Memory Is The Diary We All Carry With Us

2011-12-01T22:34:00.001+10:00

Wow, so it's been a loooong time since I blogged. I'm sorry. But if it's any good saying so, I haven't been doing much interesting. But, we are coming to the interesting time of year! Hooray! Today is December 1st, normally Christmas Tree night, but because I have been cooking tea, washing dishes (a LOT of dishes!), melting wax (more on that in another post), doing Adventure Club prep, and now blogging (and some Facebooking thrown in), I haven't had time :( It will have to be Saturday.

Tomorrow night is Adventure Club's last night for the term. So we are having a sleepover. I actually think it will be fun!

And because we are in the lead-up to Christmas, I thought I would do a series of posts on Christmas craft ideas. Because I am doing a few :) (the melting wax is related to this). And to start off with, I thought I'd tell you about a kid-friendly craft that we will be doing at Adventure Club tomorrow night.

We are going to make paper plate wreaths. It's pretty simple with next to no skill required and lots of creativity and imagination can go wild. I am currently cutting the paper plates up - I have traced a CD inside each plate and am cutting the inner circle out to leave a ~2inch wide paper plate ring. Older kids would be able to do this themselves but to save time I'm doing it now. (Well, at least some!)

I have then bought very thin tinsel-y thread to attach as a loop, to hang the wreath, and for decorations, the kids can glue on multi-coloured patty cake papers, pompoms (I have plain coloured fluffy ones and glitzy metallic glittery ones!), bright coloured feathers, textas, and any remaining glitter glue from last week's craft. I contemplated getting them to use paint to make green handprints, cut out the handprints and stick them to the plate as a leafy-type base (before adding on all the other decorations), but I think that will take too long for the limited time frame we have.

And to finish off I have some of those gift-wrapping loopy bows to attach to the bottom of their wreaths. I'm wondering if I can figure out a way to attach a bible verse to it too. I will post some photos of the final products :)

Edit: Sorry it's late, but here are some pics of our wreaths! :) Apologies for the sideways-ness, I didn't think to rotate them before I uploaded them. I'm used to Facebook where you can rotate them after you upload them :P

Reasons Why Ron and Hermione Are A Better Couple Than Edward and Bella

2011-07-14T21:59:00.002+10:00

Today, I read this article. It is, supposedly, an argument as to why Edward Cullen and Bella Swan from Twilight are a more epic couple than Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger from Harry Potter.

It was pathetic.

So, these are my Reasons Why Ron and Hermione Are A Better Couple Than Edward and Bella:

1) Ron doesn't stop Hermione from seeing the friends he doesn't approve of. When she dated Viktor Krum, although he was insanely jealous, he did not try to stop them. Edward actually disabled Bella's car and physically stopped her from going to see Jacob Black, and they weren't even dating. Everybody knows that having a boyfriend who stops you seeing your friends is evidence Numero Uno that he's emotionally abusive.

2) Ron and Hermione's relationship is based on a solid friendship and mutual respect and trust. Edward and Bella are together only because Bella's scent is Edward's "brand of cocaine" and because Bella thinks he is hot and her self-esteem is so low she can't believe someone so awesome would want to date her. Edward wouldn't have looked twice at her if she didn't smell so good. She's like an addiction. When are addictions ever good?

3) The author of the Next Movie article argues,

Edward has to overcome every instinct of his being not to eat Bella, while she in turn overcomes her raging teenage hormones not to jump his bones. He rescues her from several other vampires and she travels to Italy to save him from the Volturi. I dare say they've bested more obstacles than any other contemporary couple.

Aside from the fact I wouldn't want to date a guy who has to restrain himself from killing me, these supposed obstacles are not really that impressive. For starters, Bella isn't saving Edward from Volturi, she's saving him from himself, because he's voluntarily submitted himself to the Volturi and is intending on purposely antagonising them. Secondly - Ron took on a mountain troll, at the age of 11, to save Hermione. When he was unconscious for several days in his sixth year, it was Hermione's name he was heard to mumble in his sleep. He took on his biggest fear - spiders (and massive spiders at that!) - at the age of 12 to find the thing that had petrified Hermione so they could save her. They have fought in life-and-death battles alongside each other from the age of 15.

4) Ron and Hermione demonstrate how you can still love and care for somebody but not have your entire life so wrapped up in them that life itself comes to a stop if they're gone. When Ron abandons Hermione and Harry for a period of time in The Deathly Hallows, despite crying herself to sleep at night Hermione still sticks with the horcrux search. When Edward left Bella, she essentially became a lifeless zombie for six months, breaking off all her friendships, not talking to anybody, not leaving the house except for school and work.

5) Ron and Hermione demonstrate how you can have arguments and still come out the other side best friends, or more. When Edward and Bella argue, Edward generally does something to make sure he gets his way (eg, disable Bella's car)... and that's when Bella even has the backbone to stand up for herself and argue.

6) The author of the Next Movie article argues,

And the best thing about (Edward and Bella's) romantic chemistry is they get to be teenagers in love for eternity (and not get ugly).

I can't believe anybody would take that as a legitimate argument. Ron and Hermione, on the other hand, love each other despite knowing they won't be good-looking teenagers forever. Their 'chemistry' is not just based on the fact the other person is good-looking, but on their mutual respect and admiration for each other and the intimate friendship they've had with each other for years. Not appearances alone.

7) Hermione demonstrates a girl can be intelligent, have a backbone and stand up for herself and what she believes in, yet also be vulnerable with those she trusts and loves. Ron demonstrates that a man does not need to be emasculated or intimidated by this - in fact, he admires Hermione for her intelligence and the way she stands up for causes and people, going so far as to support her in causes he tends to think are a bit silly (eg, Hermione's Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare). Bella, on the other hand, has no backbone, especially when it comes to standing up to Edward, and when she tries, he brushes her off as a silly girl who doesn't know what's good for her.

8) Ron and Hermione commit to each other knowing the other person's flaws all too well, knowing they will argue, but still love each other despite that. Bella and Edward think the other person is perfect which will one day come back to bite them.

9) Ron and Hermione have fun together - and apart. Bella spends most of her time beating herself up over how she doesn't deserve Edward and moping when he's not with her. Edward spends most of his time paranoid that Bella's going to hurt herself or someone else is going to hurt her and acts like a ridiculously over-protective body guard who doesn't trust anybody within a five kilometre radius of Bella, including herself. And if you're going to base judgements on the movies too (like the author of the Next Movie article did), Bella and Edward hardly ever smile and laughter is normally awkward.

10) Ron and Hermione have lots of mutual friends with whom they can hang out, enjoy each other's company, and who agree they are a good couple. Their relationship does not break any of their existing friendships. They can still hang out with their own friends, or hang out with their mutual friends together and have a good time. Bella and Edward have no mutual friends except his family, and Bella only became friends with them after she began dating him. Bella has a handful of friends, half of whom (the werewolves) Edward essentially bans her from visiting, the other half of whom Bella stops hanging out with because they don't really get along with Edward. And none of her family or friends is very happy about her relationship with Edward. Starry-eyed teenagers might think this is Romeo-and-Juliet-romantic, but in reality, if you're in a relationship which none of your friends or family is happy with, it's generally a bad sign.

11) Would you want your daughter dating a guy who blocks her off from contacting life-long family friends you trust inherently, who watches her sleep from her window at night time? I didn't think so.

12) Hermione and Ron's relationship is realistic and a healthy example for young people to look up to. They argue, but still look out for each other and care for one another, and always resolve their disputes; they support each other; sacrifice their own well-being for each other; they don't control each other or emotionally manipulate one another; they don't need each other to survive and operate on a day-to-day basis but they want each other; they use the obstacles they encounter to grow together. They love each other for who they are.

5 Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays?

2011-06-29T12:46:00.001+10:00

Dear Internet World,

You may have seen this little quote (particularly as a Facebook status) doing the rounds...

This year July has 5 Fridays 5 Saturdays and 5 Sundays. This happens once every 823 years. This is called money bags. So copy this to your status and money will arrive within 4 days. Based on Chinese philosophy of Feng Shui. Those who read and do not copy will be without money...!!!

It's not true. Chinese Feng Shui aside.... July will next have 5 Fridays, 5 Saturdays and 5 Sundays in 2016. Every month with 31 days has three days which appear 5 times. For example, this year August will have 5 Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Next year, January will have 5 Sundays, Mondays and Tuesdays. Which days happen to have 5 appearances just varies from year to year.

Check your computer calendar before reposting.

Sincerely,
Leah

The death of Osama bin Laden and the social media fallout.

2011-05-03T22:20:00.002+10:00

Wow. It's really been that long since I blogged?

So, Osama bin Laden is dead. I heard this about 2pm on ~~Sunday~~ Monday afternoon (the public holiday confused me :-P) and thought I must be pretty behind the times as I'd been on a youth leadership conference for 3 days. One of the men I was travelling with got an sms from his wife saying "bin laden is dead". No other information. Of course this got us all very interested. My first assumption, for some reason, was that he'd keeled over dead from an illness or something. Probably due to the use of the word 'dead' and not 'killed'. So Zac H pulled out his laptop and phone, jumped online and within 30 seconds we knew that US forces had raided a compound where they knew Osama to be living and shot him dead.

Within 24 hours (in which time I got home and was able to get internet access myself), I read the conflicting reports of whether a Pakistani helicopter was involved in the raid (unlikely), and that Osama had been given the opportunity to hand himself over, had refused, and consequently shot. He apparently used his wife as a human shield and his son and members of his inner circle were also killed. Many americans had stayed up late to watch the President's address which would confirm the rumours they had heard. A blogger in Abbottabad had unwittingly live-tweeted the raid when he was disturbed in the early hours of the morning by the helicopters.

And of course, there have been all the reactions on Facebook and Twitter. And reactions to the reactions. It seems it is becoming the trendy Christian thing to condemn people's celebrating of Osama's death, and preferably by using this 'quote' -

‎"I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that" mis-attributed to Martin Luther King Jr.

Firstly, that's not Martin Luther King Jr's quote. He did say most of it, however the first line - "I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy" - is not his. It belongs to a random on Facebook by the name of Jessica Dovey, who then went on to post the MLK Jnr quote. It's just that everyone who's reposted it since then has merged her quote and his together.

That aside, I don't think it's really applicable to this scenario anyway. Well, Jessica's is. That's her opinion on the matter. But Martin Luther King Jnr's quote isn't, in my view. To bandy around this quote in opposition to killing Osama bin Laden suggests that his killing was motivated by hate and that, somehow, love might have fixed the situation instead. As much as I agree love is generally the answer, especially in personal relationships, I don't think it's all the same in war. Unfortunately killing people is a part of war. Sometimes it is done too much. It's something we should try and avoid, if possible. And Osama was given the opportunity to surrender himself in that compound in Abbottabad. But he didn't. So he was shot. I think that sounds fair enough. He wasn't killed just because someone got mad and wanted to 'get back' at him (which I think is probably the type of attitude Martin Luther King Jnr was warning against). I don't see it as returning hate for hate. They killed Saddam Hussein too, and I think they probably would have killed Adolf Hitler too if he hadn't beat them to it. I don't recall anybody criticising the killing of Saddam Hussein, or even the subsequent celebrations, the same way they are criticising the killing of Osama or those subsequent celebrations.

Note that I'm not advocating celebrating Osama's death. I think it would have been preferable to take him alive, not even just from a moral standpoint but also a tactical one. He would have been a valuable source of information, although he probably would have killed himself first than given up information on Al Quaeda or the Taliban. I am not yet convinced one way or the other whether celebrating his death is wrong or right or neither. I would probably err on the side of wrong, because death is a consequence of sin in our world and is never good. But death is a part of war. And when it is such a guilty, important member of the opposing forces and not a lay soldier or innocent civilian, I think it is a very easily tolerable death.

Look Familiar?

2011-02-18T16:03:00.000+10:00

Does this look familiar to anybody?

http://www.goes.noaa.gov/sohemi/sohemiloops/shirgmscol.html

Cyclone Yasi: The Aftermath

2011-02-06T23:36:00.000+10:00

After about 72 hours without power, our power came back on last night. When we left at 4pm we didn't have it, and when we got home at 10 (after having dinner at my parents' place) it was back on. As we were driving over the motorway on the way home, we saw the areas between the motorway & Hervey Range Rd had more streetlights on than the previous nights. We actually cheered... then got sad when we got closer to home and our streetlights were off. And then cheered again when we got home and our lights were back on! I was almost disappointed however... after two nights of sleeping in our loungeroom (the bedroom has no windows and was far too hot) with the back doors closed (due to our screen doors not latching, we had to leave the glass doors closed during the night), I'd finally had the bright idea of duct-taping the screen doors shut so we could open the glass doors while we slept. Well, turned out we didn't need that idea. Which is both an unfortunate and fortunate thing, I guess.

Townsville has suffered the most damage I've ever seen. On top of what I mentioned in my last post, the Strand had sand all the way up the foreshore, across the road and into the front yards of the properties over the road (and down the streets perpendicular to the beach). The wind turbine on the Strand was ripped off its foundation. But it's nothing on Cardwell, Tully and Tully Heads. Besser block houses half-collapsed and crumbling. Besser block! Anything flimsier had no chance. I've seen pictures of houses where only a quarter of the house remains, and the rest of it is literally gone except the stumps. These are houses that not only had the wind against them, but were so close to the beach that the storm surge flooded them and waves pounded them until they completely fell apart then washed away. I don't think anybody will be building so close to the beach up there ever again.

Cyclone Yasi: A Running Commentary UPDATED with photos

2011-02-04T13:02:00.002+10:00

A running commentary of Cyclone Yasi... my Facebook updates in chronological order...

Wednesday 2nd Feb

10am "gobsmacked by the length of this thing... fully serious, it's pretty much the length of mainland Australia from tip to tip. Top tip is way up past PNG, bottom tip extends well into NSW"

10:30am "so, the moron next door has still got construction materials all over his drive way... almost hope he loses them, as long as they don't end up in someone's window, teach him a lesson."

(11am: Visited my parents to pick up some big 20L plastic water containers. We'd had a little breeze and minimal rain before getting there, but almost as soon as we arrived a huge gale blew up for about ten minutes, soaking anything beside an open window. Cue mad rush to close all windows. A few little branches blown out of trees, but nothing special, and it died down almost as quickly as it had popped up.)

12:30pm "just filled the shower recess tub with water... felt like putting in bubble bath and jumping in :P"

3:40pm (A little breezy and rainy outside, not significant) "lights! stop flickering! it's just a bit of wind and rain... it's as if the power knows what's coming and is just gonna give up now"

4:30pm "gonna go finish dishes so if we do lose water we don't have to waste what water we do have on washing dishes :P Hope to be back online before we lose power."

(4:30pm, windy with the occasional big gust)

5:50pm "ice-cream time. Clearly, if the power's gonna go out, the ice-cream will be the first to go."

6:50pm "still just big gusts of wind... a few palm fronds on the ground but that's it."

8:55pm "Michelle Williams' status: "Douglas has lost power. Things went boom." o.O"

9pm (in response to a friend saying the wind was "getting pretty epic now") "it sure is. Even we're really feeling it now and judging from what other people have been going through tonight, we've been pretty sheltered. Hope you guys are ok up there (on Castle Hill)"

(Was trying to hold the camera as still as possible... tripod broken :(. )

9:20pm (Significantly strong wind now, still relatively low levels of rain) "We just lost power. Our only net access now is andre's phone so we wont be using it too much to conserve battery power. Keep safe guys! Will be back on later"

Candle-lit House. Note the glass backdoors that shook and creaked and banged (the screen doors behind them don't latch) all night.

11:50pm (Essentially in the middle of the storm - not the core of the cyclone itself, but the middle of what Townsville would be getting. Strongest winds I have ever witnessed and raining heavily.) "Was beginning to doze off despite the almighty wind when I heard an enormous clatter. Someone's gutter (ours? Neighbour's?) is on our back patio and one of our palm trees has landed on the hills hoist. Thank God it wasnt the house. All ok though."

Thursday 3rd Feb

1:30am (Winds even stronger, and changed direction, coming from the east rather than the south. The entire back glass door is shaking violently in the wind and the door frames are creaking in the wall. Lots of rain - not just horizontal, but swirling in all directions.) "Tried sleeping for the past hour, not happening. BOM reckons we are out of the 'destructive winds' zone. Not buying it at all. Saw two huge green flashes from willows direction. Power lines?? Too far to tell. Wrong colour for lightning."

Comment on a previous status: "I was pretty confident about trees because we virtually *only* have palms. Have no idea how the ones out the front are, it's 1:30am and raining too much to really see."

Comment on a friend's status: "I have big glass back doors which keep creaking with every big gust of wind - freaking me out. House is vibrating!"

7:20am (Had only successfully slept since about 4am when the wind had stopped shaking the doors quite so violently). "All ok here. Gusty wind still makes us feel like we're in the 'gale force winds' area but we're out of it now." (Wind had changed direction again - now coming from the north. Slept for another 3 hours or so afterwards.)

Note change in wind direction from last night.

Automatic gate blown off its fence. (Neighbour across the road)

11:50am (In response to a friend's comment) "We're good thanks. Just having brekky now (as I really only slept from 4 - 11 and even that was patchy) and it's stinking hot due to no power & not wanting to open too many windows & doors coz it's still windy. Want to go for a drive but not sure if it's too dangerous yet. Back & front yards a mess but fortunately we have the landlords around who will prob clear it up."

About 7am - still raining enough that the yard is still flooded.

At about 11am. Rain stopped, yard has drained. One palm tree on the hills hoist clothesline, other one had 30cm of roots keeping it from landing on our roof.

3pm "For those that have not heard, water is to be used for drinking only - water plant damaged so water may run out."

3:05pm "Andre & the landlord Trevor pulled down the palm tree about to fall on our roof. Whew."

Thursday night we went round to my parents' place - had dessert with them, checked out the damage in their yard and took advantage of the generator they have running (internet, light, etc). On the way home we drove back via Ross River Rd - drove through Douglas, Cranbrook, Kirwan, Willows - the only light we saw the whole way was a little strip in front of the Kirwan Exchange and outside Willows Shopping Centre. Have never seen such a big blackout in Townsville.

The reason my parents' part of Douglas still doesn't have power.

The bikeway beside my parents' place - those trees are from their yard.

All that green matter was from my parents' backyard.

You usually can't see much sky at all through those trees to the left of the cubby house.

Tree in my parents' backyard. Previously, it would have filled this entire photo and then some. Its branches are in that photo two pics above (among other greenery). Sorry for the appalling quality. Didn't realise how bad it was until I took it off my camera this afternoon.

The road past Ignatius Park College was lined with 2m high piles of branches, trees, etc. Every single shopping centre we saw had its carpark shade sails destroyed. Gaping holes in bitumen carparks where big trees have fallen over and pulled up their roots and bitumen.

The water treatment plant was damaged and had no power, so we were told to use water sparingly as there was only a day's supply left. Fortunately Andre and I had stored about 200L of water and were able to use that. Today we have been told that the water treatment plant is back up and running, but we've still been told to use water sparingly until the reservoirs can be refilled.

It will take days to restore all power and clean up the city. Every road you drive down, trees have snapped in half, been pulled up at their roots, fences have been flattened, awnings are missing, shade sails are torn up. The occasional window is smashed and, although I've not seen any yet, I've heard reports of people, here in Townsville, who have lost their roofs.

Cyclone Yasi: The Other Side (Pt 1)

2011-02-03T13:18:00.000+10:00

So, we got through cyclone yasi ok. Places around town began losing power at about 5pm and we lost ours at around 10. We're currently accessing internet via Andre's phone so this won't be a long update.

I can't remember much in the way of times etc, but I do remember that it was about 9 when the winds really began hammering the place. Judging from what I heard from other parts of town, our area had been a bit sheltered by that point. At about 11.30, just as we were dozing off on the couch, a huge clatter from the backyard jolted me awake. Someone's gutter was in our backyard, and one of the palm trees had snapped off and was now lying on the hills hoist.

Didn't sleep well last night. Was pretty convinced something was going to come through our back glass doors.

Will probably have to leave it there for now. Photos and more details to come once I find somewhere with power and am not relying on this phone!

Cyclone Yasi: We're Set!

2011-02-02T15:31:00.000+10:00

Cyclone Yasi, Category 5: forecast to make landfall about 10pm. Reportedly the worst cyclone to hit Australia since 1918. That cloud cover would swallow up the entire eastern states of Australia!

Gas bottle filled, shower recess bathtub & containers filled with water, cold food frozen (to keep for longer than just in the fridge, if we lose power), windows taped, batteries in radio, outdoor furniture stacked into the corner.

We're set!

Cyclone Yasi: Some interesting resources

2011-01-31T10:37:00.001+10:00

So, as I guessed, Cyclone Anthony passed us with little more than a few gusty breezes and a sprinkling of rain. Sounds like Bowen and Propserpine got pretty drenched though and a bit windy.

Now there's a big sucker out in the Pacific Ocean brewing. Cyclone Yasi is currently north of Vanuatu (not 1000km north like I heard someone say last night) and is forecast to cross the Queensland coast on Thursday.

Currently, as it's so far out, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology doesn't have any available maps for Cyclone Yasi. However, the Vanuatu Meteorological Services uses the same sort of track maps that the BOM does and they can be seen here: http://www.meteo.gov.vu/TropicalCyclones/TCTrackMap/tabid/173/Default.aspx

Alternatively, a lot of people refer to the US Navy's Joint Typhoon Warning Centre, which someone pointed me to one or two cyclone seasons ago. Often its track maps are more accurate than the BOM's (probably because the BOM doesn't want to be too specific and risk giving incorrect advice).

As those maps show, current projected paths have it crossing between Cairns and Townsville - however, being so far out, these projected paths are very subject to change (very). This time though, many models used by various countries around the world pretty much agree on its general path.It's also being suggested it will reach a Category 4, however the big talking point is the sheer size of the cyclone.

