On Australia Day I decided to read a book. I read this one. The whole thing. All 183 pages. I know, I'm pretty much a book reading demigod, the freak child of Socrates and Mrs Zeus. Aside from how awesome I am with my computer-like, pentium II speed of comprehension of words, the book was about humility which I didn't really need to know about. I read that book like I would read a book about thrifty home maintenance of secondhand washing machines, it's an interesting insight into a skill which is only important for those people who have much to be humble about.

Actually, surprisingly, it did feel relevant. For one, I had been struck during the week but how incredibly prideful and stupid I am. For two, my constant desire for recognition and glory is always tempting me to self-congratulations, which is especially tempting in the line of work that I'm in. Though I guess, pride is not exclusive to the arena of those who find themselves regularly standing in front of large groups of people.

The book is a pretty easy read. It's written in the style of a leadership book and it seems to be pitched at business leaders. I had just finished Great by Choice which is also a business leadership book (it was pretty fantastic by the way), so I felt like I was in the right genre frame of mind. It wasn't going hard on the Jesus stuff like a lot of Dickson's stuff (not that going hard on Jesus stuff is bad), though Jesus did make a solid appearance.

Dickson leads us through the history of humility as a virtue, gives the reader some historical examples, tells us why humility is a good idea and finally gives us ideas on how to be cultivating humility. One of the things that struck me reading the book is how much more you admire humble people over proud people. So I think to myself "I want people to think I'm great, I'm going to be humble", which seems like the wrong reason to cultivate humility. However Jesus did say if you want to be great you need to be a servant, so it's not as if it's wrong to strive for greatness through humility. But I guess it's a redefinition of greatness. Greatness is about not people thinking you're great, but being able to move beyond self-love and self-promotion and into other-centredness. That's where true greatness lies. Unfortunately I worry, were I ever to reach that greatness, I would be so humble and other-centred I wouldn't notice how great I am. The great humble person's dilema.

Still, I am convinced that humility is a better path than pride. When I'm self-obsessed and prideful, I will constantly be worried about how I am being received and how good I look in the eyes of others. Yet when I'm more concerned with other, and using my gifts, position, power and abilities for the benefit of others I'll be so concerned with others that I won't even worry about myself, I'll be at ease, the same thing I was striving for in my pride. It's an interesting flip, which seems counter-intuitive, but is also totally obvious.

It was a good book to read. Challenging, inspiring and not condemning and accusing. I know I've got plenty far to go on the journey towards humility. But I've at least read a book on the subject, so I'm probably at least a little bit more awesome for that, wouldn't you say?

This is good. You should watch it.

I was at Jem and Gem's party on Saturday night and I was talking to this person who happened to be a girl. Win. She asked me what book I was currently reading. I said "I'm reading one about the sexualisation of young girls." (It's called Getting Real: Challenging the Sexualisation of Girls in case you're wondering.)

She replied "Oh by Melinda Tankard Reist?"

I said "Yeah I'm really enjoying it."

And then we talked about how good the book is. And I'm feeling like this girl was probably way impressed because I'm reading a book that's full of essays all about not turning women into sex objects and not letting young girls get caught up in our society's raunch culture. I'm pretty sure I'm scoring points for both intellect and feminism.

Then a little while later, high on the success of this last exchange, I start talking to her friend who happens to also be a girl, plus Irish. Double Win.

We get onto the subject of awkward train conversations. I begin telling the Irish girl a story about a man who started talking to me on the train that day about the book I was reading.

"What book were you reading?" She asks.

I reply, happily, "It's called, Getting Real: The Sexualisation of Young Girls"

She looks at me funny then says "...and I'm changing carriages right about now."

Oh dear, something's gone horribly wrong.

It's at that point that I realise that when the person you're talking to doesn't know the book you're talking about, and when you get the title wrong and say the book is called "The Sexualisation of Young Girls" as opposed to "Challenging the Sexualisation of Girls", it's not a win for intellect and sensitive feminism, it's a win for creepy guy at the party. Bugger.

No matter how hard I tried after that, I think she always just thought I was freak.

Next time, best just to say you're reading Dan Brown.

by Saho Fuji from The Lion and the Mouse

I haven't read the book but I really like the picture.

