So I'm back from Soul now. I drove home last night at 11. I got home at 2am. It was great. I had such a good time. I drove, listened to sermons, and prayed. Nice.

I had a very good time at Soul. I did a seminar called "The Bible Makes Me Giggle". It was much fun. I got to spend an hour looking at many of the best incidences of genitalia, farting, fatness, talking animals, preaching zombies and fighting bears in the Bible. I can't think of a more fun topic to cover. When I get a copy I'll stick it online. I'll also link to the videos we made if they get YouTubed.

I have come back from Soul Survivor with things to think about. It was a good year for challenge. These are the things that are running through my head.

First up I'm thinking about the role of signs and wonders in the life of the church and especially in evangelism. Mike did a talk about how Jesus and the Apostles used signs and miracles for the purpose of bringing people to faith in Jesus. He was saying that God is still wanting to do it today, the problem is on our end.

For me, I totally agree but I'm rather sceptical that I'll see it. I believe in God's power to do miracles today. I believe he heals and I believe he does other miraculous signs, and I believe he does it to glorify himself and it's often in the context of evangelism.

But I never see it. Every now and again I hear stories. (My Dad's back got healed the other the week, that was pretty awesome.) But I don't feel like it'll happen when I'm involved. I try and pray in faith that things will happen, but I don't often see a miraculous answer. I tend to feel like if God's gonna heal, chances are it'll be through the normal ways. As usual I feel like that guy who says to Jesus "I do believe, help me overcome my unbelief."

Mike told a story about a guy who had a vision, and the point of the vision was that God wanting to pour out his power on everyone, but only some people were willing to accept it. It make sense but I don't see it.

Mike also talking about the same guy who was challenged by God to preach healing from the Bible saying "Are you going to believe what you see or what I say in my Word?" I believe the Word, but it gets hard when you don't see it in practice.

It's also hard when you have a theology that says it's not about what you do, but what God does. It's not about how hard you pray, or using the right formulas and twisting God's arm to do things, God heals and does miracles because he wants to when he wants to. And if that's the case then you automatically ask why God isn't doing them with the frequency we would like.

The balancing argument to that is that Jesus generally heals as a result of people's faith. So we're left with this problem of how do we manage to find the right way to have faith to see it happen. And then there are all the books and seminars on how to pray for healing and see God work. If it's up to God to work, surely we don't need a seminar on the techniques on how to get God to work. Surely God sees our heart and not our technique.

I guess all this leaves me with a good sized desire to see God work, but I'm jaded because I don't see it happen. At least not in the miraculous ways. I see God work. I see people become Christians, I see him provide, I see him guide me and my friends, I see that he changes people, I see that he is always faithful. I just don't see him healing and doing miraculous things when I'm around, and I want to. I want to because I want other people to see God, and see the God I see. I feel like I could go the rest of my life and never see a "sign" or "wonder" and not lose any faith in God. But if God wants to work in the Church in bringing people to himself through his supernatural displays of power then I want to see that, and I want to be part of that, I just don't quite know how to get involved.

I'll read a book.

Second I've been thinking about how to love the people around me, particularly those who are not Christians. I really want to, I just feel like I'm crap at it. I left ministry this year to be freer to work engage with people who are not of my faith, but it's not really happening much. I'm challenged but I'm not sure how to execute. I don't know how to meet the needs of those around me, and I don't know how to love my neighbours.

I need to keep praying that God will give and show me opportunities. I'm pretty sure that's a prayer he wants to answer.

Thirdly I've been thinking about chasing my dreams. There was a talk done by one of my friends about how God is the author of our dreams and so we shouldn't give up on them or think they're un-Godly. We should be free to dream, to never give up on our dreams, and free to chase our dreams.

In some ways it worries me. It reminds me of that worship song that asks "Would you believe me if I said that all of the dreams in your heart can come true today?" Which I would reply to wholeheartedly with a "No". (Though the talk wasn't actually saying that.)

I don't believe that God is going to make all my dreams come true. My t-shirt that says "Not all dreams can come true" sums up how I feel (which incidentally I was wearing on the day of the talk). I don't believe I will ever be a rock star, astronaut or kung-fu master. I don't even think there is much of a chance that I'll be a famous film director.

On the other hand, I do believe that God is the author of our dreams. And I believe in dreams and I believe in people pursuing them to the extent that they fit in with what God is wanting to do. I want people to be free to dream and to dream big. When people start restricting their dreams, when they stop believing that they can achieve anything they want they start settling for second best, and start compromising. They compromise their dreams for their comfort. And I believe in dreams a lot more than comfort. When people stop dreaming they tend to stop taking risks and a life without risk seems to be a life running counter to a life of faith.

I think the biggest challenge of the talk came because my life is a life that has been shaped by God's call on me to give up my dreams. From when I was 4 or 5 I have always loved film and television production. Till I was 18 there was nothing in the world I wanted more than to work in film and television. And then one night God turned up and said to me, in the clearest conversation I've ever had with God, "I want you to go into youth ministry." God clearly asked me to give up my dreams. And I did. I did because there is no use fighting God.

Now my life is not about getting into the film industry, it's about how I can be a better full time worker for Jesus. My whole life is the way it is, not because I followed my dreams, but because God asked me to give my dream up.

The challenge of the talk was to make me consider if I am now a person who has denied my God given dreams to pursue something that is more seemingly pious. I now have an attitude that any great desire I have needs to be handed over to God. I'm suspicious of anything I want to do, because it could easily be something God doesn't want to do. I make myself dream with my hands open.

I don't really live free of dreams. God asked me to give up one dream to give me a better one. God is the author of my dreams and I'm sure God gave me the dream to work in film and television. And that's a dream that has paid dividends in my life. I just spent a week making videos. But more than just giving me my own dreams, God is also the author of new, bigger and better dreams.

If God calls you to be a rock star or an astronaut then that's pretty awesome. But if God calls you to be a youth minister, a preacher, a missionary, a full time mum, a school teacher, or a hairdresser, you haven't lucked out, God has just authored a better dream for you.

But if God calls you to be a rock star, astronaut, full time mum or missionary, but you're too afraid to take the risk and just settle for something that makes you more comfortable, that's when you've lucked out. God is the author of dreams, safety and comfort kill them.

I think that's what the talk was getting at. God doesn't want us to settle for the small things. God wants us to dream, to dream big, to dream out loud and to dream with Him. It wasn't anti-sacrifice it was just pro-chasing the dream. The dream to change to world and the dream to be everything you can be in Christ.

Jesus' call on our life is that we must give it up in order save it. The Christian life is one of greater denial of self so that we can have a greater participation in the life of Christ. Often that will mean giving up on your dreams so that you can take hold of God's dreams. We are not called to lose the ability to dream, but we are called to be willing to give up our own so that God may give us new ones. And that sounds good to me.

I don't want to be comfortable. I want to chase God's dreams, always.

Delight yourself in the LORD
and he will give you the desires of your heart. - Psalm 37:4


And that's what I'm thinking about.

I haven't blogged because I'm at Soul. I'm not dead. It's good. We've been making movies and doing silly shows. I've been given a nice HDV camera to play with. But I'm not very good at using it.

I've been happy having a week where I've been working the whole week, doing seminars, making videos, planning and doing shows. I start at 9 and go home to Jimmy's couch at somewhere between 11 and midnight. It's good to have purpose. I'm having fun. Though, I will get to go home tomorrow and I'm looking forward to that too.

And there is my update.

Today I had Coke for the first time since last Saturday. It was a very special moment. And I had sushi, and gnochi. Not that this is really worth broadcasting over the internet, but it is relativity important to me.

On second thoughts, maybe I shouldn't have told you. I should be saving internet space for dogs on bicycles, fat people injuring themselves and porn. I apologise.

I love killing mozzies. It make me feel like a man.

After Good Friday (which was good) everything else was pretty bad.

I had a bad sleep on Friday night, woke up Saturday feeling lethargic, got worse. I slept all day Sunday, except when I was on the toilet. I had a headache. Since then, it's been more of the same with a slow recovery.

I ate nothing for Sunday and Monday. But now that it's Wednesday I've had some toast, mashed potato and rice, so I can't complain.

I had things planned every day this week. Today will be the first thing I'll actually make it to.

And I was meant to be going flat out on Soul Survivor prep, I was excited that this year I'd have plenty of time to work on everything I needed to do. But that's gone out the window too. Bah.

I usually love Easter. Oh well.

At this, they picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus hid himself, slipping away from the temple grounds. - John 8:59

I always knew there was a reason why I liked that guy.

This is embarrassing.

I went to church this morning at my new church. We had communion and they ran out of wine (juice actually, cause they're Baptists) just when I got to the server. It was most disconcerting for me.

After church I got invited to a Barbie with my friends. I ummed and ahhed, and eventually after being chased up, I decided to go.

It was out in Berowra. I went for the Barbie, which turned into a Monty Python watching, which turned into roast dinner, which turned into post dinner Wii games.

I was only expecting to be out for the afternoon, but I only just got home. I'd left my jacket at home so I got a little chilly by the end.

I had fun. I'm feeling more comfortable with the group now. I get the jokes more, I'm better at speaking up. I did like spending a whole day with this crew, they're a good bunch, I enjoy them a lot.

I had a good Friday.

