We had a bible study at work today on wealth and how we spend our money. I thought I might try and find out how much money there is in the world, divide it by 6 billion and then try and have that amount of money in my life. I thought perhaps that would be a good way to make sure I had only a fair share of the world's money.

But the internet won't tell me how much money there is in the world.

At least the first website I checked didn't tell me.

My plans have been foiled. Perfect logic failed by imperfect Google.

It's the story of my life.

Here's a fun thing I was fiddling with at work today. And, yes, this was work.

Mute the sound on this video and watch it while playing the video below it. When that's finished, watch the video again, but play the music on the second video from about 2 minutes 55 seconds in. Essentially you're substituting the soundtrack from the first video with the soundtrack from the second two.

The first time you watch the video it's a fun little piece about happy day in Sydney when everyone is having a good time, and a clumsy man even gets rescued from the sea.

The second time you watch the video it's about a man who almost drowns as the callous, self-absorbed world passes him by.

Niffty, huh?

Video



Music 1



Music 2

This post has been writen by my friend and youth ministry blogging guru, Graham Baldock.

We tackle the big issues here.

I moved out of my place in Artarmon. When my housemate came home and found me using his razor to shave my bum I knew it was all over.

That's not true.

I moved because my lovely friends Chez and Johnny invited me to move in with them and work at living intentionally as in a more community like way. We're not going to be a "Community House", not yet, just a friendly, welcoming house and we may work out way up to the title of Community House.

Also they want to live closer to my work.

So I moved out of my place on Friday and Saturday. Now I'm technically homeless again. But I'm living with my parents till we find a place to live. And my parents now have Bluray and wifi so it's a good place to live.

I'm looking forward to the new adventure. Chick peas, tea, community and all that. Johnny's a poet and Chez is a vegetarian. How Newtown. But we're too hipster for Newtown, we're too hipster for the inner-west. How Newtown.

Macquarie Park here we come!

I was listening to an interview with Tim Keller the other day. He talked about how sometimes the issues for mature Christians are not about right and wrong but more wise and less wise. There are decisions we have to make and neither option is sinful, but one is better than the other and we need wisdom to figure out which is best.

I liked that. I feel like I spend a lot of time having to make those types of decisions. Sometimes trying to work out the answer you feel like if you pick wrong, it'll be sinful. But often it won't be sinful, just less wise.

I'd like to be wise.

I was up at Maccas after church tonight with the young adults. There were 12 of us. I was eating a salad because I was still full of sake and Japan food from Mother's Day (Happy Mother's Day Mum!). It was Seared Chicken Caesar in case you're wondering.

About two thirds of the way through my salad, there was some shouting at the back door of Maccas. I thought "Oh a fight, I hate fights, they make me nervous." Then I saw the manager and thought "Oh good the manager is going to break it up." I moved my head so I could see better and saw that there wasn't a fight instead two guys with balaclavas had come in the back door. One was holding a large kitchen knife and the other a small axe, a hatchet if you will, with a shiny red bit on it. It looked new. They were both wearing black and one of them was holding a small bag.

I thought "Oh good, it's not a fight. Must be a practical joke. Halloween isn't for a while. It's not a very funny joke. Whoever they're friends with on the Maccas staff is gonna be pissed."

They kept shouting. It occurred to me when they shoved the manager behind the counter and the people nearest the back door got up and ran out that it wasn't actually a joke but this was a real armed robbery.

We were seated at the other end of maccas, far from the counter and far from the doors. I had a view of all the doors and the counter. I was pretty pleased to be in such a good spot. The guy with the hatchet ran behind the counter to deal with the staff, who kinda stood there looking stunned, while the guy with the knife hung around to deal with the customers. He waved the knife and swore at all of us telling us to stay where we were. It wasn't that helpful. Every time he turned his back another group of customers would run out the nearest door.

The group of Christians behind us, closer to the action looked scared and one started praying loudly to Jesus. It's to be expected if you rob a maccas on a Sunday night that someone is gonna start praying. I didn't pray. I'm guess I'm not even a Sunday Christian.

As one group of people ran out the door the guy with the knife chased them out shouting about how they should stay where they were. At that point the Christians hopped up and ran out too. They had a small girl with them. It was probably the best thing to do.

The poor robber, on the other hand, couldn't keep control of his charges. I knew how he'd be feeling, it's the same feeling I used to get every week teaching scripture. You think you're big and scary and then everyone just ignores your threats and runs away. He was hemorrhaging potential hostages like an amateur. Should have watched Heat. Had he promised us all chocolate to stay and watch his robbery I'm sure we would have been more obliging, they don't do that in Heat, but it's probably a good tactic.

