Pontification - The process of becoming a pont.

One day I hope to become a pont, I hear they get cheap bus fares.

According to my ticket collection I have only managed to go to the movies 41 times this year. What a poor year.

And the day that just was (30th December, 2003):

Woke up, talked to Ryan, David and Howie, organised outing.

Howie and I had breakfast at McDonald's at 12:25pm (after running into Kaia and Mark in the mall) then met Ryan and David at the station. Looking like the coolest four guys in Hornsby we hopped on a train and headed up the Central Coast, becoming the coolest four guys in each of the towns and hamlets we passed through (no mean feat in places like Wondabyne).

We got off at Woy Woy and caught the Route 60 bus to West Rd, Umina Shops. Rob and I bought a bottle of water to share in Bi-Lo, taking the express lane that turned out to be about 4 times slower than every other lane open in the supermarket.

Sitting outside a takeaway shop I took my shoes and socks off in my continuing effort to become hobbit-footed. We proceeded to walk to the beach which was a painful, but important, growing experience. Almost made it all the way to the beach till I was confronted by a 50 metre stretch of shadeless, boiling hot, black road. Rob also tried the hobbit thing with me ("ahh Pippin") and burnt his feet.

We arrived at the beach and dazzled the locals with our chests and went swimming. The ocean was flat as me Dad's pancakes so we had a game of frisbee in the water which was fun but not all that good. I floated a little.

Post beach, and a bit of laying on the sand and reading of books, we headed to an oval across the road to try our hand at a bit of land-based frisbee playing. We had a little more success but the wind was not really our good friend.

We headed home.

In Hornsby I had a shower then went to community dinner. That was short but very pleasant.

We headed off to the movies to see Lost in Translation which was definitely one of the better movies of the year. Lots of languages I couldn't understand with no subtitles and quiet, mainly stilted, conversations in English. Funny film. Good film. Not in the top three of 2003 though, perhaps top 5.

During the movies the cinema shook twice as if there was an earthquake or something near by. Just a small earthquake mind you. I don't think there was one, but we never found out what it was. Shakity-shake.

There was a security guard at Maquarie Shopping Centre who looked a little sad. I think I would like to be his friend.

I've made a few plans for my summer over the past month. These are some of the things I want to do over the remaining two months (in the order I remember them):

- Wear shoes less, and get tough feet
- Swim more
- Swim at the beach more
- Swim at the beach more and enjoy it
- Get brown (Well at least off white or something rather less reflective than I am now)
- Actively seek God's kingdom and righteousness first
- Be ready
- Relax

If I manage to do all that I'll be a prepared and chilled out, hobbit-footed, beach loving, Kingdom seeking, tanned Tom.

I think I'm least worried about being tanned. Skin cancer doesn't appeal to me too much so I'll keep putting on sunscreen. I'm good at that.

I'm also going to try really hard and stay single the whole of summer because I think I've at least got a pretty good chance of achieving that (and I wanna be successful at something).

Good night. Pub night. Lots of people and sillyness.

We got busted for swearing at Maccas. That was funny. I think I heard two swear words the whole time.

Some of us walked home. I got busted by the cops when I was waving good bye to the drivers. They pulled up and said "You holding up traffic are you?"

"No, I'm just saying good-bye to my friends."

"Oh yeah." and then they drove off.

Two bustings in one night. That's pretty good.

"I'd sweep you off your feet, but I was never very good with a broom" - C.K. Knight

Perhaps now I can call Christmas officially over too.

I went to Barry's last service today. How many last services can a person attend in December? It was nice to be back at St Peter's. I've been twice in one week, that's more than I've been to my own church. There are some many lovely people at St Peter's going back makes me feel like I'm seeing old family. I talked to some of my youth group kids. They are lovely. We sang a lot of the prayer book today. Normally that's a bit of fun, but they changed all the tunes this time, they did a prayer book re-mix so I didn't know what I was singing. I do like the prayer book. They talked about proclaiming the Gospel through the sacraments, and reading that was a really exciting idea for me. Sometimes I like the prayer book.

Amen.