So I've just set up for Amazon Associates. I think it means that I can link to products that I talk about and then you all can click on them and buy them and I get 15% of something.

I got it mainly because I want pretty links. But I figured I might make the most of the pretty links and see if I can make a dime. I've never made a cent off this blog. In fact I'm pretty sure it's cost me at least $20 over the past 9 years or however long I've been blogging. It's hard to keep a slick operation like this going.

I've always refused to stick ads on my blog because they're ugly and I'm not a blog pimp. But I figure this is just letting you buy the stuff that I'm talking about. All I'm doing is encouraging consumerism, not making my blog look ugly. Anyway so let me see what this looks like by showing you a little of my life:

What I'm Reading:

So currently I'm working through a thousand books. But here are the more prominent ones:



Jesus and the Eyewitnesses

Tim Keller this was going to be one of the most important books of our generation for New Testament scholarship. Or something like that. Or maybe he just said I should read it. I'm not sure.

Anyway, it's good. It's a nice look at some of the ideas about the historical Jesus that are out there from a more conservative standpoint.





Planting Missional Churches

This is meant to be the book to read on church planting. And it's pretty darn nice. If only he wrote an Australian edition, it's all very North American-centric.





Tomorrow When the War Began

I'm reading this again because the movie is coming out and I'm reliving my childhood. It's fun but the action is pretty dull compared to almost every other war book I've read.



So there you go. There's my chance to make some money. And now that I look at it, it's a rather ugly way to make money and I feel like a dirty blog pimp. So unless I find a way to make it more pretty, I probably won't do that again.

Update: Actually I've fiddled with it and it's not very intrusive at all any more. It's kinda like the sort of linkage I would do back in the old days when I didn't worship money. So maybe I'll let it stay. But except every blog post from now on to be about a product you can buy. Probably an expensive one.

Seeing as I'm preaching about sex on Sunday, I've been thinking about it for a few weeks now. Of course, if you go by the "statistics" men think about sex every 5 seconds, so nothing's changed really.

I'm reading Every Young Woman's Battle because I'm trying to understand the issues of a single Christian woman. Actually I'd like to understand the issues for women in general, but I figure that's too broad, so I'm just going with the single Christian ones. If there are any women who wants to tell me what it's like being a woman, feel free. I've never been one as far as I know.

Anyway, there was one line at the beginning of Every Young Woman's Battle which said about some promiscuous boys "Each time they had sex with a girl, they took a piece of her soul." This worried me. While I understand what the writer is saying, I'm uncomfortable with saying that girls who have sex lose their soul. I think what the writer is saying that having sex outside of marriage does real spiritual damage, which I'm quite happy to agree with. But if a girl having sex outside of marriage loses some of her soul at some point she'll have no soul, which is almost like saying she's lost her humanity. It seems to imply that somehow a girl who has had sex is less valuable than the girl who hasn't.

Of course I know this isn't what the writer is saying. The gist of the book is "You're too valuable to be giving yourself away to people who aren't going to be committed for a lifetime." But it's the language that worries me. Probably because I think it reflects how Christians often talk about sex outside of marriage. We seem to say that sex cheapens a girl. While we should be saying that we can cheapen the act of sex, but we can't cheapen the person.

The other issue I have is that the language seems to be used much more often in conjunction with women. So the girl who has sex a lot loses her soul and cheapens herself. The guy who has sex a lot is expressing his masculinity in an unhealthy and selfish way. If I had to choose I'd rather be the person who expresses my nature wrong, than person who loses their nature.

Isn't it just as true of girls as it is for guys? A girl who has sex outside of marriage expresses her feminine sexuality, her desire for love, intimacy and pleasure in a way that is in essence unhealthy and selfish. The issue is not that she becomes less, but that sex should be so much more.

Anyway, I could say a whole lot more on the issue of sex at the moment. But I have to save up the gold for Sunday. That's just something I've been thinking about.

Photo by Cazpoo - I'm not sure why I picked the photo. I thought it was less obvious than a flower I guess.