Anyway, my group, we stayed. Probably within 30 seconds of the guys coming in we were the only customers left in Maccas. It felt a little special having the restaurant to ourselves. Kinda romantic perhaps, like the empty ice rink in Rocky. If it wasn't for the guys with weapons, I might have proposed to someone.

As we sat there we looked around at each other and the general consensus seemed to be that we should stay where were. We were too far from any doors to get out quickly. It never really occurred to me to leave. I saw other people leaving and I thought "That's brave. They might get stabbed." I figured sitting still and doing what you're told was probably the safest option. Plus if we left I wasn't going to get to see what happened and how often in your life do you get to witness an armed robbery?

I also felt kinda like leaving was the wrong thing to do. Like if we ran away we were abandoning the Maccas staff to their fate alone. Of course I'm sure they didn't feel like they needed us there for support, but we were all in this together. I think perhaps the same reason that I often stay behind at events and help pack up is the same reason that I felt like I should stay behind in Maccas. Bailing early isn't right.

That said, I've never considered the ethics of being a bystander (or bysitter in our case) in an armed robbery. And probably escaping is just as valid option as staying.

Anyway, once it was clear to knife dude that he'd lost control of everyone except us, he headed over to the counter to help hatchet dude. They shouted a lot about giving them money and nothing else seemed to be happening.

I found the whole thing fascinating. I didn't really freak out or even get nervous. I was hoping no one got stabbed but only because I felt like that would complicate things more than I wanted them too. I also spent time wondering what was going on behind the counter, but a lot of my thoughts were just something like "Oh yes, so this is what an armed robbery feels like." I worried a little for my fellow church friends. Some of them were freaking out a small bit. I hoped no one did anything stupid. I also spent a while trying to figure out if the robbers would get angry if I kept eating my salad. I'm not sure what I decided. I think I might have snuck in a few bits while their backs were turned.

After a bit more kerfuffle behind the counter the two guys ran out the back door they had come through. The whole thing would have taken less than two minutes. There was a momentary lull in action as everyone tried figure out if it was over. Then a bunch of us jumped up and went to the counter to see what happened, people pulled out phones to write a Facebook status update and a bunch of the patrons who escaped came back in the door, presumably to pick up the food they'd left behind, no one wants to lose those last two nuggets. I pulled out my phone and thought about doing a Facebook status update but couldn't think of anything witty to write so I put it back in my pocket and went back to eating my salad.

I think there was a little bit of discussion about calling the cops, I'm not sure if anyone did. We were all too busy on Facebook.

Suddenly there was a whole bunch of debriefing going on. We found out that no one was hurt and the guys had only gotten $200 because the safe was on a time lock.

The next 15 minutes was spent debriefing, talking about what we saw, how we felt, making jokes. The adrenaline meant that everyone laughed louder. It was prime time to tell jokes cause it made you feel like you're really funny. It was just the chemicals in the brain laughing, but who cares, you gotta take what you can get.

Eventually the cops turned up, none of them had their sirens on which was disappointing. They took our details, told us to wait for the detectives, and then when they found out all we saw were two guys in masks, told us we could go.

I stayed a little bit longer, finished my salad, thanked everyone for sharing the bonding experience with me, then went home.

The salad was pretty good, in case you're wondering.

It's been interesting watching everyone's reactions to the death of Osama. It's rather distressing to see scenes of Americans waving flags and rejoicing in the death of another human. I take no joy in the death of anyone. I have no feeling that justice has been done.

How does shooting and killing Osama make payment for the thousands of lives he took? Death seems too easy. He deserved worse.

However I do feel like his death is an inevitable consequence of a life lived at war with the most powerful nation on earth. I have no dreams of the US capturing him and locking him up and reforming him. The US could not change his heart. They could not bring back the thousands who he killed. They could only take his life. They could only execute their role to be "agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer." It was justice done man's way.

Messy problems require messy solutions.

But this isn't really a solution, is it? Terrorism will go on. War and violence will continue. Atrocities will continue on both sides. No one will win.

With this in mind, once again the violence and tragedy of this world points me to the God of this world, who brings justice not through a gun but through a cross. The life of one evil man cannot atone for the lives of the thousands of people he killed. But the life of one innocent God-man can, and does, atone for all the terror and atrocity done and to be done. The killing of an infinite God is justice for the sins of a finite race. And those who put their trust in this cross are put to death with Jesus, that they might also be given new life in the risen Jesus. It's a mercy undeserved through a death undeserved.

