A Mouth Full Of Gravel

Food gained by fraud tastes sweet to a man,
but he ends up with a mouth full of gravel.

~Proverbs 20:17

3 More Working Days

I am taking next week off work. I am highly amped about this fact.

Gonna do good stuff with the girls, gonna do some painting (for the 1st time since January! Terrible), do some chores around the house, and gonna grow a beard. Good times.

Clay Face

One of the things that irks me most about you ladies is that funny old thing you call 'foundation', or The Clay Face.

What is your face, that it needs to have a new foundation applied to build upon? You are not a cleared vacant block awaiting a truck to come and pour down a cement slab on which to build. Your face is your face, so why are you burying it so deep that it is beyond excavation?

If it was a little bit, and blended in, well that's one thing. But what's with that thing where your face is dark orange, but then stops abruptly at the jaw, and from the chin down it's back to a normal whitey-pink hue? Are you in a play? Are you being theatrical? Are you a piece of living sculpture?

Worse still,the offenders are getting younger and younger. I see school girls with the Clay Face. This saddens me. And you know what I saw the other day? A dude with Clay Face. Yes, that's right. The sickness has become so strong that it's jumped genders.

Come on friends. I implore you.

Let The Right One In

Simone has written a review of Let The Right One In, the best vampire movie I've seen, probably ever.

Speech Diary

I've got Toastmasters tonight. Need to get back on track a bit before then. My speech has been pretty rocky the past couple of weeks, the practice and focus slipping off my radar.

This results in more stuttering, my technique really patchy and ineffective. And fear of blocking replaces the confidence of believing I can hold the technique long enough to avoid a stutter. From there it very quickly rushes down-hill.

Hopefully it won't be too difficult to turn myself around again, and keep going forward, and Toastmasters is always a great confidence-boost to get that going.

My Top 5- Nerdy Activities That I Ridicule But Secretly Pine After

1. Painting miniatures

2. Playing Role Play Games

3. Painting cheesy 'fantasy art'

4. Getting a tattoo of a wizard or a dragon

5. Owning a sword and a cloak

Um.. Gollum, Anyone?

So after all that nerdish Sci-Fi/Fantasy talk yesterday, I discovered that E owns a couple of David Eddings books, and I started reading the first few pages of one of them.

Basically, it described the back story of this little mis-shapen troll bloke, who has been outcast from his people for his meanness and greed, and lives alone under the earth in these caverns, searching in the dark for treasures, jewels and what have you, hoarding up a little stash. And one day he stumbles on a rare jewel with all this special power.

Now look. I'm trying to be open to the genre being built around cliches and conventions, and I'm okay with that. I'm even embracing the silly names that every place and character has.

But come on. That is just freakin' Gollum.

You Know Me

O LORD, you have searched me
and you know me.
You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
Before a word is on my tongue
you know it completely, O LORD.

~Psalm 139:1-4

Fantasy Books

I'm not really a fantasy or sci-fi novel kind of guy, but recently I have been having pangs and cravings to read a fantasy book. Something with wizards and creatures and some kind of quest to defeat evil would hit the spot, I think.

I dabbled a little as a teeny-ager, read The Lord Of The Rings, The Earthsea Trilogy (which I loved) and the first couple of The Wheel Of Time books before giving up when I realised there were about 17 more books in the series. I need something not too long, and something that doesn't stretch on for a million books.

Any recommendations?

The Bane Of My Existence

You know what the bane of my existence is? Fitted sheets.

Those suckers give me way more grief than they have right to. Everything to do with fitted sheets is annoying. Trying to hang them on the line, they sproing back inwards and don't let you stretch them out properly. Trying to put them on the bed, one corner always pings back, when the other three are all sorted.

But the worst part, the thing that may eventually lead to my overall undoing, is trying to fold them up. You've just folded the top sheet. It was difficult, but satisfying. Once you lined up all the corners, you got it all to work well, beautifully neat folds, resulting in a tidy little package. Ahh.

But then you face the fitted sheet. It just doesn't fold. You spend a long time trying to take in the dumb elastic bits to try and make some sort of rectangle, but it's all puffy and crap. You fold and fold and fold but get no where. It will always master you. It will always make you a failure.

I'm pretty sure the postscript for Ecclessiastes reads 'ps- This whole book is pretty much a result of my struggles with fitted sheets'. Meaningless.

