you do these days?

Last night was a very exciting night. Star Wars was getting wrapped up. It was going to be there for the finale of the biggest film series in cinema history. I love being a part of cinema history.

I went and saw Titanic before it was the biggest grossing film of all time, when it was just an expensive film about a boat. It wasn't anything all that special.

Anyway, I arrived at Town Hall station at 9:04pm. Walking out of the ticket gates I saw Chris and we walked to the cinema together. As we walked we discussed the fact the neither of us were anticipating watching a particularly good film. We were just there for the experience and because it was Star Wars.

When we arrived we found David and Ryan sitting in the line already. In my usual passively dictatorial style I got them to move to the back of the line so that we'd have more room for the rest of the 16 people joining us. It was a pointless exercise in the end and we should have joined them in their part of the line but I didn't know that at the time.


Ryan and Chris in the Line

For the next few hours we waited and many people from our group joined us. We moved up steadily in the line. Not because they were letting people into the cinema but because we were just getting more and more compacted. I would have liked to be surrounded by Jedi Knights and Sith Lords but there were very few dressed up people in my part of the line. I did manage to spend a lot of the night rubbing backs and bums with a fat, hairy man who's friends called him "Chewbacca", but that wasn't all that exciting.


The Line

At around 11:30pm someone started shouting at us to get our tickets ready. By this stage the whole of our crew was together. I'd given out all the tickets. Ryan asked me if I had given him his. I told him that I had. He looked through all his pockets and through his wallet. I looked threw all mine too. Neither of us could find a ticket. I was sure I'd given him his ticket.


More Line

In the end Ryan decided that he'd lost his ticked and he would have to see if anyone else could give him a ticket or he'd just go home. When he left I started counting and re-counting everyone to make sure I really had brought enough tickets. I couldn't specifically remember handing Ryan a ticket.

When we got let into the cinema we headed for our traditional front row. Once everyone was settled I kept counting our group. There were 16 people in our group in the cinema and Ryan outside. I had only bought 16 tickets. I had counted wrong. There was one ticket less than there should have been. I jipped Ryan of a ticket.

I felt so bad. As soon as I relised I went out of the cinema and rang Ryan to confess what a terrible person I was. I thought about offering him my ticket but I was sure he wouldn't have taken it. I wasn't sure how to fix it.

I went back into the cinema and couldn't join in the frivolities because I was feeling so guilty. I told Gemma what had happened. Seeing as she is a nicer person than I am she rang Ryan and offered him her ticket. He accepted, but before she could give it to him he rang me up to say a guy out the front had sold him one of his spare tickets for our cinema. How exciting! I still felt bad, but I was happy that Ryan was able to join us.

While we waited for Ryan I kept running over in my head if I had done the right thing and if I should have offered Ryan my ticket, or even forced him to take it. But I didn't. I had forgotten to buy enough tickets to a film before and my sister had given up her ticket so I could go. Why am I so bad at buying cinema tickets? And why is everyone else better at giving up their tickets than I am? I didn't really feel like I was a very good person at that stage of the night.

When Ryan arrived back in the cinema I gave him a hug. It was good to have him back. It's nice how mistakes can be fixed. There is grace in this world for people like me.

Before the film started there was a competition for the best dressed cinema patron, but I've already written about that.

The film started. As soon as the Star Wars logo came up on the screen there was a big cheer. It's a wonderful atmosphere. A cinema full of excited geeks. What better crowd could you ask to watch a film with?

Revenge of the Sith was good. It was dark and violent. I was hoping for decapitations before I went in and there were plenty of them. Not that that's what makes a good film, but it means the violence isn't childish.

Anakin and Padmé's dialog was the worst thing about the film. They sound like a cheap daytime soap. I still don't know what she ever saw in him. He was always such a whiny self-centred boy and then he grew up to be a moody self-centred man. Lines like "Anakin, you're breaking my heart!" and "Where you're going I can't follow" are pretty horrid. George should have given their scenes to other people.

But the action was cool. Obi-Wan and Anakin were tops light saber men. They kicked butt!

The whole film was rather tragic. Knowing what happened at the end was horrible waiting for it to happen. Any hopes you had for Anakin were vain. It gave a lot more emotional weight to A New Hope.

Poor Obi-Wan would have felt terrible. When we meet him in A New Hope he would have been living with the guilt of discovering the boy and pushing for him to be trained as a Jedi, who became the most evil Sith Lord in the Universe. He would have felt responsible for the rise of the Republic and the slaughter of the Jedis. The poor guy.

I really liked the film. Well done George.

The night was good too. Next time I'm going to count everybody who wants a ticket 3 times and buy too many tickets anyway.


The Star Wars Group (at least the people who wanted to sit down the front)

Episode III was cool. The film was good fun. I'll say more later I think.

Before the film started they had a competition to see who was best dressed. There were lots of top quality costumes. They were all guys. Then, for the contestants they had a trivia quiz. One of the people who was dressed up asked the MC if he could ask a question. The MC allowed him, so he asked "How many of the man here have ever had sex?"

Only two guys put their hand up. That made my night.

Actually many things made my night but that was one of them.

Now I must sleep.

Star Wars here I come!

I just annouced to my Mum "I have some bad news." Then told my Mum that if they pass the new Anglican laws, and I become a Deacon (which I'm thinking about so I can do Chaplancy work) I'd get the title "Rev", I could wear robes and clerical collar (which I think is all rather funny). My mother looked horrified and then said "Are you sure you didn't want to tell my you're gay?"

