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At the gym this morning, on the wee tellys that usually show second rate dance videos, one was showing Sky News.
The story was about the current crisis the government is going through. And had the best story title I’ve ever seen! (hence the title of the post)
I almost fell of the rowing machine I was laughing so hard.
So hard, in fact, I almost had a brown crisis of my own.
BigAl
I really have to apologise for using a post just to make a joke about a “brown crisis” but I just couldn’t help it…
Being a bit on the overweight side I’ve tried a variety of fad diets over the last few years. It’s easy to get caught up in the wonder of it all.
“Lose half your body weight in 15 mins!”
Or something…
But exercise, the only real key to successful weight loss, was always the last thing on my mind.
But not now. I’ve joined the gym. And it’s great, it’s really is. I’m trying to build up to going once every two days, somewhere around 4 days a week, and because I have a membership with the Glasgow Club I can use the Kelvin Hall which is closest to the flat and Scotstoun which is closest to my work. And Scotstoun has a cardio suite, a weights room and a pool for those days where I want something other than the treadmill or the cross-trainer.
Definitely the way forward.
BigAl
We came 5th! Woo!
But Turkey beat us and their song was dreadful. But then so was ours, so I should be happy with 5th place!
Norway won with their twee nonsense which is fair enough but, in my mind, Iceland should have won. They came second, which is fair enough, but their was a better song.
And then we come to Germany.
Oh, Germany, sweet Germany.
Their stage performance had, of all people, the Queen of Burlesque, Dita Von Teese! Wow! Now that WAS a performance.
But it’s over for another year, and despite thinking that Eurovision is one of the most naff things in all of God’s Creation.
BigAl
Jedimoose has been up and running for a number of years now, over a number of different webhosts, blog software, designs, etc. And, to be honest, I’m pretty happy with it. Having 2 of us blog on the same site does, in some parts, is less pressure than doing one on your own. And my portion of it is also syndicated in a couple of “planets”, which is always gratifying.
However, there are times (and this is one of them) where I wonder whether or not I would be better served by having 2 blogs. There are 2 main strands of people that read my blog – people who know me through church and/or faith-related activity (say “hi”), and people who know me through technology – mostly scotluggers and lugradians (wave, people). For the most part over the years, the latter group has probably had more interesting content to read, with a lot of people in the former scratching their heads. Even some of the interesting stuff for the former is related to the latter – things like questions over DRM and privacy which affect us all.
As has previously been talked about, things are changed relatively rapidly in my life. What, in that previous post, I described as a 3-5 year timespan looks now like it might be as little as a year, and we are beginning a process now that will see us gathering a team to start a new work in a church. I will probably have a lot to say about this (as will Heather), and so I come to the point as to whether or not Jedimoose.org is the right place for all that content.
I’ve got to admit, I’m torn for a couple of reasons. On the one-hand, where my blog is syndicated it is because it’s people who know me, and want (I hope) to hear what’s going on in my life. On the other, the 2 distinct groups of people might be better served by having the choice. Back on the first hand, Jedimoose has been my home for a long time, and I’m not sure that adding an additional site will keep the content flowing here. On the flip side, having a shiny new domain to share with Heather might be more productive and cohesive as a record of our adventure.
Thoughts welcome; suggestions of potential new domains if we decided to go down that route encouraged 
mrBen
Well – Lent is over, and so it’s time for the Great Lent Challenge Survey.
If you took part, head on over to the survey to fill out your responses. Any problems or questions, please don’t hesitate to mail me – mrben -at- jedimoose -dot- org
I know some folks have got a bit of time left to wait on their answers or lack thereof, so I won’t be publishing the results until around the end of May.
mrBen
Joss Whedon receives the Outstanding Lifetime Achievement Award in Cultural Humanism at Harvard University’s Memorial Church:
“Faith is something we have to embrace. Faith in God mean believing absolutely in something with no proof whatsoever. Faith in humanity means believing absolutely in something which has a huge amount of proof to the contrary. We are the true believers!”
Discuss……
Well, after 2 years of blood, sweat and tears, the new church website launched on Friday. It’s not ready, it’s not finished, but it is live.