(For a loop of this map, look here: http://www.goes.noaa.gov/sohemi/sohemiloops/shirgmscol.html)

If it stays around that size, no matter where it crosses the coast, much of Queensland will feel some effect of it, even if it's just rain on its outer edges. It could turn around and go the other way, disappear way up north and just cross up near the cape - it will be an interesting one to watch either way.

So.... apparently there's a cyclone or something.

2011-01-29T17:44:00.000+10:00

Oh Hai, Anthony.

A Cat 2? Bring it on.

Don't the panic-buyers already own torches, batteries, or tinned food? And, above all, why do cyclone panic-buyers buy milk? If they lose power, won't it go off?

The questions I ask every cyclone season.

Gaining Access to Facebook Account =/= Hacking!

2010-12-12T22:59:00.000+10:00

So, there's been a lot of illicit gaining-of-access to people's Facebook accounts recently, the most recent one tonight's 'free makeup' scam. As such, there have been a lot of cries of 'hacker!' around the place.

It's not hacking, people. It's not hacking, either, when your husband/wife/boyfriend/girlfriend/friend gains access to your internet account because a) you left yourself logged in or b) they know your password.

Hacking is when someone reconfigures/reprograms a system/website etc without the permission of the owner - and often they do this to illicitly gain access to accounts or other information. Sometimes it might be taking advantage of a pre-existing weakness in the system, or it might be because they're super-smart and can just figure out how to get through it.

If you think of it in terms of breaking into a house, hacking is like when someone breaks a window to get in to your house, or destroys the lock on a door.

The people who are gaining access to your Facebook accounts - for instance, you friends - are more like nicking the key you left somewhere carelessly, and letting themselves in the front door - or you leaving your front door unlocked. In the instance of viruses or similar (where you may have unwittingly clicked on something that has then accessed your passwords etc), it's perhaps like someone making a copy of your key and again, letting themselves in your front door. They haven't actually made any changes to the program or system or breached any security measures put in place by Facebook programmers.

If Facebook accounts did indeed get hacked, changing your password would only be a temporary fix - the hackers could just use the same weakness in Facebook's structure to get back in (your changed password would just make the process a bit longer for them). Facebook programmers would have to make some changes to the website and fix the security surrounding it, because obviously there are some weaknesses that people have been able to take advantage of. And all the tech blogs would have a field day.

If, however, you have just fallen prey to a scam and unwittingly handed your password over to someone (perhaps by clicking on a scam web link or downloading a virus), or your significant other/sibling/roommate knows your password, then changing your password will indeed fix the problem.... but they aren't hackers :)

PayPal Woes Part II

2010-10-23T12:48:00.000+10:00

Ok, so, my bad. Sort of. I realised that the number I was trying to put in was the account number plus the BSB. I claim ignorance because my bank statement labelled that entire number as the "Account number". Plus, PayPal was asking for the "Entire Bank Account Number"... which made me think I shouldn't put in a partial what-my-bank-statement-called-an-account-number.

Anyway, so I called PayPal. (Before I realised the above). Eventually I got put through to a man in America, who was very helpful and explained everything he was doing. He not only un-restricted my account but also closed it for me. Hooray. I wish I had gotten his name, to say thankyou, as he finalised all that stuff after I got off the phone.

So, thankyou Mr American PayPal Man Who Was Helpful and Closed My Account For Me.

PayPal Woes

2010-10-23T12:17:00.000+10:00

I am hating PayPal right now. They make customer service the most difficult thing ever and I've never come across a company which makes it so DIFFICULT.

Ok, so this is my dilemma. I got an email from PayPal (it was legit*) saying they thought they'd detected third party useage in my account and wanted me to verify it (or otherwise). So I decide to log in to check it out, and decide I want to close down my PayPal account because it's linked to my old bank account which is since closed, and I normally use Andre's PayPal account now anyway.

So I go to PayPal, armed with the incident number they have given me. Once I log on, I am faced with an ID verification question.

I need to give them my account number in full to verify my identity. Ok, I can do that. I find an old statement from my old bank account, put the number into the website, and click Ok.

Error.

Hmm, ok. Maybe it doesn't need the 06 at the beginning. Try again.

Error.

Hmm. Perhaps it does need that space in there that my statement has. Put a space in, try again.

Error.

Try it with the spaces with the 06.

Error.

Right. Let's contact PayPal and get this sorted. Go to the help centre. Choose the topic I need help with. Their online bot is obviously no help, so I want to email them. I click on the email option. It again asks me what topic I need help with. I plug that in. It loads up a new page.

It wants my account number as verification before proceeding any further.

RAGE.

Ok, surely there must be someway of contacting PayPal outside of your account. So I Google 'contact Paypal'. One of the first hits is about contacting PayPal if you can't log into your account. Ok, this must be good, so I click on it.

It takes me to the PayPal log in page. Fortunately it has an option for contacting them if you can't log in. I click on it. "If you want to call us, click here". I Click Here. It gives me an American number.

I hate you, PayPal.

I specifically type in the Australian PayPal website, and go through the same steps to get to their contact-us-if-you-can't-log-in page.

I finally get an Australian number.

*Sigh* Ok, let's try this. You'll know how it goes.

---------------------------------------------

(* The email did not ask me to click on anything and lacked the minor spelling/grammatical/syntax mistakes spam emails often have. I had to manually go to the PayPal website myself.)

Today, I discovered that when FML staff agree their rules aren't clear enough, they still won't remove the warning they slapped you with. FML

2010-10-09T00:18:00.000+10:00

Ok, so FML staff replied. Apparently, due to their "simple and obvious rules", I should realise that

Please don't post any comments which question the validity of an FML without any proof (accusing the original poster of submitting a fake story based solely on your own personal intuition isn't very fair)

also means do not suggest a post is not an FML. (ie. that it is not worthy of being complained about).

I replied...

Questioning the validity of an FML, according to the rules, is when you accuse someone of posting a fake story ("accusing the original poster of submitting a fake story based solely on your own personal intuition isn't very fair"). I did not do that. Perhaps you should change your rules because at the moment there is nothing forbidding what I did.

They didn't take very kindly to me suggesting they hadn't done something well.

Thanks for pointing out what we mean to say on OUR website. I've just explained to you why the comment is against the rules, do you want to argue some more, or just accept the explanation? ;-)

Apparently they forgot that THEY were the ones who told ME what they "mean" to say on their website. So I reminded them.

I'm not telling you what you mean to say. You told me. I'm just saying it doesn't come across very clearly in the rules. And obviously a lot of other people don't think there's anything wrong with saying "not an FML" because I've seen hundreds of those comments, so obviously other users don't think it's against the rules either.

It's only fair that if someone gets a warning for something, it is actually stated in the rules. I have read those rules several times before and never got the impression that saying "not an FML" was against the rules. So I'm just suggesting that in the section where you talk about questioning the validity of an FML, perhaps you could clarify it as not only suggesting someone has posted a fake story, but that it ALSO means saying someone's story is not worthy of being called an FML. Because I think users deserve to know that.

Apparently it finally hit home, and I got this reply.

I agree that the rules need to be changed so that it appears more clearly, so we'll probably do something about that. Thanks!

There's so much more I wish I could say but will refrain as I'll be more likely to get banned than an apology. But of course, it appears I am still stuck with the warning... for doing something the rules didn't clearly forbid.

Today, I discovered FML staff are uptight and give out official warnings just because they feel like it. FML.

2010-10-08T23:44:00.002+10:00

Let's start at the beginning. Today I was on FML when I read the following story:

Today, I was at Barnes and Noble with my dad, where he refused to buy me a book because I "already read too much." FML

I left the following comment.

This isn't an FML. Buy your own books. Plus, as much as I love reading, it is actually possible to read too much. So if your dad thinks you read too much, why should he be obliged to buy you a book? In fact, why should he be obliged to buy you a book anyway? My parents never bought me anything that I just happened to see in a shop and like. They bought me stuff for my birthday, for Christmas, they bought me the stuff I needed (like school stuff, or to replace clothing etc when it fell apart/I grew out of it) but if it was something that I didn't actually need, it was a treat if they bought it for me. And certainly not an FML if they didn't.

Apparently, FML staff had an issue with this comment. From the masses of comments on FML that contain abusive language, swearing, accusations of "fake" (which is apparently against FML rules), they decided my comment contravened website policy...

Whether it's serious or just embarrassing, it's funny or just pathetic... that's life and it's true, it's thus an FML

If it's on the website, it's an FML. People saying "not an FML" is very tedious for the other users, and ruins the website experience. The point of the website is to have a collection of fun stories of little day to day annoyances and embarrassments, not just to have a load of doom and gloom stories about cancer of the anus. Ok? Cheers ;-)

Our website is open to everyone, and obviously the users have the right to express themselves. However, in the comments section, all the conversations, even the most heated, have to remain polite and respectful. So, for the website to be a nice place to hang out, it is up to the users to follow a few simple, but obvious rules.

Somehow they missed the fact that a majority of posts will contain a comment on it somewhere saying "this isn't an FML". Not to mention, most of the other comments on this particular post were expressing the same opinion as I did, but didn't say the actual words "not an FML" and so are therefore apparently ok.

So I decided to read their "simple but obvious rules" to see exactly how I contravened them, and then sent them a reply.

Can I just clarify something?

I have seen comments where people have sworn at and outright abused other people and get away with it. I daresay those "ruin the website experience" far more than a comment like mine did - especially when most of the other comments were expressing exactly the same sentiment. I made my opinion respectfully and politely. I did not abuse anybody, unlike an awful lot of other users on the website. So it appears to me that you have an issue with my opinion rather than how I expressed it, which runs contrary to the claim that "users have the right to express themselves".

I have reviewed the rules and do not think my comment was in contravention of any of them.

- Please don't post any shocking or hateful comments about other users or the original poster of the FML. Remember, FMyLife is a site open to a wide audience. (My comment was not hateful or shocking).

- Please don't post any comments which question the validity of an FML without any proof (accusing the original poster of submitting a fake story based solely on your own personal intuition isn't very fair. Furthermore, it ruins the other users' reading experience). (I was not accusing the OP of posting a fake story).

- TXT language and out of context comments are forbidden (I didn't use TXT language, though I have seen an awful lot of comments that do).

- Flooding or spamming the comments section (posting three or four comments at a time in rapid succession) is forbidden. (I did not spam).

- Advertising of any kind is forbidden. (I did not advertise)

So please, tell me how I broke any of these rules.

Regards

Apparently their rules are so simple and obvious that they have issues interpreting them themselves.

Calvin & Hobbes

2010-09-10T23:39:00.002+10:00

One of my favourite Calvin & Hobbes strips, because Calvin so rarely fears his mother.

What's in a word?

2010-09-08T18:24:00.000+10:00

I'm sick of people using words they don't know the definition of, or simply misusing them. A popular one in the current political climate is 'bigot'. It's being thrown around left right and centre by gay rights groups, accusing anyone who opposes them as being a bigot. There's a petition at the moment in support of a local GLBT festival (basically a Mardi Gras) which essentially calls the signatories of an anti-mardi gras petition "bigotted". The local newspaper recently carried a headline of an opinion piece (about said mardi gras) which included the word "bigot". Gay rights groups like to call the two main political parties, especially Tony Abbott, "bigots" (even though Julia Gillard is really no more supportive of gay rights than Tony Abbott is).

A bigot, according to the Oxford dictionary, is just someone who believes their opinion is superior and is intolerant of other's opinions. To me, that sounds an awful lot like a lot of gay people as well as straight people. Newsflash: being opposed to homosexuality doesn't make you a bigot. It's your attitude, no matter what your opinion is.

Another word is "discrimination". My grandad once said to me, "discrimination doesn't mean what it used to. When I was a boy, if your school report card said you were discriminatory, it was a good thing. It meant you were clever and wise and made good decisions. They've changed the meaning - it doesn't mean that anymore!" Obviously he didn't literally mean they've changed the meaning - it's just that its common use doesn't mean that. These days people think all discrimination is bad.

I read an anecdote on Not Always Right a while ago about a grandmother who accused a lifeguard of discrimination because he wouldn't let her young grandson, who couldn't swim well, jump into the deep end of the pool. Yes, of course it's discrimination. But it's good discrimination! Discrimination is necessary! What's important is why a person is being discriminated against and whether it has any bearing on the situation.

For example, paying a PA less purely because they are a woman is bad discrimination. Being a woman has no bearing on the person's ability to be a PA. But paying a female lawyer less because she has ten years less experience than a male counterpart in the same office is reasonable discrimination. Her less experience means she probably wouldn't do the job as well. It's not sexism. Just because someone is discriminating 'against' someone doesn't make it wrong.

A Woman's Place in Church?

2010-07-22T23:22:00.000+10:00

A friend of mine recently read an article about women in ministry in the church. She felt it was so bad it "seriously made me want to hurl something at the computer". (Which would be a pretty amusing sight!) I went and had a look at it, and it was an interesting read to say the least.

I think there are several misunderstandings people have about the "women in ministry" debate. Those who support the idea of women in ministry often misrepresent the views of those who oppose it. Those who "oppose" women in ministry do not object to the idea of women taking part in a ministry. What they oppose is women teaching the bible to men. I've never met someone who was opposed to women teaching the bible to children or other women, or who was opposed to women holding roles in many other ministries or other roles within a church service. Just an example of such roles could include leading prayer or worship or doing the bible reading. (Only once have I met somebody who objected to women helping lead a church service in any capacity, and they were visitors to a church that I was visiting, so I'd never met them before and probably never will ever again. They stood up in the middle of the service and condemned everyone there for allowing a woman to read the bible from the front of the church and condemned her for having a short hair cut. They were nutters.)

I'm also often amazed at how readily people will make up excuses for otherwise clearly understandable bible passages. Passages such as 1 Timothy 2:12 ("I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent*") are met with objections such as "oh, that was just the cultural norm of the day" or "oh, that might have just been about women who were preaching heresies". (All English translations of the bible translate this verse almost exactly the same way. If there was potential for slightly different understandings of the original Greek words, our different English translations would reflect these differences, as they do in other parts of the bible. But all our translations agree on the meaning of this particular passage. If you are interested in the Greek words and their definitions, a great online resource is The Online Greek Bible. It has the greek text and each individual word is a link to its definition.)

There is nothing in the passage to suggest it applied only to women who were teaching heresies. In fact, Paul goes on to give a reason why women should not be teaching the bible to men; "For Adam was formed first, then Eve, and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became the transgressor". Not "because they are preaching heresies"; not "for they are causing too much noise in the church" (as is another common excuse) - but because Adam was formed first and was not the deceived one, whereas Eve was created after Adam and she was the one who was originally deceived by Satan. (If it was merely a matter of women causing too much noise when they spoke up in church, surely men speaking up would cause just as much disruption and both genders would be told to keep quiet during church?)

(It's also important to note here that Paul is not saying men are more important than women - just that they have different roles in the church.)

1 Timothy 2 also mentions the importance of women learning in church "in full submission", as does 1 Corinthians 14. A woman can't be learning the bible in submission when she's the one teaching it. The Greek terms in 1 Timothy refer to women in a learning capacity, hence the submission thing. In fact, the New Testament often emphasises the importance of women being submissive in many areas of life, not just in church. The idea that women should be submissive to men's teaching in the church is not such a foreign one when you put it beside other instructions for women to be submissive, such as the direction to be submissive to their husbands in Ephesians 5. It comes back to Paul's reason - man was created first, then woman; man was not the original sinner.

(Note that the New Testament authors are not saying women should go along with everything their husbands say, or that husbands are allowed to treat their wives however they like. The bible makes it clear that husbands are priority #2 beside God, and if a husband's instructions are in contravention to his, a wife has every right to disobey her husband. Also, husbands are often admonished in the New Testament to love their wives as Jesus loves the church and to treat her as well as he would treat himself.)

Some people think that Priscilla (Acts 18) is evidence that women were allowed to teach matters of the bible to men. I think there are two parts to this argument that are important to consider. One, I think there is a difference between women having a church-ordained position of biblical authority, and women having a friendly, informal discussion of biblical matters with male friends. I don't think there's anything in the bible to oppose the latter scenario. Two, Acts 18 doesn't actually specify that it was Priscilla who taught their male visitor, Apollos. It simply tells us "When Priscilla and Aquila heard him (Apollos), they invited him to their home and explained to him the way of God more adequately". Not only does this sound to me more like my "friendly, informal discussion of biblical matters" (nowhere does it suggest Priscilla was in some formal, ordained position of biblical authority over men), but it doesn't actually specify that it was Priscilla who did most of the talking. For all we know, it might have been her husband Aquila and she might have just pitched in from time to time. There's nowhere near enough information in that single sentence to know how that conversation played out.

There are lots of other examples in the bible of women holding significant roles within the church. This is evidence that God values women as much as men and that we are equally as important. There were several important female judges in the Old Testament ("judges" in that context were basically rulers of the people - but not biblical teachers). The New Testament mentions many female prophets and in his letters, Paul often sends greetings to particular women who he identifies as key characters within the church. But he never identifies them as teachers of the bible, much less over men.

I realise the whole concept of women not being allowed to do something men can do is an unpopular one in our culture, especially to people who aren't Christians. But this is not for non-Christians. It's not for culture outside the church. It's for the church, and it's only for a specific role within the church. The important role of women is affirmed in many places in the bible - topics I can cover later if need be.

*An important thing to keep in mind here is that the whole passage is giving instructions on worship, so such directions don't necessarily apply to politics or society outside the church.

Things I wish I could say

2010-07-08T20:50:00.002+10:00

...to people who email me at work

Email 1:

Hi,
I am having trouble enrolling in electives for my course (Early Childhood Education) using the online enrolment application. There appears to be no option to enroll in any electives.
I am trying to enroll in
Subject X
Subject Y
Can you please inform me on how to enroll in these subjects as soon as possible?
Thank you in advance
[Student]

Dear [Student]

If you looked at your Enrolment Planner, you'd see there's only space for 1 elective subject in first year and 1 in second year. You have used up both your electives in your first year, so now there's no more space for electives. On top of that, you were TOLD at the end of last year that due to the curriculum change in your course, faculty staff would be removing one of your elective options and replacing it with a new core subject. PAY ATTENTION.

-Me

Email 2

I need to choose a second year elective but there is no option for 2nd year only 1st year. What do I need to do?

Dear... I have no idea what your name is (the 'from' address was just a family name)

I'm not really sure how to put this but... how am I supposed to help you if I have no idea who you are? You know what would help here? A name. That'd be great. Didn't your mother teach you how to write a letter? It generally starts with "To" or "Dear so-and-so", and finishes with "From" or "Regards" or "Sincerely, [your name] ".
An ID number would be fantastic too. And knowing what course you're doing and what subject you're trying to enrol in would be extra helpful, but that might be asking too much.
Please give me something to work with here. Help me to help you. Oh, and send the email from your university email address. We can't send enrolment information to non-university addresses.

-Me

*Later, from the same email address*

Hi Leah,
My details are as follows:
My enrollment year is X
Student No.: X
Elective Subject wishing to enroll in: X
On my study plan details for my enrollment year, I was required to choose an elective, however I am not sure whether this has changed.
Regards [Student]

Dear [Student],
What part of "send the email from your university email address" didn't you understand? I've sent a reply to your uni email address.
-Me

Email 3
Truly, the university enrolment website is awe-inspiringly bad. Come on guys, if the much-maligned private sector can manage to make a website that isn't total rubbish, surely you can?
[Student]

Dear [Student]
You really have no idea what is required by an online enrolment application, do you? Think about this: the university has dozens and dozens and dozens of different courses. The one application needs to be able to enrol students for ALL these courses. That means that a simpler process that might work for the Bachelor of Business or Bachelor of Medicine will not work for the more complex Bachelor of Science or Bachelor of Arts.
Then, within all those courses, are HUNDREDS of subjects. These subjects cross over many courses. Those subjects have pre-requisites, co-requisites and anti-requisites. The process needs to prevent students enrolling in subjects they shouldn't be enrolling in, because it's remarkable the percentage of students who can't figure that out themselves. Sometimes it gets confused, or someone hasn't quite put the right parameters in.
Then the poor IT department are stuck working with a program and structure that has been bought off a private IT developer. They need to make that work with the university's course structures. They don't have a lot of choice in the matter.
So how about YOU write an online enrolment application that will work for a post-grad student wanting to enrol in 4 core subjects; as well as a Bachelor of Medicine student who is only required to enrol in one subject; a Bachelor of Science student who has to be able to choose their own major and group subjects (you don't even know what group subjects are, do you?) PLUS electives controlled by specific parameters; a Bachelor of Education (Secondary) student who has to be able to choose their own SAT-12 and SAT-10 teaching areas; a Bachelor of New Media Arts student who's already enrolled in a major but still needs to manually select it as a minor (before converting it to a major in their second year), as well as selecting a second minor; ... and still be simply laid out and make complete sense for every single student doing every single course?
The lay-out and operation of the enrolment site doesn't depend solely on the people who are physically creating it. It depends on the original structure and program that it's based upon, the structure of the courses (which are dependent on the staff in the faculties), the subject requirements (also dependent on faculty staff) and the actual terminology that is given to them (also by faculty staff and pre-set terminology set by the private IT developer).
Seriously, there are too many courses, too many subjects, too many requirements and too many people involved in a process like that to make it easy.
-Me

Jessica Watson & her critics

2010-05-18T23:17:00.001+10:00

We all know by now that Jessica Watson arrived back in Sydney on Saturday. And I've been so disappointed over many of the comments people are making about her.

I will admit I was a bit uneasy when I first heard her parents were allowing her, a sixteen year old, to embark upon a solo round-world sailing trip. But I figured she deserved the chance to try, and that I really wasn't in any position to say whether she was capable of it or not.

Since she's arrived back, many people seem unable to say "congratulations" or "good work". They are only interested in tearing down her achievement and criticising her family and support team. What happened to good old fashioned Aussie mateship and support? It's taking tall poppy syndrome to its ugly extreme.