You know how on the Gmail site it tells you how much space you get with Gmail and the number is always ticking over, higher and higher, as you watch? Is there some little man* in Google land whose job it is to just install hard drives on the Gmail server? Constantly, day in day out, night and day, installing hard drives. That would be a tough job. Poor guy.


*Notice how I said little man, just assuming he's little and male? Some would call me condescending and sexist. I would say, I'm a realist. If you think about it, the job has probably been given to a munchkin. Who else works day and night? And who else is small enough to fit in those confined spaces like servers with the speed needed to install hard drives fast enough to stay ahead of the ever increasing demand for Gmail storage space? And when have you ever seen a female munchkin do any work at all? You haven't because they're at home, in their tree, having munchkin babies. And we should thank them for it because they continue the legacy of munchkin work all over the world, having babies so that for generations to come we will have lots of email storage and people to live in those boxes by the side of the road and change the traffic lights.

I ran the bible study at Bible Study last night. It was only my third week at the group and I probably won't be there again for a while. It's on Monday nights and I usually have college. So I was impressed that they let me lead on my third week. I remarked on this when I started and made some crack about how I was going to teach from the Koran about our great prophet Muhammad. It did go down with the hilarity that I had planned. Mainly people just looked puzzled, so I moved on quickly.

I enjoyed running the study. We did doubt. I took three weeks of studies that we'd done in youth group last year and condensed them into one. I could do that because we had more time, and I was pretty sure we'd have less inane discussions about anything but the topic (yes old small groupians, I'm talking about you). On the other hand taking three weeks to look at three passages would have meant we could gone deeper with each one.

All up though, I was happy. I enjoy doing stuff like that.

I spent much of today sitting in the backyard reading. I also had butter chicken for lunch. And I watched the special features on The Bourne Ultimatum as a special treat because it's Sunday which means it's the Sabbath which means it's a day for special features. I'm pretty sure that's what God intended.

I also went to church. I'm really liking going to church. I just sit there. I'm totally a church consumer. I do nothing. It's the Sabbath, why work? Church workers are Sabbath breakers. They should be stoned to death.

I've been watching a lot of movies on DVD lately, with a bias towards older ones. I've been having a wonderful time. Let tell you why I've had so much fun.

1. The Matrix

I loved watching this movie again. I hadn't seen it in years. And then I watched it the other week and it brought back all the memories of the first time I saw it. People talk about films like Star Wars and about how when it first came out it was ground breaking. The Matrix is that movie for me. It changed action movies. Bullet time was a revelation. And having white people, shoot guns and do kung-fu like a Hong Kong movie... so special.

I remember paying attention to the whole production process while they were shooting it here in Sydney, and then to see the finished product, which turned out to be amazing; I was thrilled.

2. Conan the Barbarian

I had never seen the movie so I felt I should, it was Arnie's big break, and I'm feeling a great affinity for action movies at the moment.

I was totally not disappointed. Though I think it would have been difficult to disappoint me. There was plenty of a mindless violence and dumb villains.

By far my favourite bit was where Arnie punched a camel in the face. Cinema doesn't get better than that.

3. The Borne Identity and The Bourne Supremacy

What can I say? Jason Bourne is awesome. Another film that changed the action genre, Bourne took the whole good with guns and hand-to-hand combat thing that The Matrix started and took to a whole new, realistic, shaky-cam, quick cut level. You watch Bourne and you think "Yeah, that really could happen." Or at least I do, but maybe I'm gullible.

4. The Green Berets

This was the first film ever made about the Vietnam war. It was shot in 1968, had John Wayne and was pretty much just one big piece of propaganda. The whole thing was shot in the USA, it's like they thought "If we just scatter a few Asians with conical hats around no one will know we're actually in Georgia." Damn Francis Ford Coppella had to come through and ruin it all for everyone. (On a side note, did you know that Full Metal Jacket was shot entirely in England? It's true. They had much more realistic conical hats so we were all fooled.)

Also adding to the un-authentic flavour was that the Viet Cong's guerrilla tactics pretty much resembled trench warfare without the trenches. They'd just walk out of the jungle shoulder to shoulder in a line. With tactics like that it's no wonder the US lost the war.

Anyway, aside from being terribly unauthentic, I had a wonderful time watching it. Propaganda is always fun. I think my favourite moment was when a US soldier, being kind to an orphaned Vietnamese boy, let him hop in his bed and spend the night with him. In the 60's you could do anything.

5. Notes on a Scandal

The first non-action film in the list, this was great. I'd been putting off watching it for a while because everyone told me it was horrible. And it was. It was a train wreck of story. Judi and Cate are just amazing. I'm glad I watched this. I'm also glad I put off watching it for a while. I think I needed to be in the right head space.

6. Nixon

Long, but good. What is it with Oliver Stone and American Presidents?


I love DVD.

I've been in a little bit of a bad mood all day. It's probably because I haven't had enough sleep.

I need a holiday.

I worked tonight at the Hillsong Women's Colour Conference. I got put on cloakroom. That meant I sat behind a table in the foyer and minded 15 prams. It was totally awesome.

I think I was the only staff member who wasn't in the auditorium, and I was probably the only staff member who would have been interested in what was going on in the auditorium. Oh well. Perhaps it was better that all other staff learnt to be a warrior princess.

I decided to use the opportunity I had anyway. I sat at my table and tried to look as unsaved as possible. I was hoping one of those friendly Hillsong Volunteers would try and convert me or something. I'm always hoping to be on the receiving end of evangelism.

It didn't work. I generally just got smiles. One guy offered me a tic-tac. I think people tried hard to be nice to the staff because we were the only people around not connected to the church, and so probably the only heathens in the building. I even got given an apple and two free sandwiches which I took because, while I don't like sandwiches, I'm practising being poor.

So while no one tried to save me, everyone was very nice. If you wanted to be a hater you couldn't do it because they were mean.

I did get a visit from my friend Kaye at one point. We haven't seen each other in ages, so we got to shoot the breeze, compare church notes, lament our years of wandering through the Bible College wilderness. It helped pass the time with the prams while listening to the elevator versions of "How Great is Our God" that were being piped through the foyer. Who knew worship music could sound so good?

It wasn't a bad shift in the end, but I'm sorry to report Mum, I didn't find a wife.

In 2005 the Idaho State Legislature passed a resolution praising Jarod and Jershua Hess for making Napoleon Dynamite and it's depiction of the state of Idaho. Some of the reasons they were praised were because "tater tots figure prominently in this film thus promoting Idaho's most famous export", "Uncle Rico's football skills are a testament to Idaho athletics" and "Pedro's efforts to bake a cake for Summer illustrate the positive connection between culinary skills to lifelong relationships".

At the end of the resolution it says "any members of the House of Representatives or the Senate of the Legislature of the State of Idaho who choose to vote "Nay" on this concurrent resolution are "FREAKIN' IDIOTS!" and run the risk of having the "Worst Day of Their Lives!" "

Yep. It's freakin' sweet. You can read the whole resolution here.

On a side note, did you know that the Governor of Idaho is called Butch Otter? That's pretty cool.

So I've been watching a debate that was on ABC (American ABC) about whether Satan is real. It has your friend and mine, Mark Driscoll, plus Annie, a hooker for Jesus, a Bishop who believes whatever the person he's with wants him to believe and the one and only Deepak Chopra.



You can watch the whole thing here or on YouTube

What's initially interesting for me is that the debate even happened. Can you imagine a debate getting an hour of airtime on an Australian network on prime time* about the existence of Satan? It's not exactly the question that every Australian is asking.

The debate seems to be biased towards Satan's existence giving the liberals a need to convince everyone why Satan doesn't exist. Plus they don't even have any atheists in the debate. Three of the four people in the debate have some sort of Christian world view.

When they take questions from the audience there are a large amount of Christians wanting to prove Deepak and the Bishop wrong. When the Christians in the audience get a hold of the microphone to ask questions, at times it gets predictably embarrassing. That large amount of Christians asking questions however have something to do with the fact that the debate was hosted by ABC in the Mars Hill Church Auditorium. I reckon the Mars Hillians may have been the majority of the audience. Still the fact that that was allowed to happen, rather than the producers putting in an effort to give the debate a neutral location is telling in itself.

For a look at US religious culture, it's interesting.

Aside from that, it's been interesting for me to see how little my world view links up with the Bishop and Deepak. Maybe I'm unable to get my head around enlightened ideas, but I really couldn't see the sense in many of the ideas about God that they were talking about. God became both an unknowable and ineffable force out there, as well as just a creation of our own higher consciousness and a way of understanding our universe. Chopra said at one point "God is our highest instinct to understand ourselves." Which doesn't really make much sense. How can God be God if God is an instinct?

This isn't to say that all non-Christian world views don't make sense to me. Atheism makes sense. Agnosticism makes sense. Islam makes sense. Judaism make sense. Mormonism, while being totally whacked, makes sense. But this new thought enlightenment mysticism stuff I'm yet to get my head around, I don't even know what you really call it. Maybe I should go read a book about it.

Aside from all that they did say some stuff about Satan not being real and that all the evil in the world is caused only by humanity's own propensity for evil. That I can understand. Satan or no Satan, we humans probably do alright at destroying ourselves without his help.

Generally their biggest issues were not with their views of Satan but God. While I tend to agree with Mark and Annie, I wish Deepak and the Bishop had done a better job at challenging me. I believe in God and I believe in Satan (though I have very different feelings about the two) but I love it when someone gives those beliefs a run for their money.