Phew

Rob Thomas "wants Matchbox Twenty fans to know that the group is not breaking up, and to expect future albums and tours from the band. Rob also plans to continue collaborating with other artists."

From here.

Today it is exacly a year since I last ate McDonald's.

Oh actually, I think that might be a lie.

Scrap that.

Today is exactly 11 months since I last ate McDonald's, maybe.

Paris Hilton makes a worthwhile movie!*

"This is a very sexy movie. It's all about hot sorority girls in college, and everybody's beautiful. It's hot, and there are some sexy scenes with me." - Paris talking about her new movie National Lampoon's Pledge This!

I got it from here

*I was being sarcastic by the way

Whom have I in heaven but you?
And earth has nothing I desire besides you.

Psalm 73:25

It's worth saying again.

I went to Warringah Mall today and disliked the experience terribly. The carpark is horrible. I drove across kilometers of roof-top parking finding no spaces and wondering if I had changed postcodes yet. It's not really easy to drive around looking for a park. It is easy to just drive forever across endless, rooftops of concrete and cars. I have been there before and every time I get lost in the car park. You want to park near Hoyts and you end up over the other side near David Jones.

Once inside the mall I didn't like it either. But I think I was just punishing the mall for the carpark.

Let me say though, that Hornsby Westfield is a completely different story. I know Hornsby Westfield like the back of my hand. Every nook and cranny, almost.

On Thursday I bought a new sound system for my family. I had to pick it up from Bing Lee and they told be to drive down to the loading dock. So I got to drive down deep into the dark, depths of Westfield. It was lots of fun.

Bono Joke

Bono dies and goes to heaven. He meets God and God asks him what he believes. Bono says "I believe you're sitting in my seat."

I thought it was funny.

I got that from here.

Yesterday in Bible Study we talked about the Terri Schiavo case. It was probably one of the most interesting and intense Bible studies that I've been to. We divided the group into those people who would be prepared to take the feeding tube out, and those who wouldn't. Then we discussed it.

It was interesting because it all got quite personal. People talked about the times in their lives where they have had to confront death, life support and the value of those people who are less able than us. We talked about the point of human life and where it derives its value from.

We didn't come to any conclusions (as we rarely do in my Bible study group) but we came out with a greater appreciation of the complexities of the situation (or at least I did). Ethics are both wonderfully interesting and potentially extremely painful. Last night was a good reminder of that.

Today I did Greek work on the computer. It was more fun than I've ever had doing Greek before, but that's not saying much.

I also bought us a new sound system and DVD player for our house. It's very exciting, and works nice. Yay!

I was meant to be going to the boxing tonight to see Mundine fight Kessler but it's been postponed to June 8th. This is good because it means I can go to Bible Study and I like Bible Study. Especially exciting is the dinner at Bible Study. Alison makes wonderful food.

I'm feeling rather hungry. I haven't had breakfast yet. These Webpoint public internet access things are crap.

It is way too early to be awake on a day off.

I wagged Greek tonight. It was great.

I'm sure my lecturer will think I'm not in his class anymore. Last time I wagged a class he thought I'd quit the course. But I'm happy not doing Greek tonight. I looked at my book this afternoon and tried to do my homework and I realised I couldn't understand a word of it. I knew I'd go to class and not understand a word the lecturer said either and all I would do is doodle on my pad for 3 hours. So I thought I could better spend my time elsewhere. So I spent my time elsewhere.

I went over to Jo and Jem's house and played Social Worker games with Fi, Tracy, Jo and Jem. Things called "Strength Cards" which affirm your good points and build your self-esteem. There was laughs.

Then I caught the train home.

Going back in time...

I had lunch at Subway in Croydon Park today. Lunch at College was booked out, so I had to go elsewhere. I went to Subway. I'd never been there before, all I had were instructions for finding it from the lady in the office. When I tried to follow her instructions I found myself walking down a quiet little street going deeper and deeper into suburbia. But just when I was about to turn back, I found, like a oasis in a barren middle-class land, some multi-cultural shops. Hooray! There was even an "International Hairdresser" which I thought was rather odd, I have no idea how cutting the hair of someone who speaks Arabic is any different from cutting the hair of someone who speaks English, but I'll leave that to the specialists.

I ate my lunch at Subway and read my book in the sun. It was very pleasant. A nice intermission between Deuteronomy and Leviticus.

Happy Mother's Day Mother

I love my Mum. She's fantastic. I hope yours is too.

Yesterday my Mum had all the volunteers from the drop in where she works over to our house for a barbeque. I did quite well. I don't cope to well when my house fills up with people I don't know, but I didn't hide too much. I only really retreated to my room when I ran out of food to eat and the speeches started.

Being that the drop in centre is for people off the street and a lot of the volunteers are people who have joined the team after spending time there, my house was quite an interesting place. I do enjoy the change of meeting people who aren't middle-class, well adjusted, North Shore people. Not that I have anything against rich, "happy" people, but every now and again it's good to have a conversation with a drunk man in your kitchen who writes poetry to stop himself from getting into fights.

It was an interesting contrast to go from my house to church to run our youth night. The youth night was great. I love seeing young people who love Jesus. And I love it when people become Christians.

