Return

I did just spend 3 days on camp, but I don't think now will be the time to talk about it because I'll be up all night and I want to go to bed.

What I will say though is that I broke my 2 year McDonald's fast on the way to camp this weekend. I was so hungry and the only place to eat was McDonald's. So I got a large McOz meal. I was hoping that it would taste great because I hadn't had one for so long. But it was rather dull as Maccas tends to be. Anyway, I returned to the McDonald's eating community on Friday night. I'm not sure if it's a perminant return but I think I've made my point. At least, if I had a point to make, I would have made it. Sadly I still am unsure why I stopped eating McDonald's so here I am.

The Macca's fast: 15th May 2004-26th May 2006. May it hold hold heart diease and obesity off just that little longer.

I went to the dentist today. He put a filling in the hole that the root canal man gave me. Now I think the tooth is done, fully treated. Hooray. Only 3 months later and tooth one is fixed. Now for the one that's not actually there, and they've hardly started on that.

I'm going on camp this weekend. Camps are not the easiest things in the world to organise. Lucky I'm the most organised person in the world.

Tapped Off

I am continually reminded that this world is falling apart. Decay is everywhere. My discman broke recently. How unhappy. Now I don't listen to music when I travel.

This house has a disagreements with light globes and regularly blows them.

And our bathroom door broke a while ago which meant we had to shower and go to the toilet with no door. It did wonders for the inner-exhibitionist in me.

Now the cold tap on our shower has died. So I bought some new taps today at the hardware shop. I thought it's just be take off the old tap whack on the new one, but no, the new tap doesn't fit! They looked the same from the front. So now I own two taps, but still our cold tap is dead. I'll have to go see if I can find a to fit this time. Other wise we'll have to call the land lady, but I don't want that to happen. It'll be like admitting defeat. Although I reckon that's the likely outcome.

We Built this City

I had the song "We Built this City" stuck in my head all night on Friday. Except the only thing in my head was We built this city, we built this city on rock and roll.

So I went and found the song on iTunes and downloaded it, expecting some kind of 80s rock classic. But alas the only thing good about the song is the bit I was singing. The rest of it is rather embarrassing for the whole human race. If ever we meet aliens we'll have to get to know them really well before we play them that song.

Although if I was a really good musician I'd use the chorus and write a new song around it. But it wouldn't be a rock song. Maybe a rather melancholic "Blower's Daughter" kinda track. How cool would that be?

I reckon I had a pretty good day today. I'm not sure that there was anything particularly special, I was just happy. Sundays usually leave me feeling exhausted and a bit flat, but today was happy. Jon, Helen and I went to dinner at some trendy Newtown place tonight and I had the biggest cafe glass of Coke I've ever had. It was tops. I was in heaven.

I love Coke.

I just watched Over the Top an 80s classic. Stallone arm wrestling his way into the heart of his disenfranchised 12 year-old son. It's doesn't get much better then that.

Here I am again
Back on the corner again
Back where I belong
Where I've always been
Everything the same
It don't ever change
I'm back on the corner again
In the healing game

Van Morrison - The Healing Game

Love Again

We did Love Is again tonight at an Anglican Church in the bit of Sydney I don't like. It was the first time we've been invited to perform this show outside of Black Stump or Soul Survivor, so it was fun.

I preached at the end, almost exactly the same message that I gave almost a year ago at church. It was weird doing it again. Going over it this week has been like being an actor getting back into character. I was in a different place last year when I wrote the talk and I had to get back there, conjure up the feelings and remember why I wrote what I did. It seems strange to talk about preaching like acting, but I guess it's only really about finding authenticity because there's nothing worse than a preacher who isn't authentic. Except maybe nuclear weapons and AIDS and domestic violence. But apart from those, and probably quite a few other things, there's nothing worse than a preacher who isn't authentic.

Anyway, it was good. The show was good. There is many a talented person involved. And I felt like the message went alright. So yeah.

Tomorrow I'm off to a first aid course. Yeehaa. I love first aid. I want to save everyone's life.

Fight Night

I went to the Mundine v Green fight at Aussie Stadium last night. I went with Matt, Mitch, Graham, and Matt's friend Jess. What a fun night it was. We five guys were just a small contribution to a stadium full of testosterone. I doubt you get many sporting events with a greater gender imbalance than there was last night.

Mitch, Graham and I arrived at 5pm (after a killer steak at the pub up the road from home), right at the beginning for 5 hours of undercard fights. There were 11 fights all up, and when you sit through 5 hours of men punching each other your attention sometimes wanes. You tend to watch some fights with interest and others barely register. But happily there was pleanty of other stuff to keep you interested. Like watching what happens on the field when two rival bikie gangs walk past and get surrounded by nervous cops. Or watching the reaction of the crowd when the women advertsing "men's entertainment" come near. Or seeing the look in the eyes of the man who drops his bottle of rum which you pick up for him and he thinks your going to steal it. Things like that. There was plenty to keep you interested.

On the undercard one of my two favouirte moments was when a fighter names Clinton who was knocked out one and half minutes in. He got punched, rather lightly it looked, then half a second later seemed to loose the will to fight and just drop. He didn't seem to actually get knocked out, the punch just seemed to be an excuse to get out. It was rather funny to watch. But you probably had to be there.

The other highlight (if you can call it that) was seeing Hoppa's proffessional debut. He was set up against this big, 45 year-old guy who looked like Lando Calrissian (who I mistook for Boba Fett, what a bad Star Wars fan I am). Hoppa came into the ring with the most excitement that anyone recieved who wasn't Mundiene or Green. And then went on to destroy the guy in 47 seconds. It was pretty massive. Poor old guy, one can't help but thinking he wasn't there because anyone thought he'd beat Hoppa.

When 10pm rolled around it was time for the main event, so after an Aboriginal smoking cerimony the fighters were brought out with much fanfair, booing and cheering. I was going for Green because I think Mundine talks himself up too much.

The fight was good. Green came out looking better for the first few rounds but never seemed to dominate. But Mundine had the stamina and managed to come out looking better at the end. But both fighters, as far as my amature eyes could tell did good. It was a close fight, but sadly Mundine did that bit better. And it really was sad.

When the fight finished Mitch gave me a lift home, but we sat in the carpark listening to Spoonman (and other Triple MMM late night-ness) first for the better part of an hour waiting for some movement. It was sad. I think walking may have been quicker.

I don't need more stuff, but gosh I want more.

Yay for the Government

While generally I won't be saying the above title, it looks like the change to copyright laws are close to becoming a reality. That makes me happy. Finally the Liberals are doing something I like. I still won't vote for them though.

Today I'm going to the movies. And how I love the movies.

The hygenist told me to floss regulalry. So I have. Twice.

24 odd hours

I was writing my sermon for tonight yesterday afternoon and I got a call from my Dad telling me that our dog, Tassa was very sick (she's been sick for months) and was probably going to die soon, and asking me if I would like to go and see the dog. So Jo and I hopped in the car and headed out to Hornsby for one last visit with the dog that we grew up with.

When we arrived Tassa stood up a greeted us. She wagged her tail, and we were told that that was the first time she'd moved all day. She was really sick, she was finding it really hard to breath, and couldn't lie down because she was so uncomfortable. She'd been standing up for 24 hours.

After a family conference we decided that we should take her too the vet to have her put down, rather than delay the inevitable.

At that stage it was about 6pm, so Dad called the after hours vet and arranged to meet her at the clinic. We picked up Tassa and all walked out to the car. As we were walking out, Hannah was amazingly perceptive and kept waving at Tassa saying "Bye bye Tassa, bye bye."

When we arrive at the vet, the Vet told us what was going to happen. She was just going to overdose Tassa on anesthetic and she would just drift off to sleep. When the Vet went out to get the stuff, we decided to send Hannah out with my Auntie while the procedure happened. So we sent Hannah over to pat Tassa one last time, she patted Tassa and said "Bye bye Tassa" and as she did that Tassa seemed to try to stand up or something and then she just went limp and stopped breathing. Most of the family were holding on to Tassa at the time. Mum called the Vet in, who had a listen to her heart and told us that it was slowing down, then her heart stopped all together and she was dead. All of us were there, in the room, we didn't have to get her put down, and she died as pleasantly as you could hope for. It was an amazing. It was like God had it all figured out. I am amazed at the graciousness of God, that he would orchestrate the death of even an old, rather insignificant, family dog.

I carried Tassa out to the car and we took her home and buried her in the bush. It was rather sad, as much as she was a nuisance sometimes, she was also our cute little dog. I'd grown up with her, she'd been in my life for 15 years, and I was always fond of her, even if I didn't do a real good job as showing it ("Tassa, shut up!" isn't exactly the greatest show of affection). And now our little dog is gone.

After that I stayed at my parents house writing the sermon. I was meant to go to a party last night, but the dog stuff got in the way.