Let us continue with the blog
For it is right for us to continue with this post

Barry bailed me up as I left the Church and shook his hand. He gave me lots of advice about how I should be picking my subjects for the advanced diploma. That was very nice of him.

Going home after Church I cleaned up some dog poo on the stairs then Hannah, Jo, Tinku and I all drove off to Wollongong.

Getting there late we found the cousins' house full of relos. Most I knew, some I didn't really. Some guy walked up to me and shook my hand and told me it was a log time since we'd spoken. This I was sure was true because it took me about a minute to figure out who this bloke was. He was a second cousin. About 2 hours after arriving I managed to find out his name. The rest of my second cousins that were there I didn't talk to at all.

Once I arrived I slipped into my "am with the relos" mode, and resigned myself to the fact that most of these people don't laugh at my jokes, but are nice to me anyway. I never really feel like I know my cousin's very well, but I like them all very much.

I think I should use the word "splendid" more often and "luscious".

I think I had a conversation with almost everyone there about Return of the King. Small talk makes the world go round. During cracker pulling I made a joke about the hats all being green so you could wear them during the war and not getting bombed. I expected polite laughter but I got a good reception, suddenly I felt a lot closer to all my relatives.

We had a cousins' conference about what to do about our Grandfather's memorial service. We all sat around and discussed stuff. I didn't say much but it occurred to me that this is what real people do when family members die. I felt awfully real and awfully grown up.

At the end of the day I drove Mum, Dad and Hannah home. Dad had a sore back.

Jo dropped Tinku off at the airport. Tinku's gone to Bangladesh. Bye Tinks!

And that is my day.

Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.
In the name of Christ. Amen

Family Christmas today.

First, good bye Barry.

David, Ryan and I played frisbee in Hornsby park tonight till about 8:30 then we ate Indian for dinner. Ryan and I went to see Peter Pan. The frisbee was good fun. We should do more of that. The film had some coolness to it. I loved the beginning and the flying. There was, as Ryan said, too many sexual overtones. Tinkerbell needed a good slap in the face, I don't believe in fairies like her. The boat was cool, and it made me be excited about growing up. I liked the bitter-sweet ending. I'm glad people got killed but they should have made it M rated. I think it needed a meatier script. The score was nice except in the exciting bits where it was a bit too Mr Holland's Opus.

Hobbit Hugging and B-Grade Directors with a Gazzilion dollars

(Don't read if you haven't seen the film)

So it is time for me to reflect on Return of the King. All up it was a good film. Probably I'd say the most enjoyable of the three. But I think Fellowship is the best. It's the most flawless, the best told story, the least wanky.

There was so much damn stuff to squeeze into ROTK that I don't really mind that things were a bit different. Minas Tirith was awesome. Definitely the best location of the series. I emitted a little cry of delight when I saw it. If it's still around they should put a big airstrip for fighter planes on the top. Although that wouldn't look very nice.

The Witch King annoyed me a bit. He was so scary in the book, but he was a bit of a punce in this. He ran around screaming and then got killed. He said "No man can kill me" and so they got a woman to do it. That was silly. As was some of Legolas' prancing. He prances too much that bloke.

The second last scene was really nice. Very well done. I liked the ship floating away and I loved the hugs of the hobbit. It made me think I should do more hugging. Especially at important moments, like when I'm about to get on a boat and sail away from everyone and everything forever.

I was not inspired to jump on people's bed's though.

How cool was the bit where they lit all the fires on top of the mountains. More squeals of delight.

Denethor was underwritten. Quite shallow if you ask me. He was mad, but why? No one mentioned his seeing stone. And who keeps women and children in a city that's about to be blown up? And who let's them stand at the windows when there are orcs throwing dirty great rocks at them? Not me. If I ever get women and kids they're not going anywhere near the windows when there are angry orcs about. Actually if I was ever in that position they'd probably walk all over me.

"Get back from the window!"

"No Tom. The kids and I are staying right here. It's for their education"

"But the orcs are angry Honey."

"No Tom."

"Ok Dear. I'll just be out the back then."