My friend Innes put a huge amount of effort into designing the site – everything that looks pretty is down to him. Everything that looks a bit clunky is down to my implementation of his design
It’s built on (badly written) Django, and there are still loads of ideas and plans in my head on what else to implement. But hopefully it’s now a little bit better than the one-page excuse for a site that’s been up since 2007.
mrBen
I’ve had a couple of questions asked since I initiated the Great Lent Challenge – I hesitate to call them “Frequently Asked Questions” because they weren’t exactly flowing think and fast, but here we go with some answers:
Clause 8 only requires you to invoke the name of Jesus, not to actually believe. It’s there as a control point for the end results – rather than people coming back and say that they’ve been praying to Allah or Vishna or the Flying Spaghetti Monster. mrBen
Inspired by a recent rewatch (or, infact, 3 watches between Christmas and now) of the Prince Caspian DVD, I decided it was time to reread the full Chronicles of Narnia. I picked up this set from an Amazon trader for only £7.13 delivered, which was a great price, I reckon. It’s a boxset with the 7 paperback books. The covers are new, but the imprint inside is identical to the set my mother had when I was small (and still has), including all the original pictures that I remember. The books have been chronologically ordered (as opposed to ordered by publication date) – if you would like to debate the best order to read in, then there are plenty of places to do that online
The first thing that really struck me as I reread these books for the first time in over 15 years, is that they’re really short. I managed to read a book a day on the train to and from work (roughly a couple of hours reading a day) and I’m not a particularly quick reader. They are obviously books aimed at children – you don’t have the depth of history or explanation that you do in, say, Tolkein – and although they do appeal to an adult audience, it would be unfair to attempt to rate them alongside books that aimed at adults. Having said that, in some ways I find the world of Narnia more vivid in places than the world of Middle Earth. I certainly found myself more attached to Narnia, for reasons that will become clear.
I found that I had remembered only bits of all the books. The LW&W is probably the most vivid in my memory, but then, it’s also the one most referenced and made into film. The other books all produced some vague memories, but nothing totally concrete for any of them. This may be, in part at least, that the sparsity of the writing (and I don’t mean that in a negative sense) allows for the wild imagination of a child to be set free, but these imaginings don’t necessarily create the same lasting impression as a written description.
One of the things that brought me back to this series is the closing music piece on Prince Caspian – “The Call”, by Regina Spektor – it’s a haunting piece of music that, I believe, really captures the sense of sadness of the Pevensies having to return to their own world, knowing that nothing there has changed, and also that 2 of them will not be returning to Narnia. This is reflected in the books, and it feels that CS Lewis felt a genuine sadness for the numbers of children who find the faith of their youth fading away as they grow older.
Faith is a definite theme within the books, and still causes a lot of controversy. JK Rowling and Phillip Pullman have both been on record as objecting to the work of CS Lewis, particularly his treatment of women generally, and Susan in particular, although I am not convinced that either author hasn’t read more into his writing than was originally there. For me, however, both as a child and now, there is some wonderful imagery for faith within these books. The creation of Narnia in A Magician’s Nephew, and the depiction of heaven as Aslan’s land, painted gloriously vivid pictures of creation and heaven that still appeal to me all these years later.
Ultimately, I tend to find that the books that impress me most are either those that surprise me, or those that leave me feeling a sadness at their ending. The Chronicles of Narnia, as a complete work, definitely fall into the latter category. If you read them as a child, I would recommend a re-read. If you didn’t, certainly read them, but suspend your disbelief as an adult and see through the eyes of a child if you can.
mrBen
OK – so I’m a few days late getting this posted, as Lent started on Wednesday, so I apologise. A couple of years ago for Lent I committed myself to posted on a daily basis. This year, I want to something of an experiment. And that is that I want to challenge everyone to pray for one thing every day for the rest of Lent, and then collate the “results”. Here are the “terms and conditions”:
1. You don’t need to believe anything. You don’t even need to believe that prayer does anything.
2. You do need to commit to praying daily for the same thing until Sunday April 12th. (If you really want, you can skip Sundays, because traditionally the 40 days of Lent don’t include the Sundays)
3. Your prayer cannot be for yourself, or for something that would profit you most. It must be for someone else.
4. Your prayer must be measurable in its result.
5. Your prayer must be “local” in its scale – for someone you know or a situation that is personal to you (bearing in mind condition 3). World peace is not an option here (maybe next year).
6. At the end of the challenge there will be a simple survey for you to fill out to collate the results. (Said survey will not reveal names or identities)
7. This is a viral challenge – post it on your blog, or on your facebook, or where ever, and challenge other people to be involved.