What The World Needs Now Is A Quiz, A Sweet Quiz

1. A saying that grates on you
2. A job you couldn't do
3. Geographically speaking, where would you like to be living in ten years?
4. A movie character you wanted to be
5. A sport you can't appreciate
6. Got any tatts? What would you get if you did?
7. A chore you put off
8. How long have you been at your current workplace?
9. A movie that always makes you laugh
10. Would you eat meat if you had to kill it yourself?

Little i

My Top 5- Comic Books

1. Hellboy

2. Conan The Barbarian

3. B.P.R.D.

4. Bone

5. Cerebus

My Top 5- Hip Hop Albums

1. The Psycho-Social,Chemical, Biological, And Electro-Magnetic Manipulation Of Human Consciousness (Jedi Mind Tricks)

2. Violent By Design (Jedi Mind Tricks)

3. Funcrusher Plus (Company Flow)

4. 3 Feet High and Rising (De La Soul)

5. Six Feet Deep (Gravediggaz)

My Top 5- Thai Dishes

1. Chicken Chili and Basil Stir-Fry

2. Chicken Green Curry

3. Beef Panang Curry

4. Beef Massaman Curry

5. Chicken and Cashew Nut Stir-Fry

Song Of The Week

'A Forest'

The Cure (1980)

Listen~

Top 5 Week Extension

Technically, Top 5 Week should be finished today, but the fact is, Top 5ing is my new favourite hobby, so I am giving it an indefinite extension. Props to those who are sharing the love.

Up- A Review

Well, I enjoyed Up very much. I thought it was really great. Beautiful animation, great story, very well developed, likable characters, funny, touching, exciting. Everything that Coraline wasn't. Ouch!

The opening sequence, the back-story that lead the viewer up to the present was absolutely fantastic. So moving that I teared up. It then gave the movie such a great platform to build on because you now knew the characters' motivation, and you completely empathised with his feeling of loss and missed opportunities.

And the little boy character, well he was great too, so likable and so spot on. All the voices actually were really great and well-cast. And all the lesser characters were funny and interesting as well.

Overall, it was really well made, and fun and exciting. A bit of a return to form, in my opinion, for Pixar, after the great but not fantastic Ratatouille and Wall-E. I'd put it on par with Cars, and maybe a bit behind my two favourites, The Incredibles and Finding Nemo.

Very satisfying, and definitely worth seeing on the big screen. 4/5

My Deepest Desire

You know what I'd like to get? One of those old-people trolley things. They appeal to me very much. I like that they fly in the face of current trends, where everything has to be tiny and compact.

Those things are massive, and ungainly. When old people walk with them they take out toddlers and (supposedly) unintentionally knock passers-by on the shins. Make way, I'm coming through with my trolley full of apples and bulk-bought toilet paper.

This is what I want to be. How old do you suppose you need to be to use one? I'm guessing maybe about 67. Only 35 years to wait. I'll bide my time.

I'd like to put some cool patches on mine, of metal band logos. I'd carry a ghetto blaster in there with some mix-tapes. Yes, tapes. None of this tiny mp3 business. I'd put in a footy for when I'm bored, and maybe various food supplies, like canned stew and stuff like that. An assortment of books and comics for train trips. So much potential to be tapped.

Oh, my kingdom for an old-person trolley.

Thursday Peanuts

Excursion!

We are going to see Up after lunch. Hurrah for work excursions!

I'm looking forward to it- Pixar have never let me down yet.

Fishy

WARNING: Dumb Post Next 5cm

How many sayings/phrases/colloquialisms can you think of that have the word 'fish'?

I have come up with four.

PS- Try to plumb the deep depths of your mind rather than the deep depths of your Google.

Cool Clarice Beckett News

Wow! Soph just let me know that Kristel Thornell, one of the joint winners of this years Vogel Awards won with a novel about Clarice Beckett, called Night Street that is to be published in the next year. Details here.

This is massive news for me! If you are new reader, you may not know, but I am obsessed with Clarice Beckett, a little-known painter from early last century, who has gotten far less recognition than she deserves, and who has never had a thorough biography written.

My secret little dream has always been to be the one to write that biography, but that's another story.

Anyway, that's awesome.

A Trip To The Massage Place

Yesterday I went to my (sort of) trusty Chinese massage place. I've been feeling pretty tense and wanted a bit of a beat-down to straighten me out.