So my friend Chris Morphew wrote a book, and invited me to his Birthday party which was also a book launch. He was selling his book there for a bargain $15. So I went to get the incredible discount, and in the hopes of seeing some famous authors there. Seeing as he's a published author I was pretty sure he'd have a few others hanging around him at his party. I thought maybe he might have some models there as well, which he quite possibly could be dating. I was disappointed to find that Stephen King and Matthew Riley were not in attendance. Nor were there any models. Or if there were, I missed them. His cousins were there however and I played a board game with them before all going and doing rock-star cocaine together in the bathroom.

Not all of that last sentence was true.

Anyway all this is preface to say that when I bought the bargain priced book I told Chris I would review it so, this is my review.



Contact is the second book of Morphew's series The Phoenix Files. It's about a three teenagers, Peter, Luke and Jordan, who find themselves living together in a mysterious town, owned, built and run by a corporation. As it turns out this corporation is, like all corporations except Apple, evil. The corporation is planning to kill everyone in the world. At this stage I'm not sure how that's good business practice as they are, presumably, destroying their entire customer base and severely limiting their market expansion potential.

But I'm not sure that's the point. The point is, when the first book, Arrival, starts it's 100 days until the end of the world. And three teenagers must work together to uncover the mysteries and stop the impending apocalypse. And so far, the adventure, has been a lot of fun.

Pacing-wise the book reads like a Matthew Reilly book for young teens. Every chapter ends on a note of suspense. It's not the kind of book you should read before bed, it's easy to read and hard to put down.

The first book was written in first person perspective through Luke, the newest kid in town. The second book is also written from first person perspective, but through the eyes of Peter, the other teenagers in the trio of mystery solvers. When I started reading the book I didn't realise the perspective had changed between book 1 and 2. So I spent the first third of the book trying to figure out why this kid's life was so different from what I remembered from the first book. Once I solved that mystery though, the book made a whole lot more sense.

One theme I'm noticing is that all the adults in the book seem to be either evil, crazy, ignorant or useless. For young teen fiction, this seems like a rather useful ploy. For teenagers to remain the heroes on works of fiction there has to be some legitimate way for the teenagers to remain the heroes throughout the whole book. In the case of an evil corporation trying to kill the world and three teenagers trying to stop it, it's hard to plausibly pull this off without sidelining all the adults for one reason or another.

Knowing that Chris is a raging Christian, and probably a CS Lewis fan, I've been looking for the Aslan character or no-so-subtle gospel allegory through out the books. Much to Chris' credit, I haven't found Aslan yet, but he is forfeiting the opportunity of getting regularly quoted in sermons after he manages to get two beavers to succinctly explain the character of God.

Anyway, I realise I haven't really said what I thought of the book, and as this is a review I probably should. I did rather enjoy the book. It's such a fun read. The plot moves along fast making it rather hard to put down. Due to it being pitched at the young teen crowd it's a pretty easy read and makes you feel like you've got excellent reading skills when you realise you're two thirds of the way through the book when you thought you'd only just started.

Peter, the main character is rather annoying at times due to his excessive crush on one of the other main characters. He regularly deserves a good slap. Though his annoyingness levels never reach the levels of Harry in Potter 5, which made me want to stop reading.

The massive capabilities and evilness of the evil corporation give Peter, Luke and Jordan a task of sufficient magnitude that I'm not sure how Chris is going write another five books while keeping the three of them alive. Maybe he only has four more books to write. Either way, I'm looking forward to seeing how things develop for the rest of the series.

All up, these books are worth the read, and not just because I know the person who wrote them, though that probably does help.

Arrival and Contact are available in all good bookstores and at Chris' birthday parties.

I finished listening to Pride and Prejudice and Zombies today. I've been listening to the audio book as I work.

I think this is the ideal way to read the classics. First you don't have to read them, second you get all the goodness of the classics, third you have zombies. What more could you want in your literature education?

For those of you who don't know the book, it's Pride and Prejudice the classic novel, with zombies inserted. Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy are both accomplished zombie hunters. And every now and again the zombies pop up in the book and a bit of zombie slaying goes on. But aside from that the plot and much of the original text is unchanged.

So it was good fun. I'm sure some people will feel that this makes a mockery of Austin and her work. But I'm inclined to feel like it's just a tribute. Or perhaps making something good even better. To be perfectly honest, I was more interested in how Darcy and Lizzy would get together and what would happen to Jane and Bingley then I was enjoying the zombie fights. But the zombie fights were cool. As were Lizzy's duel with ninjas. Sweet.

