I'm starting to get sick of twisties.

Priscilla has come over to edit so I'm on the upstairs computer. I think this computer has gone to the dogs since I used to use it. The screen is purple, and there are thousands of stupid ads on it. I've tried to fix what I can but it's a pretty poor sorry computer this one.

I shaved today. I hate shaving. I cut myself. I think because it's a new razor. Bler. Shaving's a poop.

I don't like songs with sexually explicit lyrics. Like that "Licky Licky" song or the "Do it like they do on the Discovery Channel". They make me go "Yuck".

So if I ever become a rock star make sure I don't let me sing any sexually explicit songs.

Except maybe "My Sharona" cause that has a good guitar solo.

Tonight was a good night. The creative worship night was creative and worshipful. But it's wasn't vibey. That was nice. I arrived feeling a bit dodgy. Maybe like a waste of space, but came away not feeling like a waste of space. Spending time with God and His people is a good thing*. I wrote a poem, which is different, poems aren't my thing, but I wrote one. I paired up with Chris and read it too him. I wasn't really sure if I wanted to let anyone see it, but I did and that was good. But I think I'll put it away in the prayer draw with my other prayers to be unseen again (I haven't written down a prayer for the prayer drawer in years, actually I don't have a prayer draw anymore, it's a prayer folder, hmm).

After the night a few of us hung about and packed up the church. It was good fun. Sometimes packing up is the part of an evening I least like but I had fun tonight. Silly accents (I am so glad there are people in the world who like speaking in accents), arguments about pew placement and I managed to have two conversations about exfoliating gloves tonight, that’s more than I’ve ever had in one year. I’ve probably only had four conversations about exfoliating gloves in my whole life. What an amazing night.

So yeah, worship-ness was good, pack up fun, drive home not very interesting.

thend


*You can quote me on that.

Lots of people put Quizilla things on their blogs (not any from my blogging community though) and I think Quizilla is stupid. Please don't go to the link.

I was going to talk about worship, but I might save that for later.

Word of the day is: de minimis

I thought I might talk about this word but I don't understand it. I think perhaps I could say, "I was quite tired at the time I got angry but that is de minimis, I was angry because he shot me in the knee cap" or something like that.

I think I'm bored. The problem with days off is I have nothing to do. I don't allow myself to do work of any kind and so I search for things to do. I should go see a movie. In half an hour I'll go to church for a creative worship night. Now there's something to talk about...

I used to think the BMW Z3 was sexy.

In fact I still think it's sexy.

I think car enthusiasts don't like the Z3 very much, but I'm not a car enthusiast.

Last night Rob and I watched The Cleopatra Project and Panda 82. They were good fun to watch. We made some silly stuff back then. TCP was just an excuse for all the cool things I wanted to do, like mexican stand-off, "love scenes", fight scenes, and lines like "F-Crying out loud!". TOOBSC is similar to TCP, concept-wise. But it's better. I'm not worried about it. Hey, if I copied myself, then who's going to get annoyed? Me? TOOBSC though isn't really made as an excuse for anything.

Actually now I think about it, it is. It's an excuse for me to do a pop film clip with dancers in it. I've always wanted to have dancers. And a film clip. Now I have both. And a stedicam. Geek out!

But, while watching the early days of Sparkly Bee, I noticed that all the bits that used to make me cringe and hide my face every time I watched those films (like the really bad pan in Panda 82) I no longer worry about. I think they are long enough ago, enough water under the bridge, that I can have a laugh. Rob and I were thinking we might do a commentary for TCP, that could be fun. But I'm not sure that we ever will. The sound is really bad on that film.

After having the "retrospective" I ate twisties, we drank Kahlua, and we watched Standing in the Shadows of Motown which was a cool film. It made me want to be a really good musician. We had a discussion while watching about how I was going to be a really good guitarist and piano and drums player, and Rob would be a really good guitarist and trumpet and drums player. Then we would sit upstairs in the study and have jams. That would be cool. I don't think that will ever happen. Although Rob is at Chris' right now learning to play his new guitar, so you never know.

Last night Gus and I did end up going out. He came in while I was down stairs watching TV. He was holding a cheeseburger and a Coke. I said "Oh gosh, there's an idea. I wouldn't mind some McDonalds".

"Do you want to go to McDonalds Tom?" Gus asked me.

"I do"

"I'll go to McDonalds with you" said Gus. So off we went to Engadine Maccas.

While we were walking out the door Mike shouted at us "Can you get me three cheeseburgers?"

At Maccas I had a large McOz meal which wasn't very nice. Gus and I had a conversation with the Maccas chick about the Big Mac chant. When we decided to leave I bought 3 cheeseburgers.

When we got back to college Mike said he was only joking so he shared the cheeseburgers around.

Today I had a sleep after New Testament so I would be awake for Church History. We had New Testament again in the afternoon. I fell asleep then too. So I had another sleep after that before I drove home. I set my alarm for half an hour but my phone turned itself off (or I turned it off because I wasn't thinking) and I slept for forty-five minutes. That was ok. But it was dark outside when I woke up and everyone had gone home. Then I went home too.

I listened to Powderfinger and PC3 as I drove home.

People at college have discovered Strong Bad. This is a good thing. They all have a good laugh. This is a good thing too.

I fell asleep a few times in New Testament Overview today. This is not a good thing.

When I'm at college I seem do a lot of blogging. I think because we don't go anywhere often. I often read books or something. Gus and I went for a walk once. He's gone on one tonight. I might have gone on it with him if he didn't mind, but it's too damn cold.

I've noticed that because of the cold I've been running everywhere. All day I've been running around college. Doing this stupid half run half skip thing. I'm sure it would be embarrasing to do in Westfield. Not here though. No shop keepers to look at me.

Let me talk about Saturday.