But I don't want to go about complaining. How good was it when the Rohirrim road over the hill? Kick ass! And Theoden can be my uncle any day. I really liked the bit in Mount Doom. And on the side of the mountain when Sam said "Rosie Cotton, Dancin'. I woulda married Rosie. If I'd have ever married anyone, it would have been her." Ahhh. It made me go all mooshy and want to grab the hand of the person beside me but I don't think either Anmol or Mike would have appreciated that.

It was a good film. I had a lot of fun. The books are better. But hey, they made films not books. I would be willing to say best film of 2003. Then Nemo, then A Mighty Wind.

It was a lovely evening. It's good to find yourself in a cinema with some of your closest friends and family. I spent last night in one of my favourite places to be with some of my favourite people. Nyyyce.

It did often occur to me (especially while at David's house which had wonderful atmosphere), why would anyone hire Peter Jackson to make the films? He really hasn't done much good stuff. Nothing worth risking your whole studio over. I haven't seen any of his earlier films but from what I hear, they aren't great. So why does he get to do Lord of the Rings? To me it's insane. But it paid off none the less.

There are B-grade overtones coming through the films at times. Some of it is a little corny and there's an over use of slow motion. People shout things like "Frroooodoooo!" when they think Frodo is about to die. Stuff like that. All the ghosts look like, movie ghosts. Ghosts probably aren't really snot green.

But Peter Jackson paid off. He was good quality and he proved to be the man for the job. He did well. I like the films. He did a mammoth job, I would have gone insane. All respect to him.

I've now done Return of the King and it was good.

I might say more later.

I like the feeling of contentment. Often though I don't notice contentment until I have been content and it has now past. I think to myself "I was content just then, and that was nice". Although it's even nicer when you realise while you're actually there.

I have this compulsion at the moment to blog my whole life. Everything I do has to go into the blog. I don't know if that's good, but that's what's going on at the moment.

But, well, I still have to now too.

It was, of course, Christmas night so that's worth blogging. It wasn't your typical Christmas night. Usually Christmas night consists of sitting around with everyone saying they feel full, and if you want dinner you'll have to have cheese on toast. Then perhaps you'll watch a video and go to bed.

But tonight I headed off to the Beach. Sal was kind enough to travel with me. We picked up Rachel on the way and due to recent events, talk became dresses, rings and weddings.

At the beach I chatted to Tim and Katie. I'm not sure what we talked about but it was pleasant enough. Later talking to Rach and Kaye conversation turned to the Bible and that was fun. Having both of them considering going to Bible College, I didn't have to worry about having boring Bible conversation. Good stuff, although I would say it was only about 5 minutes of talk all up.

Going home we picked up Jo, dropped Sal home and checked out her Christmas lights. Then it was off the Castle's with us. We arrived and watched the end of Life of Brian before heading out to look at Christmas lights. Chris, Keith, Jem, David, Jo and I all piled into the HannahVan and enjoyed the offerings of Mt Colah. They were mostly pretty poor really. Most people had turned their lights off. That may have been due to the fact that it was 11:30pm, but still it was Christmas night, you'd think you could leave them on till midnight?

Everyone went home after that. David and I dropped Jo home. I took the opportunity to take David to my office to find my sunglasses which turned up after 5 minutes of intense searching.

And now my Christmas night is blogged too.

Perhaps tomorrow I won't blog so much.

I just finished reading Return of the King and just in time too. What a wonderful book. I still have a lot of appendices to read.

We went to church this morning, at St Pete's. It was interesting to be back. It felt funny, like I fell away and now only go to Church on Easter and Christmas. But I might be back next Sunday for Barry's last service. Mum got me to help with the children's talk and I somehow got conned into leading actions for "Wide, Wide as the Ocean" Olde Style. I've left the Church a year and I still get roped into doing things. Once a St Peter's kid always a St Peter's kid.

We went to the Castle's after Church as is Christmas tradition. And according to Christmas tradition we gave presents in the lounge room listening to The Wiggles while Hannah banged a balloon. The Castle's make wonderful cards and wrap good. I only wrapped one present for them (the others were either already given or joint with Jo so she wrapped) that was Jem's. She got hers in a bag, the same bag that Hannah got her present in last night, and her card I found in their recycling. It was to Gemma, and said something about Christmas, so I respelt Jemma's name and crossed out the name of the person who signed it and put on mine. It's pretty dodgy, but I hope they know I love them.