They're going to make a film of it with Natalie Portman. I hope they get Danny Boyle to direct it. He'd be awesome.

Anyway, I've come to the conclusion that Pride and Prejudice is a much better romance book to be reading than, say, Twilight. As far as I can tell (and I have read a bit of the original) it's funny, well written, and neither Lizzy nor Mr Darcy are perfect in any way. That's three things Twilight doesn't have.

But perhaps best of all is when you add the zombies, because there is little that can't be improved by the addition of zombies (except perhaps I am Legend).

Warning: long and probably dull account of consumer woe ahead

I am a member of Audible.com. It's an audiobook website. They charge me $16-$20 a month (depending on the exchange rate) to download one audiobook a month.

Unfortunately I slowed down in my audiobook listening. It was because I bought a 22-hour history of the American Civil War, and I struggled to get through it, so I didn't buy new books till I finished that one. But I never finished it, and the credits just stacked up.

Anyway, being on the poorer side this year, I thought, I should cancel my membership, but every time I went to cancel my membership they'd say "If you cancel you'll lose all your credits." And I thought, "I paid for them, I don't want to lose them."

So I thought up a cunning plan. My debit card expired last month. So I decided to keep money out of my account around billing time last month, and then the credit card would expire, and I wouldn't have to keep buying credits, I wouldn't have to cancel my membership, and I could use my remaining credits to buy books, and then cancel.

Well the plan worked until money went into my account about a week after the billing day, and bam, they took it. "Fair enough" I thought, "I am still a member." But my card expired so they weren't going be doing that again.

Then I checked my bank account today, and they still took money out, with my expired card! I don't know how that's possible!

So I just went and bought 6 audiobooks with my credits, and they'll just sit there till I download them. Then I went to cancel my membership.

I clicked the tiny, hidden link "Cancel my membership". They asked why, I said I was too poor. Then on the next screen they said "We're sorry to see you go, please accept $20 credit from us to thank you for being a member." So I took it. I thought it was just a parting gift, and when I came back, I could use it if I wanted it. But no, turns out, when you click that you're opting out of cancelling your membership. Sneaky buggers. So I was still a member.

I went back to try and cancel my membership again, quite happy to sacrifice my $20 credit, and there was nothing to click anymore, it had changed to an international phone number to call to cancel my membership. Sneaky, sneaky buggers.

So now I have $20 credit, an expired debit card, 6 books waiting to be downloaded and a continuing membership to Audible.com.

I will sort things out one day, but first I should go get dressed.

I have to fill out a form for a good conservative, Christian organisation and one of the questions is "List your 5 most influential books, outside the Bible?"

I thought that was a good question, so I thought I'd answer it here:

1. Evangelical Truth - John Stott



I never knew what an evangelical was before I read this book. It was on my pre-reading list for Youthworks. It's the only non-compulsory pre-reading I've ever done I think.

Anyway I read this book about evangelicals and Stott described a Christian that was me. I loved the Jesus and fervently believed the Bible. After growing up in a rather liberal church, I had never know my brand of Christianity had a name, or that it was popular. But then I read this book and realised I was an evangelical. I suspect the feeling was somewhat similar to the feeling mutants get when they realise they're not alone and they get accepted into Professor X's academy. Someone had defined me and it felt good.

Ever since reading that book I've been excited about loving and believing the Bible, and excited that there are plenty of people out there who feel the same as me. And I think I've loved the Bible more, and teaching the Bible more, because I realised it's not so strange to love the Bible.

2. Making Movies - Sidney Lumet



This was given to me for Christmas one year by my sister. I think I was 14. Up until that point my obsession with film and television production was leading me to want to be an actor. But then I read this book and I realised that actors had to be in touch with their feelings, and that sounded terrible.

But directing on the other hand meant that you got to play with cameras, lights, lens, set design, story, acting, editing, everything really. The entire film production process was open to you. Directing was where it was at.

And the life that Lumet described, seemed like the best life ever. I love film making, and this whole book was about a whole life of film making. I wanted that.

And so I decided to be a film director on the strength of this book.