The theme of the night was "Bling Bling" (very biblical) and it made me very aware of how white, Australian and rock loving we all are. It wasn't a problem but most of us seemed rather lost with the whole Hip/Hop Gangsta thing when we tried to put it on. I think if I was Tupac or 50 ent I would have found the whole thing rather quaint: "Oh look it's the white Christians trying to be black rappers." Not that they'd say that, and I doubt they would describe anything as "quaint"

But I had fun and everyone was a little silly and in the end the night wasn't really about being a successful rip-off or send-up of another sub-culture, so I think we did fine. People became Christian and that was tops.

3 CDs and the Christian Bubble

On Tuesday I bought 3 cds:

Rob Thomas - Something to Be

Soul Survivor Live - Living Loud

Paul Colman - Let it Go

Paul Colman's cd isn't very good. Paul Colman Trio were a good band. They were fun, they had catchy melodies, they told stories in their songs. In Paul Colman's new album he seems to have sold out to the American Christian music scene. The cd is just full of bland, un-original worship. It's like the Newsboys, only boring. One or two tracks work well. "Last Night in America" seems to be on the verge of making a good statement but he seems to hold off a bit just in case the moral majority hears him right. If he did what he does well and wasn't trying to please the market he could do really good. But we get stuck with imitations of the popular.

Living Loud is good. As far as worship goes, it's enjoyable. There's a funky new version of "Lord I Lift Your Name on High" and everything fits together well. I don't find worship music cds overly exciting, but they are good sometimes. Good when you're in the mood to sing, be encouraged and praise Jesus. I think I'd rate this as their best live cd yet.

Rob Thomas, well, he's done great. After my lambasting him earlier this year for becoming an Enrique pretty boy, I take it back. His album is solid. It's not Matchbox 20, but it's definatly Rob Thomas. He has all the usual marks of heart broken angst and the music is driving. But he's also explored new stuff and most of it suceeds. It's not dull this album. I'm very impressed. He even sings about being Rob Thomas, where every song seems to be about breaking up, I appreciated that:

Hey man
Play another one of those heartbreak songs
Tell another story how things go wrong
And they never get back
My pain is a platinum stack
Take that s*** back
You don't wanna be me when it all goes wrong
You don't wanna see me with the houselights on
I'm a little too headstrong
Stand tall
I don't wanna get walked on

I still don't really like "Lonely No More"

I've been thinking about why I like secular music more than Christian music. I think the problem with Christian music (which isn't worship music) is that while it wants to compete with secular stuff, it can't. It can't explore the places that secular music can. Rob Thomas can sing about how much life sucks, Paul Colman can't. Christians have to sing "Life's hard but I've got Jesus" and "Today is hard but I'm happy because God will make everything better tomorrow." I'm waiting for more Christians to start singing "Life sucks, what the hell are you doing God?"

Perhaps that's why I appreciate U2. They aren't afraid to sing as Christains but they aren't worried about saying all the right things either. There is honesty which comes before a "good" portrayal of the Christian life and theological truth. Albums like Pop would be unacceptable in Koorong, but are probably more honest about seeking Christ in this world than much of the music is Koorong is. U2 are "lookin' for baby Jesus under the trash."

But I talk too much about U2.

I like non-Christian music because it lets you explore stuff that you can't explore when you're a Christian. I can't be self-centred, scream at the world and say it's justified like Linkin Park can. I can't constantly talk about having my heart broken like Rob Thomas can. I can't say "I may not go to heaven, but I hope that you go to hell" (Counting Crows) but it sure feels good to sing it. It's vicarously living a life without the moral confines of Christainity and with all the moral justification of a good melody. It let's you explore the truth of not having to always be making sure you're not denying "the Truth". And I think that that exploration gives Christains a better understanding of what life really is like, for people who believe and for those who don't. It doesn't mean that Jesus doesn't save the day, it just reminds us how much the day needs to be saved. It's the beauty of living outside a Christian bubble. Kill it! Kill the bubble, I say.

The day has ended. It was rather long.

I took Hannah to school this morning, which is always a joy. She's a good kid.

I went shopping for a new pair of jeans. I have been running low on pants. (English people call their underwear pants, crazy.) I was worried about going back to shop for long pants as I had an accident last time. I was in a rush and didn't have the strength of will to fight with the shop assistant so I accidentally spent $100 on jeans that are rubbed, dirty, have those pretentious, little sown up rips in them and are way too trendy for me.

So today I went shopping with trepidation. But I think it turned out alright. I bought jeans that I can live with and certainly aren't too cool. But I think they're cool enough that I won't get beat up by 15-year-olds on the station.

I came home and had a shower. The cleaners arrived while I was in the shower and I think they probably heard me singing.

Work was good. We set up for our big event tomorrow night. I enjoyed hanging around. When most people had left a few of us hung about for a silly sing along. Sam and Helen ate Indian with me.

Later tonight David and I watched In Good Company. It was a fun film. It made me laugh, it had a good ending but it wasn't perfect. It had a good little giggle at the corporate world. It inspired me to want to be a good husband and father when I get around to that part of my life. If "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" I could start a paving business.

Oh, I know a little more now. I'm going for the Liberal Democrats but I doubt they're going to win. The Conservatives seem like our Liberals and the other is Blair's party. Humpf. One day there'll be good politicians with a chance of getting power.

I can dream can't I?

Perhaps in the morning I will hear if there is a new British PM. I'm hoping it's not Mr Blair again, although I don't know much about the other guy except that he looks like John Howard's brother.

As Liz pointed out, today's date is 05/05/05. That's rather exciting. When I went to bed last night I set my alarm for 4:55am so that I could get up and blog. I wanted to blog at 05:05am on 05/05/05. But when my alarm went off the urge to celebrate the numerical patterns of the space time continuum were overwhelmed by the desire to go back to sleep. So I did.