Of course it was a dangerous endeavour. But we let 17 and 18 year olds drive on our roads, where they frequently get themselves - or others - into crashes, sometimes killing themselves, or somebody else. Just in the last few days, a 19 year old P-plater killed another driver when he was trying to overtake a semi-trailer on a highway. I've heard no criticism of his dangerous driving, despite the fact he killed someone when he was on the wrong side of the road. At least Jessica Watson was posing no threat to anybody else.

Yes, she may have gotten into trouble and required rescue. That does not make her 'selfish' as some have claimed. In fact, her family said they would pay for any rescue that might be necessary. But wouldn't the possible need for rescue make anybody who gets into a car selfish, because they may require a fireman to cut them free of a car wreck or a paramedic to resuscitate them? Wouldn't it make every solo sailor selfish?

I don't think anybody would know better than her sailing mentors and teachers whether she was capable of making the trip, and so nobody other than them had the right to tell her parents whether they should or shouldn't let her go.

So many people were saying "what if she drowns" "what if her boat gets knocked down and she can't right it" "What if she loses her food/water" "what if her emergency beacons fail" "what if she gets psych problems from being alone for so long" (I honestly had someone say that to me)etc .

The thing is, a lot of things would have had to go wrong at once for her life to be seriously threatened, and those things can happen to a sailor of any age. The boat she used is the most popular model for solo round-world trips because it is so easy for 1 person to operate (relative to any other boat) plus it rights itself after knockdowns so well. I heard someone describe it as a cork - it gets knocked down and just pops back up again. Her emergency beacons were in perfect working order - one went off during a kockdown south of Australia (she had to call her team to reassure them it was a false alarm and she was fine). If her fresh water filter failed and she was unable to fix it, I'm sure she would have pulled into a port somewhere and forfeit her attempt rather than risk her life.

She learnt from her mistakes. After her run-in (pardon the pun) with the tanker off the Queensland coast, she set herself a fatigue management routine and got her boat a new proximity alarm. She had set her proximity alarms before she went to bed that night, but she didn't wake up when they went off to warn her of the approaching tanker. So she installed a new, louder alarm.

I find it appalling that people are accusing her of doing it - and her parents allowing her - just for the money. She turned down a $250,000 deal from a women's magazine to cover her 17th birthday party tonight. She was just a teenage girl with a dream to sail around the world, and she worked hard for 3 or 4 years to make that dream come true. Kevin Rudd and Kristina Kenneally, of course, had to jump on the bandwagon and make a big public spectacle of her return so that they could cash in on the photo ops, but that was not Jessica's plan.

She doesn't care if her achievement is not recognised as an official record. In fact, she knew before setting out that it wouldn't be because she was under 18. She doesn't care if some people don't think she 'officially' circumnavigated the world. She feels she did, and that's all that matters to her.

5 Things in my wardrobe I can't do without...

2010-04-17T11:41:00.000+10:00

Ok, so I've been tagged by Queen Stuss. Top 5 things in my wardrobe I wouldn't be without...

1. Jeans. I love jeans. They are comfy, you can wear them lots of times without having to wash them, you can dress them up or down, they're just excellent. Actually, I could put denim shorts in the same category too... except you can't really dress them up much.

2. Do I have to pick a specific pair of shoes, or can I just say shoes? Or shall I just say shoes with heels...AND thongs. Stuss listed two types of shoes in one point on her list, so I can too. I love heels... they make me taller. And they're pretty. Whether they're sandals or boots. And I love my thongs, I wear them pretty much everywhere when I'm not wearing heels. Shopping, beach, friends' places, camping... yup.

3. Singlet tops. They are great for layering under things, and for stupidly hot summers.

4. Necklaces. I always feel weird if I go out without a necklace of some description on.

5. My brown jacket (or something similar). It's pretty much the only dressy jacket I have, and I love it :)

So now I'm going to tag Heidi :)

Easter Camping: Cape Hillsborough

2010-04-07T22:42:00.001+10:00

Over Easter weekend we went camping at Cape Hillsborough just north of Mackay with about 17 other people; my family, André's family, two families from church (the Campbells and Venemas) and family friends (the Shannons).

Here are some photos from the weekend :)

David & Lizzie on the top of the truck driving on the way back from one of the Nationa Park walks.

David freaked out just a bit when the truck hit a bump and he wasn't holding on :P

David got in touch with his feminine side...

We had two possums regularly visit us... this was ranga possum :)

And that's the island we walked to over the cause way just before the tide came in.

Christine, André, David and Michelle... on a big rock on the beach

There were lots of kookaburras :) We were woken by them every morning at about 6:30.

Missing Dog :(

2010-03-25T21:33:00.001+10:00

Please keep an eye out for Sami. She went missing from Currajong today, so if you live in the area or are passing through, please keep an eye out for her. If you've seen her, let me know (leave a comment or message me on Facebook) or let Kara know, if you know her.

(NB: Just in case you didn't realise, she's not mine. She belongs to my friend Kara.)
-------------------------------

Edit: She's back at home again :)

Cyclone Ului - Fail

2010-03-21T21:04:00.000+10:00

Well after being upgraded to a Category 3 last night, Cyclone Ului ended up being a bit of a fail. It threw a few things round and squashed a few things down at Proserpine, the Whitsundays and Mackay, and dumped a lot of water on them, but up here - within the general diameter of the cyclone area - we got nothing. I discovered that cyclones generally have a lot more action to their south (ie. more rain & more wind) which I hadn't heard before. So we sat up here, looking at the occasional fresh breeze and the smattering of rain we got, being less than impressed.

There are still a lot of clouds around though, so I'm hoping we still get a bit of rain.

Cyclone Ului Approaches...

2010-03-20T15:29:00.001+10:00

Well so far, not much interesting weather. It's cloudy. There's a little breeze. A friend who works on Hamilton Island says it's pretty windy there. All the beaches have been closed. Otherwise, not much else.

The cyclone has been downgraded to a Category 2 as of sometime yesterday, but in the last hour or two the forecast has changed, and they're now predicting it will go back up to a 3 before making landfall.

(For the uninitiated, the light orange area is on "Cyclone Watch", which means gale force winds are predicted to reach the area in 24-48 hours. The dark orange area is on "Cyclone Warning", which means gale force winds are predicted to be there within 24 hours. The grey area allows for all the possible routes the cyclone could take if it shifted its course, so you'll notice the eye is not predicted to reach Townsville - however the storm looks like it should well and truly reach us, though that could also change.) You'll notice that just before it reaches Proserpine, it's predicted to be a Cat 3 again. I'm not really sure why - guess we'll just have to see what happens.

Cyclone Ului

2010-03-18T18:35:00.000+10:00

I think this is one cyclone I might pay attention to a bit more closely. The US Joint Navy Typhoon Centre predicts it crossing pretty much right at Townsville, while the Australian Met Bureau has it crossing about 200km south. Either way it looks like it is going to be pretty close, and is currently a Cat 3 with potential to either decrease or increase. Good times.

Focus on the Family Ad pulled after protests from Gay Activists

2010-03-04T13:48:00.000+10:00

Most people probably heard the fuss over the Superbowl ad by Focus on the Family. The ad featured Tim Tebow, a college football star in the US, and carried an anti-abortion message. Tebow got involved because of his personal beliefs against abortion - his mother had been advised by doctors to have an abortion for medical reasons when she was pregnant with him.

Anyway, it looked like the whole issue had died down - but now it has a sequel.

Focus on the Family had a deal with CBS (the channel that aired the Superbowl), and as part of this deal, also ran an ad on the National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) website (which is operated by CBS).

However, due to protests by gay activists, the NCAA has now taken down the ad. Why, you may ask? There's nothing anti-gay about the ad; it has nothing to do with sexual orientation. But because it was run by an organisation that holds an opposing stance to the gay activists, they protested. And the NCAA caved.

As the article I linked to says, "Not only do they want to block speech that's opposed to their position, they also want to block speech by their opponents even when it's not directly about their position."

The whole issue of gay rights aside, it is wrong to stop an organisation with whom you disagree from running ads when the ads have nothing to do with the issue on which you disagree. It was just an ad for the organisation and carried no specific agenda or message. Not to mention, CBS had a deal with Focus on the Family and has now broken part of it. I hope FOTF got their money back.

R18+ ratings for video games in Australia?

2010-02-16T20:17:00.002+10:00

There has been a lot going around the blogosphere and wider internet about Michael Atkinson and his refusal to allow Australia to introduce an 18+ rating for computer and video games. I was discussing it with a friend the other day who otherwise is pretty clued in when it comes to politics, but she hadn't really looked into this discussion much. I think a lot of non-gamers haven't. I didn't, for a long time (I saw mention of it here and there on the news websites I frequented, but never read any of the articles), until towards the end of last year.

I think it's important that people do, though. It doesn't just affect gamers. It affects every family that has children who play games in the higher-rating area.

Basically, the current rules say that anything that deserves higher than an MA15+ rating is banned from Australia. Australia is the only western country that doesn't have an 18+ rating. Our politicians can change the classification rules, but this one is different to just introducing a new law. All the Governors-General need to agree, and the only one still holding out against it is the Governor-General of South Australia, Michael Atkinson.

His argument is that if we allow games above an MA15+ rating, then we're allowing everything. He's forgetting that - like movies - if something is too 'bad' for an 18+ rating (eg. is deserving of an X rating), it still gets banned. He rationalises that 18+ movies are ok because they're not interactive, but the interactive games affect people more.

He also argues that by allowing 18+ video game content into the country, we are making it available to children. This just doesn't even make sense.

Above: Example of a game (Left For Dead 2) that was banned due to not achieving an MA15+ rating.

You're not allowed into an 18+ movie without showing ID and you're not allowed to hire an 18+ movie without ID, so why would you be able to hire/buy an 18+ video game without ID? It's a very basic but effective level of protection against underaged kids having access to such material. Of course you may still get parents who buy that stuff for their kids', but then it's their responsibility. We currently have uninformed parents (or worse, informed parents who don't care) buying their kids MA15+ games involving violent crime & sex for their 11 year olds, but the 11 year olds aren't waltzing into shops and buying it themselves. Just like if parents buy their kids alcohol, it's the parents' responsibility - you don't ban alcohol for that, do you?

An example of a game (Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2) that achieved 17+ or higher ratings overseas, but is available to mid-teens in Australia due to its MA15+ rating.

There's a lot of stuff out there that isn't suitable for kids, and where laws come to an end parents are responsible for keeping their kids away from such things. Alcohol, MA/R rated movies; even basic safety issues like fire and swimming pools. Michael Atkinson thinks parents cannot be trusted to keep such material away from their kids if they own it themselves, and that once in the home these games "cannot be policed" (since when does Australia 'police' otherwise legal activity inside private homes?)- so apparently he needs to do a parent's job himself.

He also forgets that the average age of Australian gamers is 35. That's right -under 18 year olds make up a minority of the Australian gaming community.

The last important point that I think needs to made is that we currently have games that are deserving of an 18+ rating. But they've been squeezed into the MA15+ rating, making poorly-informed parents think this game is suitable for their 15 year old.
Above: Example of a game (Grand Theft Auto IV) that many think deserves an R18+ rating but gained an MA15+ rating.

This is illustrated by Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 which nabbed itself an MA15+ rating in Australia, but was rated M17+ in the US and 18+ in the UK. Another example is Grand Theft Auto IV which was given an 18+ rating in the UK, R18 in NZ and 18+ in Europe, but got away with MA15+ in Australia.

If we had the 18+ rating available to us, the classification board could easily slap an 18+ rating on any games deserving of it, and we probably wouldn't have as many parents buying their mid-teen kids Grand Theft Auto IV.

I don't want to play R18+ games. I don't like them. I've seen one (bought from the UK over the net) played (and while bloody and gory, not what I would have thought was deserving of an R rating) and really have no interest in it. It's gross. But other people enjoy it and there's no reason why a person is allowed to kill themselves with cigarettes and alcohol, or go watch a highly violent/graphic/sexual R18+ movie where innocent people are mutilated, but can't play a game where you kill CGI zombies with what some people think is an excessive amount of blood splatter.

Some of the excessive blood splatter that gained Left for Dead 2 its banned status in Australia. A special edition was later modified by its makers for sale in Australia.

Sarani Came to Visit!!!

2010-01-30T15:35:00.000+10:00

One of my close friends from highschool, Sarani, came to Townsville this week :) She moved to Perth and after a short stint at WAAPA (Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts) and some time in Israel (she lived in Israel before coming to Australia) she has been doing Vet at Murdoch Uni in Perth.

Here are some pics of us 'back in the day'...

Marnie, me, Sarani, David and Kate at our Grade 12 Formal

Sarani, Daniel and me at school

I'm third from the left and Sarani is third from the right, in the front row

So we haven't seen her in five years. Until this week, when she came to Townsville for a vet school conference!

So Kara had a fluoro-themed housewarming party where we all got to see Sarani again :)

Kara, Sarani and me

Kate, Sarani and me

Katie and Kara being all fluoro in the black light

It was a lot of fun, and it reminded me how much I miss Sarani and will miss her when she's gone again :( But hopefully next time round, it will be less than five years before we see each other again!

SuBo: Management Company =/= Babysitter

2010-01-28T20:53:00.001+10:00

I think Susan Boyle - and her family - needs to start looking after her a bit better.

If she is struggling so much with fame and having multiple breakdowns, perhaps she shouldn't be in that business.

The most recent issue to put her in the media is her brother's comments about his fears for her safety. He worries that because she's a "massive world star" (if she's a "massive world star", what does that make The Beatles??) a "crazed fan" will kill her, like John Lennon.

He puts the blame for her lack of security (in one incident a person got into her house, in another two people peered into her window) on her management. Her management? Seriously? Is she not capable of having a security system installed, or better locks on her doors? And if he's so concerned, can't HE do something about it? Why is her management company suddenly her babysitter?

Normal people put blinds on their windows so peeping toms can't look in and decent locks so intruders can't break in, I'm pretty sure she is capable of doing the same without her management company having to do it for her. I'm pretty sure most of the world's biggest stars probably organise their own private home security rather than their management companies.

As it turned out, the intruder was "aged around 16 and dressed in dark clothing, had been rummaging through belongings" and fled when Susan entered the house. Sounds more like a coincidental house robbery (or some sort of stupid teenage prank) than a crazy fan stalker.

Australia Day

2010-01-24T22:12:00.002+10:00

On the eve of Australia Day eve, I feel it's a suitable time to express my disdain for a certain group of Australians.

They are the people who suggest we should be ashamed of Australia Day, for one reason or another. Some of them call it Invasion Day and say it's shameful to be celebrating the fact that a race was abused by invaders. Others suggest that anyone who takes pride in Australia Day is a red-neck bogan who gets drunk and beats up middle-eastern immigrants or shouts racist slurs.

First, the idea of Invasion Day. As the American-born, Australian citizen James Morrow says, "the fact is that no free country spends its national day navel gazing." Most developed countries have shameful periods in their history. As Morrow puts it, in the lead up to Independence Day you won't find Americans "picking over the lowlights of their history from slavery to Vietnam", and in the lead up to Bastille Day, the French "don’t use the day to focus on the Jacobin terror into which their revolution quickly descended, or bemoan their forebears uniquely brutal colonial history around the world".

Instead, their national day is to celebrate the creation of their country - not necessarily how it happened, but the fact they now have France, or the USA, to live in, in relative freedom. (France's freedom is increasingly fading, but that's another issue).

Yes, there were some awful things done to the Aboriginals when Australia was first settled. But there is a significant difference between the time when Australia was first settled (late 1700s) and the creation of the actual country, in 1901. We're celebrating the country we have now. Should it be January 26th? Some might say it too closely marks the 'invasion' of Aboriginals' territory. But is it not also the starting point of Australia as we know it?

The creation of many countries is interwoven with serious mistakes by the people who were there at the time. It goes back thousands of years. But it shouldn't interrupt the celebration of what is good about the country. And if you really think there's nothing good about Australia to be celebrating, well perhaps you shouldn't be living here.

We are not celebrating the awful things that happened in our history. We're celebrating the good and what has shaped our nation, and the nation it is now. Obviously we've got a pretty good thing going here, or we wouldn't have hundreds of thousands of people trying to immigrate every year - sometimes so desperate to get here, they put their children's lives at risk in a rusty boat. Every other country manages to balance an understanding of their country's past while being able to celebrate its freedom and benefits on a specific national day of celebration. Are we that morally handicapped that we can't find a balance too? As Morrow so aptly put it, "we have 364 other days every year to work through these issues".

As for those who think Australia Day is just about being a bogan racist who gets drunk... I'll borrow from James Morrow again. "Last year 92 people in NSW were arrested; that leaves nearly seven million who were not." There are a minority of people who are idiots and go out and riot, beat up people who look like immigrants (whether they are or aren't). I'm also not aware of any other time of year when most Australians have an objection to getting drunk. That aside, I'd say the majority of Australians have no more than one or two drinks on Australia Day. From my experience, most of them are playing some form of cricket (backyard, street, local park), having a BBQ or are in the pool.

They're not downing drink after drink, prowling Cronulla for people of Lebanese appearance.

The idea we shouldn't celebrate Australia Day because of this idiotic minority (who the media displays in disproportionate amounts) is absurd. It's like saying we should ban Muslims from the country because a minority are terrorists. The suggestion that wearing Australian flags, having your face painted (or even having a southern cross tattoo) makes you a racist bogan is downright stupid.

How about we just treat Australia Day for what it is - a celebration of Australia. Let's not pretend the dark shadows in history didn't happen, but let's debate that and sort that out on any of the other 364 days we have, and leave Australia Day as one special day when we can take time out to celebrate our country. And if you really think there's nothing worth celebrating, then I really don't know why you're even here.

Christine's 16th Dress-Up Party

2010-01-23T16:29:00.001+10:00

For those who might not follow things on Facebook as much, here's a snapshot of Christine's 16th Dress Up party. The theme was movie characters.

Andre as the Joker and me as Bellatrix Lestrange

David as Phantom of the Opera and Christine as (Nymphadora) Tonks

Christine blowing out her candles

The cake that the birthday girl made and decorated

Can someone email me a photo of Michelle?? I didn't take any :-\

Christianity: An Atheist's View?

2010-01-18T21:21:00.000+10:00

I saw this quote on a blog today, linked from Nathan...

"Christianity, and nothing else, is the ultimate foundation of liberty, conscience, human rights, and democracy, the benchmarks of Western civilisation. To this day, we have no other options. We continue to nourish ourselves from this source. Everything else is postmodern chatter."
— atheist philosopher Jurgen Habermas

Interesting. I wonder what convinced him of that.

To JCU Students...

2010-01-14T19:08:00.007+10:00

- When you email Enrolment Help (or anyone else), please, please include your ID number. Not your jc computer username. Your ID number. The Subject Code of any subjects giving you dramas would help, too.

- If you've activated your computer account, send your email from your JCU account. We can't send personal enrolment information to non-JCU accounts.

- If you're going to call Enrolment Help, have your ID number nearby. If it's an online enrolment issue, have the computer turned on in front of you. We can't step you through the process if you don't have the website in front of you.

- Read. Please. If you try to enrol in a subject and it comes up with an error, read the error. Nine times out of ten it will tell you what is stopping you from enrolling. If you're trying to activate your computer account and something doesn't seem to be working, you'll see it says "If you run into any trouble please contact Infohelp". This means contact Infohelp, not Enrolment Help, not General Enquiries. Read instructions so you know what to do.

Other Hints for Enrolling
- Familiarise yourself with JCU's terminology
- Figure out what subjects you want to do before attempting to enrol online. Use your Course Enrolment Planner to do that. If you've looked at your CEP and still can't decide which subjects to do, contact your faculty to talk to an Academic Advisor or contact Enrolment Help to book into an Enrolment Help Session.
- If you have technical problems (your password/user name is not working; websites seem to be breaking or getting technical errors, etc) call/email InfoHelp
- If you know what subjects you should be doing but eStudent doesn't appear to let you enrol, call/email eStudent Support (aka Enrolment Help).
- Once you've filled out your eCAF (electronic Commonwealth Assistance Form), wait 2 working days before proceeding with the enrolment process. Yes, the website tells you to wait. Do people read that? No.
- You won't be able to enrol in your subjects until you have returned your Offer Response form and submitted your eCAF. And then waited 2 days.

"Racist" KFC ad??

2010-01-06T18:33:00.006+10:00

Dear The US of A,

Please stop making judgments about people from other countries when you seriously lack any understanding of cultural context.

It has recently been reported that many Americans found this Australian KFC ad (posted online without KFC's permission) racist and offensive.

Obviously the Americans who deemed this racist do not understand the rivalry between the Australian and West Indies cricket teams.

The man in the ad does not call his situation 'awkward' because he's a white man surrounded by black people. It's because he's an Australian at a cricket game, surrounded by fans from the rival team (West Indies)! So to diffuse this potentially awkward situation, he shares his KFC. He feels awkward because he's surrounded by fans of the opposite team. Wouldn't an LA Dodgers fan feel awkward surrounded by NY Mets fans at a Dodgers vs Mets baseball game?

Many thanks,

Australians who found the ad funny

A Martian's view of Earth

2010-01-05T22:16:00.003+10:00

This article on the Boundless Line made me laugh...

********

It happened again last night. Periodically I receive a visit from a being who claims he’s from Mars, sent here to grok human behavior. His name is unpronounceable. (Let’s just say it would give you an astronomic triple-word score in Scrabble.) But he’s a nice enough guy and sincere in his questioning, so I try to be helpful.

“I need help with something,” he said.

“Shoot,” I said.

“Counting,” he said. “When you start counting something, do you start at zero?”

“No, of course not.”

“I didn’t think so. So why are we seeing so many end-of-the-decade stories? By basic math, this ‘decade’ is actually only nine years old. Don’t these people know how to count?”

“You’d think,” I said.

“Next,” he said. “Cats and dogs. You’re their masters, right?”

“Well, some people prefer the term animal companions.”

“But you own them, no?”

“In theory.”

“Well,” he said, “it seems the other way around to me. Take dogs, for example. You get up in the middle of the night to let them out, or you follow them around and pick up their, um ... digestive byproducts. So who’s the master of whom?”