I subsequently discovered what a famous and fantastic director Sidney Lumet is. I think that could be my favourite non-fiction book ever.

3. Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis de Bernieres



This is my favourite book ever.

I read this after Jo lent it to me. I don't know what I was expecting. Jo just said it was good.

It was amazing. And the film is has nothing on the book.

I do love love stories. But the love stories I love the most are the ones about the hardness of love, and the unfulfilled longings and messiness of love. And this book is all that.

De Berniares' style of mixing real life with mild fantasy, his wonderful use of words, his hyper-real characters, it all just makes me so happy.

Reading this book felt like magic the whole time I read it. It gave me that feeling in my gut I get when I hear an amazing guitar solo, or see a spectacular scene in a film. I don't quite now how to describe it, but it's like the happiness is too intense for just the usual outlets, it has to employ organs usually reserved for other functions to express how profound the joy is. It's like I feel heavier and lighter as the same time. It's pretty darn special.

I know I've quoted this before, but just the first line of this book fills me with joy:

"He took the old man over to the window, threw open its shutters, and an explosion of midday heat and light instantaneously threw the room into an effulgent dazzle, as though some importunate and unduly luminous angel had mistakenly picked that place for an epiphany."

I couldn't really quantify the influence this book has had on my life. But I know it's made me love words more and appreciate love more. The book has stayed with me, its story has become part of my story and every fiction book I read gets compared to this book.

4. The Trivialization of God - Donald McCullogh



I picked up this book for $5 at Koorong. I think I was 18. I got it because Mum had been lent it by one of her friends and I liked the front cover.

The whole book is about how big God is. God is not a god you can fit into your own schemes and agendas. He doesn't exist to support your cause. God is his own person, he rules the world, and he's terrifying in his magnificence and power.

This book taught me how scary and terrible God is. It made me appreciate what it means that a person would die to look into the face of God. God is not my buddy. He's a consuming fire.

I think my respect and awe of God grew ten-fold as a result of this book. And I better understood the grace shown to us in Jesus so that we can approach this magnificent and awesome God without being destroyed, this God whose amazing power is bent on love.

5. Don't Just Stand There, Pray Something - Ronald Dunn



I think I was in year 10 or 11 when I read this. It was also Jo's. I don't actually remember much about this book but it had two lasting effects on me. It made me pray more and it inspired me to have regular quiet times.

The book told me to have a daily quiet time and when I did it to systematically work my way through books of the Bible. So I did. Ever since reading that book I've been having daily (or almost daily) quiet times. And because of reading this book and working my way through books of the Bible I read the whole Bible. I reckon I've read the whole Bible a number of times now, and this book inspired me to do it. That's pretty influential I'd say.


And they are my five. 3 out of 5 of these books I got from my sister. That's pretty cool. Thanks Jo. You changed my life.

What are your five? Or if the Bible is not a most influential book in your life, what are your six?

"But now she seemed different to me. I became aware of her special powers. How she seemed to pull light and gravity to the place where she stood. I noticed as I never had before, the way her toes pointed slightly inward. The dirt on her bare knees. The way her coat fit neatly across her narrow shoulders. As if my eyes had been given magnifying powers, I saw her more closely yet. The black beauty mark, like a fleck of ink above her lip. The pink, translucent shell of her ear. The blond down on her cheeks. Inch by inch she revealed herself to me. I half expected that in another moment I'd able to make out the cells in her skin as if under a microscope, and a thought crossed my mind that had to do with the familiar worry that maybe I'd inherited too much from my father. But it didn't last long, because at the same time I was becoming conscious of her body, I was becoming aware for my own. The sensation almost knocked the breath out of me. A tingling feeling caught fire in my nerves and spread. The whole thing must have happened in less that thirty seconds. And yet. When it was over, I'd been initiated into the mystery that stands at the beginning of the end of childhood. It was years before I'd spent all the joy and pain born in me in that less than half a minute." - Nicole Krauss - The History of Love

So I've been thinking about the current state of my concurrent reading pile. I have a lot of books on the go, all of which I intend to finish, but some of them have been going for a while. I thought I'd list them all because I like the pretty book covers.



