Ad Hoc

World Draconian-legislation Day

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 16:44:18 +1000

I just realised I have a ready supply of: blank t-shirts, printable iron-on shirt transfers, skateboards, and insane friends who live in Randwick and who dislike being told what to do by authoritarian civil-rights-abusing governments. And World Youth Day is only a fortnight away.

Things could get entertaining…..

TISM -> Root!

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 15:39:27 +1000

TISM -> Root!: At least they’re still active - well Humphrey B. Flaubert (Damian Cowell) is anyway. According to the interwebs, TISM quietly called it a day about two years ago. I heard that the lead guitarist died recently of cancer too - probably had a lot to do with it.

szymon:Will SelfGenius! I’d feel like a total hack using...

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 23:07:05 +1000

szymon:

Will Self

Genius! I’d feel like a total hack using my 1/72 Preiser figurines for something similar, but I want to.

Is there any better way of teaching kids about the importance of...

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 23:00:12 +1000

Is there any better way of teaching kids about the importance of conservation and the evils of capitalism than The Lorax?

(Hint: the answer is no)

Dry July

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 16:28:33 +1000

Dry July:

I’m off ethanol beverages for a month after seeing “Dry July” mentioned briefly in the local rag. I didn’t realise it was a fundraiser for Dreams2Live4, though. I’m just doing it because I often go sans-hooch for anything up to 6 months just for health and self-discipline reasons.

Anyway, it seems funny to be asking people to sponsor you just to not drink; as though alcohol were some kind of vital necessity of life (if you think it is, there’s a word for you). The site reads:

“Dry July challenges people to last a month without drinking alcohol.”

Challenges? “Last” a month? Dear me….

What I might do is work out roughly what I’d spend on impromptu beer or wine purchases over a month and donate it to charity…though probably not a charity that reads like a bad numberplate [SXCDRMS2LV4U2NV].

As per my earlier post, these signs have been going up over this...

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 14:44:05 +1000

As per my earlier post, these signs have been going up over this entire area. Those promised resident parking permits had better turn up….

"You need a broader narrative. The Liberal Party does not have a story to tell at the moment. Just a..."

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 12:27:00 +1000

“You need a broader narrative. The Liberal Party does not have a story to tell at the moment. Just a bunch of ad hoc comments”

- Alexander Downer.
The Liberal Party can get knotted. I was here first.

Thou shalt not annoy on Youth Day

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 12:20:00 +1000

Thou shalt not annoy on Youth Day:

thatguyben:

Extraordinary new powers will allow police to arrest and fine people for “causing annoyance” to World Youth Day participants and permit partial strip searches at hundreds of Sydney sites, beginning today.
“Causing annoyance” could include handing out condoms at protests, or wearing an anti-Catholic t-shirt.

I may have to re-evaluate my plan to print up a “Sola Scriptura, bitchez” t-shirt…. (haha only ~~serious~~ kidding)

And as much as I enjoy getting nekkid in the street, it needs to be because I want to, not at the whim of some paranoid local plod who suspects I have a firearm up my wahoo (unfortunately for any overzealous coppers, the man most likely to engage in that particular activity will be out of the country at the time…).

Pity there’s no new laws against WYD “causing annoyance” on a grand scale to myself and everyone else whose suburbs will be in lockdown for the duration of the Pope Party. I just got off the phone to The World Youth Day Lack Of Coordination Authority (WYDCA) who were, according to their publicity release, delivering parking permits to residents in June (1 hour zones for about 3km around the pope-i-centre). It’s July now. Apparently the permits should arrive this week…maybe….or maybe the week after Pope Day…..like, whatever. Nobody I’ve spoken to in the area has received a permit yet.

I bet the week of the event itself will be even better organised. These new incredibly-ambiguous-and-wide-open-to-abuse police powers are the icing on the turd cake.

We’re getting out of here come World Something-Involving-The-Pope Day.

Dodgy Telstra sales practices

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 14:07:43 +1000

Dodgy Telstra sales practices:

Telstra are vying for my number 1 most loathed company on account of the continual harassment from them on my mobile phone and borderline-abusive behaviour from their telemarketers. But the practice that Silvia describes is a new low. However, they have stiff competition from Origen Energy for Most Loathed: Origen’s door-to-door salesmen masquerade as consultants or technicians from your existing provider and ask to see your bill to check that “you’re getting charged the right amount” as an opener into signing on with them. This particularly invasive and devious tactic has rewarded them with an earful of abuse from me, and I tore strips off one of these cretins while he tried it on my bamboozled Korean neighbour who thought he had to sign the paperwork or his electricity would be cut off.

Unfortunately I forgot to warn my wife about these vermin and she was cajoled into signing up with Origen while I was at work.

Needless to say, I went spaz.

"I remember when I used to be really into nostalgia"

Fri, 27 Jun 2008 12:09:03 +1000

“I remember when I used to be really into nostalgia”

- Demetri Martin (via travors) (via thatguyben)

And then the Crazytown ferry hove into view….The...