8. Like it or not, I am a Christian, and this is a Christian challenge, so your prayer needs to invoke the name of Jesus.
My commitment is this – whatever the results, I will definitely publish them.
Are you up for the challenge?
mrBen
I’ve been tagged by more people than I can remember for this particular meme (not least Heather, Aq and Rob) so I thought I’d better get around to it at last.
1. I’m almost totally deaf in my left ear
2. I’ve supported Liverpool FC for over 25 years, but I’ve never been inside Anfield, and only been to Liverpool once.
3. My first ever internet domain was www.bird-in-a-cage.co.uk back in 2001
4. My first ever email address was at Uni – 9704293t@student.gla.ac.uk – can’t believe I still remember that.
5. I had photos taken with Cliff Richard on a double decker bus (as part of the press release for an event called Release The Power)
6. At birth I had severe muscular problems, and it was (I believe) questionable as to whether I would talk, let alone walk.
7. My best ever 10-pin bowling score is 128.
8. I’ve been a Linux user since 1998.
9. My Dad looks like Rowan Williams (current Archbishop of Canterbury)
10. The first car I ever owned was an orange Fiat Panda.
11. I didn’t fly or travel to another continent until after I was married.
12. Heather and I will have been married 10 years this year.
13. My wife, mother, mother-in-law, and sister-in-law are all teachers.
14. I liked all the Matrix movies.
15. I have never owned a new computer.
16. I’ve been a Christian for 23 years this Easter.
17. I’ll probably never be a best-man at a wedding. This makes me sad.
18. I co-host a podcast called Classic Yak
19. I have a Bachelor of Divinity degree – but I didn’t do honours.
20. My favourite beer is Pauwel Kwak, closely followed by Innis & Gunn and Moosehead.
21. I completed Tomb Raider 1 and 2 on the PC.
22. My first guitar was an ESP 300 series electric. My first acoustic was a 2nd hand guitar made by Hondo. (My parents let me return the guitar they had bought me, and then use all my 18th birthday cash to buy a better model)
23. The first film I ever owned was Inner Space.
24. When I was younger (and for many years), I really wanted to be a policeman.
25. I didn’t learn to ride a bike until I was 8, or swim until I was 9.
mrBen
Suddenly realised I had a whole load of stuffs that deserved pimpage on the ‘Moose.
If you like your detectives hard-boiled, and your dialogue fast-paced and witty, then look no further than Black Jack Justice from Decoder Ring Theatre. 30 minute audio dramas taken from his case book sees Jack and his partner, Trixie Dixon, Girl Detective, deal with all the usual fray of your $35-a-day (plus expenses) gumshoe. The banter between Jack and Trixie is worthy of Joss Whedon in places, and, while hilarious at times, the series avoids being a full parody of the genre. Worthy of a place on your audio player.
The Scott Sigler machine continues to rumble on. Contagious (sequel to Infected, of course) has hit the New York Times Hardcover Bestseller list, but is continuing on as a free audiobook. If you haven’t listened to his stuff from when I’ve pimped it before, maybe now is the time.
Alternatively, if you prefer graphic novels, then both Siglers’ The Rookie and the first episode of Black Jack Justice are being serialised as comic books over at Addictive Comics.
Oh, and Classic Yak topped 700 overall downloads on Friday, and got 30 hits in a week for episode 7. Movin’ on up…
mrBen
I reckoned it was about time to write a decent retrospective of the last 6 months in the life of mrBen. It’s been an extremely hectic and tumultuous time, but, as these things tend to be, quite important. I’ll try and step through it systematically, but I apologise in advance for both rambling, and repeating things I’ve already posted about.
But it all needs to be put into a context that some of you may not be all that aware of.
I first came to Scotland in 1995 at the tender age of 18, to spend a year working with Scripture Union Scotland. At that point I was intending to become a youth worker, most likely within a church. After a year traipsing round the Borders and Edinburgh, mostly doing schools work, I had to make more decisions about my future. I decided that the appropriate continuation on the path was to take another year out with SU, ideally doing work with churches, rather than around schools. And then I was going to University to do Divinity/Theology, in order to get a good theoretical background to underly the experience I had in youth and childrens work.