1. New Issues Facing Christians Today - John Stott

This is the book that has been going the longest. Four years or something. I bought it when I was in a Bible study group where we'd talk about ethics every week. I wanted to get a headstart on everyone else so that I could seem smart when we discussed the topics.

It used to be that the plan was to pick it up and read a chapter every time I finished a book. I forgot though. I picked it up the other day and saw that I'm actually pretty close to the end so I should finish it.

John Stott is pretty awesome and this book is full of good ethics stuff to chew over. Generally I agree with everything Stott says. If I could adopt another Grandfather (not a replacement one, because I like my current one), I'd adopt him.

I'll finish it one day.



2. Knowing God - J.I. Packer

I started reading this one because I decided to find a book of accessible theology for Jem to read.

I'm currently up to a chapter on Grace. It's good stuff but not really interesting writing. People say it's a Christian Classic and I believe them. But really, it's not gripping. I think theology should hold your attention not put you to sleep.

Anyway it's a good book full of good stuff but it won't keep you up late.



3. Biblical Preaching - Haddon W Robinson

Another classic. It's good stuff this book. I'm not sure why it's taking me so long to read it. I started it in Guatemala and I just haven't got around to finishing it off. But it's worth reading. He's pretty clear, and I've been using what I've read.



4. Without Warning - John Birmingham

This is one of only two fiction books in the pile. I think that's probably because I tend to finish fiction once I start instead of letting it sit around for ages, I want to get the story figured out. That said, this one isn't gripping me at all. I think maybe I don't care about any of the characters.

The book is about what would happen to the world if the USA disappeared. It's full of guns and fighting and stuff, but I haven't really been grabbed by any of the stories. I guess that's why I've been sidetracked by other books.

I do like JB though. He's fun even if this book isn't all I would like it to be.



5. The Problem of Pain - C.S. Lewis

I started reading this book because I'd been working through the theology of suffering. But I stopped pretty quickly because I realised I had lot's of other books on the go. Still C.S. is wonderful and I fully intend to get back to it sometime in the next few weeks.



6. The Koran: A Very Short Introduction - Michael Cook

I bought this along with a copy of the Koran because I've been meaning to read the Koran for ages. I thought an introduction might help matters along. And it is helping. The book is really interesting. I'm enjoying it, this is one of the three books I'm putting real effort into.

I can't say it's making me want to be a Muslim but I am enjoying the learning.



7. A Comedian's Guide to Theology - Thor Ramsey

This is another book in my search for accessible theology. It's not very good. The book is more about making jokes than explaining theology and everyone is a little poorer for it. The book is also written as a reaction against the Emerging church. I'm not really sure we should let out theology be defined against the theology of someone else. Sure we can write books about other people's theology. But if you're going to write a guide to theology I think it should be more than just "We don't think what they think."

It's also not very funny. I've laughed twice I think. I can't wait to finish this book, it's driving me up the wall.



8. Xenocide - Orson Scott Card

Yay! More fiction!

I'm listening to this on my iPod.

I've been working my way through the Ender Series again. I love this series. They get less brillant as you go along, but it's still heaps of fun; aliens, starships, new planets, ethics. It's great. Plus the whole audiobook thing means I can listen while I drive and wash up. I tend to polish my audiobooks off the quickest.


And that my friends is what I'm reading. It's a lot but I'm having a good time so I can't complain.

My thanks goes out to Koorong and Amazon from whom I stole most of the images. Go shop there because they have books and books are good. I hope they won't get me in trouble now.

I just started reading Without Warning by John Birmingham. After Twilight it's a blessed relief.

In the first 50 pages 300 million people are killed and various planes, boats and cars crash in some freak occurrence, and on page 51 a female assassin kills two evil pursuers in about three seconds using just her bare hands and a scalpel. That's more like it. This book should make up for the last one's criminal lack of action quite well.

I just finished reading Twilight. It's that vampire romance that girls like to read. I read it because most of the girls in my youth group love it, so I thought I should check it out.

I can understand why girls like it but it really didn't do it for me at all. I'd read Jodi Picoult over this any day.

The story is about Bella, a 17 year old high school student who falls in love with Edward a 17 year old looking vampire.