“Good point.”

“And cats! They usually ignore you until they want food. Then they feel free to puke up partially digested balls of hair onto the bed covers. Again, who’s in charge here?”

“Us ...?”

"... in theory," he added helpfully.

I shrugged.

“Next question,” he said. "What's up with Pluto?"

"Pluto? The dog?"

"No, Pluto the planet. You demoted it to an 'extra-planetary object.' How do you think the Plutonoids feel?"

"Well, I wasn't personally involved in that decision."

"What do you think the Jupiterians think of Earth?"

"I shudder to think."

“We intercept your television signals" he continued, "and for the last few years we’ve seen advertisements for medicines that promise to cure all sorts of ailments.”

“Yeah, isn’t modern medicine great?”

“But then some guy comes on talking really fast about how this medicine might also cause your hair and teeth to fall out, lead you to break out in boils, bring about intense wobbling, and maybe even kill you. So what’s the point?”

“Well, at least you’ll be over the heartbreak of psoriasis.”

“Since we last met it seems some very silly people acted really foolishly with larges sums of money.”

“That would be a lot of us,” I said.

“So your leaders created this program to try to help everyone out. They called it ‘Cash for Clinkers.’ ”

“Cash for Clunkers,” I corrected. “The idea was to give cash incentives for people to get rid of their old cars and buy news ones.”

“The old ones would be the clunkers, right?”

“Yeah.”

“What happened to the clunkers after the people traded them in?”

“By law they had to be destroyed.”

“Destroyed!?” he asked, dismayed. “They still worked, right?”

“Sure, I suppose.”

“But didn’t you tell me before that your first car was a clunker?”

“Indeed. A ’67 VW Bug.”

“And you said used cars were an ideal way to help people save money on transportation and for young people to afford their first car.”

“Yeah.”

“So by destroying these clunkers, you’ve just taken away a source of inexpensive cars for these people.”

“I see your point.”

“And don’t the people who started this program claim to want to help poor people and the young? Or maybe it was to help only certain, politically connected people, like auto unions? You don’t think your leaders would do that, do you?”

“I can't even imagine it,” I said.

“Next question,” he said.

“Are you sure you want to go on?” I asked.

“I have a long list here.”

“Well, okay. But I haven’t been much help so far.”

“Oh, you’ve been immensely helpful,” he said. “Anyway, this Cash for Clunkers program was part of a larger effort to spend money to try to help a hurting economy. I believe they called it the stimulus.”

“Yeah, somewhere north of $800 billion.”

“Yes, that’s the one. On your Internet, it shows that hundreds of thousands of those dollars were given to schools to teach massage. Is that the best use of the taxpayers’ money?”

“You get the Internet? On Mars?”

“Yeah, Mars Online. You didn’t answer the question.”

“I can’t,” I confessed.

“It also shows that the number of jobs ‘saved or created’ divided by the money spent* works out to something like $250,000 per job. (I’ll forget for the moment that it’s impossible to calculate a ‘saved’ job since you’re asked to prove something that didn’t happen.) Why didn’t they just write a check for, say, $50,000 for five unemployed people? It would have helped more people, and their spending would have pumped even more money into the economy.”

“Not as much opportunity for graft and political payoffs if they did it your way,” I said.

“Your leaders would do such things?” he asked, incredulous.

“Go figure.”

“I’ve also been following this whole discussion over ‘health-care reform’ or whatever they’re calling it this week,” he said.

“My head hurts already.”

“The people who are really eager to enact this reform—aren’t they the same ones who say the government should not come between a woman and her doctor over the decision to kill her unborn child?”

“For the most part, yes.”

“But you already have the government trying to come between a woman and her doctor when it comes to medical care that could possibly save her life. It seems that if their plan goes into effect, you’ll have even more of this kind of thing. I’m just not seeing the consistency here.”

“Now my brain hurts.”

“Okay, I’ll try not to cause you too much more pain. But you really must help me with this terrorist thing.”

“Thanks. Now I hurt all over.”

“You recently had a man smuggle a bomb onto a plane despite all the security precautions you’ve put into place.”

“Yeah, pretty scary. He failed only because of sheer incompetence on his part and some alert plane passengers.”

“But immediately afterward your authorities implemented a lot of rules to try to prevent another attack. Like you cannot use the plane’s restroom facilities during the last hour of flight.”

“Yeah.”

“So why wouldn’t the terrorist just detonate his bomb one hour and five minutes before landing? And no blankets on your lap during the last hour? And no personal items on your lap? No books? No computers?”

“Pretty drastic, huh?”

“So what are the passengers supposed to do during that last hour?”

“Sit there and appreciate how safe they feel?”

“I suspect that’s not what they’ll be feeling. Why do they punish you when it was someone else who tried to kill everyone?”

“Because they can.”

“I’ll have to be going soon,” he said. “But this latest session confirms our research, so I wanted to give you some good news and bad news before I leave. Which do you want first?”

“Let’s try the good news. I need it.”

“Okay, we’re going to vaporize Earth in 24 hours. Such an idiotic planet has no place in our solar system, soaking up perfectly good solar energy that would be put to better use warming our planet.”

“That’s the good news!? What’s the bad news?”

“I meant to call on you yesterday.”

*****

*The author pointed out in a later comment that he got the equation the wrong way round, and it should be money spent divided by jobs saved/created.

Birthday Shenanigans

2009-12-30T23:46:00.004+10:00

It was my birthday today. One of David's friends shares my birthday. At about 10:30pm last night, his facebook status read "omg... 17. cmon." I commented "totally know how you feel!" When you're sixteen and your friends have all been seventeen for six months, it's not a novelty any more, and you're just wishing you were as old as them.

One day it will be the reverse. I'm not quite there yet, but I'm no longer at the "I wish I was X years old already!" stage.

Having such a late birthday (after most graduation dates) can have some interesting side-effects. It means I graduated highschool at 16. Graduated university at 19. Married before my 21st. It means there were kids in the year below me who were only three weeks younger than me. Or, if they were put through the NSW schooling system (like Mark C who did the HSC in PNG), it means they graduated highschool two years after me... but in Mark's case, are only a week younger than me!

Sometimes I viewed it as a negative (feeling the need to remind people that even though I was nine years old I was actually in Grade 5, and was still turning ten that year) and sometimes it was kinda cool (finishing highschool at 16 makes you look smart... even if you're not.)

*********

Anyway, it was a good birthday. I actually had both my family and André around which, like at Christmas, was a first. Except Michelle was going away today, so we had our party last night. We had a BBQ with family and just a few friends down at Riverway before going ten pin bowling. I played pretty miserably for the first half of the game but managed a spare towards the end (my overall score was in the low 70s... about a month ago I scored in the 90s). However my brother-in-law scored three strikes all in a row, in the very last round! I'd never seen that before... and then, not 5 minutes later, my uncle did exactly the same thing. We almost thought my mother-in-law was going to make it a third, but she only pulled off two strikes ("only").

Today André made me both breakfast (he offered bacon & eggs, but I just wanted my normal cereal) and lunch (ham and salad rolls). He also took me to see a movie, and then out for dinner at Monsoons. We started our meal out on the balcony but had to move it onto the patio when the rain moved in, but that was ok. I like rain.

I was especially pleased to get a new USB flash drive, new earphones for my mp3 player (both from Mum & Dad) and a field guide to Australian mammals which I've been hanging out for for a long time (from André). Another present I really liked was a pen engraved with "Best Wishes from Pimlico State High School". It doesn't sound like much, but it was from Pimlico's Jubilee celebrations earlier this year. I loved my school and was very disappointed I couldn't attend any of the Jubilee celebrations.

So all in all, a good two days :) And now I think it's bed time...

Why discrimination is sometimes good...

2009-12-29T22:39:00.001+10:00

Dim Witted And Off The Deep End, Part 2

Pool | Colville, WA, USA

(A little boy is about to go off the high dive when I stop him. His grandmother, upset, approaches and questions me.)

Grandmother: “Why won’t you let my grandson swim?”

Me: “We don’t believe he is a strong enough swimmer to be safe in the deep end.”

Grandmother: “So can he just go off the high dive?”

Me: “No, if he went off the high dive, he would most likely drown.”

Grandmother: “Well, you are a lifeguard! Isn’t it your job to stop him from drowning? You are discriminating against my grandchildren! You lifeguards are just lazy!”

Honeydukes Sampler Box

2009-12-28T11:30:00.025+10:00

As I said in my last post, I'm going to expand on the Honeydukes Sampler Box I gave my almost-16-year-old sister for Christmas. Although it was a bit of work to put together (both in making some of the sweets, and finding some of the more elusive ones in shops) it was fun and Christine's reaction (squealing, bouncing up and down in her chair and clapping) was definitely worth it!

The insert in the sample box

Bertie Botts Every Flavour Beans
"Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans--A Risk With Every Mouthful!" - Advertisement at the Quidditch World Cup (Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire)

Jelly Belly used to manufacture actual "Bertie Botts" beans. I'm guessing their licence has expired though, because while they still manufacture a weird-flavoured-beans product, they are not called "Bertie Botts". They're called "Beanboozled Beans". They come in very little boxes, for about $4- $5, depending where you get them from. So I bought one box of Beanboozled beans and a bag of regular Jelly Belly beans, then combined them. So the beans were predominantly normal flavours, with a few weird ones thrown in.

Ice Mice
"Hear your teeth chatter and squeak!" - Advertisement in Honeydukes (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban)

I made these from fondant (plastic icing), using green hundreds and thousands for the eyes. The noses are just fondant with red food colouring. Many of the blogs I read suggested making Ice Mice from chocolate, using a mint filling, but nothing in the books suggests to me that they are made from chocolate or mint-flavoured. They hardened upon being left in the fridge for several days after making. I imagine they'd harden even if left out, but I didn't want ants getting to them.

Cockroach Clusters
"Reckon Fred'd take a bit of Cockroach Cluster if I told him they were peanuts ?"- Ron Weasley (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban)

I originally intended to make these as a bunch of peanuts with toffee drizzled over them, but ended up making them basically as toffees with peanuts in them. Many of the blogs I read suggested making these out of chocolate too, with caramel and peanuts inside, but again I don't think the books suggest they're made of chocolate. Judging from Ron's quote (above), I thought they must at least look like peanuts, which is why I chose to use peanuts. I chose toffee as a way to 'cluster' the peanuts.

The picture above is the basic idea - the ones I included in the Honeydukes Box had more peanuts and were made in silicone cups, so were popped out and then wrapped in the baking paper.

Sherbet Lemons
"They're a muggle sweet I'm rather fond of," - Professor Dumbledore (Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone).

I found these in a local lolly shop, after much searching. I also saw them online in a few places. In the US version of the first few books, they are called "lemon drops" because they thought Americans would think of an icy dessert upon reading the word "sherbet". Sherbet Lemons and Lemon drops are two very different sweets. You can do your own research, but if you're an American looking for an authentic Harry Potter sweet, go for JK Rowling's original Sherbet Lemons and not Lemon Drops. We see in Prisoner of Azkaban that Honeydukes does sell Muggle sweets, so it's possible they also sell Sherbet Lemons, especially seeing as Dumbledore is so fond of them.

Drooble's Best-Blowing Gum

"...along yet another (Honeydukes) wall were "Special Effects" sweets: Droobles Best Blowing Gum (which filled a room with bluebell-coloured bubbles that refused to pop for days)..." (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban).

These were just gum balls bought at a local lolly shop. I wanted to go for all blue gum balls, due to the "bluebell-coloured bubbles" described in the books, but I would have had to go digging through the tub of gum balls to find enough blue ones, so was content to have multi-coloured gum balls.

Chocolate Frogs
"What are these?" Harry asked Ron, holding up a pack of Chocolate Frogs. "They're not really frogs, are they?" (On the Hogwarts Express - Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone).

I bought chocolate frogs from Darrel Lea (these were in the shape of normal frogs, not Freddo Frogs) and made pentagonal boxes for them to go in, like the movies, from this pattern. I also made collector's cards using this template. I didn't have the creativity or motivation to figure out how to colour the boxes so just left them white, but if I'd had time, I would have found some purple cardboard to make them out of, so they were at least coloured.

Click on the image of the chocolate frog card to see an enlarged version and see what I wrote for Hermione's Chocolate Frog Card.

Fizzing Whizzbees
"...and another (barrel) of Fizzing Whizbees, the levitating sherbet balls that Ron had mentioned..." (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban)

These were probably the least accurate to the book. I bought some Sherbet UFOs from the same local lolly shop that I got everything else. The book describes them as sherbet balls, but I couldn't find sherbet balls anywhere. I did find these Lemonade Fizzballs and Fizzy Wizzy online, but they had a minimum order quantity that I was not going to buy.

Golden Toffees
"There were shelves upon shelves of the most succulent-looking sweets imaginable (in Honeydukes). Creamy chunks of nougat, shimmering pink squares of coconut ice, fat, honey-coloured toffees..."

I just made toffees at home. I made them in silicone cups and popped them out, then wrapped them individually in aluminium foil to stop them sticking together, then all together in baking paper.

Chocolate Fudge
"Honeydukes have got a new kind of fudge, they were giving out free samples, there's a bit, look..." -Ron Weasley (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban)

I also made my own fudge but you could also buy some. I just wrapped a slab of it in baking paper.

Gift Idea: Homemade Gift Baskets

2009-12-28T10:38:00.009+10:00

As I mentioned in my last blog, a new gift idea I came across this year was homemade gift baskets. These are great because they are personalised, and can be as cheap or as expensive as you want.

Unfortunately I forgot to take photos of the final products before giving them out at Christmas, but these are some ideas that we did...

A "Quiet Night at Home" Gift basket
This gift basket for Mum contained a Michael Bublé CD, a block of Rocky Road Chocolate, and a box of Nestle Drinking Chocolate saches.

A "Brunch" Gift basket
We did this gift basket both for my grandparents & André's mum, but they were a little different. For my grandparents, I included a bottle of pancake mix, a packet of Apple & Berry oats, a serving plate, Christmas tea towel, a tin of mixed berries, two jars of jam (Ginger Marmalade and a mixed berries jam) and two sample boxes of tea (Chamomile and Lemon Honey). For André's mum, I included a bottle of chocolate pancake mix, a bottle of fruit juice, a packet of Apple & Berry oats and two jars of jam.

A "Hot/Chilli" Gift Basket
This one was for André's dad. He loves anything hot and made of chilli. So in his basket, we included a block of dark chilli chocolate, a packet of Wasabi Peas, a tube of Wasabi Paste, a bottle of Nando's Extra Hot Peri-Peri sauce, a bottle of Mustard, Honey & Herbs marinade, a bottle of some type of chilli conserve, and two tubes of seasoning paste (like what you get in the fresh veggies section of the supermarket) - an Indian flavoured one, and a Chilli flavoured one.

********

Another slightly different "gift box" I did was for Christine. This one's for the Harry Potter nerds. It was a lot of work but I had a lot of fun doing it and Christine's reaction (squealing, bouncing up and down and clapping) was definitely worth it.

I made her a Honeydukes Sampler Box. Honeydukes is the sweetshop in the village of Hogsmeade in Harry Potter. All the sweets I made or bought are, according to the books, found in Honeydukes (or are sweets mentioned in other parts of Harry Potter that could plausibly be found there). Obviously my sweets did not have the magical properties that some of the fictional varieties had, but they were still a lot of fun.

The box included homemade toffees, peanut toffees ("Cockroach Clusters") and chocolate fudge, store-bought sherbet lemons, gum balls ("Drooble's Best-Blowing Gum"), jelly beans ("Bertie Botts' Every Flavoured Beans"), sherbet UFOs ("Fizzing Whizzbees"), chocolate frogs ("Chocolate Frogs", complete with collector's cards) and "Ice Mice" (mice made from fondant).

I'll expand on this gift box in a separate post, as I found other people's blogs helpful when putting my sample box together, so hopefully I can help someone else out :)

Merry Christmas :)

2009-12-26T22:20:00.003+10:00

Christmas this year was good :) It was my first Christmas with both my family and André. Christmas Eve we finished work at midday so went out for lunch for my brother-in-law's birthday, then that night was 'Christmas' with the in-laws.

Christmas Day was church in the morning, morning tea at the parentals' with family friends, then Christmas lunch with immediate family & grandparents at the grandparents' place. Followed by playing Wii (with the grandparents, no less) then back at the in-laws', looking through photos JP (brother-in-law) took in Europe. Good times.

I found a great present idea this year. Homemade gift baskets. I did four or five of them for family, they were all a hit... I will blog more on that later :)

Mother tweets while son dies... or not

2009-12-18T21:25:00.003+10:00

I'm disgusted by what some journalists call 'news' and the way they twist facts to make them sound more outrageous.

I read an article headlined 'Mum Shellie Ross tweets while her son dies'. It sounds apalling. It makes you think the mother was glued to her computer while her son was lying unconscious on the floor.

Instead, it turns out her toddler had fallen in the pool. Her oldest son called the paramedics, and half an hour after the paramedics arrived, Ms Ross tweeted to her 5000 followers with a request for prayer. Five hours later, she tweeted again to mourn the death of her son.

She tweeted twice in five hours. Neither time was she tweeting rather than trying to save her son. The first time was when paramedics were already at the location. The second time was after the boy died. It's disgusting that she's been harassed by journalists, and now the public, and now she's had to give an answer for herself.

Leave her alone. She wasn't neglecting her son when she tweeted. People grieve in different ways.

Google VS 000?

2009-12-11T23:54:00.003+10:00

I just read an article about a Dad who delivered his first daughter (fourth child) with instructions from Google, after his wife unexpectedly went into labour at home. To his credit he called a midwife first who was on her way, but, as the article said, "before she arrived Emma, 25, began having powerful contractions."

Apparently afterwards Emma said she'd never complain about her husband being on the phone again, and "thank God for the BlackBerry".

One would think he'd call an ambulance and listen to instructions from the qualified dispatch staff?

Homophobia?

2009-11-29T20:36:00.004+10:00

UGH. I am so sick of seeing people abuse the concept of homophobia.

For starters, the very word "homophobia" is misleading. A phobia is an irrational fear of something, when clearly that is not (usually) what homophobia is about. Wikipedia defines homophobia as not only an "irrational fear of, aversion to, or discrimination against homosexuality or homosexuals", but "unreasoning fear of or antipathy toward homosexuals and homosexuality" and "fear of or contempt for lesbians and gay men".

But my primary reason for posting is not to contend the word's meaning itself, but how it is abused.

Christianity is not homophobic. And Christians should not be. I cannot say Christians are not homophobic, because that's like saying Australians are not racist. Some Australians are racist, that doesn't mean Australia as a whole advocates racism. In the same way, I'm sure some Christians are homophobic - that doesn't mean Christianity as a whole advocates homophobia.

Yes, the Christian bible clearly forbids homosexuality. Any Christian who believes otherwise has not read their bible or is fooling themselves. But it does not advocate mistreating homosexuals, judging them as worse than any other sinner (and the bible is pretty clear that everyone is a sinner), or whatever else homophobia may lead to. The bible never treats homosexuality as worse than any other sin like lying, cheating, drunkenness, stealing, whatever. Our opposition to homosexuality should not be taken as a rejection of homosexual people, just like our opposition to lying isn't to be taken as a rejection of liars.

The fact that Christianity does not accept homosexuality as ok or right does not mean we are out to treat homosexuals as worse than anyone else. Groups that try to suggest Christianity is homophobic because it calls homosexuality a sin are completely off-base.

People also need to stop saying "end discrimination" in regards to the Christian church not employing gay ministers. Discrimination is often necessary. It becomes bad depending on how and why you are discriminating. If you're discriminating against someone by firing them due to their skin colour then that's wrong, because skin colour does not affect a person's ability to do their job. But if a "Christian" is blatantly rejecting the laws established by the bible, then that suggests some pretty obvious inability to correctly interpret and teach the bible. Telling the Christian church they should allow homosexuals to become ministers - when their religion clearly says it's wrong - is like telling Jews they should allow an uncircumcised, bacon-eating guy to be a Rabbi, or telling Muslims they should allow an alcohol-drinking guy who rejects the Sharia to become a Sheikh. It's ridiculous.

Twilight-hating?

2009-11-27T11:58:00.004+10:00

(New Moon, Eclipse & Breaking Dawn spoilers)

Okay, I enjoyed Twilight but am not the biggest Twilight fan out there. I think there are so many things wrong with the books, but I'm so sick of all the Twilight-hating going on. Most of it comes from people who either...

a) Are used to the traditional vampire myths and don't like the fact someone might use their imagination to come up with something different
b) Haven't read the books
c) Haven't read the books properly

I'm not talking about simple not-liking. I'm talking about the rabid hatred that spews from some people.

See, I can quite easily admit the books aren't well-written, the plot is weak, Bella & Edward are two-dimensional cardboard characters, their romance is so unhealthy it's not funny, and I was mad when Edward came back at the end of New Moon.

I can also easily admit that the Cullen family is pretty awesome. Their characters get filled out quite well over the course of the books and their back-story is intriguing. (Too bad the main storyline couldn't be.) They were amusing and entertaining.

But people out there are raging over mostly non-existant problems. They suggest...

a) Twilight condones paedophilia. It doesn't. In "Eclipse", it gets explained that the Quileute werewolves 'imprint' upon a life partner. This is first described sort of as love-at-first-sight, except more powerful. You don't have a choice. Not all the werewolves imprint, but several do. And in two cases, someone imprinted upon a small child. The first time, it caused a scandal among the Quileutes. But as Jacob Black later explained,

"There's nothing romantic about it at all, not for Quil (the werewolf who imprinted), not now... it's not like love at first sight, really. It's more like... gravity moves. When you see her, suddenly it's not the earth holding you here anymore. She does, and nothing matters more than her. And you would do anything for her, be anything for her... You be whatever she needs you to be, whether that's a protector, or a lover, or a friend, or a brother. Quil will be the best, kindest big brother any kid ever had. There isn't a toddler on the planet who will be more carefully looked after than that little girl will be. And then, when she's older and needs a friend, he'll be more understanding, trustworthy, and reliable than anyone else she knows. And then, when they're grown up, they'll be as happy as Emily and Sam."