It all started well. There was a vacancy, and I got straight in, and I got one of the good people, rather than one of their cousins who are earning a bit of extra pocket money on an R.D.O. from their lawn mowing job, and who massage like..um.. like people good at lawn mowing.

The vibe was pretty good too. A bit of nice pan pipe action with some trickling water sound effects. Mystical Ancient Chinese versions of your favourite top 40 hits-- Every one's happy.

So, I'm laying down, getting into it, the drool starting to drip a little through that hole in the table thing. I'm zoning out and feeling good, as I cop some nice firm elbows in to my knots.

And then some loud numbnuts come into the neighbouring cubicle. And it's not even really a cubicle, it's just a thin curtain separating us. By her voice I surmise she's a middle-aged woman. Apparently she has woken up that morning with a kink in her neck. This is all fine. But it's the volume, and the repetition.

She speaks at the volume that you might use if you were one of those maintenance guys on an airstrip with a flag, talking to your mate on the other side of the plane, over the roar of the jet engines.

Yeah, I don't know what it is, it's craaazy! I just woke up and my neck was all funny! It's the strangest thing! I just woke up and it was there! Ohh my Gaawwsh! So strange!

I tried to recede into my special place, and block it out. Deep breaths. You are a calm sea, on a crisp April morning. You are a leaf rustling in the breeze. Breathe in, breathe out.

As I say I just woke up with it! Amazing! Never had this before, I wonder what it could be!? So strange!! I just woke up and, Arrgghh!

Though her face is stuck in the table hole, it is not muffling her voice, but rather amplifying it, giving it crisp shrillness, like a scream in a deep cavern. There's no concentration now. I can't hear the trickling water. The pan pipes have been over-ridden, like a bagpipes over a recorder. The sheer volume is mucking up my massage ladies' game. She is noticeably edgy, and nearly paralyses me with a stray elbow to the spine.

So strange! Ohhh yeahhh, just there, that's right! No wait...wait..wait.. to the left...AAAARGGH YES! Just there! I wonder what it is, I just woke up with it this morning! So straaaaange!

People.

From Congregation To Community

My mate Craig, who is in our Community Group wrote an interesting article about the importance of these groups in our churches.

My Top 5- Cool Sensationalised Names For The Media To Give The Dust Storm

1. Dust Wednesday

2. Dustember 23

3. Dustbowl 23/9

4. Dustageddon

5. Red Wednesday

All these are copyright by Ben McLaughlin 2009 pty. ltd. Liscencing fee applies. May not use with written authorisation, but may use with a lot of money.

The Second Of Probably Many Posts About Dust

So, there's this crazy dust storm over Sydney this morning. It's mental. You can hardly breathe outside, and the sky is all orangey-grey. When I got up soon after 5 this morning, it looked even more eerie-- it was really red, and there was an apocalyptic wind. It was just like the feeling when the big storm is coming and Dorothy and Toto are outside, against the big ominous sky. I love that bit so much.

Anyway, a fun thing to see is all the people getting caught up in dust-mania, myself included. Strangers talking to strangers, pandemic masks aplenty, people taking photos on their mobiles left, right and centre.

The one group of people apparently oblivious to the dust storm however, are the smokers. In the midst of grey, lung-stifling dust, they are whipping out durries to have a good old puff. Yeah, that probably won't exacerbate your breathing problems at all, my friends.

My Top 5- Things The Dust Storm Has Made Me Appreciate

1. Breathing

2. Sight. And blinking without grains of sand on your eye balls

3. Saliva not having the taste and consistency of clay

4. Being able to see the sun

5. Conversations about things other than the dust storm

My Top 5- Female Singers

1. Kate Bush

2. Liz Fraser (Cocteau Twins)

3. Bjork

4. Kim Gordon (Sonic Youth)

5. Stevie Nicks (Fleetwood Mac)

My Top 5- Love Songs

1. Forever (The Beach Boys)

2. Love Song (The Cure)

3. It Makes No Difference (The Band)

4. Thoughts Of You (Dennis Wilson)

5. Nothing Compares 2 U (Prince and/or Sinead O'Connor)

Weekend At The Mudge.

Had a nice but tiring weekend away at Mudgee with our friends. Feeling pretty hammered today. Had a good time with our friends, though, and it was nice to be somewhere different and new, away from things.