The biggest issue is that through out the whole book there is almost no violence. If I'm reading a vampire book I'm expecting a bit of action. There was almost nothing. I had to wait till the last four chapters before anything remotely actionish happened at all. Then when the action did happen, the main character was unconscious for it, and seeing as it's a first person narrative, we never hear about it. There was only one scene where blood got sucked but it was to save someone's life and it was just out of a hand. What's up with that?

Second I can't see why no one else seems to find it creepy that the vampire is 104 years old, while the girl he is in love with is only 17. Just because he looks young doesn't make it ok.

But the good thing is, even if he is 104 years old, he has the wisdom of a 16 year old and emotions to go with it. He seems to spend most of the book brooding, giving dark stares and having flashes of anger. He keeps saying things like "I need to leave you alone, but I can't. All the time I spend with you I put you in danger, so I'm guess I'm being selfish." You think? You would hope that for a good vampire who is 104 years old he would have figured out by now that just because something makes you feel good it doesn't mean it is good. On the other hand, humans tend to have an ability to be exceedingly selfish all their lives, especially when it comes to love. So I'll give him that. I just don't think it's romantic.

Third Bella is rather annoying. It seems like every time he looks at her or touches her, she forgets how to breath. Literally. It's not even a dumb figure of speech, she actually stops breathing. At one point he's so wonderful when they kiss, she passes out. One feels that maybe you're not ready for a serious relationship if you can't manage to maintain the most basic of human functions in the presence of your love interest.

Consider these genuine quotes:

"He was right there, his face so close to mine. His beauty stunned my mind-it was too much, an excess I couldn't grow accustomed to.
...
He took my face in my hands again.
I couldn't breath." - Pages 246-247

"He pressed his cool lips delicately to my forehead, and the room spun. The smell of his breath made it impossible to think... His fingers traced slowly down my spine, his breath coming more quickly against my skin. My hands were limp on his chest, and I felt lightheaded again. He tilted his head slowly and touched his cool
lips to mine for the second time, very carefully, parting them slightly.

And then I collapsed.

"Bella?" His voice was alarmed as he caught me and held me up.

"You… made… me… faint," I accused him dizzily." - Page 279

"Edward's hands lingered at my neck, brushed along my collarbones. I gave up trying to help him and just concentrated on not hyperventilating." - Page 314

You see what I'm saying? At one point they kiss and her heart literally stops beating.

Anyway, I'm glad I read the book. Now I know what the fuss is about. I don't really have a problem with people reading it. But I doubt I'll be picking up the sequels anytime soon.

Life has been so full lately. What with full time work and all. I need a briefcase and a suit. There has been no time to blog. I have plans to blog about my weekend, it was pretty crazy. I started but Mozilla died on me. Mozilla isn't as stable as it used to be it seems to crash. Actually every program on my computer seems to die. It helps you grasp the whole ethereal nature of computers (grasping something ethereal, I think that may be oxy-moronic).

I'm reading a book by John Birmingham. It's the squeal to Weapons of Choice which I read last year. For a violent airport novel it asks good questions about where our society is headed and what the consequences of the War on Terror will be on the morality of future generations.

The books are part of a trilogy, this book doesn't seem to be going so well for the good guys. It's seems like the Empire Strikes Back of the three. I wonder how much stuff will hit the fan before the end of the book. I never like the part of stories when things go bad. I like stories to be happy all the time.

I'm turning into a bit of a Birmo nut, this is the second book in a row I've read of his, third in five months, and I read his blog regulalarly. He sounds like a friendly guy, and he treats his blog readers well, I like him.

I went to a gathering of Youth Ministers from my area today. That and sending 4 emails was the only work I did all day. I did like the youth ministers hang out.

I got a mass email from a Youth Ministry person today asking if any of us who are on the list would be willing to speak in churches. If we are interested we're to send them a copy of one of our talks. That would be fun, but I did it 18 months ago and never got a response. Even with a follow up email I never got a response. I get the feeling I'm not the sort of speaker they're interested in. I'm not sure if offered my services again I'd seem incorrigible. Oh well. I'll decide later.

I finished reading my book, Weapons of Choice, yesterday. It was a fun book.