Daze

I don't write much about my days these days. Probably because they aren't fantastically interesting at the moment. I'm pretty happy, but not much out of the ordinary is happening. I don't have interesting stories to tell.

Take today for instance:
7:00am - Alarm goes off
7:33am - Get up and shower
8:06am - Have quiet time
8:54am - Make breakfast and watch Spanish News on TV (Martin was watching it, I didn't understand a word but it all seemed to be about traffic)
9:15am - Leave house, drive to work
9:42am - Arrive at work
9:45am - Check my emails and blogs
9:55am - Prepare Scripture
10:14am - Go to Scripture
10:20am - Teach Scripture (They laughed at my jokes. I had to censor the Bible today. Instead of saying "Come and sleep with me" I changed it to "Hey there tiger!"
10:50am - The bell went, back to church
11:00am - Start reading "Time Management" article before staff meeting
11:37am - Staff Meeting
1:15pm - Lunch with Helen and Stephen
1:47pm - Do some work (I can't remember what)
2:25pm - Burn the sermons from last week onto cd, and blog from the church computer
2:55pm - Send many emails (I sent 17 or 18 today)
3:15pm - Call my small group
3:45pm - Send more email, plan teaching for youth group
4:45pm - Find Lauren and go shopping for dinner
5:20pm - Put Dinner on
5:25pm - Write scene matrix for Larry
5:45pm - Have a Prayer Meeting
6:15pm - Have a Leader's Meeting
7:55pm - Go to Bible Study
9:48pm - Rach drops Liz and herself home
9:55pm - Drive home
10:25pm - Arrive home and went to the toilet and read about Christian sports people
10:35pm - Go on the computer
10:47pm - Start blogging.

There's my day. Facinating no doubt. As you can see there is good reason why I haven't blogged much about my days recently. But I am pretty content.

I remember on September 11, 2001 when I read the paper the first thing I said was "Oh God." Then I remember thinking that the world was going to change. Within a few days I had written an email telling George W Bush that he shouldn't bomb Afghanistan and that if my country called me up to fight in the Army, I wasn't going to go.

For a little while the world seemed uncertain, we had no idea what would happen next. These days, the world has changed, but we know what's going on. There'll be some wars, terrorists will blow things up, the West will continue ignoring the disparity between the way it lives and the rest of the world. Things will change. But slowly.

If things go well, the UN Millennium Development goals will be reached, world poverty will be halved, this won't be such an unequal world. If things go badly, the "democratic" conquest of the world will continue. The little guy will loose out. The extremists (from all sides of the conflicts) will keep pushing their agenda through violence.

Probably there'll be a mix of both. Neither of them are mutually exclusive. There are people working on achieving both at the moment. But I think I'm more of a pessimist than optimist. I'm expecting the "wars and rumors of wars."

I'm thinking about this because last night Ryan and I watched a French documentary called The World According to Bush. It wasn't very interesting. It didn't tell me anything I didn't already know. It was like a more serious, less over-hyped and sensational, version of Fahrenheit 9/11. But I'm interested in this world. I'm just wondering how to best participate in it.

Today I had breakfast with Liam in St Ives, Lunch with Matt in Pymble, Coffee with Courtney in Frenchs Forest and Dinner with Sally in Terrey Hills. I'd call myself the social king but they were all meetings. They were fun though. The more I don't talk about what I'm meant to be talking about the more I enjoy meetings.

I also watched Napoleon Dynamite. It was freakin' awesome.

Now I'm going to bed. It'll be the first time I've been to bed during the night (as opposed to the morning) all week. Gosh.

I have been rather tired today. I fell asleep a few times in church tonight. I wanted to tell the preacher that I fell asleep because I got 3 hours sleep last night, not because I didn't like what they were saying. But I don't know if they caught me napping, so I didn't say anything. It's silly to say sorry for something that nobody knows you did.

My sermon today went well. The 8am congregation was good. As Stephen says, I could say anything and they'd think I was lovely. It's the charm of being a young person. But I was getting a little worried about the 10am. But people were nice to me. Just before the sermon Steve came up to me and asked me to preach the shorter 8am version of my sermon because time was running out and there wasn't space for the extended edition 10am version. It was probably a good call. The only disappointing thing was that I had to cut out a paragraph that involved a joke about throwing Jesus off a boat. What a funny thought. "Lord overboard!"

I was in the shower this morning worrying that no one would like what I was going to say. I had to walk myself through my sermon assuring myself that everything I had written I had gotten out of the text, and so even if people didn't like it, it's still Biblical. I'm there to preach the word, not entertain people.

I preached on the whole book of Jonah and that was good fun. Jonah is a fun guy. Mainly because he's rather melodramatic and the most reluctant of prophets. But also one of the most powerful. Who converts 120,000 people with a one sentence sermon? Jonah does, that's who. What a freak!

Tomorrow I am going to two pubs, two coffees, and I reckon I might go see a movie too. And then I might watch Napoleon Dynamite when I have a break.

Its annoying when you finish writing your sermon at 2amish and you realise that you have to preach it in 6 hours.

I'm hoping the next four hours of sleep are good.

Scared of the Sky

On Wednesday George W Bush was hustled into a bunker, missiles armed and a Black Hawk scrambled because of a fast moving, incoming cloud that threatened to blow up the White House.

The story speaks for itself really.