On the way to work this morning I was driving down a road near church, and I saw a cyclist get hit by a car. He was riding on the left between parked cars and the car in front of me. The car turned to go into driveway just as the cyclist was riding past it and he got hit. He went up onto the bonnet then onto the ground.

I pulled over to see if I was needed, but I felt rather inadequate. It happened right outside the local oval so there were people everywhere. People stopped and came running and were on their phones and everything. I figured I was probably a little redundant, so when was sure there was nothing I could be doing I headed off to church. It was all a bit of a shock really. I hope the guy's ok. He looked like he would be. I hope the people in the car are ok too. I'm sure it's not easy coping with something like that.

So that was my odd 24 hours. The rest of the day was pretty normal. I did mother's day lunch with Mother and family which was nice. I visited the local retirement village with my diminishing youth group (there isn't a lot of enthusiasm for hanging out with old people) which was special, because it's always good visiting, blessing and being blessed by the people there. And I preached tonight which went better than I thought it would.

This is the athiest worship song Uncle Jaffa sang at Soul this year.

I Believe in Nothing

Verse 1
I believe that billions cells
Formed to become a fish,
Which climbed out of the sea
Then climbed into a tree
And into my home
And that Fish/Ape/Man is me
That Fish/Ape/Man is me

Bridge
If you go to the heights of the earth
You’ll find nothing
If you to depths of the sea
You’ll find nothing

Chorus
In the universe it’s plain to see
There’s no God there’s just you and me
I will sing with my lungs and be proud
From the rooftops I’ll shout it out loud
“I believe in nothing”

Verse 2
I believe in the really big bang
When nothing collided with nothing
And formed into something
And on that something grew an ocean
And a mountain here or there
And conveniently some air
Conveniently some air

Bridge
If you go to the heights of the earth
You’ll find nothing
If you to depths of the sea
You’ll find nothing

Chorus
In the universe it’s plain to see
There’s no God there’s just you and me
I will sing with my lungs and be proud
From the rooftops I’ll shout it out loud
“I believe in nothing”

Tag
Let us eat and drink
for tomorrow we die

Fire

One day I would like to disappear for many years, the come back with a big beard and a tanned, jungle-man body, and be wearing the skins of animals that I have killed and eaten in the wild. And when I arrive I will walk into the building (whatever building I first walk into) and say: "I have returned to set this world on fire and burn it to the ground."

Speaking of burning, it's sad to hear about St Barney's burning down. Jon saw it this morning as we drove past. Happily no one was hurt.

Hooray for free miners!

Travel Fun

Tomorrow I'm going to catch a bus all the way from the city to my work. Of course, that's not a big deal for lots of people but for me, well, I'm excited. I do love a good bus adventure these days, now that I'm not so scared of buses. They really were things of fear.

Howie and I want to go on a transport challenge like on "Top Gear". We're going to start in Newcastle then race from Newcastle to some obscure place in Melbourne as quickly as possible. One group will go in the car the other on public transport (including planes). I'm hoping more people want to do it because I reackon it'd be way fun if you didn't have to do it alone. Plus, I'd quite like to be on the public transport team.

I do it with my small group or something, but I'm not sure parents would want to shell out $100 or so dollars for a day's worth of transport fun.

Saturday Home

I'm home today and it's Saturday. I haven't got around to making anything happen today. I have a few ideas about how to fill my time today. I'll see what happens.

I'm happy to see the new Superman Returns trailer. Oh how exciting is Superman? The most wonderful superhero of all time I reckon. I'm so excited. Sadly the day the film comes out is the day after I leave Australia for Russia so I'm not sure where I'll see the film. I will refuse to watch it on a plane. I reckon if nothing else I'll go see it in England some where.

I found out last night that at the Enmore Theatre they're having a Breakdancing festival or something. I thought, how cool to go see that, but alas I will be out of the country for that too.

I went to see Dave Chappelle's Block Party last night with Ryan and Libby. It was cool. Lot's of lovely people who I want to be friends with. And it made me laugh. And it had lots of hip hop. Hip hop really is growing on me. I think when I get a car it'll have to have a good sound system, woofers, tweeters and them other ones, so I can listen to hip hop loudly and feel "pretty fly". Yo, wassup dawg?!?

We played Lock On at youth group last night. It's a laser tag game that you can play at home. When I was a young lad there were few of us who bought sets, and they're still around and going strong. They are much fun. Anyway we played it at church last night and it was most enjoyable. We ran around shooting each other. I wasn't very good at staying alive but I was good at killing people. In the first game I managed to obliterate a team of three almost single handedly. And that, my friends, is why you should always play all games against 11 year-olds who have never played before.

Although after that they got a bit wiser so I died with more regularity and with less success. That was because they learnt how to play and that they could reset their lives mid game by turning the switch on their headset on and off. Oh well, I guess it was a practical demonstration that eternal life comes to the shrewd and dishonest. Which is exactly what we like to teach at church.

Yesterday I was at the bus stop and some girls from the local high school who I've had for scripture seminars came up to me and said "We've decided that we love you more than Jesus."

I wasn't sure what to do with that. But we had a fun conversation.

Today I had no car. And it was good.

I am very tempted to stay up late tonight but I should sleep. Sleep is good for me.

The car broke down again today.

We were on our way to work, Helen and I, and smoke started to come out of the hand brake. We thought it was best that the car not be driven anymore.

I was writing a sermon tonight but I felt too dodgy to write so I spent the night sitting around the table with my sister and Jem telling stories of our lack of love lives.

Now I'm sleeping. I guess tomorrow will have to be sermon day. As well as everything else day.

Whole Lotta Soul

I haven't really recapped Soul yet. So I figure I will before I go to bed. I really am very tired right now. I haven't recovered yet, and I've been sleeping in my own bed since Saturday night.

But what was I saying?

Oh yeah. I reckon I'm gonna write in categories. That'd be new and interesting.

Youth

Taking a bunch of youth away on camp for a week is a scary, silly idea, and a lot of fun. I always complain about having to go and camp in St Ives. "I mean who camps in St Ives?" that's my line. But still I do it. We camped on the oval this year. That was good, flat soft and the domain of roaming dogs and their poo. Oh yeah and bees. For some reason there were heaps of bees at our campsite. But they only stung once so we coped.

Anyway, so I spent the week camping with 26 people from my youth group and we were joined by more each day. And it was all a lot of fun. I do like seeing young people regularly. Spending a week with some of my favourite people was cool. Even if every night that I sent people to bed I was told "You used to be cool Tom." Although I guess I should be flattered that I was ever considered cool in the first place.

It's also great to see them getting challenged and inspired. I guess that's a lot of the reason why we were there.

Probably the biggest disappointment of the week, youth wise, was on Friday night when I promised everyone they could stay up as late as they wanted. I got all rugged up for a long cold night, and sat down in the middle of the oval ready to stay up till 3 or 4am and we got kicked off the oval by a security guard at 1am. How sad is that? Last year when we stayed up it was one of the funnest nights of the conference. But this year, well, no fun. And then I felt like a bad person because I'd promised everyone they could stay up then had to send them all to bed. Plus everytime people got annoyed at me for sending them to bed on the other nights I just said to myself "It's ok, I'll be nice to them on Friday night". But it didn't work like that. Oh well. I'll figure out a way to fix that next year.

Donny Jaffa

Every year we push the envelope with Donny, and this year was no exception. This year I had lots of people coming up to me saying "Were you allowed to say that?" But I guess that's half the fun of Donny, doing what you shouldn't be doing.

I think this year was the Donny Jaffa Show's best year. It was the year I felt best about. There is always huge pressure to "be funny" but I think I'm learning how that best happens. I haven't got it figured all yet, but I think I've learnt over years. Who would have thought I'd end up doing a comedy show? I must be nuts, I'll get high cholesterol.

The guests this year were all superb. Matt was very smooth and helped me out of a tough spot or two. Ali was funny and played the whole "Donny crush" thing real well. Mike was great. It was very hard to remain straight faced working with Mike. Ben was great. For a quiet Canadian he really packed a punch. I think he beat Uncle Jaffa. And Suzie was funny. She did really well especially since she wasn't playing herself and only had about 30 minutes notice.

For one of the nights I played Uncle Jaffa, Donny's atheist Uncle. Basically Uncle jiffy was an excuse to have a deep voice and to sing an atheistic worship song. And that's about all he was. People liked the song, but there wasn't much more to him other than that. It was wonderful when Ben tried to convert him because it put me in the difficult position of not being able to betray the character by becoming a Christian, and not wanting to disappoint the crowd by refusing. In the end I stormed off the stage opting for character over crowd appeal.

The UK crew are really good to Donna. They're fans and very supportive. Especially when I realised that many UK people don't seem to get the jokes, so it's good to have them supporting me, encouraging me and "getting it".

Donny did take a lot away from the conference for me. I didn't get to any seminars because I was burning DVDs the whole time. And whenever I met someone who knew I was Donny all they'd talk about was Donny. It made me feel rather self-obsessed because I kept having to have conversations about me, Donny and the show. I had to work to change the conversation to other things. Oh well.

