That's Retarded.

Help, I Need Babysitter...

My wife is away in Christchurch and our usual babysitter doesn't do Wednesdays... anyone free to look after three perfect little angels on the 23rd of April?

UPDATE: I've found a babysitter, all I need now is someone to go with - I mean it would be terrible to waste the spare pass....

UPDATE 2: I'm taking a lucky girl on a date with me... I wonder who it could be...

Morning Devotions

We always have a Monday morning devotion at work. This morphs into a Tuesday morning devotion when the Monday is a holiday.

I got volunteered to do it this morning.

So I gave them some Bono mixed in with a bit of the book of James.

Games Rhett Missed

This is a quick response to Atheist Rhett’s Geek-Out Part 2: My 20 Favourite Games Ever post. It summarises a couple of games that young Mr Rhett missed out on his list, but is by no means an exhaustive list of any type.

The BBC Micro was an early innovator of computer games, despite being overshadowed by its more popular competitor, the small and rubbery ZX Spectrum. Two genre-defining games that ruled my early computer gaming memories would have to be Revs and Elite.

Of course of recent years, not many real gamers play on PCs anymore, preferring the stability and (relatively) cheap option of the game console. It was the birth of the console that brought forth Codemasters mastery of the motor sports game with it’s long running racing series that started with TOCA.

For those Sony geeks still holding onto GranTurismo, I’ve played it, and Microsoft took the crown away from you with Forza.

Then there’s the real kings of the gaming world, the First Person Shooter. Infinity Ward owns the current generation, first with Call of Duty 2, and more recently with Call of Duty 4.

As for those Halo geeks, forget it, Marathon (on the *gasp* Mac) was a better trilogy of games…

Should have stayed in bed...

The day started out fine enough, I had a quick look at Acts for Everyone and discovered that not all the books of the New Testament are written by Paul.

After that moment of illumination, everything went downhilll.

Took the family to the new Clendon McDonalds for breakfast. After waiting over five minutes for our order, I politely asked the guy serving how long our order was going to take. He asked the manager and the manager told us to take a seat and our breakfast would be bought out to us.

A while later breakfast arrived. Dione's eggs were cold and my bagel was burnt. I took my bagel back and got a fresh one made.

We won't be going back to Clendon McDonalds. Ever.

Then on the way to our friends house to drop off a form and some money, the (company) car died. Fortunately we were close enough to our destination that Dione and the kids could walk there whilst I waited for the AA guy.

An hour later the AA guy turns up and the car magically starts. He has a look at a few things and proclaims that there is nothing wrong. I drive to friends house, have a drink, chat for a while, leave and drive home.

Almost.

Half way home the car dies again - same problem.

Dione and Hope walk home and drive back in our car to pick up Aimee and BJ. I wait another hour for the same AA guy. This time the car doesn't start for him.

A little tinkering and the bad news; the electric starter is dead. He can't do anything but arrange for a tow.

Half an hour later the tow truck arrives.

Home by 1.30.

What a waste of a day.

Do Miracles still happen?

After reading Dale’s post about Souls and the comments getting on a tangent about heaven, I’ve been thinking.

My mind often goes off on weird sporadic directions when put into use, ending up in seemingly unconnected places. As such I started thinking about miracles.

Specifically I remembered the time I wanted to encourage a friend, who was looking for a miracle in her life. I read that particular days devotion from a daily C.S. Lewis Devotional book. Can’t go wrong I figured with a man of faith like CS Lewis.

Miracles it seems are not a cornerstone of Christian belief, as CS Lewis clearly stated, there is no point in hoping on the miraculous, as miracles were for Jesus’ time only – or words to that effect.

Needless to say, I didn’t end up being very encouraging to my friend that day, but I did learn that Christians could be divided about miracles. I’ve been witness to enough of them to believe that they still have a place in our modern society, yet I’m not sure I have the faith to bring about a miracle on my own.

Of course, any thinking man will ultimately turn to wikipedia for the final word on any subject, but according to wise old wiki, there are many views on what makes a miracle.

Nothing this complicated is ever easy.

The thing I like about the miracles in my life is the ability they have in giving me hope. I can look back over my life and see God’s hand protecting me in amazing ways – ways that an atheist might call luck – miracles that were not seen as miracles until later in life when I had belief in a divine creator who was looking out for me.

These miracles, or events in my life give me the perception that my life has purpose. Maybe that in itself is the miracle.

Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day might be the most commercially romantic day, but no day will surpass the joy of March 18th, 1995.

Lent and Movies

Well I caught up with my Bible reading earlier tonight, then I convinced my lovely wife to watch Flight of the Concords in the bedroom whilst I wasted the rest of my evening watching (and then having to write a review of) a load of absolute crap.

Lent Confession

I’ve decided that updating my blog every single day with inane comments on my lent journey is rather pointless, so from now on you’ll going to get occasional updates, like this one.

I’ll start with a confession; I’m one day behind on my Lent reading, but I’m not going to sweat it, it was after a very full on weekend, followed by a full on Monday. I’ll be able to catch up before the weekend.

The most disturbing thing about my Lent commitments is that I’ve found myself daydreaming about gorging myself on chocolate and then diving into a pool of cold diet coke. It’s either a sign that I was far too addicted to the two evil C’s or that I have an over active imagination that just isn’t getting enough sugar to function properly.

Time will tell I guess.

Love is...

My daughter Aimee handed me a small leaf on Saturday on our way out of Murphy's Bush, she proclaimed that it was a heart and she had wanted to give it to me for Valentines Day but didn't think it would last that long, so wanted me to have it right away.

I thanked her for the special gift and put it in my pocket for safe keeping.