But justice does not just come through the cross. And Jesus will come again, and he will wield the sword. He will not let the unrepentant escape with just a simple death. Evil will meet its match.

One way or another the evil will be put to death, either at the cross of Christ, or at the sword of Christ. Justice will be done. Fear will end. Pain will cease. Life will reign. Goodness will prevail. God has won.

But until that day, I will not celebrate the death of the wicked at the hands of the wicked because I know that I too am wicked, and I too deserve a death worse that of being killed by a gun.

I will work for peace in this world. I will seek to do no violence and I will not encourage violence to be done in my name. But when evil is done, and terrible solutions are sought, I will look forward to the new and better world to come.

A new day is coming. God has won.

While Navy Seals were busy killing Osama Bin Laden, I went to the cinema to watch Justin Bieber. I was completing my challenge. I'm pretty sure I'm the only person who has taken me up on my challenge, but that's ok, I guess I'm just the only brave person who reads my blog. That's fine, you pansies, that's why I have a hairy chest and you don't.

I went to Event Maquarie. The first step was to go buy a ticket. I decided to go to the earliest session of the day. I figured 10:30am on a Monday was the time I was least likely to be stuck in a cinema full of Beiberised 12 year-old girls.

I lined up and spent the entire time in the line trying to figure out whether to ask for a ticket to just plain Never Say Never or to say something ironic and witty. I couldn't think of anything ironic and witty but I couldn't bring my self to call the movie by it's proper title just like I refuse to ask for a Brekky to GoGo at Boost juice. I ended up asking for "One to the Bieber movie."

I was expecting the woman to mock me or something but, like a true professional, she just gave me my ticket and asked where I'd like to sit. I said the middle, not that I was planning on sitting there. I had designated seating.

I took my ticket but no 3D glasses as I had my 3D glasses already in my pocket. Prepared like a scout, you wimps!

The next obstacle was getting past the ticket collector without being laughed at or jeered for being a grown man going to see Bieber in concert on a screen. The ticket collector, she was also very professional, didn't mock me once. I suspect it was all her experience collecting tickets for people going to see things like The Hottie of the Nottie and Sex and the City 2 which stopped her from grabbing her walkie talking and informing all her fellow staff members that there was creepy bearded man off to watch a tweenie girl's movie in 3D.

As I stood there embarrassed by my situation I realised that there is no ironic way to have your ticket ripped.

My last challenge was to make it into the cinema undetected. Happily I'd arrived late so the lights were already down and I could sneak in. As it turned out there was only one other person in the cinema. They were sitting right up the back. I pretended not to notice them and they pretended not to notice me. We had an unspoken agreement. We were like next-door neighbours passing in a porn shop.


Despite the rigmarole, I actually quite enjoyed the movie. I wasn't sure what I'd think of the movie. I never thought it'd be terrible. My embarrassment at seeing the movie had nothing really to do with the quality of the movie or Justin Bieber as a performer. It was only really that I was doing something that I really shouldn't be doing. I was doing something made for girls who are somewhere in-between ponies and vodka cruisers not for men who are somewhere in-between balding and a mortgage.

Anyway, it was an interesting movie. It gave me a good insight into Justin Bieber and what he's all about. From a youth ministry perspective it helped me understand teenage girl obsession a bit too. Also from a youth ministry perspective I left feeling pretty worried about what this life must be doing to the poor kid. To be literally worshipped by millions of girls must screw with the young man's head. From what I could see in the film, he has a solid bunch of people around him who keep in generally grounded. There seem to be some strong Christians there including his mum, so I'm hoping they work on him to keep him humble.

Bieber's music is pretty bland, but he is clearly pretty talented. The film itself is part concert film, part documentary about his rise to fame. The documentary bit was pretty interesting, the concert got a tad boring. I was ready for the film to end after about an hour.

Perhaps most interesting, and most embarrassing, is that the film did make me a tad emotional. Actually not a tad. I cried. Real tears. I know, it's terrible, and that's why I'm writing this so late in the post and hoping everyone has stopped reading by now.

There's a scene where Justin sings One Less Lonely Girl. During the concert the production team pick one girl out of the audience and invite her on to the stage with Bieber. She sits on a stool on the stage and he sings to her and gives her a bunch of flowers and dances around her. The scene in the film becomes a montage of girls getting given the chance to get sung to by their idol Justin Bieber, there is a lot of screaming and tears. And somehow, somehow in all that emotion, music, and in the joy of seeing all these young ones have their dreams come true, I got a lump in my throat and a few droplets of salt water trickled down from behind my 3D glasses into my lap. It was embarrassing and lovely all that same time. So emotionally confusing for a man like me.