"Wisdom with Tabitha" was good again. Jem's real tops, she plays Tabitha well. Tabitha always outshines Donny and rightly so I guess.

This year's new video "Amy's Video Diary" was definately the find of the year. I didn't know Suzie, who played Amy, from a bar of soap at the beginning of the conference. Actually that's not true, if you put her and a bar of soap in a room together I reckon I could tell them apart. Unless of course the soap was made into a really life like statue of Suzie and she stood really still. Anyway that's all beside the point. I was a little worried taking on a stranger to do 4 nights of video segment, but she did great. She was funny and good at working without a script. It was cool.

Um yeah. So that's Donny. Someone got their photo taken with me this year. I felt famous.

Meetings

The main meetings were good fun. Matt got different people to speak at every meeting which was interesting. There was a guy called Jim Yost who's one of those crazy, full on missionary guys. He was real cool. He challenged us in how we did evangelism and took risks. I liked having him verbally kick my spiritual butt.

We had a different worship leader most days too. I liked that. I think I liked the variety they all bought to their stuff.

I'm not sure I have much more to say about the meetings. The ministry times weren't as full on as other years. But that's neither here nor there. God still did stuff.

All up

I had fun this year. I didn't feel like it was a really spiritually significant week. But I did enjoy having plenty of time to spend with God even if it wasn't all life changing. I had good times singing and good times sitting alone reading my Bible. Plus there are heaps of cool people at Soul. People a good. I'm very glad I went. I'm even glad I camped. But still, who camps in St Ives?

Gluttons and Drunkards

I was talking to my house (the people not the building) last night about the party. And they asked me why I liked the party, especially the fact that it wasn't a "Christian" party. Why did I like the fact that people got drunk and smoked pot when I'm not exactly one who does either of those things? I told them because I think it's the kind of party that Jesus would go to. I was lying in bed at 3:something am on Monday night thinking, "These people are the "gluttons" and the "drunkards"" Well probably not gluttons because there was very little food at the party, and most people weren't drunk. But there were the people there who did drink and did smoke pot and how often do you meet them at church parties?

But I had a great time meeting different people, dancing with different people, seeing that my house was full of people from all different parts of life. Some who you'd never find in a church but I get to hang out with them, build relationships with them, have fun with them, because they came to my party. I didn't invite them but I hope they come back. I didn't get to talk to them enough. I want to be friends with all sorts of people, even people who do things that I might not necessarily agree with, because they're people worth being friends with. And people who Jesus would have been friends with.

I also enjoyed having Christians at my party, because well, I love them too.

"The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, 'Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and "sinners." ' - Jesus (That's my man!)

I've been creating a dvd of all the Donny Jaffa dvds. I've been meaning to do this for years, but I've finally gotten around to making it happen. There are a lot of videos. I think there are 30 individual films on the dvd. That's heaps.

I spent all yesterday making it happen and now I'm burning my first copy hooray.

Actually scrap that. My DVD program just told me one of the videos was encoded with a bit rate that's too high. Grrr. Back the to burning board.

Warming

Last night's party was good fun. I'm not usually a fan of big parties. But this one was good. We probably had about 100 or more people here. It was rather squishy in this little house of mine.

I spent most of my time up stairs in mine and Jon's room chatting to people. That probably made the many people sardineing in my house more manageable.

The party kicked on till about 3am. We ended the night dancing to Michael Franti. I grooved, dude.

The thing I really liked about the party was that there were so many different types of people there. We all have very different friends. And all lovely friends as far as I can tell. There may have been some crashers but we wouldn't have known that.

The other good thing was that the party wasn't like most of the Christian parties I attend these days. It went past 11:30pm and there was pot smoking and drunk people. I haven't been to a party like that since high school, and I only got invited to three then.

So it was good. I am happy our house has been warmed by so many different friendly people.

It's house warming party tonight and the only people left are the one who are sitting in the corner wearing dresses or stumbling around drunk. It's cool. I think commie house parties should end like this.

I have come home from Soul Survivor. It finished tonight. I'm tired and I have a sunburnt nose.

Donny seems to be coming together. I'm not as organised as last year, but I'm using a different approach this year. It's the less organised approach. Plus I'm planning on making segments of Donny at Soul this year too.

For those who are lost, I have to put together a DVD for every night I do the Donny Jaffa Show at Soul Survivor. And I usually show two video segments for every night I'm at Soul. This year I've done the usual "Wisdom with Tabitha" segements and I'm shooting the video diary of a camper at Soul. But those videos have to be shot at Soul so I'm not making the DVDs till I get to Soul this year. It should be a little nerve racking but hopefully it'll give us a more on the ball product.

Anyway I should go and at least create a show for tomorrow night so I'm ready there. And then I might go to bed because I have a bit to do tomorrow.

2404

This is post 2404.

Jem and I filmed "Wisdom with Tabitha" today. It's always fun doing Tabitha. It's embarrassing when you find yourself laughing at your own script. But then, I guess if I don't find my own jokes funny there is little chance other people will find it funny.

I had to go up the Hardy's Bay to shoot today because that's where Jem was. It's strange, we've been living in the same house for the past two months, but when we finally get around to filming Tabitha I have to drive 160kms to do it.

I got the Hannahvan back for those who are wondering. I got it on Thursday. I was getting a lift to work with Helen and the fix-it man called and said "Your car's ready". So I told him I'd be there soon. Seeing as we were driving straight past the mechanic I decided it would be easy.

The hard though was when I found out the cost: $1202 and I had to come up with it between the City and Chatswood. But I did it. And now I don't ever want the car to break down again. I'm sure it will comply with my wishes.

It's Easter but I haven't really noticed. That's no good. Lucky I can celebrate Jesus' death and resurrection any day of the year.

I'm Every Woman

I got a letter yesterday telling me I have a one year free membership to the YWCA (Young Woman's Christian Association).

On my welcome sheet it tells me that some of the benefits include:

- Membership in the premier women's organisation in Sydney
- Sisters in 90 countries around the world
- Quarterly Newsletters containing hot off the press issues and events for women.

I never knew I was going to be part of the club, but with benefits like that, how could I refuse.

I had a craving for hot chips today. So I bought some.

Yesterday I bought a mic for my camera. It's kinda swish. I hope it works.

Community Service

The Ashley Madison Agency is "committed to protecting and enhancing principles of personal freedom and social justice."

Ashley Madison is a website, set up like a dating website, except it for people who are already in relationships. It's designed to help people set up affairs.

Now I'd call that "personal freedom and social justice."

She Swears that She's Artsy

I went to Chris' 21st tonight. Parties are funny things. You go and stand around with a bunch of people, talk, drink, listen to speeches, then go home. There's no real goal to the whole thing. I guess the idea is to have a good time. I tend not to ever spend much time at the party talking to the person who's party it is. I always feel like they're too important to talk to me. Like when the bride or groom talk to me at the wedding, I always feel pretty special. They're like royalty and they come to talk to me.

Anyway, tonight was a good-er party. Chris and friends were the invited band, and they did well. But they seemed to get the best response when they started dancing. Chris has some mean moves up is sleeves, or would that be trouser legs? Although that sounds a little wrong.

Feel Good Movie of the Year

Ryan, Libby and I watched Wolf Creek tonight. It was a very well made movie, but not particularly pleasent. It made me wonder what the film added to the world.

The first half of the film was good. It was about 3 people on a road trip. It made me want to road trip. But the last half was just about a guy trying to kill and torture the three people who were having a good time.

It was probably the best made horror movie I've seen. But I'm not sure that well made can still justify its existence. It was pretty bleak and didn't leave me feeling at all like it was time well spent.

Oh well, I'll remember for next time.

Goats

I went and saw the Belvoir production of Edward Albee's "The Goat or, Who is Sylvia?" tonight. It was probably one of the most bizarre, unpleasant and disturblingly funny theatre experiences I have ever had. I liked it.

The play is about a family who have to deal with the revelation that their billiant and successful husband/father is having an affair with a goat. The play is so intense, it makes lots of shocking beastiality jokes, and it makes you watch the whole thing feeling horrified. You're laughing but there's no laughter in you. You watch as each character gets torn apart, their worlds come down, and you can find no way that the things are going to end well.

It was interesting that when the play finished some people just sat there looking shell shocked, most people seemed to look at each other and laugh (as we did), because there's nothing else you can do.

Albee seemed to be forcing us to ask questions about what limits there should be on our moral freedoms. Are our own subjective ideas about morality tearing apart what is most sacred? Does the idea that anything goes, "do what's good for you", really work? As one character put it: "What can get I get away with? That's what it's about for you? What I can get away with? I thought it was about love and loss."*

It was a good play. I'd see it again actually to try and figure it out better. Maybe I should buy the script. There were some fabulous lines. And in the end I was left to walk away trying to figure us all out.