It's also pointed out that since werewolves do not age (until they regain control over their condition and manage to stop morphing into wolves [it is discovered at the end of the books that they are not actual werewolves, but shapeshifters who take on the shape of a wolf]), once the little girl is grown, the guy won't physically be that much older than her. It's weird, but it's not paedophilia.

b) Twilight emasculates and is disrespectful of men. Again, it doesn't, and it isn't. I've heard it suggested that because Bella thinks of her father by his first name Charlie rather than 'Dad', she is being disrespectful. And apparently it's only the abusive, over-the-top control freak guys (apparently Edward and Jacob) who are shown as worthy of respect while the others (apparently Charlie) are shown as weak pushovers. I would argue this is way off. Yes, it could be argued that Edward is abusive, over-the-top and a control freak. But not Jacob. And I don't believe Charlie is shown as weak or a pushover. Bella thinks of both her parents by their first names, Charlie & Renee, but always calls them "Mom" or "Dad" to their faces. Also, Charlie's the town police chief, and Edward is determined to show him the appropriate respect, both as a police officer and his girlfriend's father. Also, other men in the books such as Carlisle and Emmett (Edward's surrogate father and brother) are both held to be very respectable characters (and by no stretch of the imagination could either of them be described as abusive control freaks), as well as the Quileute elders.

These are not legitimate criticisms. The only possible legitimate moral criticisms with the books are that Bella willingly submits to a stupidly over-the-top, controlling boyfriend. I wouldn't go so far as to call him abusive, because I wouldn't say he abuses Bella, but I do think he abuses his power over her. However, in 'Eclipse', Bella's had enough of it and ignores what he thinks are unacceptable risks. She becomes more strongheaded and not as submissive in both 'Eclipse' and 'Breaking Dawn'.

I also think it's very unfair of people to take out their hatred of Twilight on the actors. It is not Robert Pattinson's fault that Edward is a lame character. In fact, I think he'd agree.

The only other criticisms that I think can legitimately be levelled at the books are all about their literary qualities. I haven't read Eclipse and Breaking Dawn for a while, but in Twilight and New Moon both Bella and Edward are very two-dimensional, sappy characters. They have very little depth. The books ramble and there are large chunks you could rip out without losing much of the storyline (unlike Harry Potter). The plots have gaping holes. The storylines are ok, but nothing special.

That said, let me finish with this...

New fave blog?

2009-11-23T16:22:00.003+10:00

I think I have found a new favourite blog. Not that I had a favourite blog before, but I think this one comes pretty close.

Denise Morris is a freelance writer. I like her because she sounds like a cooler version of me, and she's funny. She used to work for Focus on the Family, blogging mainly for the now-defunct TrueU.org, and sometimes contributing to The Boundless Line. She lost her job when FOTF shut TrueU down due to the financial crisis. She gives her opinion sometimes but if you disagree with her you can't possibly get annoyed or mad because she's too funny and loveable. She likes God, friends, Harry Potter, chips, and Tobymac. You should go check her blog out and say hi.

Changing laws?

2009-11-20T10:54:00.003+10:00

There have been a lot of driving- and alcohol-related deaths and accidents in the news recently, usually due to somebody disregarding the law; underage drinkers, unlicenced drivers, drunk drivers, speeding, etc.

And I have continually noticed commenters on these articles suggesting the laws need to change. They say the legal drinking age should be raised; the driving age should be raised; people should be kept on their Ls or Ps for longer; the legal driving BAC should be lowered; etc.

But if these incidents are being caused by people disregarding the law, how is changing the law going to help? People will just keep on disregarding the law. Last night a 16 year old girl killed her two passengers when she crashed into a power pole; we don't know if she had her Ls or was completely unlicenced, but either way, she was breaking the law. It wouldn't have mattered if the legal driving age was a year higher; she still would have been driving unlicenced.

We have 16 and 17 year olds becoming involved in drunken fights. It wouldn't matter if the legal drinking age was upped to 21; we'd still have underage kids drinking and fighting.

Changing the law only helps when such incidents are caused when people are still acting within the law. An example was when the driving speed limit around built-up areas was 60km/hr. Driving 60km/hr still resulted in horrific accidents and even deaths when people were behaving perfectly lawfully. That is when changing the law has an effect.

There's no point in changing driving and drinking laws when the tragedies are caused by people disregarding the laws.

Men in detention facilities, women not?

2009-11-18T19:55:00.005+10:00

I always wonder why people jump up and down about men and women being treated differently, but when men are put in detention facilities and women are not, that seems to be ok.

One might suggest the women from the Oceanic Viking were put into an 'adjacent facility' to be with the children (and that children should not be put into detention centres), but why not put the men in there with them?

For that matter, what's the difference between a detention facility and the 'adjacent' one?

Time Travel

2009-11-18T11:09:00.003+10:00

I've come to the conclusion, that from a Christian persepective, Time Travel will always be impossible. This might be obvious but I haven't given it much throught previously, other than I just thought the very idea of time travelling was stupid.

I was brought to this conclusion by watching an episode of Stargate Universe. I'll try to keep this vague, so I don't create any spoilers, but there's an episode that involves time travel and some of the people who go back in time die, and one assumes from the episode that this prevents the other 'current' versions of these people dying.

And I realised, that would mean there could be two of you at the one point of time, which would require two of your souls, when clearly we only have ONE soul, and if one of 'you' died and the other didn't, how would you be judged? Or what if you both died, at the same point, one would assume you'd be having two souls judged.

And also, if you saw your future self die after he/she has time-travelled back to your time, then you'd probably take note NOT to travel back to this point in time in the future, to avoid that death. Which means you've died but had a second run... which the bible obviously disagrees with.

My conclusion is open to change, by the way, that's just the conclusion I've come to so far.

That, and the idea of going back in time is just stupid anyway.

Rules for Using the Internet

2009-11-11T22:06:00.002+10:00

1. Do not make comments in all-caps, unless you really want the recipient to feel you are yelling at them. Even then you probably shouldn't do it. And it just makes you look stupid when you do it with smilies all through the message because then you're obviously not intending to yell at them.

2. Don't ask questions that could really, really easily be answered with a basic Google or Wikipedia search. For example, "what's the capital of Romania?" It makes you look lazy or really naive (ie. you don't know Google exists or something) and chances are somebody else will go and do the search to make sure they're giving you the correct information. If you've done a search (even if just a basic quick one) and can't find an answer, then ask your question.

3. Don't tlk lyk dis in blog comments, blog posts, forums, news comments, or basically anywhere other than perhaps your friend's Facebook page (with whom you usually converse with such language). It makes people think you're an uneducated 14 year old who is more interested in looking cool to his/her friends than contributing something intelligent to a discussion.

4. Try to educate yourself if you don't know how to do something, or how something works. My dad always said the most beneficial thing about school is that it teaches you how to learn. Most internet-savvy people don't have degrees and have figured it out themselves. That's not to say you can't ask for help at all - just give it a shot, it might be easier to figure out than you thought. (Conversely, if someone asks you how to do something that you think is incredibly easy, don't automatically assume they haven't tried to figure it out for themselves.)

5. Don't download an email attachment from someone you don't know. This should be basic, but apparently some people still haven't figured it out. You are figuratively opening the door for a virus to walk in by doing that.

Sick of "Equality"

2009-11-11T16:33:00.003+10:00

Homosexual activists are celebrating a decision by the ACT's parliament to allow a bill that "allows gay and lesbian couples to create their civil partnerships through a legally-binding ceremony before friends and family".

The fact they are permitting gay civil unions is not new - the ACT, Tasmania and Victoria have permitted that for some time now- it's just that now the ACT has added the legality of a ceremony to go along with it.

The debate on whether gay unions should be legalised aside, I'm sick of the use of the word "equality" among all this.

The article I just referenced has gained many comments including...

"A positive step, but still a long way to go from being recognised as an equal couple. It's not over yet."
"I think the way the gay/lesbian community is treated is disgusting - equality for Australians!"

The fact is, everybody in Australia has equal rights concerning marriage already. We are all allowed to marry somebody of the opposite sex. Nobody has a legally defended "right" to marry whomever they "love". Not homosexuals, not heterosexuals. Your sexuality has nothing to do with your rights regarding marriage. It's not one law for heterosexuals and one law for homosexuals. (Now that would be inequality.) It's one law for everyone. If I was in "love" with a married man, I wouldn't be allowed to marry him. If I was in "love" with an animal, I wouldn't be allowed to marry it.

The laws of marriage are not there to allow you to marry whoever you "love". Everybody has the same right - to marry someone of the opposite sex. If you want to lobby to have gay marriages legalised, well that's another debate, but stop pretending you're somehow being treated unequally, because you're not. You have the same rights I do.

Dennis Ferguson's Day at the Beach

2009-10-28T17:36:00.002+10:00

There has been a bit of a to-do today about convicted paedophile, Dennis Ferguson, having his photo taken on a public beach with children in the background.

I think it's all a bit over-the-top.

There's no doubt Ferguson is a vile man, and should never, ever, be allowed alone with children. I'd even support the notion he shouldn't be allowed to live within a normal neighbourhood with children around.

But what harm is he going to cause on a public beach?

He's not going to try to kidnap or assault a child surrounded by other beach-goers. I'd be very surprised if he tried taking photos of any of the children - people these days (including life guards) are so paranoid about paedophilia, that a lone 70+ year old man taking photos of children is going to raise suspicion. The photo in question was taken by a regular person (ie. not paparazzi) and sent to the paper by Ferguson's friend Brett Collins (who was also with him at the beach) and the children in the background are hardly distinguishable. It wasn't a photo taken of children by Ferguson.

The biggest danger he poses is living in a neighbourood with children, where he could lure a child into his house or drag them off the street into a car (if he was going to attempt to re-offend). Not on a public beach.

Updated: New Willows Shoppingtown Stores

2009-10-28T15:55:00.006+10:00

Just an updated list of the new shops going into Willows...

- Cosmetics Plus
- Tony's Kebabs
- Sunshine Kebabs
- Donut King
- Rickshaws
- Kazza's Barbers
- Temt
- Bras 'n' Things
- Spoonful of Sugar
- Fish Market
- JayJays
- Subway
- Muffin Break
- Robin's Kitchen
~~- Smiggle~~
- Sunnygirl
- Ice Design
- Angliss Meat
- Shaver Shop
- Best & Less
- Big W
- Angus & Cootes
- Priceline
- Ripcurl
- JB Hifi
- EB
- Game
- QBD Bookstore
- Betts
- Prices Plus
- Oporto
- Sumo Salad
- Bucking Bulls
- McDonalds
- Hungry Jacks
- Noni-B
- Ally
- Salt 66
- Jeanswest
- Goldmark
- Just Cuts
- Wild Cards & Gifts
~~- Gelatissimo (rumoured)~~
- NQ Fury store
- Colorado (rumoured)
- Citi Beach (rumoured)
- Coco House
- Lorna Jane
- Jean-Pierre's Patisserie

What Now?

2009-10-20T18:28:00.003+10:00

I just discovered there is an annual "Black Girls Rock! Awards" ceremony in New York where it seems Hollywood likes to honour its, well, black girls.

Can you imagine the outrage if someone tried to stage a "White Girls Rock!" awards ceremony?

Scary

2009-10-13T11:52:00.004+10:00

Other scary thoughts:
- If you're 18 and under, Aladdin's been around longer than you
- Buzz & Woody are older than kids who are 14 or younger
- This year's Preps were born after Finding Nemo was released
- Anyone in Grade 5 or under has lived solely in the 21st Century
- No country has beared the name 'Yugoslavia' in the lifetime of this year's Preps
- Anyone 9 years old and younger has never known TV without 'Survivor'

Politics & Religion

2009-10-13T10:40:00.002+10:00

I read a good quote today.

The person said "People don't want Christianity in politics, but they're very quick to put their politics into Christianity."

How true.

Hypocrite Connick Jr

2009-10-10T22:50:00.003+10:00

Harry Connick Jr once did a skit where he impersonated an african-american preacher.

To do so, he painted himself black.

And it wasn't even as a tribute to somebody... it was to promote his own CD.

What a hypocrite.

Hey Hey It's Political Correctness Day*

2009-10-09T10:42:00.006+10:00

Talk about a storm in a teacup.

I'm sure everyone has heard about Wednesday's Hey Hey It's Saturday reunion featuring the Jackson Jive skit.

And the fuss over it is ridiculous. A bunch of men did a Michael Jackson/Jackson Five tribute sketch and five of them painted their faces black (because the Jacksons are black) while one painted his face white (to look like Michael Jackson). And that's racist?

I have two reactions to this. The first is that painting their faces black, in and of itself, is not racist. The Jacksons ARE black, so to act as them, it's logical you'd paint your face black. I wouldn't have a problem with a group of black men painting their faces white to do a Beatles tribute. Racism is discriminating or teasing someone based upon their race. The actors of the Jackson Jive were not discriminating against nor teasing anybody. If Harry Connick Jr had not been present, nobody would have cared.

The second is this: I've come to realise that the blackface image has a bad history in the US and so has racist connotations for Americans. So while the act of painting a face black is not itself racist, I can understand that for those who have been exposed to the racist history the blackface has in the US, those connotations may have been suggested when watching the Jackson Jive skit. But the thing is this: the Jackson Jive skit was arranged for, and performed for, Australian audiences. Not American. Most Australians are not aware of the history of the blackface in the US, and as it was not being performed for Americans, it should not have been a problem. The problem started because an American, who was aware of these racist connotations in his own country, was present and offended.

It's unfair to bring symbolic connotations into another country and expect them to understand and abide by them, much less to know them ahead of time. A good example comes from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. (Warning: spoilers ahead).

'Who are you?' Krum asked.
'Barny Weasley.' (Harry in disguise).
They shook hands.
'You, Barny - you know this man Lovegood well?'
'No, I only met him today. Why?'
Krum glowered over the top of his drink, watching Xenophilius, who was chatting to several warlocks on the other side of the dance floor.
'Because,' said Krum, 'if he vos not a guest of Fleur's, I vould duel him, here and now, for vearing that filthy sign upon his chest.'
'Sign?' said Harry, looking over at Xenophilius too. The strange, triangular eye was gleaming on his chest. 'Why? What's wrong with it?'
'Grindelvald. That is Grindelvald's sign.'
'Grindelwald... the Dark wizard Dumbledore defeated?'
'Exactly.'
Krum's jaw muscles worked as if he were chewing, then he said, 'Grindelvald killed many people, my grandfather, for instance. Of course, he vos never poverful in this country, they said he feared Dumbledore - and rightly, seeing how he vos finished. But this - ' He pointed a finger at Xenophilius. 'This is his symbol, I recognised it at vunce: Grindelvald carved it into a vall at Durmstrang ven he vos a pupil there. Some idiots copied it on to their books and clothes, thinking to shock, make themselves impressive - until those of us who had lost family members to Grindelvald taught them better.'
Krum cracked his kunckles menacingly and glowered at Xenophilius. Harry felt perplexed. It seemed incredibly unlikely that Luna's father was a supporter of the Dark Arts, and nobody else in the tent seemed to have recognised the triangular, rune-like shape.
'Are you - er - quite sure it's Grindelwald's -?'
'I am not mistaken,' said Krum coldly. 'I valked past that sign for several years, I know it vell.'
'Well, there's a chance,' said Harry, 'that Xenophilius doesn't actually know what the symbol means. The Lovegoods are quite... unusual. He could easily have picked it up somewhere and think it's the cross-section of the head of a Crumple-Horned Snorkack or something.'

As it turns out, the symbol Krum and Harry were discussing was the sign of the Deathly Hallows, three supposedly mythological magical items that very few people believed in. But those who did, who were engaged in the Deathly Hallows quest, would wear the sign as a symbol to other Questers. Xenophilius Lovegood was a Quester so wore the symbol. So few people alive knew of the Deathly Hallows, or believed in them, that they were completely unaware of what the symbol stood for. But another Quester was Grindelwald. He used the sign in his early years as he searched for the Deathly Hallows. As he grew in notoriety in eastern Europe, those who lived under his reign of terror - and those who saw the sign engraved in the school wall every day for years - came to view the sign as 'his', and thought anybody who wore it must support him.

Of course that's not so. Lovegood is the Jackson Jive, Krum is Harry Connick Jr, the other guests at the wedding were the Australian audience. The guests - and Australian audience - had, for the most part, no idea what this symbol meant in another country. The person bearing the symbol - whether Lovegood or the Jackson Jive - were bearing it for one reason, while another observer from a completely different country - whether Krum or Harry Connick Jr - associated it with certain connotations from his own country that were not wide-spread in the country where the incident took place.

The Jackson Jive did not use their skit or black faces for racist purposes and certainly had no racist intentions so they shouldn't feel forced to apologise; and the media should certainly stop beating up the story.

*heading courtesy of Phoebe

Christianese

2009-10-07T11:19:00.001+10:00

As Christians we often get warned about using language that we've gotten used to in the church, but that other unchurched people might not understand.

I'm particularly aware of this when I'm writing my RE lessons for a few Grade 6 & 7 classes. It's especially important for unchurched kids because they often won't understand words that a 25 year old unchurched person would.

Usually as soon as I write something that sounds too familiar to myself, it jumps out as a clichéd Christianese phrase that I go back and re-write. Things like "spreading the word of God" (you can teach kids what the "word of God" is - doesn't mean they'll remember it the next term).

Today I was writing a lesson about Paul's conversion and prejudice. There was one or two phrases I had to change when writing out the paraphrased story. Later I wrote "and then we have to change our pre-conceived ideas, just like Paul did when God talked to him on the road to Damascus". My first instinct was to go back and delete "the road to Damascus" because it sounded too familiar. Then I realised that it was actually the best description...

New Willows Shoppingtown Stores

2009-10-01T16:37:00.007+10:00

So, over the past year I have been pretty eager to find out what new stores are going into the Willows Shoppingtown redevelopment. I'm beginning to compile a list as I find them out, so I thought I might post it here (and add to it as I discover more) for other people's benefit in case they're interested too... (NB: These are just the new stores, not existing ones that might have moved. Some have also already opened.)

- Best & Less
- Big W
- Angus & Cootes
- Priceline
- Ripcurl
- JB Hifi
- EB
- Game
- QBD Bookstore
- Betts
- Prices Plus
- Oporto
- Sumo Salad
- Bucking Bulls
- McDonalds
- Hungry Jacks
- Noni-B
- Ally
- Salt 66
- Jeanswest
- Goldmark
- Just Cuts
- Wild Cards & Gifts
- Gelatissimo (rumoured)
- NQ Fury store
- Colorado (rumoured)
- Citi Beach (rumoured)
- Coco House
- Lorna Jane
- Michel's Patisserie (can't remember if this was the patisserie that used to be in the food court, or if that was Jean-Pierre's).

The Big W and Foodcourt are both going to be massive. The centre will also include an Australian Breastfeeding Association five-star-rated parents' room and children's play area.

These are as accurate as I've been able to establish; sources include Wikipedia, the Willows Shoppingtown website, various news articles (ie. Townsville Bulletin) and various online forums.

Bad & Repetitive Photos: Why?

2009-09-18T15:11:00.008+10:00

I don't understand people who post bad (and I mean really bad) or repetitive photos on Facebook.

When I say "bad", I don't mean "just a little out of focus so the image is a tad blurry", or "the camera was having difficulty focusing in that light". I mean "you were obviously drunk when you took this photo and it's just a blurred image of neon lights streaked across the image with some dark shadows which are probably people but are only identifiable because you were actually there at the time" or "the people are obviously moving and it wouldn't have been that hard to get them to stand still" (obviously sporting events excluded). It's especially worse when the following photo (or preceding photo) is of the same scene, but better. Why would you upload the terrible one?

Examples:

And by "repetitive", I don't mean "the last picture was a photo of me, Jack and Jill having a water bomb fight and this one is also", I mean "the last picture was a photo of Jack shaking hands with the principal at his graduation... and so is this one. I think their hands may have moved 3 inches since the last photo/their facial expressions have changed/I used the flash with this one."

Example:

Just, why?

Spork vs Splade

2009-09-17T20:30:00.006+10:00

My sister was telling me how her and a friend at school were debating the use of the words "splade" and "spork". It's something me and my friends used to debate too, so I looked it up once and thought blogging about it now might help future debaters in their quest.

I actually originally thought (back in Grade 10, or whatever it was) my friends made up the term "spork" because they thought it was a funny-sounding word that fit the item better than they thought the original term, splade, did. But it turns out splades (or "Splayd", to use the brand-name for it) and sporks are two different items- and chances are, you've been using a splade and not a spork.

This, my friends, is a spla(y)d(e):

You'll notice it has a sharper, square-like base for assistance in cutting, a bit like a blade - hence the "ade" sound in the name "splade". (Some actually have a cerrated edge, or have the sharper points further up the bowl of the splade, making it kind of pentagonal.)

This, on the other hand, is a spork:

You'll notice it has no sharp corners and is completely round, like a spoon.

I hope I've helped you fulfill your quest.

Evolution what?

2009-09-16T21:31:00.004+10:00

Gaaaaahhh. Oh my goodness. I was about to start beating my computer out of frustration and thought blogging would probably be a better way of venting my frustration.

Evolutionists annoy me sometimes. When I say "evolutionist", I'm not necessarily talking about the scientists who have been studying it for thirty years (though they annoy me too), but just people who believe in evolution and go around espousing it without understanding how it supposedly works, or how genetics works, or just changing the theory to suit the current situation.

The enigmatic 'they'* have found a snake (a single specimen, not a species) in China - with a fully developed leg and claw. An operational leg and claw, not just excess muscle and skin flapping off its body.