*Actually the thing wasn't really shown in prime time, it was on at 11:30pm. But at least it wasn't 5:30am in Australia's Benny Hinn slot.

Is it just me or does there seem to be a large amount of celebrities who are pastors' kids? Aside from having parents who are already celebrities or in the business, I reckon being a Pastor's Kid is the best way to get famous.

Consider these people are all PKs:

Jessica and Ashlee Simpson
Jonas Brothers
Katy Perry
Jon and Tim Foreman
Marvin Gaye
Tori Amos
Alice Cooper


Really getting famous is easy, just get yourself born to a pastor, no worries.

I just read that Winnie from The Wonder Years got married. I have to say, I'm pretty crushed. For many primary school years she was the love of my life (except for when she went to high school and wore fishnets, that was terrible, she changed). Now, she'll never be mine.

I guess dreams are made to be broken.

I was at Mum and Dad's today and I noticed there was mail for me. So I opened it up and it was a very special ransom note written (generated here) just for me. It said (I've added punctuation and stuff):

Hi Tom,

I saw you at Kings of Leon the other night. It's good to see you have a real job. Now you must have known that church stuff would not last forever.

Love to see you again, it's been ages.

Love,

Abby

And then they left their email address.

As I do love a good mystery I sent them an email back. I can't think who it could be who would send me such a note, though I can think of plenty of people who might. I don't think I have any friends called Abby, but if I do I will feel bad that I forgot them and their habit of sending ransom notes.

Whoever it is, I'm not sure they did see me at Kings of Leon. They may have. They may have just read my blog.

I'm not sure why they sent the letter to my parents' house and not mine. I'm thinking it's either because they don't have my new address or they looked up "French" in the White Pages.

Either way I'm intrigued and awaiting my reply. If you are reading this Abby "Hello, check your email." There is always the chance they gave me an address which wasn't theirs and now some random Abby will read my email and think "Huh?"

If they want to meet up with me I promise to meet them near a security camera just in case they kidnap me. That way you can put the footage of me getting grabbed and shoved into a van on TV and I'll be famous. They probably are kidnappers, they have the same handwriting.

Do any of you readers out there have a Nike+ iPod kit? If you do, tell me because we can have virtual races and stuff. It'd be super awesome.

Often I have dreams where I perform some great feat of faith. Last night I think I performed my greatest miracle ever, I raised myself from the dead.

I was in a room with a few people and there was a dead body there and I knew I needed to pray for it. So with great faith I got down on my knees next to it and prayed, the body came back to life, and to my surprise the body was me. I'm not sure how I died, and I'm not sure how there managed to be two of me, but I did and there was.

When I came back to life I was nude and started dancing around the room. I was acting like a complete idiot, it was very embarrassing, I had to convince myself to put clothes on because everyone could see our bits.

Still despite my embarrassment at my antics I realised this was a great miracle so we needed to praise God. I thought I'd lead us all in a rousing chorus of worship music but we ended up all singing Bruce Springsteen together. It was very moving.

I went to Jess's party on Saturday night with Mil, Jemma and John. And that is the list of everyone there I knew. On the other hand, for one reason or another it felt like almost everyone there knew me.

A lot of people knew because of Donny Jaffa. Some would look at me funny. Some would laugh when they found out my connection with Donny. Some would say "Ohhhh" and then the conversation would die. One person came up to me and said "So you're Tom. I just wanted to meet you." They shook my hand and walked off.

There was another guy who found out I was Donny in a conversation I wasn't a part of. I started talking to him later. At the very beginning of the conversation he found out I went to college. John told him I'd been there for eight years. He said "You're a loser." I'd been talking to him for 10 seconds and he's already insulting me. I guess it comes with the territory being closely associated with Donny.

It's been a while since I've felt famous. One day I'd like to be famous for something good, rather than playing one of the most annoying characters you'll find in the Christian conference world.

Aside from all that, I did have a good night. I met lots of new people. I met a guy who works for an evangelism organisation and I was able to brainstorm a strategy for evangelism in strip clubs using anointed poles and Bibles printed normally on one page and in mirror image on the other, so you can read it looking at Bible on the table or looking at it via the mirrors on the roof. Genius! He didn't seem as keen as me but I'm pretty sure strip club evangelism is going to be all the rage soon.

For those of you who are interested, I finally got around to sticking up my final youth ministry sermon. You can get it here.

It's not the last sermon I'll do. I'll be preaching a few times this year and I'll try and get them up. So never fear, you will not have to go without my insightful teaching and witty anecdotes for too long.

So my Grandpa sent me an email with a petition against a website called Jew Watch. So I went and had a look at the website to see what the fuss was about. Apart from being as badly designed, insane and hate-mongering as you would expect from such a website, I did also find this snazzy little graph:



They say that "Jew Watch Ranks Up to 10 Times Higher Than The U.S. Holocaust Museum" and if you have trouble counting that's exactly what the graph says.

Turn a graph upside down and you can make it say anything you want.

Dumb.

So I worked Kings of Leon tonight. They were good. Better than their album I reckon. They rocked out rather well.

I spent a lot of time walking up stairs showing people to their seats. There was one group of girls who were in the last row. Or at least were meant to be in the last row. Every time I went to seat someone they were sitting in their seats so I'd tell them to go to their correct seats. This probably happened four times. Had I been mean I could have called security on them, but they weren't really causing any trouble.

Eventually when the concert had started proper they came through my door and said "Can you show us to our real seats now? We keep getting kicked out of seats and we just tried to get on the floor but they wouldn't let us on." So I showed them to their real seats and they stayed there.

When the concert finished and everyone was on the way out one of the girls grabbed me and planted a big kiss on my cheek and and said "Thank you" before she ran off. What can I say? I make the customers happy.

So I've been thinking, I love tradition and I don't like changing things that I've had for a long time, even if they're crappy. Like my shoes. They're full of holes and I literally love them to bits.

My blog is called, for some inane reason, Mine is Around About Here which really isn't a very good title. I liked it in 2001, but it's so not 2009. For a while people thought it was called Tom Time, It's Tom Time, Hold on Everybody it's Tom Time or some other variation on Tom Time. But that has only ever been in the tag lines.

Now however that I'm hip enough to have a new template and widgets, I may even be hip enough for a name change. And, heaven forbid (is that blasphemy?) a URL change. I could have a blog that reflected...something, as opposed to the nothing that it gives off with it's current title and URL (runnoft.blogspot.com). Most people probably don't even know the reference in the URL.

So here's what I'm thinking, while I'm changing the decor, I'll consider changing everything, and I want your help. I want your suggestions. Give me a name that suits my blog and I'll use it. I'll change, I'll rebrand, and I'll make sure you even get a blogpost worth of credit.

So leave a comment, give me your ideas and maybe things will change. But I'm not making any commitments, because I like things just because I've had them for a while.

Just to give you some inspiration here are some witty and original suggestions I thought up:

Tom Blogs
Tom's Blog
French Writing
Tales of Tom
Random Thoughts from a Random Guy
My Musings

This'll be fun.

I'm currently reading a non-fiction book by Tom Clancy about US Army Special Forces.

It very pro-USA and very cool.

Mmm, comfy shoes.

So yesterday I had my first proper shift at work. I was ushering for the Premier's Seniors Concert. We had been told at training to turn up early to check out the sections we were in, and to bring black leather shoes to wear. I have black leather shoes, but they're a bit too shmick for work. They're wedding shoes not not work shoes. So I decided to invest in a sensible pair of leather shoes.

I went to Forbes Footwear on Saturday to relive childhood sensible black shoe memories, feeling good that I was so prepared that I'm not buying shoes at the last minute. I'm a master at forward thinking. The man showed me a pair with cooshy soles, "especially good if you spend a lot of time standing up." I was convinced so I paid a more than a week's rent and bought them.

Yesterday morning I got up at the crack of dawn, got ready, shaved and I put the shoes in a bag with my other bag, ready to take with me. And then I left to go catch the train. I slept on the train most of the way to Central but I woke up at Town Hall, looked down at my bag and noticed I only had one. I'd left my bag of shoes at home. All I had on were my holey DCs and I wasn't going be allowed to work in them.

There was nothing for it but to buy a new pair of shoes. I hung around Central till a shoe shop opened, walked in and bought the first, cheap, uncomfortable pair of black leather shoes they had then headed to work. I didn't arrive with enough time to check my section, only get changed and be there for the briefing. The Supervisor saw me and said "Tom, you decided to show up!"

Happily now I have a pair of shoes in my locker so I'm not going to lose them.

I did enjoy the work. I liked talking to the seniors. They're often pretty jolly. The people I was working with were friendly. The concert was full of pianos and I like pianos, so all up I was pretty happy with my work. Plus I worked enough yesterday to pay for one of my pairs of shoes. If this keeps up, there's a chance I could break even.

Last night I went to Bible Study. It was the first time I've been to a Bible Study for me (rather than run by me) for about 2 years. It was good. I realised I miss things like that.

Today I had some more job related testing for the train job. I got up early again and wore my new black leather shoes. Although not my newest pair of black leather shoes. They'd been safe in their plastic bag for 24 hours. I caught the train again, slept most of the way.

It's an interesting process this. I've now done eight separate tests for this job and no one has really given me any opportunity to ask any questions about the job that I applied for. Still I had a better time today than last time.