George W is expected declare a "War on Clouds" when he addresses the nation tomorrow.

Today I drove all over the world.

I went out to Penrith with two Youth Minister friends to hang out with another Youth Minister. Put three youth ministers in a car together and you get a lot of conversation about ministry practice, theology, Bishops, preaching, denominations, theological preferences of particular dioceses and marriage.

At college tonight we talked about "How to preach to a Post-Modern Audience"

Post-Modernity is interesting but I'm getting a little bored with being taught about it. There's only so many times you can hear that "In Post modernism truth is relative and experience is highly valued." I'm never all that conscious of preaching to "post-moderns" when I do preach. But from what I was told I should be doing at college, I do most of it already.

I'm going to bed and see if I can be asleep before one.

Famous people should have blogs.

Like how cool would it be if George Clooney had a blog. A real one.

Or Bono. The Bono Blog.

Yeah.

I'm only keeping my blog so that when I get famous people can look back and read this, and say "That's what Tom was like before he got famous." And woman's magazines will have plenty of material about me that they can exploit. "Raunchy old photos of Tom French in his underwear!" and "Before the Surgery: Exclusive photo's of Tom French before he had plastic surgery!"

The A380 is a really big plane.

See.

And they cost $339 million each. Pow. How exciting. I want to fly on one. I love big things.

Jews for Jesus get people upset again

It's funny how easy it is to upset people. There are Jewish groups that are upset with the Jews for Jesus and the Anglicans trying to convert Jews.

It seems that everyone likes their own evangelism and they don't like anyone else's. Like for a Muslim it's good for a Muslim to try and convert a Christian but it's bad for a Christian to try and convert a Muslim. For a Christian it's good for Christian to try and convert a JW, it's bad for a JW to try and convert a Christian.

Getting upset about evangelism from "rival" religions seems to me to be double standards. I believe in evangelism and I think all faiths should be allowed to practice it. We are not living in a theocracy. Every religion is viewed as having equal value. We should all be allowed to try and convert each other. May the best faith win.

A fear of evangelism by another faith seems to me to display a certain lack of faith in your own religion. If Christianity really is worth being part of people should be able to stick at it despite the attacks from other faiths. The same should be true for others.

I love it when people try and convert me. It's interesting, it's dialogue, it's informative, you feel valued (at least for a little while.) Perhaps, rather than get upset about other people trying to convert your followers, you should spend more time equipping them to see why there is no other faith worth following than your own.

Lactic

Today when I was in the New Chinese Supermarket with Mum I found a new drink I had never tried before.

It's a Fanta flavour from Hong Kong called "Lactic". It's milk flavoured Fanta. I got a bottle.



It tastes like Yakult gone fizzy. Weird. Asian countries have the craziest drinks. Good for them.

Today I have to write a Bible study, and prepare a sermon, on Jonah. I've decided that I am just going to have to watch Veggie Tales, I can't see anyway around this inevidible preparation.

Woohoo!

There's this t-shirt that I really like at Threadless.com. It has this design on the front.

I like it because I often think to myself "Hey, this is meant to be the future. It's 2005 and it's not nearly as exciting as The Jetsons made out." So the t-shirt really "vibes" with me.

But I have a problem with the last line on the t-shirt. "Where is my cure for this disease?" I was having fun until that point. It all suddenly gets serious. I've often thought about that t-shirt and how sad it is that they ruined it for me. Why do people have to bang their point home? Isn't subtly good enough anymore? Are we too scared that no-one is going to "get" us?

Oh well.

Hitting the Atmosphere

Well, Amy hit the atmosphere
Caught herself a rocket ride out of this gutter
and she's never coming back I fear
Anytime it rains she just feels a lot better
and that's all that really matters to me - Counting Crows

Yesterday I recieved 19 legitimate emails. Today I have recieved none. I think I must loose a lot of popularity on the weekend.

In other news I would like to announce that I am about to write the final scene of "Larry the Lover Boy". Yay!

Someone found my blog looking of "a ditch of water around a castle." I would just like to tell them, for easier searching in the future, that's called a moat.

Cutting toe nails is a lot more satisfying than cutting finger nails.

Well I've spent most of my day on the computer again. I've been doing that a lot lately. I guess that's what script writing does to you.

I spent the morning creating flyers for the youth group, I spent most of the day script writing (and accidently deleteting), I spent some of the afternoon with David eating hot chips and drinking Coke, and tonight I spent with Jem watching The Notebook. Neither of us cried.

It's been a rather quiet day.

More Wisdom



I'm getting very excited with all this video stuff. I've now uploaded the Wisdom episode about the pastor asking a girl to burn down the church.

Heh Heh. So much fun.

Get the video here.

For some reason, when you go to http://runnoft.blogspot.com at the moment it redirects you straight to the Blogger homepage. It's weird. But my hits for today are right up so I have no idea how anyone is getting to my blog.

In other news I registered www.sparklybee.com today so I can stick more videos up. I thought it might be fun to stick all the videos I have made (which don't break copyright) on the net. And I was talking to Jem the other day and we were thinking about making regular videos of "Wisdom with Tabitha" or something like that. Just to kill time.

Anyway I think I'll visit bed now. I have to write the rest of the script when I wake up.

I woke up later than planned today. Probably due to going to bed later than planned.

Every morning I eat a Top Deck easter egg before breakfast because they are sitting on the shelf in the pantry at eye height, just above the Corn Flakes. It's wonderful.