Saturday was really good. I had a terrible sleep the night before because I was going through all the shots we had to do in my head. It was extremely frustrating. I think I got to sleep around 2 am.

I got up at 6am and had a shower. I think I showered for too long. I had a breakfast and Rob and I packed the car.

I made plans to pick both Ryan and Lesley up at 7:15. This I think was a bad idea because it is physically impossible to be in two places at once. So we were either going to be, at best early for one, or late for another. In the end we were late for both.

Ryan was the boom operator and Lesley was the Assistant Director. They were both very good. We had a very good crew.

We arrived in St Leonards about the same time as everyone else. We unloaded the car and caught the lift up to the 3rd floor where we were filming. I gave instructions to cast and crew alike and people started setting up and getting changed. We rehearsed the first scene for about half an hour and then moved into the boardroom to say “Hello” and to pray.

At this stage we were running 20 minutes late.

We had a big day of filming ahead. I had 38 set ups planned and 13 pages of script to get through. We shot two scenes before lunch and were running about an hour and a quater late. We cut fifteen minutes out of lunch and a 45 minute rehearsal time and came within 15 minutes of our plan again after lunch.

After lunch we were shooting the first scene which involved a long continuous walking shot following two conversations. It was the most complicated thing we had to shoot all day. It was at this stage that we discovered the boom had a habit of “popping” every now and again and cutting out lines of dialogue. That made it all the more difficult to get right.

In the end due to all the different issues we encountered shooting the scene we had Helen, Lesley, Ryan and Jo as extras making the offices look full, Matt, Louise, Dave and Jill walking in front of the camera, Rob filming and walking backwards, Me tiptoeing with the boom trying to float as not to make the boom pop, Sal guiding Rob so he didn’t walking into any walls, and Sal, Rob and I all with our shoes off and pants rolled up, looking like we were about to go wading, so we wouldn’t make a noise on film. It was good fun and it turned out alright in the end. I would have liked to have spent more time on the shot but we didn’t have it. Anyway it works.

At one stage filming that scene a woman turned up and found us filming. She didn’t look too pleased. We had positioned people in her office. Arnand (who was accompanying us at the office) and I went and said “Hello” and Arnand told her what was going on. She was much more friendly after that.

Following that we finished shooting the scene in the boardroom and moved on to the last two. With the light fading outside it was important to get all the scenes with windows in them done quickly. There is a big difference between the stuff shot in the morning and the stuff shot in the afternoon. We film the middle two scenes together so that we could use the same set ups. In the end we managed to pick up time and finished shooting right on time.

It was a really good shoot as I have said. I think I'll have to put it done to prayer and the God-influence. We have never had such an nice set. I think Christians should make more films because they may not make good ones but at least they'll have a pleasent time doing it.

Once we were done we packed up, put everything away and all crowded into the lift for a group bonding experience. We packed our car then stood around like it was the last day of camp and no-one knew how to say “Good-bye”, at least that’s how it felt for me. In the end someone broke and said “I’m off” and we all took our perspective cars.

We pulled up at the lights next to Helen’s car and my car all picked their nose. Just for a laugh. They laughed and said we were disgusting.

We overtook Jill and Sal’s car and all picked our nose but they didn’t look so we all just felt silly.

That night Rob and I went to Kaia’s party. That was good. I managed to only talk to people I know. I wasn’t in the mood for meeting new people. It was nice and we played a silly M n M game. I promised Kaia that I would take her out to dinner and a movie because we have never done that before. I have never taken anyone to dinner and a movie. I hope her boyfriend doesn’t punch me in the head.

I don’t think he will because I’ve heard he’s a very nice guy.

I just wrote a really long post about how I feel about blogging. But I'm not going to post it.

Basically I said I want to glorify God and not myself with my blog.

So if anyone has found the desire to worship me and not God as a result of my blog let me know. I’ll send you a “WWTD” band.

I'm back at college now. It's good to be back. It's relaxing. It's my refuge from everything else. It's really nice to have a place that I can go to and it's un-connected to the rest of my life. I have really good friends here and I can come and be and idiot and have very little responsibility. It's so nice.

I was thinking tonight about what I'm preaching on next week. I've been looking forward to this because it's one the things I like to talk about. What I realised tonight though is that I talk about it so much that I don't know what it means any more. I have my set of things to say about the passage and then I'm done. So this is now a good opportunity to figure it out again. I do like the passage, but now I need to learn it again, let God teach me something new because I don't want to spout stuff that is of no relevance to me.

Since I've started to think that way the passage has started to worry me. It may become challenging once more.

Gosh I've been talking about feelings way too much. I need some sleep.

Just to fill in while I figure things out.

Filming was good. The best shoot we've done I think. Technically we can still improve. We had a lot of love though. We all got on. Twas very nice. People were nice. People helped each other. People didn't complain.

I might say more later. I begin my last semester of college tomorrow. I'm feeling I'm in a constant state of frustration. Not with anyone, just with life in general. I was thinking the other day that when I am tired and stressed I feel like my whole life could fall apart at any moment. Actually I feel that way all the time. Though when I'm tired and stressed I feel like my life actually will. That's the difference.

At 9:05am today I finished.

Good on me.

This is a note for myself so don't worry if you don't understand it.

I wrote this about my first impressions of my church, before I knew I'd be employed there:

The chruch was cool. The sermon was nicely Bible based and then they did a lot of "waiting on the Spirit" stuff. I had a good time. Very different from St Pete's. They played music well too.

When I started thinking I might get employed there I started calling it, The Church with the Yellow Walls. Then I realised that only one room has yellow walls. Sometimes I call it the church with the green carpet which is much more accurate but makes it sound less appealing.

December and January are full of first impressions. Some of them were accurate. Some of them not. Still interesting.