Highlights for me were having both McDonald's and KFC within a few hours of each other, buying a gigantic piece of beef and cutting it into gigantic BBQ steaks with my new meat cleaver, wine and cheese tasting, playing Wii golf, seeing Little i roll over for the first time, finding out our friends (who we were away with) are preggers.

Lowlights for me were a lack of sleep due to disoriented kids, and still feeling blue despite being on holidays and doing fun things.

To Quiz, Quiz, Quiz You Is To Love, Love, Love You. And I Do.

1. First crush
2. A music genre you struggle to appreciate
3. If you could follow a completely different career path, what would you do?
4. A book you really liked
5. A book you couldn't get into
6. Last movie your saw on the big screen
7. Last movie you saw on the little screen
8. How old were you when you got your drivers' licence?
9. What subjects did you do in year 11/12?
10. What were you doing this time ten years ago

My Top 5- Albums

1. Hounds of Love (Kate Bush)

2. Pet Sounds (The Beach Boys)

3. Daydream Nation (Sonic Youth)

4. Disintegration (The Cure)

5. Doolittle (The Pixies)

The Weekend

I'm excited about this weekend. We are going away with our friends Jennie and Scott to Mudgee, and taking Monday off work.

Very amped about getting away for a few days, and relaxing somewhere quiet, with good friends. And I've never been to Mudgee, but in this picture it looks like a country town. This appeals to me because it reminds me of the film clip for Flame Trees.

PS- I just realised this might mean Monday's Quiz might be on Tuesday.

PPS- What are you doing on the weekend?

My Top 5- Novels

1. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee)

2. Catcher In The Rye (J.D. Salinger)

3. The Sound And The Fury (William Faulkner)

4. An American Childhood (Annie Dillard)

5. Great Expectations (Charles Dickens)

Style Cuts- A Microcosm Of Evil

I passed a men's hairdresser, and the sign out the front read-

Barber Cut $15

Men's Style Cut $38

Now, when you stop to take stock of the implications of this, you will agree that this pretty much sums up what is wrong with the world today.

The mind boggles at what the difference is between cuts to warrant the (hang on while I consult my calculator) $23 discrepancy. Foils? Tints? Herbal shampoo and head massage? Complimentary rose hip tea served in an earthen pot baked in a Tibetan kiln?

There is something immediately trustworthy and righteous about a barber cut. Short back and sides, no nonsense. An old weather-beaten professional who uses his razor like a master painter.

Conversely, there is something immediately unsettling and disconcerting about a man seeking a 'style cut', and who is happy to hand over an extra $23 (that he could otherwise have spent on hot dogs and Cold Chisel albums) for no apparent reason, other that to be delicately man-scaped and have a silly swept-over fringe that he will be forever playing with and flicking out of his eyes so he can actually see.

This, my friends, is the way the world ends. Not with a bang, but a style cut.

Who, O God, Is Like You?

Your righteousness reaches to the skies, O God,
you who have done great things.
Who, O God, is like you?

Though you have made me see troubles, many and bitter,
you will restore my life again;
from the depths of the earth
you will again bring me up.

You will increase my honor
and comfort me once again.

~Psalm 71:19-21

Headlines Read: Top Five Week Spreads Like The Plague. A Very Slow, Treatable And Self- Contained Plague, But A Plague None The Less

Goldy is Top 5ing as well.

And congrats, Goldy for your one year blogging anniversary. Good job!

Wallerloo and The Coming Of Age

Can you pinpoint the moment when you ceased to be a naive child who blindly believed everything he was told, and grew into an astute young person who weighed things up in his own sizable mind? I can.

It's 1988. Year 5. Apparently as part of the curriculum, the class must do some kind of strange hybrid of dance, singing and exercise. We move the desks out of the way, my teacher puts an old battered tape into an old crap tape recorder, and we dance, sing, and do star jumps to the classics.

Actually, I can only remember doing two songs. Over and over and over. The first is Bungalow Bill by The Beatles. A nice little left of centre choice. The second, that little beauty by Abba, Waterloo.

But as we all sung along to Waterloo, sweating and puffing, I slowly came to realise that my teacher was actually singing 'Wallerloo, Wallerloo!'

At first I thought I must be mistaken, but there was no mistaking it. Wallerloo. He must have thought the song was not about The Battle of Waterloo, as most would assume, but rather about some fantastical Australian marsupial that only existed in his crazy school teacher mind.