I had lunch with Tanya at the Greengate today which was very exciting. I was excited about eating a pub lunch, I like pub lunches, and hanging out with Tanya too. I don't think I've properly spent time with Tanya for ages. I think because I don't need to give her lifts places and she's not a youth leader anymore. So we had fun. Well, I had fun.

This week has been a mild catch up week. It's been most enjoyable. Ryan is coming round tonight. We're going to move furniture, eat noodles and watch a dvd. Probably a very blokey one.

At the moment I'm writing the script to Larry the Lover Boy (that's just the working title, we'll get around to changing it one day.)

I watched The Phantom of the Opera on DVD tonight and got all inspired to write. I went and found all my cds that make me most nostalgic and started typing. I'm having fun, but it's very late to be writing. I guess when you get inspired you should tap into it while you can.

I did enjoy watching the Phantom. I loved that musical. It was the first musical I saw when I was young and it was great. I'm such a romantic. I was lying on the bean bag alone and singing "All I ask of you" and "Music of the Night" at the top of my musical theatre lungs. If only I had followed my dreams to be an actor in the theatre...

Donny Jaffa

For Phil


At the Marrickville RSL


Interviewing Matt Gelding on stage

I was planning on writing a script today, instead I have sat at my computer all day and fiddled around. I've watched the Tropfest dvd, tried to get Podcasting to work and looked at old websites.

It's been an interesting day, although rather procrastinative. Is that a word?

I'm thinking I'll make a Donny Jaffa dvd. But not now. Perhaps I should at least start on the script.

Wisdom with Tabitha

Here it is, one episode of Wisdom with Tabitha.

I'm not sure why I made it net available, but it's fun. My first video thing on my blog.

In case you don't know what Wisdom with Tabitha is, it's a daily advice segment that we had at Soul in The Donny Jaffa Show.

If you want to watch it, right click on the link and select "Save Target As..." The file is 5.4MB so it may take a little time.

Here is the link

I'm eating a mini cheesecake that I bought last night (Sunday night, it's only 12:34am) at the moment and it's not very nice. Way too sweet.

Last night after church Helen, David and I went and saw Hostage. It was a good way to chill out. Not a fantastic film but it was good to just stare at a big screen for two hours.

Today I woke up late.

I went to Killara to hang out with my lovely friend Mike. We were going to go to the Greengate for lunch, which was an exciting idea for me, but in the end we ended up eating take away chicken burgers in his kitchen. I think it may have been too expensive.

I came home, hung out some clothes, dropped off the Donny Jaffa costume, picked up my dog from the Hayes then headed off to Croydon for dinner with Ryan, Jo and Jem. We had Sticky Date Pudding. It was real tops.

Today has been more exciting than it sounds.

Right now I'm making a Wisdom with Tabitha video so I can put it on the net. How exciting!

I've been rather zonked today, post Soul Survivor.

I had a very fun 5 days though. I decided that my favourite thing about the conference was spending 5 days with 30 of the youth. That doesn't sound as exciting to me as much of the other stuff, it was a rather unemotional event for me. But I don't think that having a good five days with people is unspiritual. But if I were to justify that (which may be unnecessary) would have to indulge in a long rant about community and the body of Christ.

Doing The Donny Jaffa Show was interesting. It was always a little scary going out in front of 300 people with very little material prepared and have to be funny for half an hour. "Be funny" is not a command that I'm all that comfortable with. But it seemed to me that I was funny enough.

The role of the show was to get people seated in the Big Top before the main meeting. I did my job well if the tent was full at 7pm. It was interesting that all the jokes, games, video and silliness was all in service of the main meeting. It was important to remember that so I didn't invest the show with too much importance. But on the other hand I had to remember to make the show good because if it was boring, as well as me looking stupid, the show wouldn't have done it's job. So I had to have a good show for the main meeting, not so that I would look good. But if things did go bad, I would probably look stupid.

Anyway, the show was fun. The interviews were silly, I think my interview technique is rather useless. Everything is just an excuse for a joke, it's not really there so that people can learn things. The Conan O'Brian Show annoys me because Conan uses his interviews with his guests as an excuse to talk about himself. Donny uses the interviews as an excuse to make a joke. That's not much better. I have become what I despise. Nooooo!

The shows were also a little scary because I think was often in danger of offending people. There were often things that I said or did where I thought "Oops". But no-one complained loud enough for me to hear it.

The food at Soul this year was good. I looked forward to every meal. And it was cheap. How exciting! Cheap and good, everything you want for a week away.

I also managed to make it to quite a few seminars this year. Last year, I missed almost all the seminars because I was at home burning DVDs. By the grace of God, this year I had all the DVDs done early.

I'm not sure what else to say. I don't feel like saying lots of spiritual stuff. It's always worthwhile spending five days learning about God and singing lots of songs.

I think it might be time for me to go to Church. Yay! Ewan and I worked out that with all the time we spent at talks and praising God you could take 6 months off church. If only it worked like that...

I think I'll go to bed.

I have nice shiny new floors.

Yoop!

I'm currently in the middle of doing Soul. I can't write much, I have to run back.

Camping 10 minutes from home is a little silly but at least I'm getting more sleep than I do at home.

I finished all the Donny Jaffa DVDs at 4:30am last night. I was going to blog but I couldn't be bothered. Today, I'm chilling out. I woke up at 12:30 today while some workman banged away downstairs giving us a new floor.

