My Second Life

Frank is getting all excited about the online community Second Life, so being a loyal Frank Follower; I decided to check it out for myself.

Signing up and downloading the app was simple enough, but when the virtual world loaded all I saw were three naked ladies and a naked man, with my assumed name hovering above his head. Then slowly clothes appeared on my alternative self. Phew.

Time to explore, interact and have fun. But alas the sparsely populated Island I seemed to be prisoner on had on friendly people who were willing to talk to me. The island was very small for a population of 8,000,000 and growing.

Where was everyone and was there more to explore.

I left Second Life and went to the familiarity of Firefox to do a search on cool places in Second Life and found a site that promised to teleport me to any of the popular places of the moment.

Sweet. I teleported to the most popular place in Second Life and found myself sandwiched between two properties that would not allow me to enter – an invisible wall had a notice on it that read something along the lines of “Private property. You do not have the owners permission to enter”

Awesome, so now I’m a reject that no one will talk to and who can’t explore this brave new world because it’s all privately owned.

Oh well, I’ll see if I can find a way to teleport myself to the Church Frank has been raving about. That should be accessible to an ordinary Joblo like me.

And it was.

It was also empty.

It was also raining, hard.

There must be something more to do. I know I’ll customise the look of my alter ego.

Ok, lots of options but rather limited.

I’ll have to explore a little later when I get home – Brett’s sermon was starting weigh heavy on my conscience.

But alas, my ever capable but slightly old iMac at home is just a nanosecond too old to be able to run Second Life. Or more to the point, the operating system on my iMac at home is too old.

Young enough to blog, myspace, play other online games, but to archaic for Second Life.

Oh well, no loss really, as with my - albeit limited – experience of Second Life I don’t think I would have spent much time on there if I did have It at home.

On the upside, my real life never felt so exciting after spending some time in the lifeless world that will never be my Second Life.

King Uzi

For Rhett and Frank, from Isaiah 6:1.

Joe Simpson

To promote the launch of the first full-length Simpsons feature film, Burger King and Fox have created The Simpsonizer.

Go to simpsonizeme.com, upload a photo and the application (apparently) analyzes your face, turning you into an honorary Springfield resident.

Yes, that is me on the left...

Of course, you'll be wanting a fast connection and a lot of patience, but if you do Simpsonize yourself, do let me know!

Why going on a 2 week mission trip just ain’t good

Found this interesting post a blog that I just discovered:

A lot of Middle Class Churches like to send people on short term missions. While these often has the best of intentions, I am of the belief that the vast majority of these do far more harm than good. Harm? I hear you say

Yes .

Local Christians in the ‘mission country’
• We effectively say – ‘I have a much better knowledge of your culture/language and conditions and thought that by coming in for 2 weeks and often by spending just 1 day in one particular space I could further Kingdom Work’
• Those that we go to help often go out of their way to accommodate us, therefore putting themselves out and often leaving themselves in a worse financial position when we leave.

Local non Christians: Missioners have not enough time to bond or form lasting relationships often language and culture issues. The most unreached are often not talked to ‘as this would be too risky ‘ oxymoronic being the fact that this is who Jesus would I think go to first ……. *cough*

Those on the mission:
• My biggest gripe is the money. Individuals often spend (here in New Zealand and I assume for my US readers it is similar) $ 2000 – 4000 for a 2 week trip. While this is all well and good, most of those $$$$ are for the individuals costs (airfare , accommodation) and little gets to the actual MINISTRIES etc over there that they are going to support. What I am saying is after the mission group is gone is there another $2000 from each individual (and the church that is sending them) to help the ministries they have supported? Or is all that we bring home pretty photos and good memories?
• Second big gripe: Many many churches seem to push the idea that ‘mission’ is purely overseas – last time I checked Jesus started with those around him before he sent people out. If those who we send internationally do not have a grasp on this basic fact then I really doubt whether a ‘mission trip’ is ‘furthering the kingdom’ as it is claimed

Now in saying all of this there are some short term mission groups that I do make exceptions for i.e. where people are going to a place where they have been asked to go by a local community because a local community does not have those resources OR where the community has NO Christians.

The excitement builds...

Had the day off work yesterday, so that we could go shopping for school stuff. By the end of the day my wallet was empty, but we had a couple of very excited girls.

The reality of them starting school on Tuesday is really setting in, and they're pumped.

Having the day off on Tuesday so that I can drop them off at school with Dione, and spend the day with her to ease the what am I going to do now that my babies are at school all day feelings.

You are 60% geeky.

Not bad. Maybe you spend a little too much time with your computer, but at least you have friends. You do have friends, right?

The current average score is: 31.44%

Fact: 35.22% of people who took this test admit to wearing a costume "just for fun".

(I only took this test because Josh thinks I'm a Geek)

Me no blog.

Hi and welcome to my first post for July 2007.

The way things are going this may also be my last post for July 2007.

It's not that I don't love blogging anymore, it's just that I've got plenty on my hands with FilmGuide, making up Parachute Rumours and getting the most out of my 1 month XBox Live subscription.

Even my non-computer hobby has taken a hit; my painting of frustratingly little men (and associated blog) has seen no love for some time.

Of course having too many DVDs to watch and movies to see could be something to do with it.

I guess if you really want to know whats happening in my life, you might just have to ask me in person (gasp!), not that this blog really ever tells you how I'm feeling.

Oh, and it's very tired at the moment, thank you. Something to do with storms, power cuts and little people.