Anyway, to the Coming of Age bit. One day I confronted my teacher after class. 'Isn't that song called Waterloo, sir?' I didn't ask with attitude, but remained respectful of his authority. It was an honest question.

'No', he said crossly. 'It's Wallerloo. The song's called Wallerloo.'

'But what is a wallerloo, sir?' I implored.

'IT'S WALLERLOO!', he said firmly, and turned his back on me.

And so in this moment, my friends, crumbled the thin veil between boy and man, the loud penny drop of the fact that people are often far more clueless than any human has any right to be.

Thursday Peanuts

My Top 5- Metal Albums

1. Ride The Lightning- Metallica '84
2. Don't Break The Oath- Mercyful Fate '84
3. Show No Mercy- Slayer '84
4. Painkiller- Judas Priest '90
4. Vulgar Display of Power- Pantera '92

My Top 5- Cartoons From Childhood

1. Belle and Sebastien
2. Astro Boy
3. Inspector Gadget
4. Voltron
5. Transformers

Hey, You Sure This Is Safe?

Avoid Strife

It is to a man's honor to avoid strife,
but every fool is quick to quarrel.

~Proverbs 20:3

Listmania- A Week Of Top 5's

Who doesn't like lists? Crazy people.

As a little time-waster for the next week, I'm going to crank out a bunch of my Top 5's, about anything and everything that interests me. Sounds crap, but it's actually awesome.

I'd love to hear your Top 5's too of any of the lists that tickle your fancy, and those of you with blogs, you should totally do Top 5 Week as well, because it's great.

Trivia!

The Cure.

Smashing Pumpkins.

1927.

Tell me the three album titles that bring these bands together.

Ee- Ooor!

Barack labels Kanye a jackass.

'Barack Obama has reportedly labelled Kanye West a "jackass" for his outburst at Sunday's MTV Video Music Awards, in which the rapper interrupted Taylor Swift's acceptance speech and said Beyonce was a more deserving winner.'

Ouch. From your own president.

What A Man Desires

What a man desires is unfailing love;
better to be poor than a liar.

~Proverbs 19:22

Let The Right One In

I saw this fillum recently. It is a Swedish vampire movie, and pretty dark, but it is also amazingly touching and really pretty awesome. A beautiful little love story.

Way better than all that Twilight poop. Sadly there is going to be an unnecessary American remake.

4/5

Trials And Tribulations Of The Anti-Social

Call me rude, but when I clock off from work, I don't really want to talk to anyone. It frustrates me when I see someone from work leaving at the same time, obligating us to walk awkwardly down to the station together, making horrific small talk.

Even worse though, was the situation I had last night. My path crossed with the girl at the cafe who makes my coffee. Prior to this moment, we had had a friendly relationship, where she knows my usual and my name, but our interactions have been restricted to a short, manageable half-minute or so.

She's nice, and the only thing I can really fault her for is Benning me to death. It's nice that you remember my name, but don't turn it into a swear word through overuse. Good morning Ben! Just the usual Ben? Thanks Ben, have a good day Ben! See you tomorrow Ben! Benny Ben Ben Ben, Ben.

Anyways.

But yeah, yesterday, we were thrust into a ten minute walk together. Ten minutes is a heck of a long time in small-talk minutes. Excruciating. Nothing to say. The 'how was your day' and 'nice weather' hot-topics exhausted in the first twenty metres. And then we discovered we also would be catching the same train. My brain flashed in to motion, searching for a way out.

I scoured the shops we passed, desperate for an exit. Ladies' shoes. No, too riske. A cafe. No, it would be like a slap in the face to my coffee-maker of several years. Then a chemist. Not ideal, but I had to take it.

'Welp, I just gotta go in there, see you tomorrow', I said, making a dash. Taken aback, she farewelled me, Benning me thoroughly as I high-tailed it.

Inside the chemist I stopped, my breathing returning to normal as I hid behind the sun-glasses rack. I sighed deeply with relief. I had done it, I was a free man.

Prayer Points

Me: So, what would you like to pray about tonight?

Little e: Cake!

Origin Of Species

Patrick Swayze Dies At 57

Sad news.

Eternally Yours, Ben

How do you sign off letters and emails? From? Love? Regards? Faithfully yours?