I learnt then that there's no ironic way to cry during a Justin Bieber movie.

When the film was done, I left. I tried to sneak out without running into a cinema worker who might notice my puffy eyes. I think I was successful which is lucky, because despite all their professionalism and training I'm not sure they could have let that breach of manly conduct pass without out some public humiliation.

So did I learn from the experience? Yes I did. I learnt a lot. I learnt about Bieber. I learnt about the people who love Bieber. I learnt about facing your fears. And I learnt that if Beiber ever picks me out of the crowd for One Less Lonely Girl there is no way I'm going to be able to hold it together. I'm gonna be a blubbering mess.

The next post I write will be about Justin Bieber. So to avoid having two Bieber posts in a row, is the intro video I made for Donny Jaffa at Soul this year. Mum, you'll love it.

I have yet to go watch the Justin Bieber movie, I'll probably do it on Monday. However I have decided to be pro-Beiber, I probably won't enjoy the movie, but I don't think that should make me anti-Bieber. If I was discovered and given the opportunity to become a pop sensation when I was 14, I would have taken it. Bieber is just doing what anyone his age would do. And he hasn't done anything offensive, he hasn't been arrogant and talked himself up, he hasn't made racist or sexist music or remarks. He's been pretty innocuous really.

So I see no reason to have strong feelings about Bieber either way. But since so many people hate him so much, I'm going to like him. Go Bieber.

People don't have the slightest idea of just how hard it is to break somebody's jaw or eye socket. They think it's just the power. But it's the accuracy of the power. Every punch is thrown with bad intention and the speed of the devil. - Mike Tyson in Tyson

I'm currently at home, in the lounge terminal. On a stopover between Soul Survivor Conference and Byron Bay Blues and Roots festival. In 30 minutes my train leaves to take me to the airport.

Soul was awesome. Two kids in my youth group became Christians! Woot!

More later (if you're lucky).

Blues and Roots promises to be fun but probably with less Jesus.

Tonight I wrote a song with Matt for Soul Survivor. Then I chatted to him and Beck for a while. That was nice.

I came home. Everyone was asleep. It was 11:30pm. I watched an episode of The Wire.

Then I was hungry and I had one episode of The Wire left, ever. So I went to McDonald's, came home, and watched the episode. I'll write about the show later. The food hit the spot. I spilt some tomato sauce on my jeans.

Now it's 2:50am. And I'm probably going to go to bed.

And I'm happy. I can stay up late, watch TV and eat McDonald's whenever I want, because I'm a grown up and I'm on holidays.

Life is good.

Just in time for Soul Survivor and the sex talk, it's a brand old Wisdom with Tabitha. Enjoy.

I bought this t-shirt from Etiko the other day. It arrived this morning. I quite like it, but wearing it makes me feel like I'm on mission for a University Christian group. If I wasn't so theologically conservative I feel like I could wear it and people would say "Wow, yeah, Jesus was the ultimate socialist." However now I feel like I'm a conservative co-opting Jesus from the communists.

Still, I like the shirt.

I just saw this ad on Facebook:



Defence Force ads annoy me. Because they're like "Come join the Defence Force, have fun, make a difference, save some lives, help in disasters..." But they neglect to mention killing people.

This ad does the same thing:



It seems dumb to me that the main job of the Defence Force, as far as I can tell, is to be better killing people than the people who might want to kill us (whether they're in our country, we're in theirs or we're both in a third country). I know that's a really simplistic view, but they don't carry guns and buy bombs for nothing. The ads just don't say what it's all about.

It'd be like being asked to work at Maccas and they say "Wear a uniform, clean some tables, operate a drive-thru" but no one mentions that the main reason why you're there is to sell burgers.

Still I guess death isn't a really attractive selling point. Or if they did use death as a selling point the kind of people it attracted might not be the kind of people the Defence Force wants.

This ad was a little more honest, back in the day. We used to sing a song in school to tune from the ad it went:

"Join the Army get your head blown off,
Doesn't matter if it's hard or soft."

They should have hired us to do their recruiting.

This'll make you love the film even more. So rich.

Everything Is A Remix: KILL BILL from robgwilson.com on Vimeo.