I did a role play where I had to pretend to be someone working for the railways. I was sworn to secrecy so I cannot tell you what was in the scenario. What I probably can say is that in mine the scenario was meant to be taking place at 4:55pm and I had an email to work with that had been sent to me at 5pm that day. I didn't point it out during the role play, but I thought it was impressive that I had an email that had been from 5 minutes in the future.

After the test I pointed it out the discrepancy to the examiner and he starred at it for a while and said something like "That's very interesting, thank you." Even though I tried he didn't seem to want to engage with me in conjuncture about time travelling rail employees. That was a sadness for me.

After the tests I treated myself to some sushi and a sleep because I'm worth it.

I managed to get all the old comments back. So if you were worried all your hard work on arguments and discussion from blogposts gone by, fear not, they're all there. The blog is a while away from perfect but it's getting better.

My parents went to Orange this weekend so I've been here at their place for the hanging out with Hannah. It's been pretty fun to stay with my sister. Seeing as I don't live with the Ps any more I feel like I don't get to spend extended amounts of time with Hannah, so I've enjoyed this. She's a pretty fun sister, and now that she's older she's much easier to look after than she used to be. We get to laugh together and my biggest job this weekend was saving her from a big, blood sucking leech. Right now she's jumping around her room listening to bad covers.

Don't tell my parents, but we had Maccas for dinner. I'm hoping she'll vote me best brother ever. Maccas is good like that.

I did some training for the new job last night. Turns out I'm going to see Kings of Leon next week, twice, and get paid for it.

To think I thought about buying a ticket.

So the whole template redo thing is getting a little better. I have blogger comments for the moment, till I can get my old ones back. The date isn't displaying properly. But other than that I'm a little bit happier. It's not like this new template has any sense of fun to it. There are no stupid pictures of me. But I might change that later.

As you can see I'm currently in the process of stuffing up my blog. I thought "Oh it might be nice to change my template." What a nice thought it was. But seeing as my blog was stuck back in the days of basic HTML, Blogger made me convert to XML and now I can't figure out how to do comments, what to do with those widgets, how to put up the date. But I did make a new picture. So that's nice. Chances are, this isn't even on blogfeed.

Oh well. Moth and rust and dumb people destroy.

Please do this quiz. It'll make me happy.

With the Great Recession beginning to break upon us, I'll be able to say "I was unemployed before it was cool."

Tonight I was given a job. It shall be grand. I will no longer be poor and unemployed, I will be poor and employed.

Sick!

It turns out I didn't have to worry about what I was going to wear. I probably could have worn shorts and a t-shirt and been fine. I went to the Job Related testing to become a Trainee Signaller in the City. I wasn't entirely sure what to expect. When I arrived at the building there were a few people standing around wearing collared shirts and holding pieces of paper. I figured they must be my people, so I stood near them.

Soon a woman arrived and ushered us into the building, up a lift to level 21 and sent us to a desk to get our names marked off. I was the first person signed in so I headed to the room for training, the guy in the hallway told me to "sit anywhere". As I walked into the room I looked up and there were about 50 people sitting at desks, all starring at me. I had entered from the front of the room, it was a little self concious making.

I found a free seat towards the back and sat down next to a guy. I asked him if we were all going for the one job. He said "I think so". I didn't like the idea of competing with 50 people for one position.

In the end it turns out there were probably around 60-70 people in our session, there was a rumour there were around 4 sessions and there are 35 positions available. So the odds did improve a bit.

We got given info about the job, which sounds fun, but I don't think I'll be able to do it, aside from my impending trip across the globe, it may not be compatible with with my study and I reckon it probably needs more than a one year commitment. It's very tempting to just change careers. The money is better than ministry, as are the perks. Plus I like trains.

But I know what I'm called to.

Anyway, after we were given information on the role, we were given a comprehension test to do. It was just like school. They then spent 20 minutes marking the test then gave everyone a letter. Inside the letter it either thanked you for coming and told you your scores weren't high enough to continue, or it said congratulations you have passed through to the next round. It was pretty exciting. It felt like we were on a reality tv show.

About half the people got sent home, I happened to make it through. I screamed and hugged people and talked hysterically to the camera crew.

We were then put through another 3 tests. I was hoping that people would get culled after each one, making just like Australian Idol but it didn't happen. I was disappointed. I liked the excitement, because otherwise the tests weren't all that riveting. They were comprehension tests for safety instructions and timetables. Plus there was a test where we crossed out shapes.

And when all that was done, we got sent home, I'll find out how I went in a while. I caught the first lift out of there and bought some crappy Chinese food as a reward for my hard work today.

I'm off to some job related testing today Sydney's largest suppliers of trains. The problem is what does one wear to job related testing?

My life is so hard.

We Christians are gonna love this new U2 album.

So much Christianity. Not just God, but Jesus.

Once I knew there was a love divine
Then came a time I thought it knew me not
Who can forgive forgiveness where forgiveness is not
Only the lamb as white as snow - White as Snow

Or what about this whole song:

Magnificent
Magnificent

I was born
I was born to be with you
In this space and time
After that and ever after I haven't had a clue
Only to break rhyme
This foolishness can leave a heart black and blue

Only love, only love can leave such a mark
But only love, only love can heal such a scar

I was born
I was born to sing for you
I didn’t have a choice but to lift you up
And sing whatever song you wanted me to
I give you back my voice
From the womb my first cry, it was a joyful noise…

Only love, only love can leave such a mark
But only love, only love can heal such a scar

Justified till we die, you and I will magnify
The Magnificent
Magnificent - Magnificent


Additional to all this, I am really enjoying the album. It's kinda like a mix between Achtung Baby, The Unforgettable Fire, All That You Can't Leave Behind, How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, and some new kinda direction. I was hoping this might be a whole new sound like Achtung Baby was to The Joshua Tree, but it's more of everything put into one. It's a good sounding album. I'm enjoying it.

Being unemployed I've been hoping to avoid going on Newstart for as long as possible. But if nothing happens with these upcoming job interviews, I'll probably need some sort of Government help.

This may not be the worst thing in the world as lots of people keep telling me they think it will be good for me to experience the joys of Centrelink. Still, if I can avoid it I will.

However I figured it's probably best to find out about it. So last Friday I went up to Centrelink to ask them about it. They said to start the Newstart process I would have to call the Employment Services number, who would then give me a Customer Reference Number, which I could then use on the website to book in to make an appointment to see someone at the offices where I was currently enquiring.

Having known that I would probably be given the run around, I didn't argue, I just took the little card she gave me went home and called the number. It was engaged.

I've been trying regularly since Friday afternoon, engaged every time.

Except once this morning! It rang. I felt like I'd got through to a radio station for a competition.

The automated woman said "Welcome to Centrelink. Please tell me your Customer Reference Number."

As I was calling to get one I don't have one. So I said "None"

She replied with "If you don't have one, please say 'I don't have one.'"

So I said "I don't have one"

She said "Sorry you need a Customer Reference Number to access this service. Goodbye."

This is going to be fun.

Who would have thought one song could go so far?

Don't take pants off while in bedroom with the curtains open in full view of young families of the neighbourhood walking past the house.

I'm enjoying my new church. They really are very friendly. The church should give lessons to other churches but you'd probably lose the magic.

Tonight after church we went around to the house of one of the young adults, ate pizza and played Wii Fit. I knew it was a bad idea. My coordination is lacking. No one knows me very well and I had to stand on that blasted contraption and shake my bootie for my newly found church comrades. Needless to say I was by far the worst Wii Fit person there. I managed to fail and consistently get the lowest scores on every game I played. Wii Fit didn't even call me "Amateur", I was too bad for that, it called me "Unbalanced". I didn't even know it was allowed to make statements about my mental health. I'm sure it's not going win me any friends that Wii Fit thinks I'm going snap and stab someone at any time.

If I was trying to portray myself as a sporty, coordinated person to this new bunch of people then Wii Fit just ruined any chance of that happening. Now I'll have to move on to my second option, the brooding, poetic type. I think I can pull it off. From now on, Wii Fit is beneath me. You'd never catch Bob Dylan on a Wii Fit.

Today I mowed the lawn, raked the lawn, trimmed bushes and did the edges on our garden path. When I came in I had a drink of water. I was standing at the kitchen sink looking through the window at the empty little garden outside in front of the window and I thought to myself "I should plant some flowers there so we have something nice to look at while we do the washing up."

I never had a rebellious youth and by the looks of things I'm not about to start making up for it.

I woke up this morning after having a dream that I saved someone's life. It was a real self-esteem booster. I woke up feeling like a pretty good person.

You should try it sometime.

For those of you who want to hear U2s new album legally, they've stuck the whole thing up on their MySpace page.

Go listen, it's good.

So the Oscars are in twelve hours. I'm excited because I love the Oscars, even if they are dumb.

Anyway, I think it's time I make my predictions on who's going to win what. I'll probably be wrong, I haven't even seen all the movies, but why should that stop me.

My picks are in bold.

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Iron Man

Iron Man had good visual effects, but it didn't, in my view, break any new ground, it just did old stuff well. But I could be wrong, I don't really know how they made it. Dark Knight did most of their stuff in camera. Which is amazing. But I think this one is going to Benjamin Button. And I think it should get it too. The work they did on Cate and Brad, it was fantastic. I had trouble picking when they were at their real age and when they were being manipulated. At least in the middle of the film.