I re-discovered it today when I was putting my cell phone back in my pocket - there was this rough, hard, pointy thing in there, so I carefully took it out, and it was a nicely browned reminder that I am loved.

Thank you Aimee.

Lent 05

Still managing to keep to my Lent commitments, though with such a full on weekend, and the horrible mugginess of today, grabbing a cold can of coke was a real temptation...

Lent 04

Bible Reading:
To tired to post the details!

Coke: none
Chocolate: none:
COD4: none

Offers of Chocolate: 3 (all turned down)
Offers of Coke: 1 (turned down)

Cravings: Junk food, Coke & Chocolate.

Lent 03

Bible Reading:
Social Responsibility
A Call for Justice
Three Annual Festivals
A Promise of the Lord's Presence

Coke: none
Chocolate: none:
COD4: none

Offers to 'look after' my XBox 360 and COD4: 1
Gifts of Chocolate: 1 (accepted but put away for Easter)
Favourite Verse so far: Then Moses took the blood from the basins and splattered it over the people... sounds rather Tarantino.

Lent 02

Bible Reading:
The Ten Commandments
Proper Use of Alters
Fair Treatment of Slaves
Causes of Personal Injury
Protection of Property

(it's parts of the Bible like this that put people off reading the Bible!)

Coke: none
Chocolate: none
COD4: none

Lent 01

Bible reading:
Manna and Quail from Heaven
Water from the Rock
Israel Defeats the Amalekites
Jethro's Visit to Moses
Jethro's Wise Advice
The Lord Reveals Himself at Sinai

Coke: none
Chocolate: none
COD4: none.

Shrove Tuesday

My wife is simply amazing.

Lent 2008

Lent, in most Christian denominations, is the forty-day liturgical season of fasting and prayer before Easter.^[1] The forty days represent the time Jesus spent in the desert, where, according to the Bible, he endured temptation by Satan.^[2] Different churches will calculate the forty days differently.

The purpose of Lent is the preparation of the believer—through prayer, penitence, almsgiving and self-denial—for the annual commemoration of the Death and Resurrection of Jesus, as celebrated during Holy Week, which recalls the events linked to the Passion of Christ and culminates in Easter, the celebration of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

In Western Christianity, Lent lasts from Ash Wednesday until Holy Saturday.^[1] The six Sundays in Lent are not counted among the forty days because each Sunday represents a "mini-Easter", a celebration of Jesus' victory over sin and death.^[2] In those churches which follow the Byzantine tradition (e.g. Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholics), the forty days of Lent are calculated differently: the fast begins on Clean Monday, Sundays are included in the count, and it ends on the Friday before Palm Sunday. The days of Lazarus Saturday, Palm Sunday and Holy Week are considered a distinct period of fasting. For more detailed information about the Eastern Christian practice of Lent, see the article Great Lent.

I've managed to avoid doing anything for Lent for all of my Christian life. But at Church on Sunday we were given Preparation Packs for Lent 2008.

I thought to myself, maybe it's time to embrace Lent and Self Denial as an experiment in discipline, something I'm not very good at.

So for lent, to honour God through my physical body, I'm going to attempt to give up Coke and Chocolate for 40 days.

To free up some time (a very precious commodity that can be easily whittled away) I'm giving up COD4 for 40 Days. This should free up some time so that I can commence reading my newest Bible; The One Year Chronological NLT Bible.

It's going to be a hard task, but I guess that's the point of Self Denial, and I'm inviting you to keep me accountable. I'll be posting my daily success (or failures) every night before bed.

Paint Me Red

There seems to be a lot of anti-Labour sentiment building in the local Christian blogging community. I think it’s time someone took a stand and that someone is gonna have to be me!

I’m not entirely happy with some of the actions of our present government, but nothing scares me more than the prospect of a National government.

I don’t see National repealing any of the legislation that has turned Christians against Labour, but I do see them making my life – and that of my South Auckland neighbours – a little harder.

For me it has to be Labour. It’s a two party system, I can’t vote for a minor party because I don’t think it’s fair that a party that most of New Zealand didn’t vote for, ends up deciding who gets to govern us – yes, I’ve managed to be anti MMP as well as pro-labour in this post!

The other thing that makes me smile is the concept that Labour is the government that God wanted elected. They have to be when you think back to all the churches that hosted prayer vigils for the last election, just to make sure that Labour didn’t get in, but God’s chosen Government did. Whoops. That would mean that Labour…

Who am I going to vote for in the next election? Probably Labour. It would take some convincing for me to vote National – and no, that isn’t an invite for people to start evangelising me!

And now a word from Delerious...

Stomp-Stomp

We completed our first family tramp today! Read about it here.

That's all, I'm wasted.

There Will Be Blood

I’m a lucky man; not only am I married to the most wonderful woman in the world, but because of my involvement with FilmGuide I get to go out with this wonderful woman to numerous movies.

Last night was one such nigh. We saw There Will Be Blood. I’m still forming my thought on the movie and the more I think about it, the more I like it.

The interesting thing is that the movie is normally the main event of any give night, but this night was going to be different.

On the way home from the movie, we dropped by to have dessert with 5 friends. Dessert turned into dinner and dessert, along with some very nice wine.

The short time spent with our friends turned out to be the best part of the evening. They are some of the most genuine, generous and just damn nice people I know.

Because of the good time we had with these friends, the movie seemed like it was only the entrée, spending time with friends was the main course, and our awesome babysitter was a fantastic dessert.

Yes, a very special mention to our babysitter, who originally expected us home at 8.00 but then we pushed that back to 9.00, and only managed to get home after 10.00pm.

A good movie, great friends, all made possible because another great friend is willing to look after our little tribe of kids.

I hope you found someone to give those chocolates too!