"'You like the taste of blood,' he says. The boy shrugs. 'A poet's work,' he answers. 'To name the unnamable, to point at frauds, to take sides, start arguements, shape the world and stop it from going to sleep.'" - Salman Rushdie - "The Satanic Verses"

*Perhaps not quite that, but close

Why Everyone Loves Men

"We keep mistresses for pleasure, concubines for daily concubinage, but wives in order to produce children legitimately and to have a trustworthy guardian of our domestic property"

Apollodorus - some old, dead, Greek guy

Snotty Nose and Juicy Goss

I finished cleaning my room in Hornsby today. Only 6 weeks after I moved out. My mum will be so pleased. She's been bugging me about it for weeks.

I got hay-fever because there was so much dust in my room. Vacuuming up all the dust and cobwebs felt like I was vacuuming up the remnants of my history in that room. There was so much of my life that I lived through in that room, all my teenage years, and now I'm out. My adolescence is gone up the vacuum tube. As James says, my life is like a mist that is around for a little while and then is gone.

I got sent some psychological tests for my candidacy today. They look fun. I like psychological tests, they're good fun. Probably because I like talking about myself. I have to sign a form though saying that I won't copy them or reproduce the tests in anyway. How sad. They may ask me crazy questions like "Saturday is the best day for torturing small animals. a)agree b)disagree c)unsure" and I won't be able to blog it. What's the point of that? What's the point of life if you can't blog it? Bah!

Perhaps the people who are considering my application for candidacy will Google me and find this blog. If so "Hello to all you candidacy selectors. I love Jesus."

They may find lots of juicy info about me here, but I doubt it. All the most juicy stuff I left off. Like all the secret affairs I've had with Wiccan Priestesses. That's for the other blog.

Inner Sadness

I went to find my car today. On my way home, when it was all dark and quiet on the back streets of Chatswood I went to visit the Hannahvan just to make sure she's safe, and not covered in parking tickets, and there she was, sitting there safe and sound. Although she looked so lonely, sitting there on a dark, unfamiliar, road. I almost cried. It was sad, I rarely feel love for that car, but I didn't like seeing her lonely. Tomorrow I'll go and take her to get sorted out.

Friday Night Fun

Last night after my small group social I drove home. At least started to drive home. But around Chatswood my car started making popping noises. That worried me some. Then they started to get louder and I started seeing visions of my car exploding into a massive ball of flame. My engine was super hot, boiling and bubbling away. I pulled over into a side street, found a place to park (deep in the heart of side-street-urbia cause it took me ages somewhere I could park), locked the car and left. I rang Jo to ask her when buses went through the Chatswood area to the City, but she and her friend kindly just came and drove me home. How very nice of them.

So now the Hannahvan is parked quietly somewhere in Chatswood, and I'll have to get a tow-truck to go get it. Grr. I reckon tow-trucks aren't cheap. Or maybe I can get Lubemobile, my mobile mechanic, to come and fix it. That could be good.



At the Bus Stop waiting for Jo.

Hook Ups

I was reading this blog post (I'm not a big fan of the whole commercialised blogs thing) on SMH today about Hooking Up. It's the idea that you have a friend who you sleep with regularly but you don't have any great commitment to. You don't have any of the relationship, not the phone calls or the dates or the need to meet the parents, just all the sex. It's like Super Pash-Pals.

I read about it a few months ago Cosmo too (I was waiting in the Check-out line, that's all, honest!) I found it disconcerting. What's kinda disconcerting is not that it's happening, because it was obvious that it was happening before they were writing about it in mainstream publications, but that it's so accepted that it is written about in mainstream publications without a trace of questioning that there might be anything wrong with it.

The assessment that I'm currently procrastinating from is about the passage in 1 Corinthians about people going to prostitutes. I've been reading about Corinth as a result. Corinth was a city that loved its sex. They had prostitutes at their temple and the way you worshiped was by having sex with prostitutes (I reckon that's probably an easy way to boost church attendance). Wives were encouraged not to be worried if their husbands were sleeping around because that was the natural way of things. Just like the stomach is designed for food, so our sexual organs are designed for sex. Everyone seemed to be happy to have sex with everyone.

It strikes me (as it seems to have struck many people) that Sydney, and much of the western world, is just like this. Sex isn't special, it just feels good. Sex is natural so everyone should feel free to do it. A hook-up is just the convenient way to keep yourself satisfied when you're too busy to commit to a relationship.

Nothing is new in all this, perhaps societies just go through cycles. They get less conservative, then there's a moral revolution, and things get more conservative. Human nature doesn't change, just our public acceptances of our sexual behaviour does.

I was thinking the other day, that if it was scandalous for a bikini to be worn 60 years ago (incidentally this year is the 60th anniversary of the modern bikini, I suspect there'll be world wide UN endorsed celebrations), then what will be scandalous for people to wearing (or not wearing) in 60 years time? Or will the moral revolution have come by then?

Anyway, I've been distracted by women's swim wear. I guess all this reminds me that, as a Christian, the more this happens the more I get alienated from society by my sexual morals. I've talked to people about it before and we seem to have come to the conclusion that it's our views on sex rather than anything else that most obviously defines us against general society. It should be our love, but in reality it's our lack of free-love. While I'm sure this will always be the case as long as we're going against one of our society's most worshipped past-times, I guess I wish we could be known for something different.

In the mean time I'll join my Muslim friends in being a prudish abstainer till marriage. I know it's un-cool, but I was never all that cool anyway.

I have an essay due in tomorrow, but by 8pm tonight it wasn't looking like I was going to get it finished at any reasonable hour. So I did some research and found that I only lose 5% for every week I'm late. So all incentive to finish it went out the window and I went out the door to the Pub.

I'll do it by next Friday. Yeah that sounds good.

Walking Away

Matt said:

"I've been thinking about the need to have the ability and the willingness to walk away from my faith if my faith is going to be real."

I'd love you to post about this one. I don't understand what you mean...

So I will.

I've been thinking about the fact that a faith without questions isn't really a growing, costly faith. The more we ask questions of faith and the more we get answers, the stronger (or weaker) our faith gets.

Those questions need to be real questions, where if you get the "wrong" answer you are willing to walk away from your faith. If we aren't willing to act on the answers to our questions, even if we don't get the answer that we want, then our faith is not faith, it's habit or ritual. Faith must be able to stand up to our questions, and if it doesn't we need to be able to chuck in the towel. We need to maintain the possibility that all we believe could be wrong otherwise our faith loses its value. Faith finds its values through the existance of doubt. There always has to be the possibility that you can chuck in the towel or how will your commitment ever be real? You won't be there because of your belief, you'll be there because stupidity or fear maintianing the status quo because that's what you do.

That's why you need to be able to walk away.

For those who may be interested, I have no plans to walk away from my faith. And all my questioning comes up good. I have always found God to be faithful. I'm not going anywhere, I'm just open to the option incase one day I find it's all been an embarrassing hoax.

Yellowcard

I have heard that these guys aren't all that cool. I like them, I bought their cd a few weeks ago and it ain't too bad. Not too to bad for a bit of pop/punk. Perhaps that's their problem, ponk ain't cool.

They're a lot better than some teeny/middle-aged whingers (only musically of-course).

United Disconnected

I bought the new Hillsong United ablum on iTunes the other day and burnt it onto a cd. It's kinda fun. The beginning and the end of the album is good.

But the problem with the burnt cd is that I hadn't figured out how to take out the gaps between tracks yet (I've figured it out now) and since the cd has many tracks leading into each other, it's funny (and a bit annoying) when you have a the drummer count the band in and then there's a two second gap till the actual song starts. Perhaps it's like that gap between the life of Christ and his return to bring the Kingdom. But I reckon that's pushing it.

Falling in Love

Last night we were asked "If you could marry any fictional character, who would they be?"

I thought about it for ages and I couldn't think of who I'd go for. I know I've gotten crushes on people in books and films before, but I can't figure out who I'd marry, or even go out with. It's so sad. I need to go stare at the bookselves around my house.

I'll get back to you.

How about you? Thoughts anyone?

Thinking About It

Sometimes I have big thoughts floating around my brain. Sometimes I spend a lot of time thinking about rather insignificant things. Like I have spent a lot of time thinking about the best way to drive from my house to work or other places. And I have spent a lot of time considering all the different variables that there are for the trip.

I have been thinking about old school people because of the primary school reunion/birthday party on the other night. I'm not sure what I've been thinking. Perhaps meeting people from the past, who have been changed over time, who you haven't seen in between, warps your memory. Suddenly you're mixing the knowledge of who the person has become with the person they were.

I've been thinking about Avatars and what a beautiful idea they seem to be (as long as you don't look at the pictures, I'm not a big fan of Hindi art. I like Hindus though). How I wish I could call some people avatars and not feel idolotrous or like I'm betraying my faith.

I've been thinking about the need to have the ability and the willingness to walk away from my faith if my faith is going to be real.