This past 24 hours has been quite strange. I spent all the time while my DVDs were rendering taping up doors and cupboards so that floor dust wouldn't get in them. I also packed for Soul Survivor. It's a strange feeling packing your car and renovating your house at 3am.

While I was packing for Soul I found underneath some clothes a big envelope that contained my Diploma of Theology. It's amazing what you find tucked away in your room. I didn't know I had graduated from my college till then so I had a little graduation for myself and took photos. I can now officially put letters after my name. I graduated at 2:04am this morning.

I am Thomas John French Dip. Th.

I'm so important.

I've been doing a lot of video editing today. I have finished 10 videos today for Soul. Now I just have to put them on DVD.

I had wanted to do that before going to bed but I'm feeling I may have left my run a bit late. I'll have to do it tomorrow. Probably another late one tomorrow. Oh well.

Everyone left my house this morning at 4:30am. I'm the only one who stayed in bed. I'll be the only one who lives in this house for the next two weeks.

I was having a dream this morning about a guy who broke into my house and wanted to bash me. I woke up after that dream to the sound of the front door of my house being unlocked. I couldn't work out who it would be because everyone is away. I assumed it would just be some friend of ours who knows where the spare key is.

I heard them walking around and I tried to go back to sleep. I couldn't work out who it was though. I was hoping that whoever it was wasn't planning on robbing my house. The only thing in the living room at the moment is a tv though. I decided that if I heard them moving the TV I'd get up.

I heard the flick of a switch and a plug being fiddled with in the wall. I thought "That's it I'm getting up, someones stealing the telly." Then I heard this sound like a vacuum. "Who would come over to my house on a Saturday morning to vacuum my floors?"

I walked out into the living room and there was this big Islander bloke standing in the middle of the room with and electric saw plugged into the wall. We looked at each other and both tried to work out who shouldn't be there.

I said "Good morning"

And he said "I've come to fix the kick board on your dishwasher" (stupid diswasher)

Me: "Oh"

Him: "I rang yesterday and talked to your mum. You didn't know about that?"

Me: "No. Doesn't matter."

Him: "Ok. I bet I woke you up, eh?"

Me: "Yeah. Oh well. Have fun."

And then I went back to bed.

Well the day that just past was quite eventful but unbloggable for creative security reasons.

I spent the day filming stuff for Donny Jaffa (which I am doing this year for those that have been asking) and I thought it would be scary (which it was) but it was also quite fun. I ended my day eating a kebab in Newtown with Priscilla. The kebab made me feel dodgy like all kebabs are prone to do.

I should sleep because I have to be in Roseville at 9am tomorrow morning. Oh goodness, this world never stops.

I've been watching too much television lately. I come home, I want to watch something while I eat my dinner and I just watch useless crap. I think I should do something about this. Either I have to stop wacthing stupid TV or I have to eat my dinner earlier when there are better programs on.

I should put on music when I come home. That's a good idea. That'll stop me from watching TV.

I think the dishwasher has made me watch more TV. Since I don't have to wash up I just sit on the couch. Yuck.

I'll fix this problem. I will.

I hope Foxtel breaks.

I'm all alone at the office today. I'm not completely sure where everyone is. Oh well. I'll see if I can manage to do work without everyone around.

Popes and stuff

I've been watching the stuff on the Pope recently and it's really interesting. I think as the Pope got older I liked him more and more. He seemed like quite a real guy. Being a good Protestant I probably shouldn't have been so fond of him but I was. It's sad watching the news, but I'm not overly distraught. I think it was good that he died because he was really sick. And he got to go be with God. I think Roman Catholics go to heaven. It was hard seeing him so sick and having to continually go to hospital. I felt especially sorry for him when he was making his Easter address. "Amen" was a last good word. I hope that wasn't just propaganda. I would like my last word to be something like that.

Now they have to pick a new Pope. That will be interesting. What a job. Being the most influential religious leader in the world would be a scary job. You'd probably feel a little in adequate.

In other news I've been writing scripts for "Wisdom with Tabitha" at Soul Survivor today. It's really hard to work out what isn't too offensive to put in a script. It's fun, but I hope I don't offend people. There's a chance. I hope I offend them over something worth while. When it's Donny Jaffa though, it will probably be because of something silly.

Tomorrow we're filming "Tabitha"

I bought tickets to go see Anthony Mundine fight today for the WBA World Super Middle Weight World Title. How fun. I've only ever watched one whole boxing match in my life, but I'm off to see a World Title fight. Tops!

I got a letter in the mail the other day from the Australian College of Theology telling me I have completed all requirements for graduation for a Diploma. They were only a year late.

My weekend just keeps going and going.

Happy Wedding Emily and Martin.



It was tops! I love the both of them.

I had to go and talk to the Principal of my college tonight and I got really nervous. I had to ask if I was late handing in an assessment (he teaches my preaching class) and I was hoping he wouldn't put me on detention for not knowing when my assessment was due in. I thought it would be fine, he seems like a pretty nice guy. But I was a little worried none the less.

When I got to him though, it was fine. I have a month till my assessment is due in. He didn't put me on give me a warning or anything. He was friendly to me.

I also told him that I enjoyed the college function that I went to on Tuesday night. I don't often go out of my way to give compliments but I really enjoyed myself so I thought it should be shared. I'm growing as a person.

Don Carson spoke at the function and he was cool. He awed me by being a smart guy. I think that I would be very intimidated if I was his friend. Lucky I'm not and I can just sit with another 500 people and wonder how he manages to pull things off so well. He spoke for an hour barely looking at his notes, never stuffing up his words, and saying good stuff the whole time. He was impressive.