This is an area I struggle with. I think I know the basic principals, but they don't satisfy me, and I can never find the right sign off for any given situation.

Some scenarios. Okay, a letter to my wife or family member, that's easy. Love. But from there it becomes tricky. A close male friend? Well, I don't like 'from'. It sounds cold and weird. But 'love' sounds too bromantic. 'Regards' sounds ridiculous and business like. So I get confined to dumb stuff like 'see ya' and 'catch you later'.

And what if it's a close friend of the opposite sex? 'From' still sounds too cold. 'Love' could be taken as too full-on. You see the bind? I often just throw my hands up hopelessly and resort to no sign off at all. Just paragraph, and then 'Ben'.

I need more options, and ones better suited to each circumstance. And I resent the restrictions and confines. Usually, if I am writing to a friend of either sex, the natural thing to me feels like 'Love Ben'. I want to say love. Love is good. But I don't want to be seen as Mr Hot n' Heavy Pen Friend Who Comes On Too Strong.

Am I the only one with these conundrums?

Travesties

It's true, many things make me angrier than they ought. I see something, and it offends my delicate sensibilities, yet I can't look away. I look. I look very closely. I seethe.

At present, my big sticking point is Maths Teacher Syndrome, or in layman's terms, Shaving Up To The Glasses' Arm.

Consider:

Immediately, this image unsettles. You look up this face and you see cheek, cheek, cheek, then glasses arm, then oh! Suddenly there's hair. There's no easing in, there's no crossover zone, there's no smooth transitioning of the facial districts. This makes the subject difficult to trust. What other abrasive tendencies does he have?

As a gifted mathematician/scientist it hurts to say this, but this is the result of the annoying logical maths side of the brain having too much say. He wants neat shapes and no grey area.

The artistic brain, the one who loves school plays and dance recitals, he actually is more inclined to get it right. He celebrates aesthetics, and welcomes cross-over and grey area in his life. Let's now consider our dance recital brain shaver, and how he gets it right:

Trustworthy, calming, dependable. You can almost overlook his recital tendencies, resting assured in his shaving technique.

The Lord's Purpose Prevails

Many are the plans in a man's heart,
but it is the LORD's purpose that prevails.

~Proverbs 19:21

It's Not The Size Of The Man In The Quiz, It's The Size Of The Quiz In The Man

1. Your typical work attire
2. Your ethnic background
3. Number of siblings, including you
4. Did you learn an instrument at school? What?
5. Some words to describe you as a teenager
6. Some words to describe you these days
7. Number of schools you went to
8. A favourite show as a kid
9. Right or left handed
10. Something to look forward to today

Back

Hey friends.

Hope you've all had a good week. Thanks so much to everyone for their nice comments and emails, it meant a lot.

I am returning to the blog this morning, which I am pleased about. It was helpful to have the week off, and have one less thing on my plate for a bit, but at the same time, I did miss it, and missed chatting with you guys.

Just a brief update, things are still pretty difficult, and probably will be for a fair while. But I want this blog to be somewhere I can concentrate on other stuff, so I probably won't post much about what's going on. However, if post regularity drops a bit, and if there is sometimes a faint aftertaste of gall, that is why.

One final thing. I don't know if I need to say this, but my marriage is good, and stronger than ever, so don't worry that it's something like that. I only say that because that's a conclusion I would probably jump to if the roles were reversed.

But anyways, onwards and upwards. Go and do the quiz already.

Not Goodbye, Just See You Later

Hi friends.

How was your weekend? Mine was okay. My girls gave me Conan The Barbarian on DVD for Fathers' Day, which was good, and I also got to have McDonald's. Also good.

I've decided that I need to take a bit of a break from blogging, I'm afraid. I have been going through a difficult time, and life is kind of getting on top of me at the moment. I have been blogging on empty the past couple of weeks, half appreciating the diversion, but half struggling to just carry on like normal.

So, hopefully it won't be for too long, I'm hoping maybe only a week. Sorry about that, I hope you guys have a good week or so.

Love Ben

PS- Feel free to make yourselves at home while I'm away. There's some leftovers in the fridge, and the keys to the boat shed are under the third pot plant from the door.

Untouched

The fear of the LORD leads to life:
Then one rests content, untouched by trouble.

~Proverbs 19:23

Song Of The Week + A Big Disclaimer

I'm a bit nervous about this post, as it's opening myself up to criticism. But, I think it's worth doing, so I'll take a bit of a plunge, just this once.