I've been thinking about the future and how three years can feel like a long time and not very long at exactly the same time.

I've been thinking about the need to be vulnerable. Why do I appear invulnerable? Do I appear invulnerable? Do I express weakness as often as I feel it? Do I share pain when I feel it? Should there be more to being vulnerable than just being a means to the end of solving whatever the problem is? Or is it all over-rated?

I've been thinking about keeping my thoughts to myself.

I've been wondering, am I a bad person to live with?

I've been thinking about letting everyone down and I'd how I'd like to avoid that if possible. Failure is not an enticing option.

I've been thinking about how much fun it would be to see someone play at the Enmore Theatre.

I've been thinking about getting fit.

I'm always thinking about getting fit.

Just beyond the front and middle of my mind is the feeling that my life is always in the air, always waiting for the next thing, always looking forward, never ready to say "I've arrived". Some call this a discontentment, some call it holy discontentment. One is bad the other is good. One says enjoy the now, learn to be, learn the secret of contentment. The other says, this is not all there is, you'll never be content, you are an alien in this world. Maybe my key is to learn to be content to be discontented. This comes up regularly.

I've been wanting to find more time to have fun.

That spoof ad of the new Tourism campain is pretty funny.

I hired an XL2 to do test filming stuff for the next Breakthru Artz project. Ohhh baby, it's a real nice camera. I want my own.

Party On

We had a surprise party for youth group last night. It was a surprise party for the Aunty of some of the people in the group who no one else knew. It wasn't her birthday and there was no reason to throw her a party, we just did. It was a wonderfully absurd event.

We all got together and decorated the chruch centre, putting up streamers and balloons, making festive. Beck told us all that it wasn't just going to be the Aunty but her husband and kids. That worried me a little bit, especailly as I got the wrong impression that the kids were aged 1, 2 and 3. We had a few false alarms, I spent a few minutes squished into my hiding place in the dark, wondering if I had just planned the most stupid of youth group events. What if we scared the kids? Or the people don't like surprise parties from a bunch of stangers? Or what if it just flops and no one gets it?

But when they finally did arrive it all happened quite happily. It was a little odd saying "Surprise!" and then everyone having to go and introduce themselves. The family wandered in and we met them all. The kids were 7 and 11, not 1, 2 and 3. They were friendly, and not at all upset that we threw them a party. We all played "Draw the Tail on the Donkey" and "Musical Statues". It was all good fun, even if it was a rather odd thing to do. I'd do it again in a few years. Maybe.

Getting Lost

All this stuff about missing athletes at the Commonwealth Games is pretty funny I reckon. At least funny if they aren't in danger. I reckon if the only purpose that the games have served is giving people a chance to escape their country without having to jump on leaky boats then the games have served a good purpose.

I didn't think I'd say it, but hooray for the Commonwealth Games.

Heard a Story

I once heard a story about a man who was stuck down a hole and he couldn't get out. Lots of people were walking past and he was calling out to them. A priest walked past and he stopped and saw him, wrote a prayer on a piece of paper and threw it down to him . He told him to pray that pray so that God might look after him.

Another man was walking past and heard this guy calling out to him. When the man saw the predicament of the other man he hopped down into the whole.

"What did you do that for?" asked the first man "Now we're both stuck."

"Yes" replied the second man "but I have been here before and will show you the way out."


I'm not sure where I heard it, or if I've told the story right. But I remembered it then so I thought I'd blog it.

I got a hair cut today my mum says it's good because it hides my balding temples.

My fake tooth is sticking further out of my mouth think it used to. I think my other teeth are kicking it out. Perhaps I'll have to take anti-rejection drugs.

Plus my other big, front tooth seems to be dying, so perhaps my teeth have engaged in some kind of suicide pact, one of us goes, we all go. I wish they'd include me in these descions.

I was at work at 6am because I was preaching today and I needed to finish the sermon. I worked on it most of yesterday but I didn't get it finished.

Last night I went to Helen and Jon's engagement party and went home with Stephen to stay at his place so I didn't have to go all the way back home. He didn't have a computer which meant I could finish my sermon writing. So I got up at 5am and walked to church to finish the work.

Sadly I didn't sleep well last night. I kept waking up thinking I should be getting up. Then telling myself I should go back to sleep. Plus the pillows were too big. Oh well.

The sermon went well. I'll upload it at the blog soon.

It's too early to be at work.

Rebel

Tommy Lee (Motley Crew), Jason Newsted (Metallica) and Gilby Clarke (Guns N' Roses) are teaming up to form a super metal band called Supernova. But they need a singer. To find one they're going to do a series of "Rock Star" the reality TV show that found INXS' new front man.

Tommy Lee said: "We're going to pull out all the stops to find the most charismatic and musically talented lead singer to front Supernova. I love breaking the rules."

I fail to see how doing doing a reality TV show to find a lead singer is breaking the rules. I think I'd call it selling out. Unless he's means he's going to find a musically talented lead singer and that's breaking the rules. Sounds more plausable to me.

David Leaves Again



David's gone now.

We all went to the Airport way early to see him off. It wasn't nearly as painful as I thought it would be. 6am didn't feel like 6am. It was fun. It's much easier saying good bye a second time. He'll be back. And he'll stay in touch.

But it's still sad. David's pretty special.

I went to college after the airport. Today's discussion topics were prophesy, tongues, and women in church. All the controversial ones and I fell asleep many times.

Then it was off to work which mainly consisted of writing a Bible Study.

I have to preach on Sunday and my preparation is much further behind than I had planned. Oh well. I'll get there.

Good Bye

We had our last Commie Dinner with David before he goes to India. Everyone loves David. Everyone said nice things about him. He deserved them all.

Getting On

I just read an article where a Youth Minister was moaning about being old and at the bottom it said he was a six year youth ministry veteran. Gosh, it must be sad if you're a veteran after 6 years. Youth Ministers don't really stick around much. If you count my years in voluntary Youth Ministry I'm a 7 year veteran. But I'll be around for a bit longer.

"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. Unless, of course he's a vegetarian, then he won't care, ungrateful bastard."

I love my Tool kit

I just fixed the roller door to our bathroom. It came of it's rail this morning. I have grease on my fingers.

I have a new screwdriver too that cost me $2.50 from the hardware store up the road. It's a pretty crappy screwdriver. Sometime screwdrivers will shread the screw head, but on this one the screw head shreaded the screw driver.

Anyway, it's fixed now, till it breaks again. But I'm happy for the moment.

This is my first blog from my computer at my new home.

Today I was a it tired but we had one of the best drama groups at church that we've had in a long time. We worked on scripts and the young people just seemed to get it. They did really good little pieces with their scripts. I was impressed.

I went to David's farewell thing at Manly today. That was quiet, but nice. I got a good park which pleased me to no end.

For youth group we went to the retirement village which is usually rather difficult. But today the residents had been waiting for us to arrive (they had been given the wrong time) and were very excited to see us. We didn't have much music but we all played a game with them and they liked that. It was really good to see that they do value having us around and we could all get something out of being with each other.

It's too late to be at work

It's so close to being midnight. I'm still at the office.

We had our Youth Group celebration night tonight. They're always a lot of work. But they're fun too. They have a wierd vibe that you only get when you have at these nights. It's probably because the church is decorated and the lights aren't as bright. Plus everyone is dressed up, and I'm not very relaxed.

We had a good speaker tonight.

Tonight I noticed how much Helen and I worked as a team on this stuff. There are some parts of ministry that I just chugged along at alone, and others that we did together. This was always an event we did together. Actually, she always did more work on these events so I did notice we were missing Helen a bit. She is good value.

Today we had my Aunty, Great Aunty, Step Grandmother and my Mother over to our house for lunch. It was fun but my room was messy.

I think I should go home.

I'll be back here in 9 hours.

You Were Acting Like it Was the End of the World

It's funny, I'm not hugely upset about U2 postponing. I was excited, but it was feeling too good to be true. And I've been waiting 8 years to see U2, I can wait another few months. What I well be upset about is if they come while I'm in Europe in July. That would make me most upset. Then it really will be the end of the world.

Anyway, the nerves are back as we await tour dates again.

I do hope the family member gets better.

This reminds me a bit of the Counting Crows kafuffle.

Thanks Anmol for the heads up.

I went to the Dentist this arvo. It cost $363 for a 1 hour visit where they took x-rays, photos and moulds. Pow! No wonder everyone says you should ask dentists to invest in the film industry.

I guess I should fill in the rest of what happened on the weekend. Just so you're not all in suspense.

I got woken up on at around 9am on Saturday morning by Jo and Jem poking their head into my room. They were on the phone to my concerned mother. I'm sure she wanted them to check up on me, make sure I wasn't dead or anything. I wasn't.

I got up and said "Hello" to my house and explained my new looks to those who were about. I had a conversation with my mother on the phone. That day we were going to my cousin's wedding and Mum offered to bring my clothes over to my house that I had been planning to pick up the night before. After that I got to sit down for a pancake breakfast. I liked the pancakes.