BEST SOUND MIXING
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Slumdog Millionaire
WALL-E
Wanted

Truthfully, I have no idea. I don't generally notice if a mix is good or bad. I'm gonna say WALL-E because I at least noticed that there was a lot of sound in the film.

BEST SOUND EDITING
The Dark Knight
Iron Man
Slumdog Millionaire
WALL-E
Wanted

Iron Man needs to win for something. And this film did sound good. The effects were top notch.

BEST ORIGINAL SONG
''Down to Earth,'' WALL-E
''Jai Ho,'' Slumdog Millionaire
''O Saya,'' Slumdog Millionaire

There are some good songs missing from here. Most notably "The Wrestler" by Springsteen. That's a fantastic song. Anyway, I'm going with WALL-E because I don't know which songs the other two were, I just remember Slumdog had songs.

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Alexandre Desplat
Defiance, James Newton Howard
Milk, Danny Elfman
Slumdog Millionaire, A.R. Rahman
WALL-E, Thomas Newman

Slumdog did have a good score. At least I enjoyed it. Thomas Newman, in my view, is a little too same, same. I don't remember Button's and I haven't seen the other two.

BEST MAKEUP
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Hellboy II: The Golden Army

This is a tough category, but Button is the darling of these Oscars, so I'm going with that. I wouldn't be upset with any of the three winning.

BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT
Auf der Strecke (On the Line)
Manon on the Asphalt
New Boy
The Pig
Spielzeugland (Toyland)

I have no idea. The Pig sounds the most fun.

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
The Baader Meinhof Complex (Germany)
The Class (France)
Departures (Japan)
Revanche (Austria)
Waltz with Bashir (Israel)

Again, I have no idea. Although The Class has buzz, so I'm going with that. Usually as far as foreign language films go there is only going to be one winner because there is only one film everyone's heard off. At least that's how I see it.

BEST EDITING
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Frost/Nixon
Milk
Slumdog Millionaire

As much as I love editing, I rarely notice editing. Every now and then I'll notice bad editing. Rarely will I notice really good editing. So I'm going with Frost/Nixon because I noticed that editing.

BEST DOCUMENTARY SHORT
The Conscience of Nhem En
The Final Inch
Smile Pinki
The Witness — From the Balcony of Room 306

No idea. I like the name.

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
The Betrayal (Nerakhoon)
Encounters at the End of the World
The Garden
Man on Wire
Trouble the Water

I haven't seen any of them, but I've only heard good things about Man on Wire. I really want to see it.

BEST COSTUME DESIGN
Australia
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Duchess
Milk
Revolutionary Road

This category usually goes to a period piece. Judging by the time frames of each of the films it should go to The Duchess, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say Revolutionary Road. It did have good costumes. I was impressed.

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Changeling
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
The Reader
Slumdog Millionaire

Go The Dark Knight! That was a well shot film.

BEST ART DIRECTION
Changeling
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
The Duchess
Revolutionary Road

I'm going The Dark Knight again. They do really good work with Batman.

BEST ANIMATED SHORT
La Maison en Petits Cubes
Lavatory — Lovestory
Oktapodi
Presto
This Way Up

How can a film about a Toilet Lovestory fail to win over the the hearts and minds of the Academy?

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE
Bolt
Kung Fu Panda
WALL-E

WALL-E has to win. Bolt was ok. Kung Fu Panda was fun. But WALL-E was something special.

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Eric Roth
Doubt, John Patrick Shanley
Frost/Nixon, Peter Morgan
The Reader, David Hare
Slumdog Millionaire, Simon Beaufoy

I haven't actually seen it, but it's got the feel of an Oscar winner, people shouting and all that. Frost/Nixon should win.

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Frozen River, Courtney Hunt
Happy-Go-Lucky, Mike Leigh
In Bruges, Martin McDonagh
Milk, Dustin Lance Black
WALL-E, Andrew Stanton, Jim Reardon, Pete Docter

If Milk doesn't win I'd be very surprised. I haven't seen Frozen River, but any of the other three could win and I'd be fine with that. In fact, I think I'll be cheering for In Bruges.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Amy Adams, Doubt
Penélope Cruz, Vicky Cristina Barcelona
Viola Davis, Doubt
Taraji P. Henson, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Marisa Tomei, The Wrestler

I'm going for Taraji. She'll make a good acceptance speech.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Josh Brolin, Milk
Heath Ledger, The Dark Knight
Robert Downey Jr., Tropic Thunder
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Doubt
Michael Shannon, Revolutionary Road

If Heath Ledger wasn't running in this, I would be cheering for Robert Downey Jr. Comedy actors never win. But Ledger was amazing. He can't not win this one.

BEST ACTRESS
Anne Hathaway, Rachel Getting Married
Angelina Jolie, Changeling
Melissa Leo, Frozen River
Meryl Streep, Doubt
Kate Winslet, The Reader

I actually haven't seen any of these but Kate is in the Holocaust flick.

BEST ACTOR
Richard Jenkins, The Visitor
Frank Langella, Frost/Nixon
Sean Penn, Milk
Brad Pitt, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Mickey Rourke, The Wrestler

This is tough. I'm going to go for Mickey Rourke. Langella was brillant. Sean Penn is great but I haven't seen Milk. I haven't seen The Visitor. Brad Pitt was good as Benjamin but not Oscar worthy, in my eyes. Rourke however did wonderfully, and I reckon Hollywood wants to give him a pat on the back.

BEST DIRECTOR
Danny Boyle, Slumdog Millionaire
David Fincher, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Ron Howard, Frost/Nixon
Stephen Daldry, The Reader
Gus Van Sant, Milk

I think it's Danny Boyle's year.

BEST PICTURE
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Frost/Nixon
Milk
The Reader
Slumdog Millionaire

The toss up is between aging, politics, homosexuality and politics, the Holocaust and poverty. I think it's poverties year. It's the biggest issue at the moment. Obama has won. The holocaust was a while ago. Aging is boring except when Brad Pitt does it backwards and homosexuality is so last decade. Poverty is where it's at and it'll make the academy feel good about itself. Me, I'm going for Frost/Nixon.

Now all I'm regretting is that I didn't see Milk, The Reader or Doubt. I was too busy watching things like Hellboy 2.

"God is not dead but alive and well and working on a much less ambitious project." - Anonymous

On the train home tonight there was a girl talking quite loudly on her phone. Some ticket inspectors came through the carriage asking us for tickets. Judging by the girls manner on the phone I thought to myself a) she probably doesn't have a ticket and b) she'll probably argue with the ticket people and try and get out of it.

When the ticket guys got to her she very calmly told them she didn't have a ticket. They took her name and address and she was very polite any time the inspectors talked to her. The ticket guys then rang up some central place to verify her check the details.

When they had verified the name, address and date of birth, they said they'd post her fine out to her. She very politely said "Ok. Thank you." And the inspectors moved on.

I gave myself a little bit of a telling off for making assumptions about her character based on her phone manner. She didn't have a ticket but she was very good about it all.

Then I heard her tell whoever was on the other end of the phone that she'd given her sister's details so it's her sister who's going to get the fine. Good work girl, I was impressed.

So Jenny got a new camera. And out of kindness for a poor unemployed fellow, she passed her old one on to me.

This may mean we can go back to the days of stupid photos!

To celebrate I took this one of myself.



Thanks Jenny.

There may be a spoiler or two in this post.

It's a hell of a thing to kill a man. - Will Munny

I watched Unforgiven again yesterday with John and Martin. What an awesome movie! I may be going through a bit of a Clint Eastwood crush at the moment, but he's so cool.

The film is the like the ultimate Western, except that it's kind of an anti-Western. Clint's decent from upright citizen, back to drunken killer is something special. The whole time you're thinking "Don't be bad, don't be bad, don't be bad!" and then he goes bad you're thinking "Yeah! Kick ass!"

I've killed women and children. I've killed everything that walks or crawls at one time or another. And I'm here to kill you, Little Bill, for what you done to Ned. - Will Munny

It's terrible and totally cool at the same time.

I think Unforgiven is probably the best Western I've ever seen and I reckon it's close to if not in my top 10 of all time.

This is pretty awesome. High five action!

This is also awesome, but differently awesome. (However if you don't like bad words, you shouldn't go.)

I'm still really enjoying the bumming around gig. I seem to spend a lot of time watching DVDs, doing nothing on the internet and applying for jobs.

I keep thinking about that bit in 2 Thessalonians 3 which says: In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we command you, brothers, to keep away from every brother who is idle and does not live according to the teaching you received from us... We gave you this rule: "If a man will not work, he shall not eat."

Which may explain why no one is hanging out with me any more. But I am still eating. Quite well actually.

Today, however, has not been the same as the others. No DVDs for me. Matt and I went to Gold Class and watched He's Just Not That Into You. It was a little embarrassing going on a man date to Gold Class to a date movie. But I had vouchers and it was the only thing on we both were willing to watch. It was ok. Nothing special.

We had some popcorn which came in a mixing bowl which was as large as a reasonably sized satellite dish. We managed to eat the heap of pop-corn off the top, so that the popcorn we level with the rim of the dish. Had we managed to finish the popcorn I would have liked to have used the bowl to communicate with astronauts and L. Ron Hubbard.

Then we went and had beer and steak. It was good.

Tomorrow is Valentine's Day. I expect it will be spectacular.

I went to see Revolutionary Road today. I have realised from a long history of Tuesdays that the best breakfast in the world is popcorn and Coke when eaten in a darkened cinema.