It was Facebook night tonight at youth group. We spent most of the night running around Hornsby trying to catch people pretending to be drug dealers. They were particularly bad drug dealers because they posted clues about their whereabouts on Facebook every few minutes. Despite that, one of the drug dealers managed to stay uncaught anyway. So good on them.

I didn’t get to go hunting though because I needed to monitor base camp and be ready to go out in my ambulance car if there were any emergencies. There weren’t. I also had to stay back and work on my talk. I had virtually no time to work on the talk this week, so it was feeling like a bit of a mess.

Despite my lack of preparedness I had a lot to say. I ended up with a 20-25 minute talk rather than the 10 minutes I had to give it in. I edited a lot.

What struck me this week is how concerned parents are about Facebook. At the beginning of the term we let the parents know what we were speaking on, and each week I’d send an email. No one has said anything about any topic, until this week when suddenly parents were wanting to know what I was saying about Facebook. I guess the concern is that Facebook is a vast world that they can’t control. And the dangers are huge for teenagers. You have issues of bullying, cyber-stalking, inappropriate relationships being formed, inappropriate photos being posted, and then kids just doing things which are generally dumb.

The potential audience for dumbness is massive.

One of the illustrations I did was got the youth to imagine they were in a hall and in that hall was everyone they know, parents, friends, enemies, youth leaders, siblings, teachers, everyone. And then to imagine that also in the room is everyone that everyone they know knows.

Then I got one of the male youth leaders up and got him to put on a bikini (over his clothes). Everyone thought it was very amusing, which it was.

Then I asked the girls to imagine how they would feel if they were standing in that hall, in front of all those people, in their bikini. Awkward. Embarrassed. Uncomfortable.

The boys I then pointed out they they’re likely to do dumb things like get in bikinis too. Of if I had an older audience I would have mentioned getting drunk, and doing dumb stuff at parties. Getting naked. The only naked photos I’ve seen on Facebook are of guys. And we probably don’t want everyone seeing how dumb we are.

The point was when you stick photos of yourself on Facebook, when you make comments on Facebook, when you post stuff, you have a potential audience of thousands. And the maths backs me up.

If you have your privacy settings on Facebook as Facebook recommends the you will have photos you post and photos of you set to be able to be seen by ‘Friends of Friends’.

If you are an average Facebook user, you’ll have 120 friends.

Now say my friend Bill takes a photo of me and posts it on Facebook, and he has his photo settings to ‘Friends of Friends’ too, then with just first degree friends, on average each photo has a potential audience of 240 people.

But because the photo is set to ‘Friends of Friends’ assuming Bill and I have no mutual friends, and none of our mutual friends have mutual friends (extremely unlikely, but it’ll make it easier for the maths) then the potential audience for the photo of me that Bill took jumps from 240 people to 28,800 people (if my maths is right). That is a lot of people.

So if you do something dumb on Facebook, the potential audience for your stuff up is huge.

I think the issue is probably bigger for girls. Guys can do dumb stuff and not too many people will be interested, but we live in a culture that expects girls to be sexy. So sticking photos of yourself in your swimmers or underwear on Facebook is a huge temptation. And if you do that boys (and men) are going to look, and friends of friends are going to look. And there are potentially thousands of people who will look at photos of unsuspecting teenage girls posing on Facebook who didn’t think things through.


The point of my talk tonight was, while Facebook offers us the ability to create a custom built identity and community, it won’t be able to live up to its promise. In Jesus however, we are given an identity that is not created online, is not subject to whether people ‘like’ it or not, it does not get better or worse with our successes and failures online and offline. It is safe and secure in the by the work of Jesus on the cross. And we are brought into a community, a holy nation, a royal priesthood and family of God. And that community is not made up of people you have a loose connection to, it’s made up of people who are your brothers and sisters. In Jesus we have an identity and community that is safe, secure and very healthy.

With that in mind, our difference means that we must live differently. I encouraged the youth to live differently because they are different; to treat Facebook not as a tool to shore up their identity and community but as a tool to love God and love others and to help others love God and love each other.


As Christians, I think if we could grasp that our salvation in Jesus affects our whole life, and our character and identity is shaped by Jesus in every aspect of our lives, we wouldn’t need to have think hard about whether our silly choices in the physical world are going to end up online. Our integrity of life would mean that whatever ended up online from what happened offline would fit in with our character online and offline. It would fit in with the character we portray to our parents, friends, family, teachers, bosses, work mates and perfect strangers.

Social networking puts an end to the double life of the Sunday Christian. Instead of making us stress about what goes online, it should keep us accountable in all our life because anything could go online. It should help us live lives of integrity in every facet of life.