Hoax potential aside, this has of course spurred people into debate over what this means evolutionarily. (I don't know if that's a word, I just made it up.) Some have suggested its an advance in evolution, some have said it's just a mutation. Most people seem to think it wouldn't be an advance - how is one leg at all beneficial? And how has a fully developed leg suddenly appeared in one specimen? But as for mutation...

I just read someone who said on a forum:

It's a particularly easy mutation, though, because all it has to do is turn off the gene that keeps snakes from growing limbs. Snakes are descended from species which DID have limbs, and rather than having the code for said limbs "removed" (a virtual genetic impossibility) study of snake genetic code reveals that there are simply additional genetic components which prevent the limb-growing genes from being expressed. Turn off the "confounder" gene, and you get a limb like this.

Okay, so macroevolution is, apparently, animals changing over time into more efficient creatures by way of additional genetic information, yeah?

Wait. Snakes have a gene that keep them from growing legs? Now I would have thought that legs would be beneficial, on an evolutionary scale. So why did they lose them? Especially if snakes already had legs, why did they disappear? And if they did, why would that not be a loss of genetic information (to develop legs) rather than an additional gene that shuts off the "legs" gene?

This person also says it is a "virtual genetic impossibility" for a certain genetic code to be removed. What? It happens aaaaall the time. It's the only "evolutionary" process scientists have actually observed. It's the only evolutionary process they can actually explain: If one parent has Gene B (B for Beneficial) and the other parent has Gene N (N for Non-beneficial), then the offspring that end up with Gene N will be more likely to die than those with Gene B, meaning eventually, it's likely Gene N will be bred out of the population, leaving them only with the beneficial Gene B. That's the whole survival of the fittest scenario. That is a species losing (unhelpful) genetic information - not a "virtual genetic impossibility".

Anyway, presuming snakes do have a gene that suppresses the leg-growing gene, isn't this counter-evolutionary? Snakes move fast, there is no doubt about that. But, going back to when they first supposedly lost their legs, one would assume they didn't have the capability to move at the speeds they've now "evolved". Wouldn't that have made the legged snakes the "fitter" ones, and the less likely to be preyed upon? Wouldn't this suppressive gene have been switched off millions of years ago?

And now that it has supposedly switched off, why has it only resulted in one leg? In one speciman? What switched it off? It's not like either parent had it switched off.

Forgive my patchy science - I probably have little inaccuracies here and there, but I'm hoping you've got the gist of what I'm saying. It just looks like every time evolutionists find something that confounds them, they make up some other 'genetic' explanation (which makes no, or very little, sense and apparently contradicts other areas of science and evolution) to explain it away.

* (Actually, it was a little old chinese lady who was so terrified she beat it to death with a shoe. Then preserved it in alcohol and handed it across to scientists.)

(I, by the way, have no idea what's happened here with this snake. But another idea I came up with which I haven't seen anywhere, is that it might not be a snake, but a lizard, which was born without 3 legs?)

Safety Fail

2009-09-03T11:22:00.003+10:00

A Northern Territory safety body, NTWorkSafe, decided yesterday to destroy some out-of-date firecrackers and fireworks in an incinerator at an explosives reserve.

In the process they started a bushfire that tore through 40ha of bushland.

The lid of the incinerator got blown off and a stray firecracker flew out of the incinerator into nearby bushland, starting a bushfire.

What made it worse was that the area had been used for police training... and the police had left undetonated explosives in the area after their training exercises.

Then, while firefighters were battling the fire (after NTWorkSafe decided they couldn't do it), the Land Development Corporation locked all the gates around the property to keep media out. Which locked everyone else into the fire risk zone.

Safety Fail... on many levels.

Mac Fanboy, Exhibit 1

2009-09-01T23:12:00.001+10:00

From NotAlwaysRight.com

Tech Support | Florida, USA

Me: “Thanks for calling, how can I help you?”

Customer: “Yes, your website has been timing me out ever since I switched computers.”

Me: “What kind do you use currently?”

Customer: “Mac, using Safari as the browser.”

Me: “Well, ma’am, we did not test the web site with Macs, and we know it doesn’t work properly with Safari.”

Customer: “Why didn’t you test with Macs?”

Me: “Most of our customer base use Windows based PC’s, typically with Internet Explorer.”

Customer: “Really? I think everyone should use Macs. Everything runs perfectly on them!”

Sexual Discrimination?

2009-08-29T01:02:00.003+10:00

Another article on news.com.au today is talking about the Governor General, Quentin Bryce, joining a womens-only club (after having served as a sex discrimination officer). Her joining the club coincides with a Victorian investigation into whether such clubs should still be exempt from sexual discrimination laws.

Of course they shouldn't; but that's the thing. Why is a womens-only, or mens-only, club sexual discrimination? Women should not say men cannot have mens-only clubs; that would be sexual discrimination. Men should not say women cannot have womens-only clubs, or else that would be sexual discrimination too. But when we both say both sexes are allowed to have single-sex clubs, we are equal. Isn't that what sexual equality and anti-sexual discrimination is about?

Racism, Discrimination & The Intervention

2009-08-27T20:02:00.003+10:00

There is an article on news.com.au today about a United Nations special delegate who has decided racism is intrenched in Australia, primarily after his analysis of the Intervention in the Northern Territory. He said it was "clearly discriminatory" and undermines the "rights of indigenous people".

Before I go any further, I'll explain what "the Intervention" is for any international readers who may be reading this.

The Northern Territory National Emergency Response, or "the Intervention" as it's more commonly known, is "a package of changes to welfare provision, law enforcement, land tenure and other measures" (Wikipedia) introduced by the Australian Federal Government in 2007 in an effort to decrease child abuse in certain indigenous communities in the Northern Territory. It was in response to the "Little Children Are Sacred" report published by the Northern Territory government, a report that investigated, addressed, and made recommendations in regards to the claims of child abuse in these communities. There was an enormous uproar by members of the general public, claiming the Intervention was racist and discriminatory, but there was bipartisan support in parliament.

Fast forward to now: the federal government from 2007 was defeated at the end of 2007 and we have a new federal government which has kept "the Intervention", albeit with a few alterations. A United Nations delegate, James Anaya, has made a two-week visit to Australia and decided the Intervention is racist, discriminatory, demeaning and incompatible with "various international conventions, covenants, treaties and declarations".

His comments have suggested that the Intervention has slapped restrictions on all indigenous people in Australia, which is false. He said "It's a mistake to assume that indigenous peoples ... aren't capable of taking care of their homes." The Intervention, however, doesn't assume indigenous people can't take care of their homes; just that the people in these particular communities, for the most part, aren't taking care of their homes.

The Intervention really implemented a lot of fantastic measures: pornography filters on public-funded computers, alcohol restrictions, quarantining a certain portion of welfare and all other benefits for those who are found to be neglecting their children, extra police, etc. Anaya, (who admitted "some kind of special measures could be justified") said that the restrictions were "too broad and sweeping" and are "demeaning" to those in the communities who are handling their property and families well. (I will willingly bet they're in the minority in their communities).

I certainly don't think the Intervention is perfect; but it's certainly not racist. These communities are not being targeted because they are Aboriginals; they are being targeted because they have been abusing and neglecting their children. If they were white, or Asian, or Mediterranean, the public would be screaming for some form of intervention. Sure, the Intervention might be discriminatory. But it's not discriminating based on race, it's discriminating based on communities. It's certain communities where these changes have been implemented - not certain races. And I'm sure if there were individual communities of white people routinely neglecting their kids for an afternoon at the pub, or sending their kids to school without suitable clothes or food, or sexually abusing their children, the government would be making similar moves.

Yes, white people do do these things. But not specific communities; they are scattered among much larger, generally law-abiding communities. In these specific Northern Territory communities, it's the (and I'm using illustrative percentages here, not statistical ones) 75% who give the 25% the bad name, not like most of the rest of the population, where it's 5% treating their kids like that.

What if the government hadn't done anything, turned a blind eye to the abuse and neglect? Twenty years down the track we'd have these abused kids grown up and demanding to know why nobody did anything to stop the neglect and abuse.

Like I said before, the Intervention is not perfect. There are some people in those communities who do the right thing and have the same restrictions placed upon them. Some of the changes are very tough and may seem unfair because they are not applied to other communities (eg. controlling spending patterns through store cards [to ensure parents are buying food and not just grog with their welfare benefits], taking control of Aboriginal land on 5 year leases) but they have been implemented to protect people. But it is not racist, and not discriminatory in the way James Anaya and many others sugges (eg. racially). I also personally think many of those measures (eg. quarantining welfare benefits for those found to be neglecting their kids) should be extended across the country.

Perhaps James Anaya should just go back to where he came from... because he doesn't know what he's talking about here.

Prayer Answered!

2009-08-26T23:32:00.003+10:00

Thankyou everyone for your prayers. As most people have probably heard in the past few hours, Benn was found about 5:30pm this evening. He was spotted standing & waving in a creek bed about 7km from the Paluma township by one of the search helicopters. Apart from dehydration, scratches (he had a few slips & falls throughout his adventure) and mosquito bites, he appears to be fine. He was alert enough to enjoy his helicopter ride to the hospital.

It was the helicopter's last search of the day, so praise God they spotted him on that flight! He might have been in for another night in the rainforest.

Andre & I went up to search and sit with Michelle today, and it was very overwhelming to be reminded of just how many hectares and hectares of rainforest there is up there, and all of it very dense. It is a true testament of God's goodness that Benn was not seriously injured. Pray also Benn's non-Christian family members will see God's hand in his survival. And thank God that we have Benn back!

Prayer Needed!

2009-08-25T22:40:00.003+10:00

Please pray for my friends Michelle & Benn and their families. Benn has gone missing in the Paluma rainforest, this will be his second night out there. SES and Police have been searching all day and haven't seen any sign of him.

Michelle and Benn got married in January and had gone away for a few nights. Benn went for a walk while Michelle was having a nap and hasn't returned.

I have known Michelle & her family for a few years and Benn's sister Talia & her husband James are very good friends of Andre's and mine (James and Andre were best men at each other's weddings.) Talia and James just had their first baby 3 weeks ago and will be flying up here tomorrow.

Hopefully by this time tomorrow I will have good news to post.

Reflections on a Primary Schoolers' Camp

2009-08-17T17:33:00.004+10:00

This past weekend was NQ Kids' Weekender, for grades 4 - 7. These are just a few of the observations and reflections I made from the camp...

- Girls of all ages have stupid friendship problems
- These girls resolved theirs better than my friends ever did
- Sewerage lids should always be strong and secure, so that if a child stands on it, it will not collapse in
- 'Capture the Flag' games end much faster when primary schoolers are playing it than when highschool or uni-aged students are
- Holding a camera gives you no immunity to being water-bombed or shaving-creamed when Luke Doyle & Tim Canavan are involved
- Kids will wake up at 7am even when you've run them ragged the day before and sent them to bed at 10:30pm
- Male leaders will not. Not even at 7:30am.
- Kids will kick other kids out of their cabins for swearing too much.

Travelling in Australia

2009-08-14T15:31:00.002+10:00

I just read an article on news.com.au that claimed Australia is dropping in international visitors' lists of places to visit. The not-quite-accurate headline proclaimed "Why No One Likes Australia Anymore". The current global economic climate contributed of course. Apparently so does the fact that Australia has become more competitive - what was once a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that Europeans/Americans did 'properly', they're now rushing to show their friends that they've been to Australia, and coming for shorter periods.

But what annoyed me was the comments that people had left - and mainly Australians.

Things like "it's too expensive to travel in Australia". One guy claimed it was costing $7000 for his family of three to go to the snow. He either has expensive taste or got ripped off by a travel agent.

Another person said they'd cancelled their holiday to Queensland and are going to Thailand instead, because flights were similar and in Australia they'd pay far more for car hire/taxis and decent accommodation. Have people forgotten they can drive their car interstate? For a family it's cheaper than flying (most of the time) and then you don't have to pay for a hire car. (I realise this is not always the most convenient way to travel. When you only have two people flying is pretty cheap, but many of these people complaining have families). Especially when you're visiting the Gold Coast from Sydney for example, it's really not a long drive. Another person made the comparison that in Australia, you'd pay $160 for a night's accommodation and breakfast is extra, while in Greece you'd pay 100 (euros, I'd presume) and breakfast is included - and they used this as an illustration that Australia is 'expensive'. Has this person looked at the exchange rate recently? 100 euros is AU$170. Not to mention, $160 for two people for one night is hardly at the cheaper end of what Australia offers.

Others also whinged that their international visitors complained about feeling unwelcome. My bet is these people probably visited Sydney. Of course I can't give an objective assessment of how welcoming Australians are compared to other countries because I haven't travelled overseas, but I've had international students tell me they love Australia because "everyone is so friendly" etc.

Still others claimed Australia was "dull" and "boring" and that all the cities are just like each other - sound the same, look the same, do the same things. Wow. These people really need to get out more. There is no way in the world Sydney & Perth are similar, or Melbourne & Adelaide. And then you have the rainforest of Queensland VS the snowfields of New South Wales vs the desert of Western Australia and the canyons of the Northern Territory... it's mind boggling to think anyone could claim Australia is dull. They've probably never travelled more than 300km from Sydney.

Of course there were comments from immigrants to Australia (and born & bred Aussies) telling the Australians they had no idea what they were complaining about - "you think Australia is dangerous, try living in South Africa or Mexico"; "lack of customer service?? Have you been to Europe lately? They don't know the meaning of the word!"

I can understand Australia is an expensive destination for international visitors. If you live in the US, it'd be cheaper to visit Mexico or the Bahamas than Australia. If you live in Italy, it'd be cheaper to visit Switzerland or Austria than Australia. It's a long, expensive flight to Australia usually. And back again.

But for people who already live in Australia? I can't believe anyone would think it's too expensive or boring to travel Australia.

Just for giggles

2009-08-13T09:58:00.005+10:00

During my uni years, bash.org was one of my favourite websites to visit. It's essentially a collection of funny conversations that have occurred on IRC (Internet Relay Chat - a real-time instant messaging/chatroom type set-up; Christine calls it "caveman MSN".)

I was reading through my old blog the other day and found a post with some of my favourites from bash.org and it prompted me to visit it again. Here's a collection that made me laugh...

-------------------
_kr4m3r: so many f***ing criminals, its bulls***
foniks`: heh, if we sent all the criminals to some empty continent and just left them there to die
foniks`: and showed up like 50yrs later like, "sup?"
foniks`: whatd u think they'd say?
FoSZoR[bg]: something along the lines of, "G`Day mate"
-------------------
scirDSL: I hated going to weddings. All the grandmas would poke me saying "You're next". They stopped that when I started doing it to them at funerals.
-------------------
DmncAtrny: I will write on a huge cement block "BY ACCEPTING THIS BRICK THROUGH YOUR WINDOW, YOU ACCEPT IT AS IS AND AGREE TO MY DISCLAIMER OF ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, AS WELL AS DISCLAIMERS OF ALL LIABILITY, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL OR INCIDENTAL, THAT MAY ARISE FROM THE INSTALLATION OF THIS BRICK INTO YOUR BUILDING."
DmncAtrny: And then hurl it through the window of a Sony officer
DmncAtrny: and run like hell
-------------------
samsim: I heard about this guy who broke into a lion's den at the zoo
samsim: and got mauled
samsim: and people were talking about how there should have been better defences put up to prevent people getting into the cage
samsim: a friend of mine suggested setting up some kind of deterrent
samsim: for example, putting some sort of fierce animal in the cage, which would attack anybody who climbed in
-------------------
O.J.: Radio interview quote from Marine Corps General Reinwald and a female radio host. He wants to host some boy scouts at the training center for some practise excercises. As follows
FEMALE INTERVIEWER: So, General Reinwald, what things are you going to teach these young boys when they visit your base?
GENERAL REINWALD: We're going to teach them climbing, canoeing, archery, and shooting.
FEMALE INTERVIEWER: Shooting! That's a bit irresponsible, isn't it?
GENERAL REINWALD: I don't see why, they'll be properly supervised on the rifle range.
FEMALE INTERVIEWER: Don't you admit that this is a terribly dangerous activity to be teaching children?
GENERAL REINWALD: I don't see how. We will be teaching them proper rifle discipline before they even touch a firearm.
FEMALE INTERVIEWER: But you're equipping them to become violent killers.
GENERAL REINWALD: Well, you're equipped to be a prostitute, but you're not one, are you?
The radio went silent and the interview ended. You gotta love the Marines!
-----------------
Cthon98: hey, if you type in your pw, it will show as stars
Cthon98: ********* see!
AzureDiamond: hunter2
AzureDiamond: doesnt look like stars to me
Cthon98: AzureDiamond: *******
Cthon98: thats what I see
AzureDiamond: oh, really?
Cthon98: Absolutely
AzureDiamond: you can go hunter2 my hunter2-ing hunter2
AzureDiamond: haha, does that look funny to you?
Cthon98: lol, yes. See, when YOU type hunter2, it shows to us as *******
AzureDiamond: thats neat, I didnt know IRC did that
Cthon98: yep, no matter how many times you type hunter2, it will show to us as *******
AzureDiamond: awesome!
AzureDiamond: wait, how do you know my pw?
Cthon98: er, I just copy pasted YOUR ******'s and it appears to YOU as hunter2 cause its your pw
AzureDiamond: oh, ok.
--------------------
Guo_Si: Hey, you know what sucks?
TheXPhial: vaccuums
Guo_Si: Hey, you know what sucks in a metaphorical sense?
TheXPhial: black holes
Guo_Si: Hey, you know what just isn't cool?
TheXPhial: lava?
--------------------
Rabidplaybunny87: Okay, so my neighbors officially hate me
GarbageStan23: why?
Rabidplaybunny87: Well, me, david and andrew were having a bonfire in the backyard, and we were making s'mores and all... and suddenly we here sirens, and see a firetruck turn into the street in front of us.
Rabidplaybunny87: So we all went running to see what was up, and our neigbor's house was on fire!
GarbageStan23: oh sh*t!
Rabidplaybunny87: Yeah, and when we got there, the wife was crying into her husbands arms, and we were just kinda standing there, and then she saw us, and then like for 10 seconds, gave us the dirtiest look ever
Rabidplaybunny87: Turns out, we were still holding our sticks with marshmallows on it, watching the fire....
Rabidplaybunny87: talk about bad timing...

The Squirrel & The Grasshopper

2009-08-10T20:00:00.001+10:00

I've been reading through my old MSN Spaces blog and having a bit of a chuckle. I came across a story I posted there (I didn't write it, I found it elsewhere) which I thought I'd repost for those who may read this blog who didn't read my old one.

---------------------

The Squirrel & The Grasshopper

REST OF THE WORLD VERSION:
The squirrel works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building and improving his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The Grasshopper thinks he's a fool, and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the squirrel is warm and well-fed.
The shivering grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.

THE END

THE AUSTRALIAN VERSION:
The squirrel works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he's a fool, and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.
Come winter, the squirrel is warm and well fed.
A social worker finds the shivering grasshopper, calls a press conference and demands to know why the squirrel should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others less fortunate, like the grasshopper, are cold and starving.

The ABC shows up (National Television Company) to provide live coverage of the shivering grasshopper; with cuts to a video of the squirrel in his comfortable warm home with a table laden with food.
The Australian press informs people that they should be ashamed that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so while others have plenty.

The Labour Party, Greenpeace, Animal Rights and The Grasshopper Council of Australia demonstrate in front of the squirrel's house.
The ABC, interrupting a cultural festival special from St Kilda (an area of Melbourne with a strong ethnic community) with breaking news, broadcasts a multi cultural choir singing "We Shall Overcome".
Bill Shorten (Radical Union Ratbag) rants in an interview with Laurie Oakes (Television reporter with a far left view of life) that the squirrel has gotten rich off the backs of grasshoppers, and calls for an immediate tax hike on the squirrel to make him pay his "fair share" and increases the charge for squirrels to enter Melbourne city centre.
In response to pressure from the media, the Government drafts the Economic Equity and Grasshopper Anti Discrimination Act, retroactive to the beginning of the summer. The squirrel's taxes are reassessed.
He is taken to court and fined for failing to hire grasshoppers as builders, for the work he was doing on his home and an additional fine for contempt when he told the court the grasshopper did not want to work.

The grasshopper is provided with a council house, financial aid to furnish it and an account with a local taxi firm to ensure he can be socially mobile. The squirrel's food is seized and re distributed to the more needy members of society, in this case the grasshopper. Without enough money to buy more food, to pay the fine and his newly imposed retroactive taxes, the squirrel has to downsize and start building a new home. The local authority takes over his old home and utilises it as a temporary home for asylum seeking cats who had hijacked a plane to get to Australia as they had to share their country of origin with mice. On arrival they tried to blow up the airport because of Australians apparent love of dogs.

The cats had been arrested for the international offence of hijacking and attempted bombing but were immediately released because the police fed them pilchards instead of salmon whilst in custody. Initial moves to then return them to their own country were abandoned because it was feared they would face death by the mice. The cats devise and start a scam to obtain money from peoples credit cards.

A 60 Minutes special shows the grasshopper finishing up the last of the squirrel's food, though spring is still months away, while the council house he is in, crumbles around him because he hasn't bothered to maintain the house. He is shown to be taking drugs. Inadequate government funding is blamed for the grasshopper's drug "Illness".

The cats seek recompense in the Australian courts for their treatment since arrival in Australia.
The grasshopper gets arrested for stabbing an old dog during a burglary to get money for his drugs habit. He is imprisoned but released immediately because he has been in custody for a few weeks. He is placed in the care of the probation service to monitor and supervise him. Within a few weeks he has killed a guinea pig in a botched robbery.

A commission of enquiry, that will eventually cost $10,000,000.00 and state the obvious, is set up. Additional money is put into funding a drug rehabilitation scheme for grasshoppers and legal aid for lawyers representing asylum seekers is increased. The asylum seeking cats are praised by the government for enriching Australia's multicultural diversity and dogs are criticised by the government for failing to befriend the cats.