The film was very good. Not quite as devastating as I expected. Not, say, on the level of Requiem for a Dream, but that's ok. I'm happy not to have my heart ripped out and stomped on by every film I see at the cinema.

Still it was rather unpleasant. Mainly it was just two people being totally horrible to each other. Sometimes when I watch movies about couples treating each other badly it really makes me want to be in a relationship so I can do it better. This one didn't inspire me that way, it just made me happy to be single.

The film has a lot about buying into the middle class lifestyle. It's about people who live unhappy lives after selling out for comfort.

It made me think about my friends and there are many who have chosen a lifestyle where comfort isn't their highest priority. I know so many people who are living lives that are quietly revolutionary. Not because they change the world, they just refuse to settle into what looks easy. The revolution in their lives is because of their commitment to Jesus.

I don't mean that in "being a Christian is where true happiness is found" kinda way. I talking about the way they follow Jesus' radical call to love. They are willing to follow Jesus to love those in need, to give up the nice house, the good car, the quiet suburb and go in search of Jesus' good works that he's planned out for them to do.

I'm happy I don't have a bunch of friends suffocating in their suburban bliss. I have bunch of people looking for life from the one who gives it. I want to be part of their revolution.

I'm about to head off to College to begin my second attempt at Greek. I admitted to myself that I don't really have the neccisary brain skills for learning a language. Nor the neccisary self-discipline. So I'm doing Greek-lite and hoping I can cope with that. I just want to get this degree done and Greek is one of the biggest things standing in the way.

Should be fun.

Now that the resume is done (I'm so quick) the job hunting has begun. I have the feeling this is going to get tedious. I've spent the past few hours on some job websites. There isn't really much out there for a guy like me. I'm feeling tempted by a job ad I saw for cereal packing I saw in the Advocate a few days ago. I'm pretty sure you don't need experience for that.

I'm pretty sure I'm going to buying a ticket to LA and back today. Yippah.

"Sometimes Nigel would go out to look at the rocket-ship in his backyard. He'd imagine climbing in and strapping himself to the chair, igniting the engines. He knew he couldn't fly it, he didn't have the training. He'd probably blow himself up and incinerate his neighbours. He had no idea what it was doing in his yard. He didn't know who built it or how it got there but he liked having it anyway. He liked knowing that if ever he needed to take a trip into space he might just be able to make it." - C.K. Knight

Nathan and I went to La Premiere. I think he took me on a man date because he wouldn't let me pay for a thing. He's a kind man.

For those who are wondering, it's the fancy pants thing at Hoyts where you pay extra (though we didn't, we had vouchers) and you get to got to an exclusive lounge before your movie where there's a bar and free pop corn and Coke. Then you get shown to your seat at the back of the cinema in a special fenced off, raised area with extra cooshy seats. You watch your movie and waiters bring you your food at pre arranged times.

It's quite the ritzy experience. Nathan and I managed to lower the decorum a little by filling our popcorn cups with Coke as they were bigger, but if the Coke is free, make the most of it.

We watched Valkyrie which I quite enjoyed. Tom Cruise isn't as bad as everyone says he is. At least not in my opinion. I know he's a bit crazy off screen, but on screen he's fine. The film was good, kinda inevitable like Titanic except with less water, romance and Celine Dion and more shooting. It was good to see Germans fighting Nazis.

The cool thing was that we had a bad print of the film. The print included too much at the top so there was boom in shot in probably 10% of the film. And at one point the film even had the reel number on the top of it. This kinda removed some of the magic from the film but it was kinda like you got to watch the behind the scenes of the film as you watched it. I liked that.

It was a fun experience. The whole thing is kinda elitist. I don't like being separated from the plebs below. But I guess the whole point is that it's elite. So I can't really complain.

I like free popcorn and Coke.

What I love about our community is that kerbside clean-ups have got us all into the habit of assuming that anything on the side of the road is free to be taken no matter what time of year it is. While every now and again some vague family put their furniture on the side of the road during the moving process and it all gets taken, but generally the system works quite well.

Yesterday I put my old chest of drawers on the side of the road. The kerbside clean-up isn't till May, I was hoping they wouldn't have to sit there till then. When I got home last night, they were gone. Someone now has a new, free, second (or eighth) hand chest of drawers, and I don't have unwanted furniture sitting around. I love community.

That last post reminded me of a moment had on the Nord's Wharf holiday.

A few of us had gone out to get coffee after church. Everyone ordered coffee and banana bread. I ordered a ginger beer. As I was paying "You make me feel like a Natural Woman" was playing and I was singing. I looked up as I got to the chorus and the girl at the register was singing too, so we accidentally serenaded each other about the others ability to make us feel naturally feminine. I think, me and her, we had a moment. I'm just not sure what type of moment.

On leaving the girl brought out the coffees and everyone's banana bread. She asked me "Don't you wish you ordered the banana bread like your friends?"

I replied by saying "I have banana bread that they know nothing about."

I'm not sure she got the reference, but I had a good time.

I give this information to you know because I think it'll be a useful little titbit for my biography in years to come.

I have $30 in my account.

I have no job.

I'm having a wonderful time.

I eat Thai, read books, paint furniture, watch DVDs, see friends, walk around Hornsby, listen to my iPod, sleep, mooch about on the internet.

You should all quit your job. It's great.


For all those of you who are worrying, I'm not actually $30 away from starvation, that's just my bank balance. Plus I should be getting more money soon from the old employer. They are notorious for being slow with money coming through, which is great because the longer I don't have it, the longer I am not spending it. Plus I am doing the job hunt, and have an interview next week. So don't you fret, and you don't need to turn up at my door with your left-overs and second hand food. I'm very happy right now.

I went to visit a new church tonight. It's really close to home. It was nice walking three minutes and arriving at church.

I met some people. I got welcomed. There was a guy with an eye patch. I'm seriously considering making it my home church because who doesn't want to go to church with a guy with an eye patch?

Chances are, if I do stay, someone will read this and report back to the guy with the eye patch and he'll come and stick me with his cutlass or something. Not that I'm implying that all people with eye patches are pirates. Some of them are Evil Geniuses. Others were doing an eye test at the Optometrist and forgot to take the patch off, and now they're wondering why their depth perception is all out. But whatever the reason there's a good chance they've all got a sneeky cutlass hidden away ready to use at the slightest hint of trouble.

Anyway, I had a good time at church. I got welcomed nicely. There was a guy there who was in my youth group 7 years ago. That was nice to see. People invited me to Bible Study tomorrow night. I said I probably wouldn't go and I didn't give a reason. I feel like it's rushing into things you know? I don't believe in kissing on the first date. I don't believe in Bible Study in the first week. But then again, I may be brave and confident and turn up at a random person's house to do Bible Study with a bunch of people I've never met from a Church I've been to once. I may be that guy.

Anyway, that's my church report. Oh and I didn't have paint on my hands, I washed it off with turps. So I'm just boring, old, unhandy me.

This day is Sunday (though I'm really still awake from Saturday) and I will go to church in the evening. It will be my first sojourn into the local church scene. I currently have paint in my hands and arms from painting my chest of drawers. I'm planning on doing another coat this afternoon. This means more paint on my person.

When I arrive at church in the evening people will see my painted hands and think "That guy is a handy man. That guy does stuff like paint and fix cupboards and cars and stuff." They'll be wrong, but I won't try and disabuse them of their assumptions. It'll be a long time before any one thinks I'm handy again, so I'll enjoy it while it lasts.

I went to see The Wrestler with David on Tuesday night. It was pretty excellent.

David informed us in the afternoon that it was Mickey Rourke's comeback film. Too which a few of us nodded knowingly, till none of us could remember what Mickey is coming back from. His past achievements totally evaded our memories (except for John who told us that Mickey was in 9 1/2 Weeks, but none of us had seen it). It turns out that Mickey really hasn't done a whole lot of remarkable stuff. At least not that I can tell. Except for the The Wrestler which was totally remarkable. He was amazing.

The film is about an old wrestler, long past his heyday. His life sucks and the only thing which makes him feel whole wrestling.

The movie is full of good performances. The script is wonderful, and the directing is special.

Bruce Springsteen does the closing song which is wonderful. It should have been nominated for Best Song.

To appreciate the film you don't really have to love wrestling. But it does get rather brutal for at least one chunk of the film. Lots of pain and blood.

This film should really have been nominated for Best Picture. I liked it more than Slumdog (even though that was great), I'm trying to decide if it's better than Frost/Nixon. I haven't seen The Reader (though I don't think it should win) or Milk (I have the feeling it'll be pretty good), it was definitely better than Benjamin Button.

Anyway, go see The Wrestler, it's top quality cinema.

Just did some research and it turns out the 8 year gamble is probably going to pay off. If all goes according to plan I can finish all my subjects at college this year and graduate with may B.Th of Power. It's gonna be awesome.

Today was the first day where I woke up with nothing planned.

I had a few options so I've endeavoured to fill my time productively. I feel pretty good about it so far.

I've done some job hunting. My options seem to be call centre work, funeral assistant, soldier. I'm not completely sure about the soldier bit, but the army always seems to want people so I'm keeping that in mind. It's pretty hard to find jobs for people with no experience willing to do anything.

I've painted my chest of drawers. Only two coats left. Maybe three. Or four.

I've visited the travel agent to get a quote on going to Guatemala to see the wedding of the year. Turns out Flight Centre is less helpful than the internet. Who would have thought?