In between pancakes I looked for emergency dentist people. I tried one with an ugly ad that was close by, but they were booked out. I think I was a bit relieved about that. I found one in Chatswood that would have me as soon as I go there. So Jo (who had gone out to get a green slip) came and got me and we "raced" off to Chatswood.

On the way to Chatswood I called Mum to tell her we were no longer at our house. She had just got to our house. Oops. Sorry Mum.

In the Dentist they made me fill out a form. When the dentist saw me he said "S**t, we had better fix that!" So it was straight into the chair for me, more anesthetic, and lots of glue. In the end I got my front teeth splinted together because they'd all been knocked loose and a new false tooth glued in. It's only temporary, but it does the job. It was cool. He had a box full of false teeth and he just pulled one out. How exciting.

It was off to Grandpa and Valentina's place for lunch and getting ready for the wedding. By that staged I was feeling pretty whacked. I had a new experience at lunch. I got some food stuck in my gum. Not just on my gum, or between my teeth, but under my new false tooth and up on the large excavation left by my old tooth. It was a rather interesting experience digging that out with a tooth pick.

After lunch and a shower it was off to the wedding. By the time I got to the wedding I didn't feel like talking to anyone. I was so tired. I didn't really get all that excited about the service and I fell asleep in the sermon. Everytime I woke up the minister was looking at me so I felt bad. I think my tiredness was cause by the fact that I hadn't slept much, I had only eaten two pancakes and a little salmon roll since the night before, and I had probably burned up heaps of energy going into shock and being full of adrenaline for most of the night before. But I could just be a pansy too.

I had a Boost Juice (Banana Buzz) and a sleep between the wedding and the reception and I felt a lot better for that.

The reception was in the Harbour Watch room in Pier One. It was a pretty spectacular location. I was put on the young, single counsins table, so I was sitting next to my 20 year old cousin on one side and a year 10 guy and his year 7 sister on the other. I think they were cousins of my cousins. I had trouble talking to those two. I had to remind myself that it's my job to talk to people their age because I could have any kind of interesting conversation with them.

I went home from the reception early.

Sunday was just a normal Sunday. Except I had lots of people coming up to me and asking me how I was. I told the story of my demise often. But that's ok, I was prepared for that. It's rather draining having to accept so much sympathy. But we have a lovely community.

These days things are nice. I get to take my stitches out myself tomorrow. My lip is healing well. It's rather annoying because it hurts for most of the day, but it's nothing to worry about. My teeth ache a bit, especially when I bite them. And tomorrow I'm off to the dentist to get myself checked out for my new permanent tooth. How exciting.

And that, my friends, is the exciting adventures of Tom and his Friday Night Skating.

This is in the car on the way to the hospital.


Life gets hard waiting for the Triage


While in the waiting room I decided to pass the time by getting some shots done for my new modeling portfolio.


Once I made it to be examined I tragically slipped into a coma.


My swanky hospital room


The Operation


We're going home (Sorry Matt)

I was planning on buying shower curtain rings all day today. Actually I've been planning to buy them for the past two weeks. But I didn't manage it today as I didn't manage it all the other days. Today movies, beer, hot chips and Coke got in the way. Certainly things I'd say that should take precedence, just don't tell the people I live with that.

Tomorrow I am off to head office for an interview for candidacy to become a deacon. I was going to wear shorts and a t-shirt till I realised some people might regard this as a big deal.

I hate dressing up.

On Friday I went Ice Skating with my year 6-8 boys small group. There were only about 5 of them so we fitted very nicely in the van. Once we got to the Ice Rink we ate a bit of dinner then headed off to skate.

We were there right at the beginning of the session, which I've never done before. I think that must be when all the hard core skaters get there because they all seemed to be really good. A lot better then me of my crew.

Skating was fun. I'm not sure why going in a circle on to thin pieces of metal is fun, but it is.

Once we'd been skating for an hour and a bit I got a feeling that something was going to happen to me, like I was going to fall over or something. Listening to my intuition (which sometimes pays off) I hopped off the ice to visit one of the boys who was sitting out because he had blisters from his boots. After a few minutes with him, I didn't feel like anything was going to happen any more, so I hopped back on the ice. I couldn't have gone more than about 5 meters before someone came flying round the corner and ran into me.

They hit me from behind which spun me around. Unfortunately my legs kept their momentum and came up from under me. I landed on the ice face first. I hit my chin, which caused to me to bite into my lip and knocked my front right tooth out of my mouth.

Of course I didn't know all this at the time. I got up saw blood on the ice, felt blood on my face and realised something was wrong. I could feel a hole in my lip so I got off the ice, found my hankie and put it on my lip. I went to find my boys to let them know that I was off to clean myself up. I went looking for the bathroom but by the time I got to the other side of the ring I was feeling a little lost and noticed that there was a lot more blood coming from my face than I could fix with a quick dab of the paper towel. I went to the skate hire man and he saw and gave me this worried look. "Go knock on the office door they'll look after you."

I went over to the office and lined up at the door behind some people wanting to buy cans of Coke (which I subsequently found out are $1.60, rather expensive if you ask me) but when the people in line saw me they gave me a look of horror and stepped to the side. I knocked on the door and the manager man let me into the office and sat me in a chair next to the water cooler. He was the only one in the office, so he seemed to be doing everything at once. He pulled out the first aid box, put on his rubber gloves and cleaned the blood off my arms and face. He threw out my hankie which was soaked in blood. I said "That was my best hankie."

He said "Oh, so you want me to get it back?"

And I said "No, it was a joke"

He got out some gauze to put on my chin, which I didn't even know was hurt. He whacked the gauze on and taped it too my face. At some stage during this I stuck my tongue through the hole where my tooth should have been and felt only lip. After a bit more examination with me tongue, and searching my mouth to make sure what I was feeling was right, I piped up and said "I think I lost my tooth." I can't remember how the man responded to that. He got me an ice pack and a drink of water, and gave some more gauze to dab at my lip to clean up the blood. We had a bit of a conversation about who I'm here with and he filled out a form with my name and address and phone number and stuff on it. I think so that they have my details if I decide to sue them. I won't sue them though, that'd be silly. Skating isn't exactly the sport you do thinking you're going to be completely safe. Plus I don't like the idea of suing people.

I sat in the office trying to figure out what I should be doing. Wondering if I would be able to drive people home, how I would look at the wedding I had to go to the next day with out a tooth, wondering how much blood I was drinking.

Over the course of my time in the office I had a conversation with the man about how I was happy this had happened because I didn't want to have to iron my shirt for my wedding the next day, and I asked what would happen to my tooth. He said no one would find it and it'd get sucked up by the machine. It was all very serious for him. I tried some more light hearted banter about lost teeth and rubbish bins, but he didn't seem too keen to enjoy the moment. I figure it's not every day you get to loose a tooth so why not enjoy it?

I got the guy to summons one of my boys to the office so he could call his Dad and get the Dad to drive us all home. He did this then was sent out of the office again. He and the boys then peeked through the office windows at me. I smiled am poked my tongue through my new tooth hole at them. And they made pained faces at me went "Awwwww!"

At some stage the DJ came into the office. I recognised him as a guy who I went to school with. We had a conversation about the old school days (Him: "What year did you finish?" Me: "2000" Him: "I was the year above you. I don't remember you.") and then he proceeded to tell me that he's never going ice skating if people end up like me but what a fearless skier he is. He was fun. It was good to have someone to make a joke or two with. Although I did like the office man.

When the Dad arrived I took off my skate and left them in the office, then got ready to go. We collected our stuff, I put on my shoes and was stared at by everyone I walked past. Probable because I had blood on my clothes, some gauze taped to my face, a bloody lip and I was holding an ice pack to me chin. Either that or they were admiring my fashion choices.

The Dad took us to the car, prayed for us then droves us home. As we were leaving the boys were talking about my injury. Someone made a joke to which another of them replied "Not funny guys, Tom's just got hurt" I turned around and told the boys to make as many jokes as they wanted, I wouldn't be offended.

As we drove home I rang my boss. He was very concerned about me, I told him the injury was from all the drugs I had taken before small group.

Once back at church I met some concerned mothers and got my photo taken. The Dad waited to drive me to a hospital while I went to my office to collect my gear. In the office I met Matt and Beck who offered to drive me to the Hospital themselves. I figured this was a better idea, as they didn't have kids at home to look after. I took them up on the offer and, thanking him I sent the Dad on his way. He was very good to me. We have good parents at my church.

On the way to hospital Beck took photos for the photo essay that I'll post soon while Matt made haste. It was fun trip. Really it was, I was quite enjoying the novelty of the situation and it had lots of opportunities for jokes. Plus when you're injured people are more likely to laugh out of sympathy.

We made it to the hospital after getting a little lost. We went to Royal Prince Alfred because it's close to my home. Plus I figured we could get on TV if they're still making RPH.

