I'm testing Qumana...

I'm a paid up ecto user but have been having some bugs with its syncing with the website. Mark suggested trying Qumana, so I am.

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And here's a picture of my gorgeous daughter.

She's the one in the middle, pictured with two friends on our back balcony.

Powered by Qumana

Update:

After some hassles with uncooperative photos, multiple postings etc, I'm back to ecto. But Qumana did have nicer eye-candy...

Five things meme

Stephen tagged the universe, and its a good opportunity to post again on my favourite topic ;-), so here are five things you probably didn't know about me:

1. At age 9ish I was on Japanese TV (if you don't remember seeing me its probably because I was the one in the snowman outfit).

2. My parents went to a Royal Garden party with the Queen (of Australia (curses)) and Prince Phillip, and all I got was this lousy story...

3. I have a life sized cardboard replica of 7 of 9 looking at me in my study (and my wife, Sue, gave it to me!)

4. My first computer was a DEC LSI-11/23 with a hard drive about 2.5 foot cubed which shook the whole house as it ran up to speed.

5. I arranged for Sue and myself to have dinner with Christian writer Adrian Plass and his wife Bridget as my 10th anniversary gift to Sue.

Have a glorious Christmas, New Year and any other relevant holiday!

Liturgical dance?

In a comment on my previous post, Stephen suggests:

Have you considered “upgrading” to a flannelgraph? (iFlannel?) Then all these technical problems would just fade away. Mostly you'd have manually fake dissolves and fades, and keep swapping the lyrics etc.

Maybe the physical activity could double as some sort of liturgical dance.

Unfortunately the idea of seeing me doing a liturgical dance has caused strong men to lose their lunches, particularly after seeing my “Village People” turn...

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'Nuff said?

Running behind Lara Croft

I just bought Tomb Raider: Legend and so I guess I'm in for a few more days of running around behind a woman with improbably large breasts! I'm a crappy gamer so when I get good at any game I like to stick with it. Hence I have purchased every Tomb Raider game in turn. I must confess to the fact that the first thing I do after purchasing a game is to download and print a walkthrough. After all, I play for fun and if I've been stuck in the same place for 30 minutes wondering what arcane key combination will get me past the latest trap - it ceases to be fun!

I was also reminded by this to do the “Which Action Hero Would You Be?” quiz, mentioned by Darren (Batman) from planet telex, and guess what...


You scored as Lara Croft. A thrill-seeking, slightly unscrupulous, tough-as-nails archaeologist, Lara Croft travels the world in search of ancient relics perhaps better left hidden. She packs two Colt .45s and has no fear of jumping off buildings, exploring creepy tombs, or taking on evil meglomaniacs bent on world domination.

Lara Croft 71%

Batman, the Dark Knight 67%

James Bond, Agent 007 63%

El Zorro 63%

Neo, the “One” 58%

William Wallace 58%

Indiana Jones 54%

Maximus 46%

The Terminator 42%

Captain Jack Sparrow 42%

The Amazing Spider-Man 33%

Which Action Hero Would You Be? v. 2.0
created with QuizFarm.com

Airlie's Birthday

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My gorgeous daughter Airlie Grace turns 4 tomorrow and we're all going out to visit the Western Plains Zoo at Dubbo. It's a 2.25 hr drive, so we're setting off early and hoping the sproglet will cope. Hopefully the gift of some “Learn your ABC's” music will make the ride more pleasant.

Last time I visited the Dubbo Zoo was in 1992 when I was in the midst of my ministry training and did a week stint working with a church in Yeoval. I seem to remember the Spider Monkeys were pretty cool. Hope they're still there.

The Change to Typepad

I suppose it had to happen...

If I'm going to do this blogging thing I guess I need to do it right. So I'm migrating from Blogger to Typepad and I hope in the process I don't lose my 3 avid readers. (Actually I'm safe with one of them 'cause Suzie reads it directly on my computer...)

Update:

For some reason, using Ecto to transfer my posts overrode the date it said was on it and made them all as at today. So being the anally retentive guy I am I just spent the last hour manually editing them via the online interface - talk about a slow job!

A glimpse of the kingdom...

Perhaps it's because of the Sydney setting I know so well (Suzie and I did much of our courting round the forecourts of the Sydney Opera House) but a passage in a recent Brian McLaren post moved me to tears:

We walked down to the “Circular Quay” where the famous Sydney Opera House is situated. Across from the Opera House is a district called “The Rocks” - full of shops, sidewalk booths, etc. It was a perfect summer day, beautiful breeze, blue sky, sailboats filling the bay behind us. A jazz group was playing on a stage in a courtyard, and we got something to eat and enjoyed their music. A middle-aged couple got up and started dancing - they were amazing! Then an old lady got up, then an old man, and soon there were half-a-dozen people spontaneously dancing to this beautiful music - blues, swing, etc.

Near the stage, I noticed a five or six year old boy who appeared mentally handicapped. He was absolutely entranced with the music. He put up a fist to his mouth as if it were a trumpet and pretended to play it with his other hand. Soon, without realizing it, he had moved out beside the stage. His eyes were closed and he was playing his heart out on his imaginary trumpet. The sax player noticed this, and the hopped off the stage and stood beside the young guy. When he opened his eyes, the sax player started dancing around as he played and the little boy followed his lead. Then the trumpet player saw them, and he came down. The little boy in between the two musicians ... “playing” and dancing in an obvious state of ecstasy - the audience started applauding and I know my eyes were overflowing with tears to see something so beautiful and spontaneous and glorious.

Then I looked back to where the boy had been, and his grandfather was standing there in obvious delight to see his grandson so happy. I leaned over to Grace and whispered, “It's a glimpse of the kingdom of God.”

A story like that makes me yearn for the coming of the Kingdom - not “pie in the sky when we die by and by” - but “your will be done on earth as in heaven”. Amen.

Once again!

Ok, I'm going to try this blogging thing one more time.

This time I've got a widget which lets me quickly dash off a post, so I'll try to be more frequent.

(Repeat after me - blogs are ephemera - they do not have to be well researched, deeply thought out missives...)

I've just finished reading the book “Walk On: The Spiritual Journey of U2”. What a great book. It's inspired me to go out and buy a bunch of U2 tracks and get back into the band.