Neave Lab

Yet another wonderful site full of fascinating and yet pointless activities to while away your hard earned procrastinating time. Love the parallax stars - or alternatively zoom in from a picture of the globe down to your own house (I found the Bangalow Avenue swimming pool!).

As Neave says, "Welcome to my mad professor playground. When I was small and had big blonde hair, I used to spend my days making things out of Lego, plasticine and dubiously shaped vegetables. This is the result."

This is what the web was made for (other than Collingwood of course).

an odd day

A strange day today. As a part of our formation in pastoral care we spent the day with the funeral directors - T J Andrews in Meadowbank, and then at Rookwood Cemetery in the afternoon. It was an opportunity for those of us in ministry training to see behind the scenes of funerals and so forth. All of which of course involved viewing the body of a person who had died this morning both before and after embalming, and then being taken on a tour of the crematorium (ovens and all).

I guess in one way it was fairly confronting - staring death in the face from close up. In another way it was surprisingly mundane - very earthy and real. A bit like being at a farm and facing the realities of our food and drink no longer from the sanitized brightly-lit supermarket aisles, but instead through the heavy bulk of cows, the mud and machinery of the farm and the sheer normality of it all. It was the same with the embalming and cremating. Yes, it was an old man lying there who up until this morning had been living in a nursing home. Yes, he was someone's uncle or father or brother. And the realities of his suit and tie that he was dressed in (the tie with his soccer club's emblem). And yes, he was dead. But as when my own grandfather died, it was his body there, but it wasn't him anymore. This was one man's body, but it certainly wasn't the sum total of that man - whoever he had been (Even though he was kept completely anonymous - I spent a long time pondering what sort of life he'd had.)

And the same with the cremation centre - big ovens (700 - 1000 degrees), ashes and bones out the other side. Very real, and strangely very mundane. Not in a boring ho-hum sort of way - more that it seemed so surprisingly obvious that it would come down to these normal people operating this machinery and providing ashes for a family. It was fascinating and yet so real?

Like so much of everyday life in urban society, we're used to the packaged and presented outcome, rather than the everyday, physical process. It seemed sort of reassuring. Maybe it was demystifying of the whole death thing. A very strange, rather extraordinary and yet comforting day. Not what I expected at all.

Flannelgraph!

Ok, so I haven't posted much due to this damn cold making my head fuzzy for a few days. So when you have a fuzzy head, return to the fuzzy felt cartoons of yester-year sunday school!

From The Wibsite (yes that is its name), who also have an amusing collection of cartoons, e cards and other bits.

If I could put up their Worship Song Fridge Magnets I would, absolutely brilliant.

Urban Stone - simplified!

Now there is no more need to spend hours dreaming up your own headlines, searching for that creative caption, or terrifying younger relatives for snappy subtitles. The ever amazing Sloganizer does it all for you! That's right, a site dedicated to no other purpose than randomly making up slogans and headlines (see above) for your apathy-ridden web-jockeys such as Urban Stone. So here goes...

"Captain Smollett - One name. One legend."
"Rod Joyce, the secret of women" (what the!?!?)
"Bomana Nights, in touch with tomorrow."
"Brisbane for you!" (I think that's a threat)
"Ooh la la, Jesus Christ"
"When you say Urban Stone you've said it all."

Hours of fun for the procrastinator in us all.

Happy Birthday Captain Smollett

Captain Smollett, aka Flicka, in a vain attempt to prove that he's not the Messiah and really just a very naughty boy, turned 33 today.

Having survived the trucking industry, rock star fame, the White Cliffs opal fields and spawning a entire clan of smollets - he's now turning his eye towards film critic criticism.

Smollet (pictured left), was recently qouted as saying, "You're all very, very strange people. But I like frogs."

No, we don't know what he meant either. Happy Birthday anyway Captain!

Star Wars Lost in Translation

Just discovered Adrian's blog. Here's a Star Wars special for Ronnie and others! Now, back to that sermon I should be writing...

(scene fades out as he calls for more coffee, his bible and some early Tea Party)

Sin City

Sin City - an adaptation of three of Frank Miller's graphic novels - is savage and beautiful in the same breath. It's a stylized world straight from the dark, grimy underworld of the detective genre. The women are all whores or angels; the men hard-bitten, doomed tragic-heroes or corrupt cops and dodgy politicians. Power comes from sexuality and violence; and this movie is dripping with both.

But this is Hollywood staring at itself in the mirror. It's a movie that utilizes Miller's comic book world. The dialogue is in short melodramatic quips, it's in black and white with bright splashes of colour and the characters who are so stereo-typed that they're laughing at themselves.

And that's the question isn't it? Is this film laughing at it's own characterisations, or is it taking itself too seriously and thereby reinforcing violence and misogyny? For me it's uncomfortable, visually stunning and full of black humour. 4 stars.

The Christian Counter Culture Project

hmmm very interesting...

Life continues

Well college is back and changing rapidly. Staff changes, synod reviews and new subjects make for a very different experience this semester. Dare I say that I'm actually enjoying it? I think the mid year break made quite a difference - time out, a trip to visit Riss in PNG, and plenty of space to read (the new Harry Potter plus the Jasper Fforde series.) Now if I could just get the Ashes series sorted out and guarantee some priority picks for the Pies...

Mixed in with the good is always some of the sad. Nan Clark passed away in July, and while it's never a happy experience, the funeral marked her life well with tears, laughter and much love. Larissa delivered an incredible eulogy which is on her site here.

My own Nana Pender is not doing so well either. Which means Mum and Azzie (the cat) are staying with me at the moment. Damn cat ran away for a few days causing much angst here - although I did get to discover the local creeks and parks a little better searching for her. Remarkably she just rocked up one morning three days later - much rejoicing was had by all. Nana Pender is a day-to-day proposition. We shall see...

Off to see Sin City tonight. Quite hopeful that it will be all quality. A review should appear soon...