When I was waiting for the Triage I asked the Ambulance Officer sitting next to me if Napisan gets blood out of jeans. She didn't seem to know how you got blood out of clothes which I thought was odd seeing as I figure Ambulance people must get covered in blood regularly.

Once I got to talk the Triage man he told me that he lost his front two teeth three times in his life. He looked fine.

We were sent round to the Emergency Waiting Room where Matt, Beck and I were to spend the next 5 hours of our life. Time went relatively quickly seeing as all we had to do was watch late night TV, read old magazines and do their cross words.

In the waiting room we met a few interesting people. We met some girls in pink togas who brought in a drunk girl who couldn't walk. They were fun. When they were leaving one of them said "I hope your tooth gets better." I told her it probably wouldn't.

I went outside at one stage to send a message to Helen. While I was out the front I saw some people running of the road and shouting "Call triple-0". As they came closer I noticed one of them was holding his head and had blood all over him. He went into the emergency ward. As I went back inside I found him standing in a puddle of his blood being treated by an Ambulance dude and I heard him telling the Triage that just down the street someone had smashed a vodka bottle over his head.

At 3:30am we were taken in to see a doctor. A nurse cleaned me up a bit, then gave me a tetanus shot. The Doctor arrived, gave me some anesthetic and put 5 stitches in my chin. Then we were free to go home.

Matt and Beck drove me home. I did my teeth carefully then went to bed.

Thanks Matt and Beck.

I think I'll have to continue the weekend later. This has been rather long. Oh well. Well done for reading this far.



Just after I arrived back at church. As you can see the missing tooth makes me look that much hotter.

This is my first post from home internet. Thank you David for making it work after it died.

I woke up this morning and bought some tickets to Jamie Cullum. It really is the year of people to watch, U2, Jamie, Coldplay, Mundine vs Danny Green. It's gonna be cool.

Filling in the Blanks

There's an RSL club near my work that Helen, Jon and I discovered the other week. I've been working there for 3 years and only now have we discovered it. It's like an oasis in the desert. It's got all the TVs, pokies, Old Men and gwaudy carpets of an RSL club and it's just down the road. It's fantastic. We've lunched there three times since we discovered it. It's been real exciting. I've had a roast everytime.

Tonight I went out with Priscilla for the night. We thought we'd catch up, so we did. We went to Mama's Kitchen, I've never been there before. Then wandered around the city.

Rick Warren said in The Purpose Driven Life something like "Don't write about what you did each day, no body wants to hear about that". And I'm like, "Hey, don't be so rude". Of course maybe no one does want to read about what I do each day, but don't burst my bubble. But I think the blogging phonomena may have proved him wrong there. But it may just prove that there are lots of people out there who like to write about their days, it doesn't prove that people actually want to read that.

Phew, I'd hate it if Rick Warren was wrong. My whole world would crumble. I'd have no sense of purpose.

Seeing as we're doing 40 Days of Purpose at our church one of the girls in my Bible study group brought her Purpose Driven Life to the group on Monday and said "So do we just bring this book now? Does it replace the Bible?" I reckon it was a valid question. I wouldn't mind replacing the Bible with the Purpose Driven Life, it'd be much easier to read in a year. Although it doesn't have as many good stories.

I am enjoying doing 40DOP though. I think it'll be good for our church. It'll be good for us all to be doing stuff together.

Sluggish

I'm at David's office at the moment having a bit of a blog. I started a post at work yesterday but I think that work saps most of my blog inspiration out of me. It took me a few hours to write a few lines. So I guess that I'll just have to wait until we get the net at home. Which will happen tomorrow. Hooray. Cable and wireless at home. I love the idea of wireless. Although I have no way of connecting to it, and I'm not going to be carrying my computer around the house, I still like the fact that I could if I wanted to.

I caught the bus and train to Hornsby today to see David for lunch. It was my first bus catching experience by myself and it was pleasant enough. I didn't get off at the wrong stop, or accidentally have an emotional breakdown on the bus so that's good.

I got a phone call and a message today from my travel agent telling me to go pick up my plane tickets because they're closing down. That's a bit sad I think. I haven't been very disciplined at getting my tickets from them. They rang me at the beginning of January and I'm only getting around to it now. At least plane tickets don't take up much space.

Certain parts of our house are getting a little grotty, like the bathroom. I think because we haven't made our chores roster yet so the house is operating on skeleton chores at the moment. Things like washing the bathroom floors just aren't considered important enough. Every time I have a shower I think "I should clean the floor" but then I start thinking about how I would go about doing that and I can never figure out if we own a mop or not, so the floors don't get cleaned by me.

We have a slug problem at our house. Every night our kitchen fills with slugs, I think it's the local hang out for disaffected youth slugs. Next time I see them I'll tell them to get a job and stop living off our hard earned kitchen scum.

I haven't un-packed most of my boxes yet.

Mondays at work I never work very well. I keep getting distracted by everything. I keep having to rein myself in and make myself work. The only thing I look forward to on Mondays is lunch and small group. Small group is the fun part of my day. Sleeping in is good too.

I think I might go find some air plane tickets now.

I found myself a cafe. I haven't found my way to IKEA yet. I should go soon because I'd like to do things with my life other than go to IKEA.

Living here means I get aircraft noise. It's kinda fun. And building noise, it seems that a good proportion of my neighbours are building something. I like that noise less.

In Da House!

I'm sitting on my bed in my messy room. My room is just a mass of Babel-esque boxes, over flowing with the abridged contents of my 23 years. The only thing I've properly unpacked is my computer so I can write this and watch an episode or two of Lost before I go to sleep. We don't have the internet so I'll have to go and post this post when I get to an internet cafe tomorrow or something. Tomorrow will be the day of lots of things. I'm off to IKEA to buy all the things I need in my room.

Moving in was a good fun experience. I packed my car early in the morning. I took my bed and my essentials (books and cds) and headed off for my new home in Enmore. I picked up Chris along the way who kindly offered to help me move.

I arrived at the house and found the Landlady, Jo and Jemma sitting out in the backyard on Jemma's broken chairs. In about 5 minutes I'd signed my lease. It keeps occurring to me now that I didn't bother to read the lease so there's a good chance I've signed up for all sorts of nonsense, but what can you do eh? I reckon Jo or Jemma signed it. And there are 5 of us on the lease so I guess if I signed body away for medical experiments then I'll have 4 friends to go through it with.

Once the ceremony was done the four of us started inspecting the house. It's an old two story terrace house. It has all wood polished floors, except for the kitchen which had ugly brown tiles. Everything is a bit decrepit and the kitchen has mould in the cupboards. It's a really cool house. I'm a fan. My room is probably about the same size as my room in Hornsby, but it's wider and shorter. I reckon I'll be able to fit a good load of bookshelves in, which is a dream of mine. I love shelves.

The bathrooms all have holes in the doors.

While we were scoping out the house our Landlady got into a fight with the next door neighbour for their illegal building activities. The Landlady and the wife next door were standing in the street shouting at each other. The first words and only words I have heard from those neighbours are insults directed at our Landlady. Although I saw her later and she smiled at me so she's probably nice. Once she'd finished her altercating the our Landlady went home only to turn up a little while later to inform us that she'd called the Police because she couldn't work out how to deal with the people next door.

Jo and Jem went home. Chris and I moved stuff into the house and the Police arrived. They didn't seem all that interested. Chris and I locked up the house and left I didn't really feel like hanging around with the cops sorting out issues which are yet to be my issues. We went out for coffee and op shopping.

We came back met Mil, Martin and Gem and also met the other neighbours. They're young musician types and quite friendly. I like them.

I went to work that evening then came home and slept my first night in my new house. It was hot, full of bugs and the house makes noises. There was no one else there. I have a big spider who lives in my room. He's real scary. I hate spiders, I didn't get much sleep. I woke up at one stage and walked through the dark empty house looking for a drink. All I could think was "I wonder how many people have died in this house."

Saturday morning I got up, abluted and went for a stroll down Enmore Rd and King St looking for breakfast. I saw lots of lovely looking venues, but I was too scared to go in because I wasn't sure if I was meant to sit down and order or go to the counter, order then sit down. If I got it wrong I couldn't imagine the scorn people might heap on me. Life is hard sometimes. In the end I had some Boost juice because I know how that works.

Ryan and Libby came over and we tried to figure out how to move Jon's bed into the house. The stairwell to upstairs is very skinny, with a low ceiling. We ended up tying a rope around the bed then hoisting it up over the front balcony. That was good fun. It was a oft repeated exercise. I hope to do more hoisting of furniture in the future.

(Ooo, my door just opened itself. The house is haunted!)

I went home to Hornsby with Ryan and we got more stuff. Once we were back that evening we hoisted a few more things then it was off to dinner. It was the first time the whole household was together. We went out for Thai, and considering the abundance of Thai places in this part of the world I can foresee Thai becoming rather staple.