Also impressive was the auditorium we were in. We were at Shore Grammar School and the auditorium was very cool. I wished I was back at school, and had somehow managed to be back at an exclusive, posh, boys school (as opposed to my un-exclusive, co-ed, tacky public school.) It was almost like a professional theatre. I would have been running school musicals every week had I gone to that school.

I sat in there wondering how they manage to hold school assemblies in that hall. I wouldn't be able to listen to the principal, I'd spend my whole time wondering when the Can-Can girls were going to come out and if they were selling Choc-Tops in the foyer.

Gosh life is hard sometimes.

I should be asleep but it doesn't feel like 1am.

I'm looking forward to April Fools Day although I'm sure at some stage I'll look like an idiot. I hope no one dies tomorrow because who ever tells me the news I won't believe them and then I'll feel guilty. Actually I hope no one dies any day, but especially tomorrow. If you are planning on dying tomorrow, put it off a day, you'll make everything less complicated.

That was not an endorsement of suicide by the way. I only meant dying by natural causes (or a car accident or something, but they're kinda natural these days anyway.) If you were planning on committing suicide tomorrow put it off a least a week. And if you get to the end of the week and still feel like it, put it off another week. And then keep putting it off till you don't feel like it anymore. Kinda like when you need to go to the doctor about that embarrassing rash.

I should be a suicide counselor.

My thumb where the wasp bit me has swollen now. I have a fat person's thumb.

Last night I had lamb cutlets for dinner and they were good. My Mum says I never like her cooking. I think that's untrue.

I got stung by a wasp. Ooo. I was wondering what that felt like.

I watched Be Cool today with David.

It wasn't very good. It lacked heart. It had some good music in it. The singer girl was cool and she did a duet with Aerosmith. Aerosmith a pretty cool in a "old school rockers" kinda way.

But the film itself was sad. The dialoge was wooden. It tried to be self-aware and funny, but in the end it was just pretty sad. Oh well, you win some, you loose some.

I'm a Rocker



I've always wanted a mullet.

Right now I'm listening to a sermon by John Stott. I might stop soon because it's hard to listen and type at the same time.

John Stott is one of my heros. I've never heard him preach before, it's kind of fun. His voice doesn't sound like I have imagined. But I like it anyway. He sounds like someone's grandfather. Like he should be in "The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe".

I've been quiet a quiet blogger recently. I haven't been burdening you all with every minute detail of my life.

Last night I was preaching and my voice started to go a little raspy and I thought to myself, "Wow, I'm becoming a professional"

After church some of us went down to Dee Why for Chinese. It was a lovely relaxing way to end a Sunday. We laughed a lot and ate good food. It was one of those nice events where everyone at the table is someone you're enjoying being with.

After dinner David and I dropped Guin home and we got to see her and Phil's flat. It was quite the funness. It had a top quality view of the train yards and walls that looked like they had been painted by a middle aged woman with dyed red hair who wore dangly ear rings and gypsy skirts.

So there's a little bit of my life. Tomorrow I have off, but my options are rather limited seeing as I have run out of money. I'll just have to be inventive. Perhaps I'll run a garage sale.

Sometimes the world doesn't change enough to keep me interested.

You sit around thinking "When is something big going to happen? I'm feeling rather bored." And something big does happen, planes fly into buildings, waves wipe out islands, and that keeps you depressed and interested for a few days and then you're thinking "Boring, I'm over this disaster."

I wonder if I'd get bored if I was famous.

Actually I don't feel bored often, I think I'm just not often in a state of over-interest or hyper-awareness. (Maybe hyper-awareness isn't the word but it sounds good)

I'm at the Fusion office right now. I'm not sure how I ended up here. I guess I'm just trying to fit in with the workers here. I'm typing and pretending to type important things in solidarity with my youth worker brothers and sisters here.

Good Friday Song

I thought this might be an appropriate song for today. Although U2 are always appropriate. I appologise for their language.

"Wake Up Dead Man" - U2

Jesus, Jesus help me
I'm alone in this world
And a f***** up world it is too
Tell me, tell me the story
The one about eternity
And the way it's all gonna be

Wake up, wake up dead man
Wake up, wake up dead man

Jesus, I'm waiting here boss
I know you're looking out for us
But maybe your hands aren't free
Your father, he made the world in seven
He's in charge of Heaven
Will you put a word in for me

Wake up, wake up dead man
Wake up, wake up dead man

Listen to the words, they'll tell you what to do
Listen over the rythm that's confusing you
Listen to the reed in the saxaphone
Listen over the hum of the radio
Listen over sounds of blades in rotation
Listen through the traffic and circulation
Listen as hope and peace try to rhyme
Listen over marching bands playing out their time

Wake up, wake up dead man
Wake up, wake up dead man

Jesus, were you just around the corner
Did you think to try and warn her
Or are you working on something new
Is there an order in all of this disorder
Is it like a tape recorder
Can we rewind it just once more

Wake up, wake up dead man
Wake up, wake up dead man
Wake up, wake up dead man

Serena Williams talking about her sister and herself:

"Growing up, I would have loved to have had such a positive role model to look up to and try to be like and try to emulate. We love having that opportunity to say, 'Look, you can be like us, you can be successful and at the same time have high morals and high self-esteem and be a very nice person at the end of the day'."

If only I could have known them when I was young.

From here.

Sometimes I laugh at my own jokes.