Lunch consisted of a gathering of people from many nations of the earth. Represented we had Australia, Britain, Hungry, Zimbabwe, Bangladesh, Romania and Mum named herself to be from New Zealand just to add to the festivities. Christmas lunch if not spent with the wider family tends to pick up various people who don't have another Christmas to go to. I really like that. There was a little old lady that Hannah took a shine to and liked to attack with hits and kicks much to the displeasure of this little lady. As a result I spent most of the time before lunch jumping on the trampoline with Hannah.

Lunch was very nice.

After lunch I cleaned up a bit then lay on my bed and finished my book. I fell asleep for 10 minutes too.

"Go in peace! I will not say: do not weep; for not all tears are an evil." Gandalf - Lord of the Rings: Return of the King

Not that I want to do more present listing but Jem is getting me a bag for Christmas and birthday. I don't have it yet because the shops closed but she gave me this card. I was so impressed.

Now I won't have to complain about my bag anymore.



(I had to shrink it so it did that silly pixel thing)

Chruch tonight was lovely.

Whenever I played a sheep, or angel, or shepherd in my Christmas plays I never thought I was cute or any of my friends were. But tonight, that was cute. So many dressed up kids having no idea what to do just standing on the stage looking like underaged angels, sheep, shepherds and turkeys. Gosh. Makes me think I should be in Children's ministry.

The powerpoint went good. People laughed at some of the jokes. I was 50 minutes late for a youth ministry meeting before church because of it, that wasn't deliberate, but I don't mind not going through the values, vision and strategy one more time (sorry you had to Helen).

I got home after church and raced around the house finding bags to put all my families presents in. I hadn't done any wrapping.

We had dinner together (Dad, Mum, Jo, Tinku, Hannah, Lys and I) and then did the present thing. Dinner was nice, always is. I have a good family. Presents were very long, but ok. Hannah was in a bad mood. Or at least destructive, then bad (her computer program present didn't work properly so she lost it). Every time we do presents whenever we give one we have to say one thing we thank God for about the other person. I think that's nice.

I got good things. A new Bible, money for the holiday, a photography course with Jo, a U2 book, a U2 dvd (on order), and a ticket to the movies.

Robert got me an Aragorn action figure that I had been eyeing off a few days ago in the ABC store. I almost bought for myself, but thought it might be useless. Good thing Rob got it for me. Now I have my very own Aragorn doll, posh. (Did I mention that on Monday night I realised that I'm jealous of both Aragorn and Arwen?)

After presents we did a twenty minute Christmas lights drive. Usually they go for longer and we listen to Spindles and the Lamb but the tape player in the van is broken and Hannah was in a bad mood. We spent most of the drive singing Happy Birthday and assorted Christmas carols to keep Hannah happy that we missed a lot of lights and almost all the "Ahhhhhh"s that have to be said when you see some.

When we got home we cleaned up and I played on the computer making various Christmas images. I'm not sure if anyone else will be amused by my various creations but I had fun.

Now it's off to bed. Being 20 and all this is my last year for Santa. I hope he leaves me with something massive as a parting gift (a Miller tripod perhaps?). I'll probably just get the usual assortment of socks, undies, sticky tape and glue. Not that I mind. I love having a useful Santa. He stocks me up for at least 6 months.

2 minutes to Christmas...

Lesley's blogging.

I find my blog very distracting. I just went back to December last year to see if I mentioned on Christmas Eve that in the old days on Christmas Eve I used to go to sleep to make the day hurry up (I did). I ended up reading most of December and finding myself terribly interesting. I'm a different person now, than I was a year ago. At least my life is very different. There are somethings about last year that I would love to have back. Other things that are different this year that I love to bits and wouldn't want to change. And then there are things that I both wish I never got and but never want to loose.

But God has brought me a long way in a year. This is good, this time next year I'll hopfully be as far away from me now as I am from me then.