That said my experience of teenagers is that integrity of character isn’t always first priority. Not because they don’t value integrity. In fact I think teenagers value integrity more than many adults. Teenagers seem less willing to accept the duplicity and hypocrisy of daily life that grown ups take as par for the course.

However teenagers are still working out who they are. They aren’t asking “How do I make sure I live consistently in all areas of life?” because they are still asking “Who am I? How should I live?” When they know who they are, then they can work at living consistently. Are they the one who drinks on the weekends, the one who obeys the rules, the one who rebels, who is selfless, who is ambitious, who is seductive, who is reserved, who is fun, who is funny, who is thoughtful, who is kind? They’ll test the various aspects of their character they find coming out to see what fits. They’ll ask, what brings peace, what brings comfort, what brings happiness. When they find the character traits that fit then they’ll start asking questions about integrity.

So back to Facebook, when teenagers are discovering and forming their character, Facebook becomes a vast stage for them to test their boundaries, and discover their character and having a couple of hundred people there they can give you instant feed back about the character you’re building. And while this can be potentially harmless, it can also be very detrimental. Facebook can be a permanent record of unthinking moments. One dumb Saturday night, which in the past could be forgotten or just remembered by the few who had to carry you home, can be kept for posterity, a permanent witness that people, friends and strangers are going to interpret however they want, and most won’t interpret the night in light of lessons learnt and character built.


I guess all this musing really just leads me to conclude that we need to be helping teenagers use Facebook well. We need to encourage them to live with integrity. To be living out the character traits of who they want to be rather than who they are discovering they are.

I think older people need to be feeding back online and offline to younger people about what they value in them and what they appreciate, so that they can form a character that isn’t just shaped by the feedback of their peers, which while important will only be one perspective.

Christian teenagers need to be taught to have their identity and community thoroughly grounded in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus so that they can live differently out of that reality. If that can happen, not matter what happens online, no matter what mistakes they make, no matter what dumbness they do, they will have something deeper to hold onto, a way of living that stems from something other than just peer opinion and a character that is rooted in an identity that goes beyond any social network.

The question is though, how do we do that?

Last Sunday it was my sister Hannah's 16th birthday. It was a big day!

Dad and Hannah were going to be going out on a sailing boat thing. Sailing for the Disabled or something. However the weather meant they couldn't go, the sailing trip had to be postponed.

Still Dad decided that Hannah couldn't turn sixteen without a trip on the water, it is after all an important Australian rite of passage, that sixteenth birthday boating trip. So Dad booked him and her onto one of those jet boats that fly around Sydney Harbour so you can see all the sights at ultra high speeds while vomiting over the side or into the face of the person behind you.

However because Dad doesn't really like vomiting, eating other people's vomit or sight seeing, he thought I might be more interested. I was, I'm not a fan of vomit, but jet boats sound fun. So I was going to be Hannah's chaperone.

In the afternoon Mum, Dad and Hannah had a birthday lunch of fish and chips then picked me up after my Sunday afternoon shop for socks and undies (three pairs of undies, five pairs of socks! Hooray!) and we headed down to Sydney Harbour.

When we arrived at Circular Quay, Hannah didn't seem that excited about going on a boat. She seemed to be more interested in dancing the conga and listening to didgeridoo. I think perhaps she saw the boat and was disappointed it wasn't a real jet boat. She was expecting something with afterburners. It just wasn't hardcore enough for her.

Still we tried to convince her. No luck.

"Hannah we're going to go on a boat! Let's go have fun on the boat!"

"No no boat! Bye bye boat!"

No matter how hard we tried, Hannah wouldn't come. We kept trying right up until it was time to step on to the boat. But it wasn't going to happen.

At the last minute Dad subbed in for Hannah and went on the boat with me. Mum and Hannah stayed on the land and waved us good bye while Dad and I went jet boating for Hannah's birthday. It was good fun. No one vomitted so I think Hannah was right in not going, it certainly wouldn't have been crazy enough for her. But for pansys like Dad and I, it was pretty good fun. Plus I think Dad got to go at disability rates. That's my Dad, always scamming the system.

After the boat we had and ice cream which Hannah liked.

Maybe next birthday we'll find a jet boat with afterburners for Hannah. Or I'm hoping perhaps Dad and I get to go sky diving for Hannah's birthday or something.

It's almost 3am. That's because I've been watching The Wire.

Oh yeah. That's what I'm talkin' about.