We came home after our meal and prayed for our house. It was lovely to commit the house to God. I do hope God has his way in this house.

The days following have been good. I'm excited to be living with the people I'm living with and starting this new chapter of my life. The people are great, the house is cool and the pub is just 50 meters down the road. What more could you want?

There's no internet in my house and no time when I'm not at home to blog. But internet will come.

It has been fun moving into my new place. I've only had one good sleep out of three so far but I'm hoping those odds will change.

I think I'll try and add more later. At the moment I should be working.

Almost Gone

Tonight will be my last night of sleeping in my room. I've been in this room for the past 12 year. It will also be the last night in this house, I've been here for the past 23 years. How sad.

Shame tonight's sleep will be short. I suspect I'll spend quite alot of time packing. Oh well.

I guess I'll get sentimental soon.

The problem with being at work all the time is that nothing new happens to write about.

I bought some butter chicken for lunch today but I didn't eat it all. Now it's sitting in the fridge getting grotty.

I had a conversation with the man at the Indian shop about my t-shirts and where I get them from. He said I have a good collection.

I had coffee with a new potential mentor. He's a friendly, godly man. I think I might be onto to a winner.

I didn't fit everything into my day.

I had my first scripture class for the year. My class seem like they have the possibility to be badly behaved but they were ok today.

I'm home now and I would like to go to sleep but I'm waiting for my dinner. I could lie on my bed and read but I might fall asleep.

Packing It

I'm packing my room up. I'm filling box after box after box. It seems that over the past 23 years I've just been hording stuff. My room is just one big storage facility. Oh well. At least we know I have a healthy love the past.

Anyone?

I came home all excited to watch The Contender and tonight seems to be just a rehash where they show all the old fights. What's up with that? So now I'm sitting around feeling bored. I'm not even sure if there's any food to eat.

I had my first small group with the year 11 and 12s today. It was fun. It was good to have a group who I didn't have to shout at to be quiet. And who I could ask big questions. Although we did even worse at getting through the study than in any other group I've run.

I'm a little bit nervous they're gonna need a better small group leader than me but I'll do my best.

I want Moral Corruption

I've been getting into Lost lately. I'm watching Season One so I'm a season behind. It's kinda fun.

I watched a really good episode this morning where the good guys tortured a man they thought was hiding medicine they needed to save a girl's life. It was this great look as a community's loss of innocence. As the days go on and things get desperate morals get more ambigous. Stick a bunch of humans together and it rarely ends well. As depressing as the tradjectory of this is heading I'm hoping it doesn't end well. There are many subplots of healing and redemption, but I don't want them to take precedence. I guess a community that starts with all these desires of a new start will rarely mean change. People's moral core doesn't change because they survive a plane crash and land on a desert island. If they end up as savages then perhaps it will challenge us who watch to look at our communities and make sure we don't go the same way. Plus it's more interesting when things don't end happy.

Then again they could all get eaten by the monster thing. I'm sure it's symbolic of something, something inside them all. But they better not slay the monster, I hope they just escape.

Please don't tell me how it's going. I want to see for myself.

Movie Clubbing

I went to Child Protection Training today. That was dull, useful and depressing as usual.

Tonight I went to join a Movie Club with Ryan and Libby. I had been told via email by the orgnaiser to meet at Dendy in Newtown at 6:30pm tonight, so we went to Newtown, ate some food then got to the Dendy at 6:33pm. We looked around for groups that could be a movie club, and we saw one. I went over to them and asked "Are you guys the movie club?" but they replied "No, but we'd like to be."

After that we couldn't find any groups that looked like a movie club. We waited till 6:45 then gave up. We'd been stood up by a whole club. Ouch.

We went and saw Brokeback Mountain despite not having a club to watch it with. It was good and depressing. I'm glad I'm not a married, gay cowboy. Life would be hard.

Fallout

Last weekend was one of the most intense I've had in a while.

On Friday night while I was out to dinner with the youth leaders Matt told us that a few hours before a local teenager had been killed when he was hit by a car riding to youth group. The youth group, he said, was the one whose camp I spoke on in the holidays a few weeks ago. But there was nothing much confirmed, everything was just rumours. It was pretty horrible news. We stopped and prayed for the family while in the restaurant. There wasn't much else to do. I was pretty worried about who it might have been, was it someone who I was on camp with, one of the boys I connected with? How would the youth group cope? And on top of that there was just this knowledge that out there his parents, whoever they were, would be having the worst night of their lives. It's so sad.

I didn't sleep well that night. I dreamt about death and the people I know.

On Saturday we had the Engagement Engagement and it was good. Our car broke down so I got there late. Through out the day I would often be reminded that someone I knew might be dead and I didn't know who it was.

I went out to dinner that night and got a call from Steve, my boss, and he asked me if I was aware of what had happened. I told him I knew a little but not much. He filled me in, told me who the boy was, where he was from, what schools he had gone too. He was in year 7 and didn't go to the youth group I spoke at. I didn't know the boy. It was a relief, but I felt guilty for it. Not knowing him personally didn't mean that he wasn't valuable and it wasn't just as terrible.

I was told a few extras would be coming to church with some of the girls who are in my youth group who were in his class.

I didn't sleep well that night either. I dreamt about the morning at church. I was feeling very out of my depth.

Dad gave me a lift to church because the car wasn't working.

At church, about half an hour before the service a family arrived who had a girl in the boy's class. They told me that there was a rumour going around the community that our church was running a memorial service. We needed to prepare just in case.

I met with a councilor who goes to my church before the service. She had been assigned to me so she could help me figure out how to best help anyone who was going to turn up. As we were talking I watched through the windows as out the front as lots of year 7 people and their parents arrived at church. This wasn't going to be a normal service.

By the time the service started we had about 70 extra people in our church. Steve started the service where talking about death, praying and reading from the Bible. I thought he did very well, Steve was in his element. This was then followed by communion. It was comforting for some reason. It went on for ages. We ran out of bread there were so many people.

When it was time for the Sunday School to go out I took my group. I had 19 extra people, all of them had known the boy who died. I was pretty scared. I had never had to do anything like this before. When you go into Youth Ministry you know that one day death will touch your ministry and now it had come to mine, but you never get to a stage where you're ready for it.

We sat down and I prayed before handing over to the councilor. She ran a debriefing session with the young people. She did very well. I was very glad she was there. When she had finished I talked about how God feels about death. I told the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead, of the anger and sadness Jesus had when his friend died, but also the power that Jesus has over death. God hates death but he is not impotent in the face of death as we are, he will one day destroy it, we can trust that he holds all things in his hands, even the lives of those we have lost.

I'm not sure what the people who heard it thought. I prayed for them and I hope it was of some comfort.

During Church the parents went out for their own debrief session. After the service there was lots of ministry going on, lots of people being comforted and prayed for. It was wonderful to see our church had pulled together to help those who were grieving. All the young people hung out together after church. As the youth minister I felt like I should go and talk to them, but it was kinda strange because they all knew each other and I felt like the outsider. Generally they would talk to me for a bit then wander off. I got to talk to one or to for more than just a polite amount of time, but generally they were pretty happy to look after themselves, and I can understand that.

In the afternoon we had youth group. I do like playing soccer. During dinner we were in the playground at church and I was standing on a little kiddy swing talking to one of the girls. I was swinging on it while standing up. As I got higher and higher the girl told me that I was going to hurt myself, which I politely disagreed with. But sure enough I got hurt. I got to this point where I was so high that there wasn't enough momentum to keep me going against gravity's wishes. I stopped but the swing didn't, I fell to the ground onto me face. As I was coming down the swing came around and whacked me in the nose. It was rather painful.

I rolled over onto my back at which point someone noticed that my nose was bleeding. I lay on the ground thinking "It's the first injury of the year in the youth ministry and it's the youth minister." I felt at least that's what we call incarnational ministry.

The young people came and led me away to get first aid (tissues and lots of different people giving different instructions about where to put my nose) while the leaders filled the power vacuum and ran dinner while I sat on the sidelines trying not to bleed on things.

After dinner when I had cleaned myself up a bit I gathered the youth group together so we could pray for those people who had known the boy who died. It was another hard time. I'd found the whole day rather emotional, and this was no different. It was hard not to get choked up, but I pushed through. All the young people gathered around and prayed for those who were grieving and it was beautiful to see.

When I finished praying I realised that I had started bleeding again. I bled till halfway through Church.

We had a young adults do after church. I like young adults stuff but I had a head ache and was starting to feel sick. I didn't have a car so Tanya gave me a lift home. She's good value that Tanya.

When I was home and Tanya had gone (she came inside for a tour of the house) I came into my room to blog, but I couldn't concentrate. My head was feeling horrid and I wanted to vomit. I couldn't think straight. I think everything had finally caught up with me, the adrenaline kicked out.

I slept very well that night.

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.

We have a house.

I'm moving out.

Fun.