And I've watched A Fistful of Dollars which was pretty cool. Clint Eastwood spends the whole time squinting, talking through his teach with a cigar in his mouth and shooting people. I had a good time.

Right now I'm working on my resume. It turns out I have excellent interpersonal skills and the ability to manage a team. I'm tempted to tell people I have excellent hand to hand combat skills too, but they might see through that one.

If any potential employers Google me and find this blog "G'day. I'm pretty awesome." That should get me any job.

It is finished. That was tough. I don't know why we do such stupidity.

I'm off to Canberra soon.

Good work Jack Bauer.

Killing Score Card
Hour 24
Good Guys - 60
Bad Guys - 116

Energy Drink Count - 11

We're a bit behind time now.

Jack just blew up a gas distribution centre thing. It was cool. His girlfriend got tortured but it served her right for sleeping with another man when she thought Jack was dead.

Killing Score Card
Hour 15

Good Guys - 31
Bad Guys - 100

Energy Drink Count - 9

We had a sleep for a bit just then. I slept in the hallway. Last night's heat seems to have caused everyone to come into this thing sleep deprived. Tonight's going to be tough. But we believe in Jack.

We're about to order thai for dinner!

The Russian President's motorcade got attacked. A guy with a flame thrower got blown up, it was pretty awesome. Jack shot an old lady in the leg in an attempt to get her husband to talk. He didn't talk so Jack called an ambulance. He's caring like that.

The Russian terrorists attacked CTU with nerve gas, a lot of extras died but the sad music only started when our beloved, fat, dopey Edgar got disorientated and started foaming at the mouth. It was almost like Old Yella. We were all sad.


Killing Score Card
Hour 12

Good Guys - 27
Bad Guys - 37 (plus nerve gas attack on CTU)

Energy Drink Count - 7

The terrorists are starting to use the nerve gas, but Jack managed to keep the casualties to between 10 and 20. He did this by, surprise surprise, disobeying a direct order from the President.

We're all looking perky. 3:30itus seems to be coming on for me. There's about 10 of us here now. We started with four.

Killing Score Card
Hour 8

Good Guys - 20
Bad Guys - 23-33

Energy Drink Count - 7

So we're back doing the 24 24 again. I only got about 3 hours sleep last night so I'm struggling. I got to have a bit of a snooze between 10 and 11 when we'd built up a spare hour.

Russian terrorists have stolen some nerve gas and are going to use it to get on people's nerves. The ex-President has been shot in the throat. Jack almost tortured someone, but we all missed out when the guy confessed after seeing Jack's angry face. Though Jack did stab someone in the juggular with some scissors so that was impressive.

Oh and Jack blew up a terrorist by remote control using just his mobile phone. Mobiles can do anything these days.

Things are going well, but the kill count is way down on last time. Jack needs to pick up his game. At least the good guys are winning at the moment.

Killing Score Card
Hour 5

Good Guys - 16
Bad Guys - 10

Energy Drink Count - 7

So it's shaping up to be a big one.

Today was West Wing in Newtown, Funeral in Pennant Hills, Party at Freshwater.

Tomorrow is the 24 24 24 (that is, 24 hours of 24 on the 24th).

Sunday is Canberra.

Monday is Jo's thing.

It's all looking intense. Trying to negotiate all this without owning a car has been work. But I can do it.

I should sleep, cause I'll be getting precious little tomorrow.

Today I played Aqua Golf and got stung by a wasp. Being unemployed totally rocks!

I'm happy to be living in an Obama world.

I watched the inauguration live. It was hot and sticky at 3:30am, so I didn't wear a shirt. I felt the contrast between Sydney and Washington.

I had to make sure I sat up straight or I was going to fall asleep.

I'm so excited for the Obama inauguration. The question is, do I stay up waiting, or do I sleep and wake myself up? Too many questions.

Today I had lunch with Rach, mowed the lawn, shaved, got a hair cut, and went to Community Dinner. My Mum says I look very conservative. That's the plan. From now on all I'll be is conservative.

Being unemployed isn't too hard at the moment.

So the holiday at Nords Wharf is now over.

It was good. No beach. Much mooching. Fun.

We may have not fixed a door because we're scared of cleaners and over-estimated their job parameters. But hopefully all will be well.

Happy to be home.

It's 2:12am and I'm still awake flitting about on the interweb. I can do this because tomorrow, well, I'm on holidays. Yes!

By the way this is post 3,333 for my blog. That's kinda cool.

Today was the first real day I haven't worked. It's been relaxation nation.

We went to church this morning, a random church we found in the Yellow Pages. I had a good time. The preacher implied in her sermon that the world would be a better place if gay people were locked up. This didn't really please my church going friends. It's a rather offensive thing to say. David almost stormed out, but he managed to hold himself together.

Following church David, Lesley, Tracy and I hung out at home while everyone else went to the beach. I slept and read. We eventually wandered down to the local store and had hamburgers and chips. Nice.

Since then I've blogged, drunk beer, talked and read. It really has been lovely.

So Sunday the 11th was the day the Harbour Bridge went cashless and I quit my job (which funnily enough will also involve me going cashless).

I was pretty sure the day was going to be a little unpleasant. Partly because I was leaving my job, partly because I was going to be the centre of attention all day, and finally because I was going to a party and I was the "host". I am really only happy at parties when I'm with comfortable people and hiding. When everyone is there to farewell you hiding isn't as much of an option.

I started the day by catching the train to Chatswood early in the morning to collect three samurai swords I had bought the day before. They were to be part of my handing over ceremony to Courtney the new Youth Minister. I had left the swords at Grandpa and Valentina's place because I didn't think transporting three real swords on a train would be a good look in today's paranoid world. Who would have thought?

Happily enough Forest Coach Lines was totally uninterested in the guy with the swords on their bus. I could have slaughtered a passenger or two and nobody would have batted an eyelid.

I arrived at work early to clean my office as I still had a bit of dusting to do. Rach wandered in got hay fever so she left again.

The 10am church service was uneventful. I thought there might be some sort of prayer or something, but there was only an announcement to come to the barbie afterwards. It was the last time I wasn't going to be in the limelight all day.

After Church I found they'd decked out the playground and Kindy area for a party. They had a table covered in cans of Coke with a tower of Coke many stories high. There was a big cake which said "Seeya Tom" on it. And there were my t-shirts hanging from the roof. It was pretty cool. I felt loved.

We had a barbie and I ate a sausage. I was pretty hungry because I didn't have breakfast, but I didn't get to eat much. I was too busy farewelling myself. I realised I should probably be hanging out with people and talking them and all that. So I popped over to a group of parents to say "G'day" but just as I got there they started the official part where people say nice things about me so I had to stop. I'm not a very good host. I have lots of lovely friends at my church and they said lots of lovely things. My favourite comment was from one girl who said she knew that I'd "touched" everyone in her family. The sentiment made me pleased and the wording made me smirk.

It's kinda awkward having to sit there and accept everyone's thanks and praise. You don't really know where to look or how to respond. I'm so glad I'm not a head of state or a celebrity or someone who gets nice things said publicly about them all the time. That'd be tough.

I got a chance to respond and I muddled my way through some thanks and encouragements. It felt pretty dumb trying to sum up 6 years of gratitude in 5 minutes. Really there is such a depth of thankfulness in me for my time at the church and all the wonderful people I have worked with and served that I don't think I could ever find an adequate way of getting it out, so I just fluffed on for a while.

After that I was given my presents. Rev Michael had been paying attention in my sermon the week before. I had done an illustration about my love for Coke so he rung a friend at Coke and got a bunch of merchandise delivered for me, along with 96 cans of Coke. It was pretty cool. I was going to be pretty happy with that. But in the bag of Coke goodies there was a large wad of cash to go towards my desired MacBook Pro. I was pretty chuffed. People were amazingly generous. I'm so loved.

I went back to my office after that to finish work in preparation for the impending camp. It's kinda silly to go straight from work to camp, but I think in the end it worked out for the best.

Church that night was a little surreal. I had the old fan club there. The Commy crew, Ma and Pa plus some randoms who came to farewell me though I'm not sure who they were. That was all on top of the usual church crew.

The worship was good, though I was a little distracted. I was told by someone they thought it was the best worship we'd had in years. That's pretty good I reckon. I got to do the announcements for the last time. They were, as usual, silly. I'm not sure anyone I did the announcements for would have actually appreciated my input, but I was leaving, so I could be a silly as I wanted. There were probably a bunch of new people sitting there saying "I'm so glad this guy is leaving."

I was prayed for in the magic spot. Almost the whole church got up to lay hands on me. I thought I might get emotional during this bit. But as it turns out I just struggled to stay standing. The weight of all those hands is much greater than you would expect. Lucky I work out.

After I got prayed for I had the chance to do a hand over ceremony for Courtney. I gave her a big long ninja sword. I gave it to her explaining that it was an ancient sword from a group of ninja Japanese Youth Ministers. She was to pass the sword on to whoever comes after her. I did it mainly because it'd be cool if there was a sword that the Youth Ministers in the church pass down from generation to generation from now on. People saw symbolism in there for the Word of God and what not. Certainly not symbolism that I discouraged, but also not nearly as important to me as just having something cool.

I then got to lead the prayer for Courtney which was nice. I know that often people don't get to do much of a hand over to their successor so I was very happy to endorse and bless the woman who is coming after me. She'll do good.