The grasshopper dies of a drug overdose. The usual sections of the press blame it on the obvious failure of government to address the root causes of despair arising from social inequity and his traumatic experience of prison.
They call for the resignation of a minister.
The cats are paid a million dollars each because their rights were infringed when the government failed to inform them there were mice in Australia.

The squirrel, the dogs and the victims of the hijacking, the bombing, the burglaries and robberies have to pay an additional percentage on their credit cards to cover losses, their taxes are increased to pay for law and order and they are told that they will have to work beyond 65 because of a shortfall in government funds.

THE END

Terrorism

2009-08-06T15:36:00.002+10:00

I wonder if we've begun to misuse the word 'terrorism'.

Terrorism is the use of violence to coerce people and put fear into people's hearts.

I think a lot of what we call 'terrorism' today isn't actually terrorism. Is an Iraqi militant blowing up a US army vehicle terrorism, or just a militant soldier fighting his war? Is he doing it to strike fear into Americans' hearts, or is he doing it to obstruct his enemy?

Todd McKenney's Dancing With The Stars Comments

2009-07-28T17:21:00.003+10:00

A lot has been said over the past day or two over Dancing With The Stars judge Todd McKenney's comments about Gerrard Gosens' performance on Sunday night.

For those who don't know the background: Gerrard is a blind paralympian. On the last episode, the contestants had to dance for fifteen seconds solo (ie. without their partner) at some stage throughout their performance. And Todd's comments about Gerrard's performance were less than complimentary.

His comments included that Gerrard's salsa was "stilted", his dance was "appalling", and he criticised his hip movements, facial expressions and posture.

Which would be fine if you were being constructive, which Todd of course wasn't. He defended himself saying that he was there to judge the dance... but then later claimed he had a duty to judge that way to "entertain the audience".

I'm completely supportive of the judges treating Gerrard the same way they would treat any other competitor, and not giving him special treatment because he's blind. It's true - he put himself out there and has to take the criticism.

But this sort of criticism should come with a constructive side, and several contestants have complained that they haven't been getting constructive criticism and they don't even know what the judges want. I think the judges - Todd especially - need to realise that while they shouldn't give Gerrard special treatment, the fact he's blind means many things are far more difficult for him. Learning how to move your feet without being able to see and copy is one thing - learning the subtlties of hip movement is entirely another.

Besides all that, you can congratulate someone on their efforts even while telling them what they've done wrong - and you can tell them what to do better, instead of acting like they're a lost cause. You can also choose words that aren't quite so rude.

Apparently Todd has now been challenged to do a solo dance routine blind-folded. I don't think this will put him on equal footing with Gerrard. I don't know the details of Gerrard's blindness, but I do know it's from a genetic disease that has also made his young daughter blind. This suggests to me he's probably been blind all his life, or very close to. Todd is an accomplished dancer - he knows what the right movements feel like, of course he'd be able to do them blindfolded. He has already been able to see and learn the movements. Having to learn those movements without your eyes is a completely different matter.

Yes Todd should judge the dances- this doesn't mean being completely insensitive, rude, and un-constructive.

Lame

2009-07-25T22:57:00.002+10:00

Out of five days of skiing, my only 'injury' was a result of having to stand in the ski-lift lines.

Most ski-lift lines have a gradual downwards slope towards the lift. You often wouldn't really notice it on foot, but it becomes significantly more noticeable when you're on skis.

This is ok if the snow is fresh as your skis grip. This is ok for snowboarders because they only have one foot attached to their board, and can plant the other one firmly on the ground. It is less ok when you're a skier and the snow is icy, as lift lines tend to be by about midday. It means your skis are inclined to slide forward into the person in front of you. The 'snowplough' position does not work on ice.

The solution, of course, is to plant your stocks (ski poles) firmly into the ground and hold on. If you're in a long line, or on a steeper section of the line, or just don't have particularly good arm strength (I fit into all 3 of those categories on occasion) this can begin to strain your wrist muscles.

So now I've ended up with a sore wrist from the repetitive strain of having to stand in line for the ski lift. Or rather, the repetitive strain of preventing myself from sliding into the person in front of me. Lame.

Skiing at the Snowies

2009-07-23T15:30:00.007+10:00

The snowfields were absolutely fantastic. They had the best snow I've ever seen, and both Perisher and Thredbo had pretty much all their lifts running.

We stayed in Jindabyne, roughly a 25-35 minute drive from the snowfields if I remember correctly. Andre and I arrived Monday evening, about 5. The rest of the family arrived about 2 the next morning because they'd waited for Christine and David's music tour to finish Monday evening. (They got to go to dinner in the 360 Restaurant though!!) Because we'd arrived earlier, we got to get our ski gear Monday night and start skiing and snowboarding on Tuesday, while the rest of the family was busy getting settled in and hiring equipment that day.

We spent our first few days at Perisher. Perisher has a high percentage of beginner and intermediate runs (while still having plenty of expert trails - Perisher has something like 58 lifts so there's no shortage of skiing/snowboarding available!) Perisher also has a larger variety of runs than Thredbo - if you want a long trail you can choose a long trail, if you want a short one you can choose a short one. Thredbo tends to have quite long trails, which often means even a green ('easy') run might have more difficult patches, and blue (intermediate) runs might have 'green' patches. (I've not ventured onto black [expert] runs yet so I can't speak for them :P). That's also part of the reason that we only went to Thredbo for one day rather than 2 as originally planned.

Andre's and my first day at Perisher was spent at Smiggins Hole, the 'family friendly' part of Perisher. It has all green and blue runs, and they're all relatively short compared to the rest of the mountain. It gave us a chance to warm up after 2 or 3 years!

The blown-up area is Smiggins, as you can see it's just a fraction the size of the rest of the mountain. Not sure if you can see the colours, most of the runs on the left are blue, most on the right are green. We probably did most of those runs, except the two or three on the far left because we gave up on T-Bar lifts (tricky for a snowboarder, worse when you're a skiier trying to share with a snowboarder.)

After this first day of skiing I discovered my boots were not the right size/shape for my feet (I was losing circulation to my toes - I originally thought the numbness was from cold!) so I had to get them changed the next morning.

For the following two days, we skiied & snowboarded around other parts of the Perisher mountain. The pink air-brushed areas are the runs we frequented. (The white patch you can see in the bottom right corner is Smiggins, just for reference's sake.)

Most days we had fantastic weather. It snowed on and off the first few days, and sometimes got warm enough (read - "zero degrees") to shed a layer, or our scarves and beanies.

Our last day at Perisher however, the clouds came in early, and they came in low. See that run shaded in pink, the one that goes right down the middle of the map? On our last day, we got half way up that lift and couldn't see the top of the mountain. By the time we got to the top station (it does have a mid station, but for some STUPID idea we stayed on) it was FREEZING. It was only -2 degrees or something, but must have had a windchill of at least -10. It was windy, cloudy, and at times visibility was no more than fifty metres. My hands and ears were somehow both numb and hurting from cold at the same time. Fortunately the clouds were moving pretty fast, so we got patches of sunlight and decent visibility, but then the clouds would come back over. It was SO nice to get a bit lower down the mountain where we were out of the wind and below the clouds. That day was colder in general too, mainly thanks to the wind. Other than that though, we had really really good weather.

Our second last day was the only day we went to Thredbo. We spent the first half of the day skiing in the Cruiser area, the only part of their resort with runs less than 1km long. (Ok, a bit of an exaggeration, but you'll get the idea when you look at the map.) It was very warm, it even got a bit uncomfortable when we were waiting to get back on the lifts. Fortunately the lift lines on all the runs we used, both at Thredbo and Perisher, moved pretty fast.

The Cruiser area is the top right hand corner.

After lunch (I had a particularly long break waiting for Andre to come down off the mountain because he'd gotten lost) we decided to go up for one more long ski. Bad idea. The clouds had come in and the wind had picked up, and much like I described our last day at Perisher, it was very, VERY cold. The run we'd gone up was also very long, and blue the whole way. Blue the whole way on a run close to 2km long means patches are liable to be on the more advanced side of blue. I walked the first bit (which I might have tried taking on if I had normal visibility and wasn't tired) which was very steep. Christine ended up (involuntarily) rolling/ sliding down that part and got a lift back down the mountain on the ski-doo. It was close to 5pm and they were trying to kick people off the mountain. After skiing about a third of the way down I ended up getting a ride too because I wasn't going to get to the bottom soon enough :P If it had been in the morning and sunny I think I could have done it. But because it was after 4 days of skiing, in bad conditions (both temperature, wind & visibility wise), it was gonna be a struggle :P Dad, David and Andre all made it down without any major problems (except Dad had to carry Christine's skis & stocks down after she tumbled down the slope!)

So aside from that one run, we really had a great time down there. Fantastic snow, good runs, generally great weather :)

More photos (and perhaps video) will come later! :)

Me, David, Dad, Andre, Michelle & Christine

Sydney

2009-07-16T19:23:00.003+10:00

Well, we have quite a bit to catch up on!

We left Townsville Sunday 5th July. We took two nights to drive down to Sydney, staying out first night in Injune, second night in Gunnedah and then arriving in Sydney Tuesday 7th.

During our stay in Sydney (six nights) we went to Taronga Zoo, the Powerhouse Museum, Maritime Museum, and several concerts of the Australian International Music Festival. The AIMF is a festival that brings student musical groups (mostly) from around the world, who participate in adjudicated performances as well as non-adjudicated concerts. Pimlico State High School had several groups participating- Senior Voices (choir), Symphony Orchestra and Concert Band 1.

They were up against some pretty stiff competition. They were one of the better (if not the best of the) Australian groups, but the Chinese orchestras were fantastic. Probably the best I've personally seen. One of them was a middle school orchestra (probably between ages 10 and 14) and they were supposedly of professional standard and had all reached level 10 in their examinations (I don't know what the equivalent here is as Trinity College, AMEB etc only go up to Grade 8 to my knowledge). They were VERY impressive, but I had to wonder what sort of life those kids had to be at that level by the age of 12. It must be all school and music and nothing else.

Pimlico did well though. Unfortunately Concert Band had to cancel their adjudicated performance as most of their students had the flu, but they were still awarded a Participation Award. Senior Voices got a Silver Award, and Symphony Orchestra got a Gold. Actually, a huge portion of the Pimlico kids on tour at AIMF got the flu, and many caught colds. In one of Senior Voices' non-adjudicated performances, out of 52 only 29 sang. The rest were sick.

However, all three groups were still able to make their Opera House performances, although CB1 had to postpone theirs by a day :)

We left Sydney on Monday 13th for Jindabyne. Andre & I left Monday morning and the rest of the family came that evening, arriving at 2am on Tuesday. Andre & I got a day of skiing/snowboarding in on Tuesday while the others got fitted out for skis etc, and since then we've been skiing and snowboarding at Perisher. However I think I've rambled on enough for now. I'll talk more about that later. Sorry if it's a bit choppy and all over the place, I'm watching Firefly at the same time :P

Oh and photos will come later too :)

Absence

2009-07-04T10:50:00.002+10:00

We're going away as of tomorrow. We're taking the laptop with us, but there are no guarantees of internet access while we're gone. If we happen to come across some then I'll update either Facebook or this blog with photos and updates, but I'm not going to go searching for it. Otherwise you'll hear from me again in about two and a half weeks! :)

Wife Left Behind: Demands Divorce

2009-07-01T20:23:00.003+10:00

I sometimes wonder why people even get married when they are so prone to demanding a divorce.

News.com.au has reported about a Saudi couple who honeymooned in Malaysia for a week. At the Kuala Lumpur airport, about to depart, the wife went to use the bathroom. Her husband decided she had spent too long in the bathroom, boarded the plane and left the country without her. You can read about her immediate reaction in the article, if you want.

But upon her return to Saudi Arabia, she demanded a divorce. They'd been married a week.

Yes, he did something very, very inconsiderate, unloving, uncaring, and downright stupid. But a divorce? No "you have to make this up to me", no "let's try and fix this", just "I want a divorce".

Did she know he was that much of an idiot when she married him? That sounds like a pretty ingrained attitude to me, not one that would just appear after a week of marriage (although it is possible).

I could understand her wanting a divorce if he'd bashed her all week, but there was nothing to suggest she'd been otherwise mistreated.

It's sad when people put such little importance on marriage, and either the right preparation for it or the appropriate effort into fixing things.

'Why would you want to get married so young anyway?'

2009-06-26T23:02:00.002+10:00

The most recent 'Ask Bossy' blog on news.com.au is tackling a letter from a young lady who is engaged to a guy who has revealed himself to be extremely controlling, bullying, stalker-ish and potentially violent (he raised his hand to hit her once but she got away). She knows his behaviour won't change after marriage and knows she should get out, but they are both from very traditional 'wog' families (her words, not mine) and she felt she'd be branded for breaking off an engagement as, according to the culture, it is never the bloke's fault.

Anyway as is expected 99.9% of comments (barring trolls) are telling her to GET OUT before she ends up in a marriage where she's being beaten, not allowed to see her friends, having her wardrobe dictated, etc etc.

The thing is, she also revealed she's 22 years old. Obviously there are the commenters who say "you're only young, you have plenty of time to find another guy" (which is fair enough). But, while they're the minority, there's also a remarkable number of commenters who have said "why would you want to get married so young anyway?" or "why are you in such a rush to get married?"

Every time I see one of those I post a direct reply and give them a bit of a mouthful.

Why is it that a 20 year old has to have special reasons to get married but a 35 year old doesn't? Doesn't our society purport to be one that is 'tolerant' and 'open-minded'? Yet it is heading the opposite direction, making socially taboo things that were acceptable fifty years ago, while making acceptable now things that were socially taboo back then. Our society is not progressing and becoming more tolerant, it's just choosing different things to accept and reject.

Because it has accepted sleeping and living with people to whom you're not married, it has replaced marriage with that, and suddenly marrying before the age of 30 (25 at the minimum) has been rejected. Anyone who'd want to get married "so young" must be "rushing" things. So it's ok for a 38 year old who's been dating a guy for a year to get married, but it's not ok for a 22 year old who's been dating a guy for 5 years to get married?

Of course there's myriad tangents I could go off from here. The idea that a young woman has to find her own identity before getting married. That she can't "experience life/the world" or "have fun" once she gets married. (Things that I've seriously seen people say to young people wanting to get married - "get out and see the world", "go and have fun".) That she's not putting appropriate emphasis on her career.

But those are posts for another time.

History in the making: YOU'RE DOING IT RIGHT!

2009-06-24T23:41:00.002+10:00

GO THE MIGHTY MAROONS!

Oh, how humiliating to be a New South Welshman at the moment. I am going to wear my QLD shirt with PRIDE when I am in Sydney in 2 weeks.

For those who have been living under a rock, Queensland just won their FOURTH STRAIGHT STATE OF ORIGIN SERIES - a new record! Both teams have won three times in a row, but we are the FIRST TEAM EVER to win FOUR!

That was despite a New South Wales player pretty much (if not genuinely) breaking Greg Inglis' jaw in a clearly illegal high tackle which he should have been SIN BINNED for (in my opinion), and despite the video refs (c'mon Tim Mander, I thought you were better than that) declaring NSW's second try to be legal even though it clearly WASN'T. One NSW player had just been tackled on the tryline and as he went to play the ball, he physically restrained Israel Folau from tackling the second NSW player who received the ball that he'd played. For any non-rugby league followers here, that is COMPLETELY illegal. You are only allowed to tackle/restrain players who are HOLDING the ball and are definitely NOT allowed to restrain opponents from tackling your teammate who is holding the ball. It was clear as day from about three different camera angles what he'd done and the try was ALLOWED.

That said, there were some miserable plays from both sides- some really bad passes and ball-handling.

But Queensland DEFINITELY deserved that win and the title they've earnt of best Origin team ever.

Before the game started, over-cocky Phil Gould just had to warn Queensland that it was too early to party yet.

Too early now Gould? Your NSW glory days are OVER.

Burqas not welcome in France: what does this mean?

2009-06-23T11:54:00.003+10:00

French President Nikolas Sarkozy has said that Muslim Burqas (the head-to-toe robe-type covering) are "not welcome" in France. His reasons are that the burqa, in his eyes, is not a sign of religion, but of subservience and that it apparently imprisons women, depriving them of a social life and identity.

This might be true if women were being forced to wear the burqa against their wishes. In a minority of cases, that might be the case, but it's an extreme minority. A vast majority of Muslim women who wear the burqa do so voluntarily. A few months ago, Insight ran an episode called "16". It interviewed a group of about forty or fifty 16 year olds, who were all included in an episode called "13" 3 years ago - when they were 13 years old. They were there basically to discuss life in contemporary Australia (well, contemporary New South Wales) as a sixteen year old. Among the group were three or four Muslim girls. Two or three wore the common hijab (headscarf), but one was wearing the burqa.

One might presume, upon seeing a 16 year old girl wearing a burqa, that she comes from an extremely strict, conservative Muslim family. Not so. The girl told of the battle she had with her parents, who were at first opposed to her trading in her hijab for the burqa. She wanted to demonstrate her devotion and commitment to her religion, but her parents feared it would make her a target of bullying and ridicule. Most Muslims (outside of extremist Muslim countries like Saudia Arabia, Iran, etc) are very content for women to wear the hijab rather than the burqa.

I don't think Nikolas Sarkozy really has to worry that the women in his country who are wearing burqas are being imprisoned or forced into subservience. It's a role they've voluntarily put themselves into, and in a country like France, they're extremely unlikely to fear severe persecution if they wanted to leave the religion.

I'm opposed to the burqa in certain scenarios for practical & safety reasons. One example is of a South Australian woman who was allowed, a few years ago, to have her driver's licence photo taken while wearing the burqa. The issue raised was, how is someone supposed to identify a person from a photo where they are completely covered except for their eyes?

But I think it's dangerous when politicians begin dictating what religious dress people are allowed to wear, based upon the principles and reasons for the dress itself. It's a rejection of the principles of the religion and not just the outward clothing. A few years ago France banned the wearing of overly religious symbols in public schools (incl. hijabs, cross necklaces, Jewish kippahs, etc) for fear they would cause division. That was ridiculous enough; this, I think, is worse. Nikolas Sarkozy wasn't opposed to the burqa for the sake of it; he was opposed to it because he didn't like the principles that it stood for. He didn't like that it stood for subservience; did he ever stop to think that might be what the women want? Isn't this then a rejection of Islam?

What's to stop him (or other country leaders) from banning public displays of the cross because he doesn't like the fact it stands for sacrifice and love? It's one thing to ban a public cross because it has been constructed badly and might fall on top of someone; it's another thing to ban it because you don't like the principles it stands for. That is not just a rejection of the symbol, but the message and religion behind it.

(NB: The burqa has not yet been banned in France. Sarkozy has just made it clear in a policy speech in parliament that he opposes them.)

Excited

2009-06-22T08:52:00.002+10:00

I am really, really looking forward to Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. It comes out July 16th in Australia... but I won't be back in town until the 22nd :( This is about the first movie ever I was intent on seeing on the very first day it was released.

I'm still VERY excited.

Aussie Skiing

2009-06-14T23:44:00.003+10:00

Australian ski fans like to drive to their mountain of choice, check in to the lodge and park the car for the week. Every time they leave their lodge they do it on their skis.

Kiwis prefer the surfie's approach. They lob into town, strap their skis to the top of their car each morning and cruise up the usually hairy road to whichever of the resorts in the area they deem most attractive that day.

My family mustn't be very good Australians. This year will be our fourth ski trip, and most times we have/will "lob(bed) into town" and each day we throw our skis in the back of the car and head off to "whichever of the resorts in the area (we) deem most attractive that day".

(The first time we were all pretty young kids and we just drove to the same ski field each day which had good tobogganing. The second time we stayed in one town, visiting two nearby resorts, then moved on to a holiday house at the foot of another mountain, skiing on that mountain for the rest of our trip. Our last two trips have been (and will be) as just described.)

We've certainly never stayed on the snow. It has snowed at our accommodation before, but we've not gone and stayed at a ski resort, doing the whole leave-your-car-in-the-garage-and-ski-out-your-front-door thing. Whoever wrote the above article mustn't have surveyed families larger than 4 who have to travel over 2000km to get to their destination. It's three to six times the price to stay on the snow (depending on how luxurious your accommodation is) as opposed to in town (~ 30-40 minute drive away). Plus you get to check the snow report first thing in the morning and head to whichever resort had the best snowfall the night before.

(Edit: This is true for the NSW snowfields and a few of the Victorian ones. Some Victorian snowfields, like Mt Buller [discussed in the comments section] are really too far from any town to drive to each day so you've got to either be lucky enough to get a holiday house at the foot of the mountain, like we did, or else bite the bullet and stay on the snow.)

One day I'd like to stay on the snow. Not having to make the trek each day would be nice. It seriously doesn't justify the price though. Especially when you have more than one couple.

Veggies

2009-06-01T18:32:00.002+10:00

I'm not a big fan of veggies. I already knew that, but realised especially when I noticed that I always buy the same veggies. There are very few that I'd say I 'like'. I like pumpkin, peas, beans, potato, corn and I guess you could say carrot. However there are very few that I won't eat. I don't really like cauliflower, broccoli and celery but I use them in my cooking anyway. Onion is good to put in things for the flavour, but I wouldn't voluntarily put it on my hotdog, and I don't like it raw on burgers or in salads. But even the veggies I dislike (capsicum, zucchini, baby corn) I will happily eat if I have some meat to disguise the flavour!

So when I had those (unusually) plain broccoli florets on my plate tonight, I just put them in the same mouthful as that sausage... ;)

(I'm definitely not one of those people who goes to a buffet dinner and ends up back at the table with a breadroll and potato salad and nothing else! Not to mention I love my meat.)

Come to Australia

2009-05-28T13:17:00.012+10:00

... you might accidentally get killed.

Mummy McTavish blogged recently about Bird-Eating Spiders (Whistling Spiders) in Townsville, scaring all her American readers from ever stepping foot in Australia.

So I thought I might blog a bit further on Australia's "wonderful wildlife" and "fabulous fauna" as the Scared Weird Little Guys put it for the benefit of any international readers. (That's code for, all the poisonous/dangerous stuff that COULD, potentially, kill you. Ok, not all. We'd be here all day.)