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 13:24:17 +1000

And then the Crazytown ferry hove into view….

The “Magic Muffin”, converted from Howard Hughes’ Boeing Stratoliner. Brought to my attention by the good cap’n Tony.

szymon:3D Wall PaintingsMy flat so urgently needs this. But...

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 10:44:58 +1000

szymon:

3D Wall Paintings

My flat so urgently needs this. But with something like this instead of sailing ship.

szymon:Fair Share Cake Plate

Mon, 23 Jun 2008 09:50:06 +1000

szymon:

Fair Share Cake Plate

The Sola Panel: Virtues we dislike.

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 18:31:00 +1000

The Sola Panel: Virtues we dislike.:

“We shouldn’t be shocked when non-Christians find Christian virtues out of date, incomprehensible or just plain hateful………But we also shouldn’t be surprised when the ‘natural’ world’s aversion to godliness starts to have an effect on Christians as well. We find it very easy to be influenced by the world’s way of thinking”

“Some of the things the Bible regards as good and praiseworthy we begin to find a little daggy and distasteful.”

This is a real problem for most Christians I know. Notions of piety and dignity are considered soooo un-hip, man, usually being tarred by the assumption that they are just self-righteousness going by different names. In years of regular home group (bible study) meetings, I have found that this is very often at the core of people’s difficulty in being publicly open about their faith - not that they will encounter hostility, rather that everything about it will just be seen as daggy. And there’s nothing worse than people thinking you’re a dag! (heck, let’s embrace it! go out and sandal-sock with pride!)

But I am as guilty of this as anyone, probably more so, and admittedly it is a large part of the reason this blog has had so little Christian content for so long.

Payne’s comments on flippancy are even more challenging.

*sulkily shakes fist at Tony Payne*

Strangers are easy to hate.

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 15:27:00 +1000

fro:

I really really wanted to reblog elderdave’s entry, but it’s hard to do so without including the xkcd cartoon. Which isn’t bad, just unnecessary.
It resonates with a meme that I’ve discussed with others on occasion. It’s easy to hate someone you don’t know. It gets harder to hate someone that you’ve had a beer with.

Preach it! I have had conflicts with strangers that seemed utterly ludicrous once I met them in person*.

However, thanks to the wonders of the internet, you can end in a protracted war with someone you already know really well, over some stupid miscommunication via email or some other electronic medium that never would have happened had you been discussing the same thing over said beer (or beverage of your choice). Part of this is that email/text is fired off, generally sandwiched between other tasks, without a great deal of time to think over it clearly. The other part is that you have the same anonymity problem going on. There’s the tendency to hide behind the screen and say things to anyone, stranger or no, that you almost certainly wouldn’t say in person. Everything pretty much ends up here:

* On the other hand, some people are just complete turkeys and when you encounter them in person, they are still complete turkeys….

xkcd: Internet Argument.Also applies to a lesser extent to text...

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 12:02:00 +1000

xkcd: Internet Argument.

Also applies to a lesser extent to text messages and occasionally phonecalls.

System of a read.

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 10:40:53 +1000

I read very randomly - usually multiple books at once - and I have a stack of to-be-read books a mile high, and a stack of half-finished nonfiction books. So I decided that from now on I will try to have at least three books on the go at any one time (four if you include the Bible, but that’s a given), viz:

- devotional/doctine (“spiritual”?) book

- general interest nonfiction book (usually popular science)

- fiction novel

and the rule is that I can’t move on to a new book from any category without finishing the other two first. This will hopefully prevent me giving up on the nonfiction and picking up another Terry Pratchett book instead, which is what usually happens.

So currently:

- The Reformed Pastor, by Richard Baxter [awesome]

- Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home: And Other Unexplained Powers of Animals, by Rupert Sheldrake [fascinating]

- The Reality Dysfunction, by Peter F. Hamilton [awesome/disturbing]

I hope this injects a bit more discipline into my reading.

"Cold is just God’s way of telling us to burn more Catholics!"

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 17:29:17 +1000

“Cold is just God’s way of telling us to burn more Catholics!”

- Lady Whiteadder. (Blackadder II: Beer)

Sola Bootstrapsis. Ha!

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 17:28:00 +1000

Sola Bootstrapsis. Ha!:

Debunking the myth that “God helps those who help themselves” is a Christian saying. This came up last week in our sermon series on the reformation catch-cries - in this instance Sola Gratis. Sola Bootstrapsis is GOLD!

“God helps those who help themselves? If so, we are to be pitied above all men. Never has heaven appeared so far away.”

Ohhhh yeah, that’s the stuff….Via Auntie Deb, who...

Wed, 18 Jun 2008 17:17:10 +1000

Ohhhh yeah, that’s the stuff….

Via Auntie Deb, who took the miniature cyclone out for a cappucino (minus the coffee part).