I preached. The sermon was all about people knowing Jesus. I figured I didn't have much I really wanted to say, except, "know Jesus". He's pretty much the summation of everything the matters, why should there be anything else worth talking about?

After the service I spent a bunch of time saying good bye to people. It's pretty odd saying good bye. I felt like it wasn't significant because I can't understand that I won't see a lot of people for a while, and I certainly won't see most of them regularly ever again. It's totally sad, but I can't really get my head around it.

I ended up being the last to leave. I left my office by handing over the keys to Courtney, turning off the lights and locking the door.

Helen was kind enough to give me a lift to camp. That seemed right. She was the one that I started the youth group with (in it's current state) she was the one I ended it with too.

And that, was my leaving. I didn't cry. I got a voice wobble. But none of it seems real. I'll cry one day when I break a cup or something and it'll all come tumbling out. Till then though I'll just live with the unresolved pain and take it out on all those I'm close to. Sounds great!

I'm now officially unemployed.

I left my job last Sunday, went on camp on Sunday night and now I'm up at Nord's Wharf for the Commy Holiday. I'm now ready to to relax for the rest of my life.

I think perhaps last Sunday was significant enough to deserve more than just a cursory blog post.

There are about 15 of us up here at on the holiday. We're renting a house with a big TV, a Playstation 3 and many rooms. We're playing MotorStorm at the moment. It's a racing game, which I'm really only interested in it because when you crash it plays the results in slow motion. The crash, the bones snapping, the vehicle shredding itself. I think it's pretty cool but the other guys seem more intent on winning that crashing. It's about the destination, not the journey for them. They're such men.

Camp was fun. I think it was useful to get my mind off leaving work and all the wonderful things that entails.

I was pretty happy to be there. Having a room to myself, and most people around being busy most of the time meant that I could introvert myself and read and sleep and read and sleep. Plus there was the usually camp silliness to attend to, the retro nights, the messy games, the theological discussions. I think my crowning achievement was running a hula hoop competition. You know you're awesome when you can entertain 700 teenagers with the joys of hula hoops. They were totally enthralled!

On Thursday night we had the night where people give their testimony and look reflectively into the flames of a fire (or candle in this case). We had one guy who told us his story about how he'd been in and out of juvenile justice for all his teenage life. He went 27 times in one year. Then he became a Christian, got a 26cm brain tumour, was operated on, died 12 times in 3 hours in the process, and they still didn't manage to get the tumour. then came to work on camp. On camp he met a woman who prayed for him and his tumour shrunk by 4cm. It was a pretty cool story. And he was a pretty great guy. I think most of the campers were pretty affected. There were a lot of tears and praying afterwards. It was a good night.

Probably the most exciting thing was that 40% of the people who came on camp became Christians or made a recommitment. I totally didn't expect that, oh me of little faith.

So camp was good. Holidays are special and I think it's time I go settle down with my book.

I woke up this morning with a blocked ear. I couldn't hear properly out of my right ear. I figured it was full of wax. I stuck my shower in my ear but only succeeded in getting water stuck in my ear.

So I went to the doctor. The bulk billing Doctor near the station. I think it caters to people from the Orient. It makes me wish I could speak Cantonese. Then we'd all get on like a house on fire.

The Doctor told me I had wax in my ear. He told the nurse to flush it out. She tried, but couldn't do it, so the Doctor came back and gave it a go. Eventually a big chunk, probably two cubic centimetres of gunky wax popped out. It was pretty cool.

Now I hear really well. Better than I did yesterday. I think the wax must have been building up for a while. Everything is crystal clear. It's listening to a CD, after hearing the whole world on tape.

I'm sure there's a sermon illustration in there some where.

I'm at work. I've been cleaning my office most of the day. I had so much useless stuff in my office. Bags of rubbish. Boxes of paper. I've been getting rid of things from the youth minister before me that I never used. I've found about 30 pairs of dirty socks from various youth camps. I even have a giant novelty cheque which I plan on not dealing with. But the office is getting pretty empty now, I can see daylight.

I'm also working on my talks for camp next week. I don't know why I thought it'd be easy to go straight from leaving a job to camp. It's not really. I'm going straight from my farewell service to camp, which means I have to have five talks ready to go the moment I leave church.

Happily I'm only going to be adapting five old talks, rather than writing five new ones. But doing that on top of writing my farewell sermon of whimsical anecdotes and rousing inspiration is making for a week as full as any other I've had in this job. And I thought I could slack off...

So as I mentioned, I'm in Canberra. I'm here with Mother, Father, Sister and Victer. Victor has always had a dream to come to Canberra I think, so the family took him here as a bit of a Starlight foundation loving.

I like Canberra more and more every time I come. I think I like the fact that the whole city is designed with one purpose in mind. It's only job is to be our capital city. Everything here is significant or serves significance. I like that. Plus there are Australian flags everywhere, but it feels right to have them here. Better than being tattooed on some angry white person's back.

We went to the War Memorial today. The war memorial is full of guns and tanks and planes, so I was pretty happy. I think war is bad, but at least they get cool things to go to war with. It's a silver lining.

We also went to Parliament House. I think we have the best Parliament House in the world. It's full of good symbolism and interesting architecture. I'm proud to be an Australian when we have such a lovely city with lovely buildings designed by Americans.

I'm in Canberra with the family. This is a special city.

I've managed to go to this cinema 58 times this year. I think that might be a record for me. I love the cinema. I decided to make a top ten or two this year. It hasn't been a year with any stand out amazing, block buster films. But certainly some quality, and some turkeys. Let's go with the turkeys.

Here is my bottom 10:

These are the films that have distinguished themselves for their badness and/or disappointment value. You'll notice that there is no Fool's Gold or Don't Mess with the Zohan and while they were not as "good" as some of the films in this list, they weren't aiming for quality and I was entertained so they get to stay off the list.

10. Jumper

It had a good idea, but it was totally squandered. The action was boring, the plot was silly and I was bored.

9. What Happens in Vegas

I can't really remember this movie except that it wasn't that funny. Who would have thought, Ashton and Cameron are usually such cinematic powerhouses.

8. Australia

Ok so it wasn't the worst film ever (it's at number 8 for 2008). It had some good stuff in it. But it makes it to the list because of it's inability to tell just one story, it's inability to resist using the word "Crikey" and for it's complete condesencion of Indigenous Australia.

7. The Happening

People kill themselves. Mark Walhberg looks worried. The Trees are out to get us. Movie over.

The Ents were cooler.

6. Hancock

This movie wasn't bad till the second half and then it lost the plot. This certainly wasn't the worst movie of the year. But squandered so much potential. It could have been one of the best, most self-aware superhero movies ever. But it got lost in Charlize and Will having a lovers biff. It was like domestic violence on a divine scale. Australia says "No".

5. Hellboy 2

Argh. I didn't like the first one. I wondered why they were making a second. Del Toro could have made it cool, but he didn't. It was just silly. Big dumb army.

4. 10,000BC

Dumb.

3. Wanted

There was some stuff which was way cool in this film. Like the exploding rats. But its total moral bankruptcy puts it at number three. I love action. But action movies need to at least have some mildly defensible message or none at all. But certainly not "Kill because it's better than being an accountant."

2. Twilght

Ahh. The book was crap. This was crapper. So much funniness. Edward Cullen may be hot, but in this he looks like a cancer patient with big hair.

1. The Day the Earth Stood Still

Is there any role Keanu can't play?

This was one bad film. No soul, no fun, dumb alien, dumb message, no tension. Boring.


Here are my faves from 2008:


10. Happy-Go-Lucky

So happy. Poppy, the main character of the film, is probably one of the most delightful characters in film ever. I don't really like using the word delightful but she is it. It maks you happy this movie.

9. U2-3D

It's U2. It's a concert. It's in 3D. What's not to love?

8. Tropic Thunder

This was totally silly, and very cool. Lots of famous people making fun of them selves. And it had action. Even if the action was silly. I loved this film.

7. Rambo

Rambo may not be the best written film. In fact bits of it were terrible. But this film has some of the best, hard core, non-flashy, action in ages. It's not trying to be slick, it's just trying to punch you in the face. Stallone is awesome.

6. No Country For Old Men

This was the first movie I watched this year, and it was a goody. Patient, brutal, unpredictable, and everyone acted well.

5. Iron Man

Oh gosh. This movie was way cool. It was funny, slick and full of explody goodness. And who doesn't want one of those metal suits of American might and righteousness?

4. WALL·E

Pixar never disappoint. Wall-E was cute. The film was funny. I think it may even have had a message. Plus fat people are funny.

3. The Dark Knight

While I still don't think it was as good as Batman Begins there was much awesomeness in this. Heath should get the Oscar. The action as spectacular. And it was dark. Oh how we love dark movies about men in masks.

2. Taken

This was the surprise of the year. I went in expecting your average, run of the mill, 2nd class action movie. But instead we got Liam Neeson kicking more ass than Qui-Gon. He just beat people up with such efficiency. And it was all for the love of his daughter. It was touching.

I want to become a special ops guy for the sake of my children.

1. Frost/Nixon

This was excellent. There wasn't much fighting but darn, this was great. The acting, script, tension. It was so simple, yet so rich. The meeting of a giant and and entertainer, and to watch them battle it out. Out-charm, out-wit, out-manoeuvre. It was like The West Wing's slowed down and evil cousin. Brilliant.


And they are my tens.