And so, in 1996 I found myself in a team of 1, working for a barely-conceived church of 8 people, under Alan McWilliam. Being part of Whiteinch Fellowship, as it was then, has shaped the last 12 years of my life considerably, and has fostered me through University, marriage, fatherhood and my 8 years at IBM.
From the beginning of my time at Whiteinch, I was aware of certain skills and gifts that were coming to the fore, not least in leading worship, and teaching. Plus, I had (and have) a fascination with church strategy. I think at that point I knew that one day I would lead a church.
Fast-forward through that year out, 3 years of university, 8 years of work, and probably the most spiritually dry 10 years of my life to date, and you find me in the middle of last summer, agreeing to do Invest, but at the same time having God reach down and give me a good slap and telling me to get my act together.
“And so here we are on the raggedy edge…” I’m fairly sure that within the next 3-5 years myself and Heather will be part of a team beginning a new church. It probably won’t look like what most people imagine a church to be. It probably won’t be what I imagine it to be at this time. But it will definitely be an adventure.
“I aim to misbehave”
mrBen
I have a Creative Zen Touch and I haven’t used it in AGES.
For the life of me I can’t remember why. Oh, that’s it, I was re-copying all my music onto the pc as .ogg format and not .mp3. And the Creative Zen Touch doesn’t support .ogg.
Bad boys.
But until someone manages to hack the firmware, because Creative will never release a new version with full support, i’m not loading any more music onto the device.
And I haven’t really used it since until, when charging the device to see if it still works, I discover that it has 17-18 gig of music I had put on it before.
And there’s nothing like walking to work to Rammstein and the Imperial March from The Empire Strikes Back…
BigAl
Just checking in…
For the last week I’ve been suffering from some dread lurgy (again!) and have been not fit for much of anything.
After going to see Frost/Nixon on Friday night the weekend has been much of a waste of time, with me spending most of it bed. Normally that’s not much of a problem but if I want to waste time I’d rather do it on my own terms and not because I’m laid down with some mystery lurgy.
(Eventually I’m going to have to investigate why my health is generally so piss poor…)
And I missed work/Church totally today. Oops…
Still, the time I haven’t been totally wasting my time, I’ve been tinkering with web things, looking at the JediMoose theme with a critical eye, painting some miniatures and thundering away on my bass, all this while watching Ruthy come down with the same dread lurgy that I have… Result!
Note to self: my bass playing is only ever going to improve when I spend more then once a month or two on it…
BigAl
Despite my previous posts about the joys of Jeremy Kyle and his show, The Jeremy Kyle Show (get that man an award), I still find myself hypnotised by the infernal ringmaster and although I’m not able to watch the antics when they’re broadcast on ITV1 I like to catch up with the ITV online service.
Gah!
It seems that the daily episodes aren’t accessible online on a regular basis.
What use it that?
Where else will I get my regular dose of Jeremy bullying drunks, drug addicts and the mentally ill?
It’s enough to lose you faith in the internet…
BigAl
I was really struck by this video of Penn Jillette that was linked to on a site I read yesterday:
The whole thing is interesting, but the bit that caught my eye (or ear, rather) was when Penn, as a confirmed atheist, says (paraphrase) “I don’t respect people who don’t proselytize…. if you believe that there’s a heaven and hell and that people could be going to hell or not getting eternal life…. how much do you have to hate somebody to not proselytize”.
So….. sorry.
mrBen
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Stuff I want – but you don’t have to buy from Amazon if you don’t want to……
A look into alternative browsers, and the reasons for chaning
The ‘unstable’ distribution of Debian – rocks my world :)
The best browser on the market at the moment, and all for free
Funny Linux radio show
Archives of everything before August 2004
The free office suite that does all that the non-free one does ;)
Stuff I want – but you don’t have to buy from Amazon if you don’t want to…… A look into alternative browsers, and the reasons for chaning The ‘unstable’ distribution of Debian – rocks my world :) The best browser on the market at the moment, and all for free Funny Linux radio show Archives of everything before August 2004 The free office suite that does all that the non-free one does ;) Stuff I want – but you don’t have to buy from Amazon if you don’t want to…… A look into alternative browsers, and the reasons for chaning The ‘unstable’ distribution of Debian – rocks my world :) The best browser on the market at the moment, and all for free Funny Linux radio show Archives of everything before August 2004 The free office suite that does all that the non-free one does ;)