I had wanted to read it for ages after I read an article in the Herald a while ago that was written by John Birmingham (the author) about how he came to write the book. He said he was sitting in an airport wondering how hard it would be to write a trashy airport novel, so he made up an rough synopsis on a napkin. He showed it to his friend who decided it was good idea and submitted the idea to a publisher without him knowing. The publisher asked him to write the book, so he did. I think that's how the story went.

The book is about a Naval Carrier fleet from the year 2021 who get accidentally transported back in time to 1941 right in the middle of the US Navy group sailing for the Battle of Midway.

There's lots of shooting and the future ships are cool. All the future stuff is cool, because it's not over the top futuristic like 2001, everything seems to be a rather logical evolution of technology we have now. The weapons are especially fun. I love war books. And this book is even more exciting because I've often found myself thinking "If I went back in time with today's weapons I'd be able to kick butt." Which is a rather obvious conclusion, but it's always been an intriguing idea. So I was pleased when this book came out.

The good thing about the book is that it speculates on where the war on terror will take us over the next 15 years. Plus it looks at the differences in society in the 1940s and the near future. How would a white, all male, military react to a multi-racial, multi-gender force arriving in it's midst and having to work with it? It doesn't idealise either group really.

But beyond all the anthropological exploration, it's basically just a war book. And that's fun.

"He took the old man over to the window, threw open its shutters, and an explosion of midday heat and light instantaneously threw the room into an effulgent dazzle, as though some importunate and unduly luminous angel had mistakenly picked that place for an epiphany." - Louis de Bernières Captain Corelli's Mandolin

I was thinking the other night about writing a book. I thought "That'd be fun". Although I don't think I'd have anything to write about.

I decided it would be a book call something like "12: Twelve topics from Tom". Then I'd get family, friends, leaders, followers and strangers, to give me 12 different topics, and I'd write about them. The book would have twelve chapters. And an introduction by some famous theologian like John Stott or J.I. Packer. Or perhaps, someone more diverse, because it wouldn't be a theology book. Bono maybe. Yeah, Bono would write it. And it would be sold at Koorong, and ordered at K-mart.

Yeah.

All I have is a red gutair, three chords and the truth. - U2

Yeah. Bono's introduction might look something like this:

Aye, my good friend Tom. He's written a book.

I remember back a few years ago on a hot August morning (cold August night for Tom), I was eating my breakfast at the computer, eggs and toast, Ali cooked it for me. I was reading Tom's blog and I thought, "If this little bugger ever writes a book, I'm going to call him a self-indugent little prat." So I rang him then and there and told him. "If you ever write a book, I'll officially declare you a self-indulgent little prat."

He said "You're already a self-indulgent prat Bono, why can't I join the fun?"

I had to pay that, so now I'll let him join the ranks.

And then he'd probably quote the Message, because he likes the Message.

If I wrote a book it'd be like a paper version of my blog. Just longer, and less "day to day". And we don't need that in the world.

A found a verse in Ecclesiastes when I was preparing that I thought was worth putting on a blog:

The more the words,
the less the meaning,
and how does that profit anyone?

Ecclesiates 6:11

I might make that the thing on the said that says "Hold on everybody, it's Tom time!".

Irony, how we love irony.

I finished reading the first Harry Potter book today. Now my dilema is, do I read the second one before I buy and watch the dvd or do I wait and read it after I read The Two Towers? I think at this present time, I want to buy the dvd now.

Now I just changed my mind. Oh dear.

It's a hard life.

Well here I am at college. Again. It being Monday and all. Yesterday was Sunday and I went to church. I comitted myself to going to Canberra on Saturday too. I went to a picnic for people who were 20-30 and I took my Sunday morning group to McDonalds as a bit of an end of year thing. That was fun. As I get to know the kid's at this church better, I like them more. I guess that's how it goes. They're a good bunch.



We went to the shopping centre today after college. I wanted to go to HMV and get my diskman, redeeming my 15 Coke labels. Sadly there were none there. They had run out of diskmans till late May. What a bum. That'll be like after The Matrix Reloaded. My whole life is mesured around that film at the moment. That and the release of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets on dvd (Friday, yay!) and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix in the shops.



I pre-ordered my copy of the book the other day and bought the first book. I'm thinking I'll re-read them all before I read the fifth one. They're so cool.



Yay for Harry Potter, Neo, Trinity and Morpheus.