The Western Taipan

The Western Taipan has the most toxic venom out of all Australian snakes. It's the most venomous land snake in the world. They can grow to 2m long. They are also only found in a little patch of far south-west Queensland, north-east South Australia and there are possibly a few little populations in New South Wales. You'd have to be pretty unlucky to come across one. You would, however, be a lot more likely to come across...

The Coastal Taipan
Third most toxic snake in the world. Grows up to 3m and lives all the way down the Queensland east coast and across the northern coast, just into Western Australia. The Townsville region would definitely be considered Coastal Taipan territory... in 21 years, I've never seen one. Taipans, in general, only become aggressive if they feel threatened (cornered, mishandled, stepped on, etc). Unlike many of the world's top dangerous snakes, these would rather get away from you than bite you.

The Tiger Snake
Ninth most venomous snake in the world. Found in southern Australia. (Victoria, southern Western Australia, Tasmania, parts of New South Wales and little isolated populations in southern Queensland). They're aggressive and are apparently responsible for a lot of bites in Australia.

Somewhat ironically, the only dangerous snakes I've ever seen in the wild have been in other parts of the country. I saw a Death Adder in the Northern Territory and a Copperhead in Tasmania. And here I am living in Coastal Taipan, Eastern Brown, King Brown and Death Adder territory... and I've never seen one here in my life. (Though my dad has seen a King Brown... it tried to go through his glass door at work.)

Ok, let's leave the snakes alone...

Funnel-Web Spider
The Sydney Funnel-Web spider, in particular, is one of the world's most venomous spiders. Fortunately, every time I go to Sydney I forget about these spiders. Otherwise I'd be paranoid. I hate spiders. Funnel-Webs are found from about Gladstone in the north (about 2/3 of the way down the Queensland coast) to Tasmania in the south. Again, fortunately, I have never seen one. (Australia's dangerous animals have a good habit of generally keeping to themselves). This could be, though, because I don't live around them. Thankfully.

Red-Back Spiders
Red-back spiders are found Australia-wide and one of the few species that can cause death, although these days it's rare for someone to die. They can grow to the size of a 50c piece though are generally smaller in suburban areas. This is one spider I've had a bit too much experience with. My mum was bitten by one when I was 5 and while she was pregnant with my youngest sister. She got to hospital quick enough though and was fine, being released the same day. I once almost put my hand right on top of one when I was opening our back gate. When camping in Keep River National Park (NT/WA border) the toilet cubicles (being a National Park there were just a few individual corrugated iron toilet sheds) were infested with them. I refused to go to the toilet until we fumigated the place with surface spray. And they were big suckers. I haven't seen one since, though (and that was 8 years ago).

Irukandji Jellyfish
The Irukandji is probably the second most dangerous jellyfish in Australia. Most parts of Australia which are subject to jellyfish use "stinger nets" on their beaches for people to swim in, to prevent jellyfish getting in. It is, however, possible for the irukandji to get through these nets, as the head of it is often no bigger than a 5c piece. The tentacles can grow up to a metre long, and tentacles can break off and drift through stinger nets. (Rare). The Irukandji can cause death, but if most people who get to hospital quick enough survive.

The Box Jellyfish

The Box Jellyfish is the most dangerous jellyfish in Australia and, I believe, the world. The box jellyfish venom is the most deadly in the animal world. Their sting is excruciating, even just from one tentacle (which again, can break off and float through stinger nets; though again, rare.) If you get medical attention fast enough most people survive, though if you got tangled up in a whole jellyfish, I'd imagine you're pretty stuffed. You'd probably go into shock and then go unconscious from the pain of it anyway. They're only found in tropical waters, though again, I've lived here for 21 years and never seen one (although they do get found off our beaches). Whenever the tentacles get found in stinger nets, the nets get brought in, made sure they're empty, and then put back out. I was pretty terrified of these when I was a kid. They're only found near the coast though, so if you're out on the reef you're fine. (Well the Cairns reefs are closer to the coast than the Townsville ones).
<- Stinger net on the Strand in Townsville

Estuarine Crocodiles

How could we leave out crocodiles. People often regard sharks and crocodiles in much the same way, when I feel you should be far more afraid of crocs than sharks. Sharks, generally, are just stupid. Most of the time they see you flapping around like a seal, think "ooh, lunch!", take a bite, realise you are not lunch, and swim away. It's the same the world over. You're more likely to bleed to death than have the animal actually eat you. They don't want to eat you. Crocodiles, on the other hand, do. You are lunch to them. They won't take a bite then leave you alone. They'll grab you then drag you underwater until you drown. Estuarine (or saltwater) crocodiles will, anyway. Freshies aren't interested. They might take a little nibble (and I mean, you wouldn't even lose a toe) but then they'd realise you're definitely not lunch and they'd disappear too.

Solution? You don't swim where Estuarine crocodiles live. It's basic, really. You don't camp near the water's edge, you don't do your dishes in the creek, you don't swim in the creek, you don't leave fish or food scraps near the creek. Everyone who's been taken by a croc in Australia in the past few years has been swimming in its territory, or checking crab pots in its territory. (Bar one. He was an unfortunate case, and authorities came to the conclusion that the people who had camped there just before him had left fish and food scraps lying around, which enticed the crocodile up to the campsite).

Australia has fantastic animals, really. You rarely see the dangerous ones, and if you don't annoy them, they're generally pretty fascinating to watch until they go on their merry way.

I think I might have to write a follow-up post of all the "nice and cuddly" animals of Australia to placate Tourism Australia

Euthanasia

2009-05-27T15:13:00.002+10:00

... is back on the agenda, this time in Tasmania.

I understand and sympathise with the premise behind euthanasia. It's bad enough to watch someone's health deterioriate, physically and mentally, and worse when you know they are in pain. It would seem to be compassionate to "put them out of their misery" and end their life.

But is that the answer? Is killing them preferable to advancing palliative care? Would it not be preferable to channel our resources into improving their lives, rather than ending them?

Some people say "why do we think it's 'kinder' to put down sick animals but not humans?" It's kinder for animals because they don't have the option of palliative care. They don't have doctors and nurses who are dedicated to making their lives more comfortable until they die. Humans do.

Proponents of euthanasia (including those drawing up the current Tasmanian bill) argue that stringent barriers are put in place to prevent sliding down the "slippery slope" that euthanasia puts us on. The patient must undergo psychiatric assessment, the patient must be suffering "intolerable" pain (what's "intolerable" anyway? Wouldn't that mean they can't tolerate it and they'd be either unconscious or dead?), it must be at the direct request of the patient and he/she must have a terminal illness.

But these safeguards will never stop euthanasia going down its inevitable path. For the brief time that the Northern Territory had legalised euthanasia, around 4 of the 7 patients killed are now considered to have potentially not met their safeguards- it's been found that either they didn't have a terminal illness, or were depressed and not of sound enough mind to make the decision.

If we legalise euthanasia, how long would it be until we move from allowing patients to request death, to allowing relatives to request death for unconscious patients, to allowing relatives to request death for conscious, mentally unsound patients, to allowing doctors to decide to end a patient's life- potentially against relatives' and even the patient's wishes? That may currently seem indefensible to us, but in the interceding years, we don't know what sort of precedents may slowly take steps towards that point. I am sure once upon a time it would have seemed indefensible to give a murderer a 2 year sentence, yet here we are. Things that we think "oh goodness, that would never happen!" about do happen.

Actually, we're saving them for WW3...

2009-05-16T16:51:00.000+10:00

http://notalwaysright.com/actually-were-saving-them-for-ww3/1818

(At our restaurant, an American tourist tries to pay for his meal in American currency.)

Me: “Sorry, sir. We can only accept Australian Dollars here.”

Customer: “What? What are you talking about? Isn’t this like, our colony?”

Me: “I assure you, sir, Australia has never been an American colony. We were, however, once controlled by the British.”

Customer: “But… wasn’t it you we beat in World War 2?!”

I Love...

2009-05-16T00:20:00.002+10:00

- Photos. Taking them, having them taken, looking at them.
- Running/dancing in the rain.
- Birthdays
- Christmas
- Camping
- Travelling
- The beach
- Music. Listening, singing, piano.
- Long late night conversations
- Australia. Its environment, history and culture.
- Baking
- Dressing up
- Harry Potter
- Writing
- Letters. Sending and receiving.
- Ancient Egypt
- The bush & outback. The cold nights, the hot days, the red dust, the bright wildflowers.
- Stargazing
- Night time
- Cool, quiet early autumn- winter mornings

What are twenty random things you love?

Climate Confusion

2009-04-25T17:39:00.003+10:00

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/a-scarier-colder-vision-of-the-climate-change-future-20090424-ahz4.html?page=-1

For those who can't be bothered reading the article, here are some key sentences from it.

...The sea ice in Antarctica is growing because of the hole in the ozone layer, not because the planet is getting cooler. It's a localised effect, not a planet-wide phenomenon.

...In any case, we've banned CFCs, the chemicals that created the ozone hole, so as it gradually repairs, the Antarctic sea ice will shrink again.

...In short, science says the muck we have put into the atmosphere has been masking the long-term warming trend. As we clean up our act, it will become more painfully obvious.

...Sea levels have been rising in an erratic stepwise pattern for the past 18,000 years, and will continue to do so, according to (geologist Prof Ian Plimer's) earlier book.

...No one should be complacent because global warming may, ironically, switch off the North Atlantic Drift. It brings warm water and air to northern Europe, and he warns that its halting may cause temperatures to plunge by more than 5 degrees.

...He uses the history of recent climate change to suggest Earth will "soon lurch into another glaciation, possibly only in 300 or 400 years time but certainly before 2800".

So let me get this straight.

The cooling patterns we're seeing on the Earth - including Antarctica's growing ice mass - is because of the pollution we humans have poured into the atmosphere? And once we clean up our act, the Earth will be able to get on with its warming process?

Wow, and all this time, I thought the scientists were telling us to clean up our act so that the Earth stopped warming up.

(For what it's worth, the article goes on to describe the disasters that will befall our earth once we allow the natural global warming to proceed into a new ice age.)

Antarctic Ice Growing, not Melting

2009-04-18T15:39:00.003+10:00

The Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research has prepared a report saying that the ice in Antarctica is not significantly changing at all. If anything, it has grown.

Ice-core drilling and sea ice monitoring has shown that there's "no large-scale melting of ice over most of Antarctica", although ice losses on Antarctica's western coast has experts concerned (this region includes the Wilkins shelf where there has been a lot of melting activity highlighted by the media). However eastern Antarctica is over four times the size of western Antarctica and has been cooling over recent decades, according to the report.

According to Ian Allison, the head of the Australian Antarctic Division's glaciology program, the ice growth in the Ross Sea region (just one sector of eastern Antarctica) has more than off-set the losses of the entire western coast. Dr Allison said that the only ice calving (ice bergs breaking off the ice shelves) has been happening on the west coast.

The news.com.au article says that ice drilling at the Australian Davis Station (eastern Antarctica) showed that last year, the ice was at its thickest in ten years - 1.89m - when the average thickness has been 1.67m since the 50s. It also points out that sea ice (called 'fast ice' or 'pack ice') melting does not contribute to sea levels rising because the ice is already in the water. It's like if you have a glass of water with an ice cube in it- when your ice cube melts, the water level will still be the same!

It is expected that a paper soon to be published by the British Antarctic Survey will confirm that the sea ice around Antarctica has expanded over the past thirty years.

Meanwhile, Peter Garrett back in Australia insists that the melting seen in the Wilkins shelf is representative of all of Antarctica, and that sea levels may rise by 6m by 2100. The Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research's worst-case scenario puts that figure at 1.25m. Who shall we listen to, the rock-star-turned-politician, or the scientists?

Cycling Officials told to feel guilty over Dajka

2009-04-17T17:00:00.003+10:00

Australian cyclist Jobie Dajka's father said during his eulogy that Australian cycling officials should be filled with guilt over crushing Jobie's dreams, and that he would never forgive them.

Jobie never competed in an Olympic games after being thrown off the 2004 Athens team for lying to a doping inquiry. Syringes and other "doping paraphernalia" were found in Jobie's AIS residence in Adelaide. He also got convicted of assaulting a cycling coach at an Adelaide valedrome, three counts of driving while disqualified and nine other charges which included other traffic offences, breaching bail, and theft.

And his father thinks cycling authorities should feel guilty about throwing him off the team?

His depression and recent suicide are tragic, but it's nobody's fault but his that he got thrown off the team. It's also nobody's fault but his that he didn't shape up and try out for future Olympic teams. He was 22 in 2004; still young.

There are hundreds upon hundreds of young people who dream of competing in the Olympics, and fail to qualify. They don't turn alcoholic and depressed. Their parents don't tell anybody to feel guilty about crushing their dreams. Jobie actually had a shot at it; he actually qualified for the team. He was given the chance to fulfill his dream. And then he threw it away.

It's tragic that it had such an extreme effect on him, but that's certainly not any cycling authority's fault.

Easter Weekend - Goldsborough Valley

2009-04-15T13:52:00.003+10:00

After raining most of Thursday night, Friday morning Uncle Geoffrey pulled out a sheet of galvanised metal (can't remember which sorry :S) and several pieces of timber. He, Dad, André, Michelle, David and Christine proceeded to build a boat out of it, as a more substantial successor to the half-44 gallon drum we used last time we went camping together.

Later in the day we were joined by André's parents, Anna, and Adrian & Caren Behrens. Most of the day was spent lazing around trying to avoid the humidity, watching the others build a boat, and then watching them testing it down near the rapids in the creek. Mum made them attach a rope to the boat so that Dad and Geoff could hold onto it while Christine was out in the boat. A lot of the afternoon was also spent preparing the night's meal (cooked mainly by André's dad Leon).

Most of the weekend followed a similar pattern. It would rain during the night (even just on-and-off drizzle) until between 9 and 10am when the sun would clear up the clouds. Then the clouds would come back over between 4 and 6pm and begin to drizzle again by 9. One day we did a short hike to a nearby waterfall, other days we would swim in the creek or go out in the boat with the make-shift oars Uncle Geoffrey made with leftover timber. Some evenings we cooked marshmallows over the campfire (all campfires were built with timber we had brought into the National Park).

Sunday morning we went into Gordonvale for church and André's brother JP met us up there, joining us for the last night. That night we made chocolate bananas. (Bananas split down the middle with marshmallow and chocolate pieces inserted between the halves, wrap it all up in alfoil and stick it in the coals). Unfortunately they didn't work very well this time- the bananas were a bit under-ripe so didn't cook well, and due to the extended time we left the bananas in the coals trying to get them to cook, the chocolate burnt :(

It was a humid and sticky weekend, but good. The nights and mornings were cool enough that sleeping in tents was not uncomfortable, and after fixing the construction of our tent, it didn't leak a drop.

Photos to come when I get my camera back from mum and dad's place!

Camping for Easter

2009-04-14T14:14:00.002+10:00

Hooray! Yes, we got to go camping over the weekend. I've missed camping. We went to Goldsborough Valley National Park, a little south-west of Gordonvale (just south of Cairns). The trip up there was an adventure in itself.

Our weekend started on Thursday night. André brought Michelle back to our place after leaving work an hour early, because the rest of the family had left earlier in the day and she still had uni classes. I had everything ready to pack, so we packed up the car and finally (after filling up with fuel, discovering the tyre pump was broken, finding another service station, waiting in line, and pumping up the tyres) got out of town at about quarter to 6. It was later than we intended, but oh well. You get that.

We stopped for tea in Ingham (you'd think McDonalds would have more than one person working the registers on the Thursday night before Easter weekend) and headed straight through, taking our food in the car. Around Cardwell the top of our windscreen found a bat at 100km/hr- the car was ok, but I'm not sure we can say the same about the bat.

We were in Goldsborough Valley National Park (around 10) when we came across a car coming out, and it wasn't til we passed each other that I realised it was my parents. They were looking for phone reception to call us to check everything was ok; it had been raining quite a bit and they were worried the crossings had flooded and we'd been stuck outside of the National Park. We ended up having to tow Dad's (non-4WD) ute out of a ditch that he accidentally reversed too far into when he was trying to turn around.

We finally got into our campsite only to find that the tent we'd sent up with my parents, and that had been set up by David and Christine, did not have the ventilation vents pegged out... so they allowed all the rain in. So we had to mop that up and peg the ventilation vents out, and were finally able to go to bed :)

And the weekend had hardly started yet...

Windows

2009-04-07T13:07:00.002+10:00

No, not the Microsoft type. The holes-in-walls type.

Our bedroom doesn't have any windows. It was a bit weird at first, but I didn't really care. Now, I miss my windows.

Our bedroom lacks windows because it used to be a garage. We think. The building we live in used to be the Range Drive-In. Our landlords live in the main house, and we live in a flat attached to the side- which I think used to be the snack bar. Our bedroom is at the house-end of the flat. So inside the room, the left wall is flush with the main house (no windows), the right wall has a doorway in it leading to the rest of the flat (no windows), the back wall separates our room from the external laundry (no windows) and the front wall has the built-in wardrobe in it.

I don't know why they didn't put the built-in wardrobe in the laundry wall and put a window in the front wall.

Having no windows has its good and bad points. Good because it keeps sound out pretty well, making it easier to sleep. The good finishes about there. Bad because it also keeps a lot of light out, as you might imagine- André would call this good (he's an IT nerd remember), I call it bad because it makes waking up in the morning so much harder. I never thought I'd say this, but I miss morning sunlight coming through the bedroom window.

A combination of blocking out sound and light means we're also a whole lot less likely to wake up during storms. I love storms, and was enormously disappointed when I did not wake up during that huge one we had in the first week or so of December last year. (You know, the one that woke up everyone in Townsville except André and me. The one that had people saying "that's the loudest thunder I've heard in YEARS!")

It also means we do not have the option of opening windows for fresh air. We have to use the fan or airconditioning. This disappoints me, especially at this time of year, when night-time air is so cool and refreshing that you really wouldn't need the fan or airconditioning on if you could have an open window.

So people, don't take your windows for granted. Tell a window you love it!

Bad Grammar

2009-03-31T10:57:00.006+10:00

... from people who should know better.

Nrl.com.au:

News.com.au:

***

"New" Calvinism

2009-03-21T21:49:00.003+10:00

Nathan recently linked to an article which discussed Mark Driscoll's ideas on why the "New Calvinism" has been ranked as the 3rd 'biggest' idea in today's world (by Time Magazine). To discuss, let's go back to the beginning- what Time Magazine said in the first place.

"Calvinism is back," it said. The author, David Van Beimer, was obviously a little mislead regarding the idea of predestination- apparently not only does God predestine salvation, but illness and home foreclosures too. Bad theology (from a likely non-Christian) aside, the article goes on to suggest that "new" Calvinism is energetic and passionate, referencing Mark Driscoll, Albert Mohler and John Piper all as "new Calvinists". (I'm not sure what Dr Mohler or Mr Piper would say to that). Theologically, there appears to be no difference between "old" and "new" Calvinism. I can't really find a difference. The only thing I can see appears to be the fact that there used to be plenty of Calvinists, then it went out of vogue, and now it's back. So of course today's Calvinists are different to the Calvinists of yesteryear.

Mark Driscoll embraced the idea, however. He was a lot more defining of "New Calvinism" than the Times article was. He said...

Old Calvinism was fundamental or liberal and separated from or syncretized with culture. New Calvinism is missional and seeks to create and redeem culture.
Old Calvinism fled from the cities. New Calvinism is flooding into cities.
Old Calvinism was cessationistic and fearful of the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. New Calvinism is continuationist and joyful in the presence and power of the Holy Spirit.
Old Calvinism was fearful and suspicious of other Christians and burned bridges. New Calvinism loves all Christians and builds bridges between them.

He doesn't elaborate any further. This concerned me. It makes me ask, how did "old" Calvinism flee from cities? Simply because it became unpopular, and now that it's back, it's "flooding" back into the cities? That is not a difference in the theology, that is a difference in people's acceptance of it. That's no basis of differentiating between "old" and "new". I can't say this is what Driscoll meant by his second point, but as he gave no explanation, I'm taking a guess.

The third point concerns me too. "Old" Calvinism might have been cessationist, yes. But many of today's Calvinists are still cessationist. But I think it's very misleading to say that any Calvinist, "old" or "new", was fearful of the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. Oh no. Just because Calvinists believed the Holy Spirit manifested itself differently does not mean they were fearful of it. That's extremely bad interpretation of theology right there. Paul Grimmond, the author of the afore-mentioned "an article", shares the same concern. There are not many people who I know to be cessationists, but those who are, are in no way fearful of the Holy Spirit. No way at all. (Not any more fearful than we should be of an awesome, all-knowing, all-powerful God).

Grimmond also points out that Points 3 and 4 are incompatible. Point 4 claims "new" Calvinism is all about uniting Christians, while Point 3 divides Christians by claiming cessationists are the "old" Calvinism and are fearful of the Holy Spirit. It wasn't something that particularly struck me, but it's worth thinking about.

Ultimately, I don't like the distinction between an "old" and "new" Calvinism. Calvinism is a theology, a belief (within the compulsory boundaries of Christianity). The behaviours outlined by Driscoll's four points are not theological. The behaviours associated with a specific theology must be expected to change over the decades as the culture around it changes. I'm sure the "old" Calvinism, contrary to Point 1, was no more separate from its culture than today's "new" Calvinism is. A person characterised by Driscoll's "old" Calvinism can have exactly the same theological beliefs as someone characterised by Driscoll's "new" Calvinism. Either way they are both Calvinists who believe pretty much the same thing- they just behave differently. As, I'm sure, has been happening for centuries.

The Road to Success

2009-03-12T10:04:00.003+10:00

...is never a straight line- and it appears Telstra's marketing department is still getting there.

(NB: This is an animated ad, following a crayon drawing a wonky line, so I doubt the misspelling is purposely included to illustrate the non-straight line!)