That post of Ali's that I linked to yesterday about 'holying-up' your online presence sparked some interesting discussions, on her post and also a couple of other places.

I stated that for me, my big issue is music, and that when I get to my 'song of the week' post each Friday, I often don't choose my real song of the week, for fear of offending, or have people judge me by it. Silly, I know.

I think there's definitely wisdom in being careful what you post, because others may not be as cool with some stuff as you are, but at the same time, it's important to be genuine and not put on a show.

So, as you probably know, for the past year I've been pretty obsessed with metal of all kinds. I listen to this music a lot, and for the most part am at peace with that. It doesn't tempt me to sin, as other things might, which I try to stay away from, and my conscience seems to stay pretty clear on this issue.

At the same time though, it will be no surprise that as well as the music being very heavy and full on, the lyrics are often a long way from being biblical, and the bands themselves are often pretty anti God.

I know this is nothing to sweep under the rug, but think about the rest of secular music. And movies. And books. Do you only listen to music by Christians about Christian things? I would say a bigger thing for me is the wisdom to keep a balance. If I'm going to listen to that stuff, it's important that I don't do it non-stop, without feeding my mind with other things. I try to do that.

Anyway,to get to the point, to show my hand honestly, this week I'll do something a bit different, and post the song that's really been my song of the week. I'd love you to have a listen, but feel free to give it a miss if you don't think it would be helpful. Interested in any feedback you have as well.

It is a song by a band called Death, (who had that name before there was that term 'death metal'). A sad irony is that Chuck Schuldiner, the singer/guitarist actually died of brain cancer in 2001. But, something that really fascinates me, is that there is speculation that Schuldiner actually became a Christian. A considerable turn-around considering the band had an inverted cross in it's logo. On later albums the cross was turned up the right way, and things were said that gave the impression of conversion. Interesting, and hopeful.

Anyway, I'll finally shut up, and just play the song. Monster riffs, amazing vocals, unusual progressive tempo changes, and the great line 'beware of the sharp-edged weapon called human being'. A great metal song. Without further ado..

'Bite The Pain'

Death (1998)

Listen~

Thursday Peanuts

Speech Diary: Overcoming Irrational Fear

Last night I went to a very enlightening lecture by Mark Onslow, Director of the Australian Stuttering Research Centre, about the relationship between stuttering and anxiety, and a new online treatment (a trial of which I'm booked in to do in October) that has been developed around it.

It was very interesting, although it was a bit of a barrage of statistics that I'm struggling to remember. But basically, people who stutter have a very high chance of developing subsequent anxiety disorders, a much higher percentage than non-stutterers. These disorders begin right after the onset of the stuttering.

Interesting new research shows that 2/3 of stutterers relapse after speech restructuring treatment (eg, like the treatment I had in February), and these 2/3 are usually the same as have the anxiety disorders.

Also, these anxieties are largely based on irrational fears that have become ingrained, and so simply treating the stutter won't change those anxieties closely mingled in with it.

He likened it to a study of people with arachnophobia. Someone was shown a picture of a spider, and a measure of their anxiety was taken. It was high, even though it was just a picture. They were asked on a scale of 1-10 what the probability was of the spider actually coming out and biting them, they said 4. This is irrational fear.

There are similar things like this deeply ingrained in stutterers that blow the problem out beyond just a physical thing. There is huge fear of what the stutterer will perceive in the listeners face. They will laugh. They will think I'm retarded. They won't respect me. They'll walk away before I'm finished. So stutterers will rarely look you in the eye as they speak. These things stem from little bits of truth that come from a life of stuttering, but become magnified into irrationality.

As Mark Onslow said, if something is true in a small way, is it really helpful to think about that thing all the time, in every conversation, with every person you meet?

So for me, this is all very exciting research, and I am very keen about doing this online cognitive behaviour treatment. Yes I want to manage the stutter, but I also want to get rid of all this unhelpful baggage that keeps me shooting myself in the foot.

Holying-Up

Ali brings up some interesting thoughts about not holying-up your online presence.

I think I do this to an extent on my blog, and so it was a helpful reminder to be mindful of. I want to be the same person whoever I'm with and whoever I'm talking to.

Links and Labels

I don't like when bloggers link to something they posted about four minutes ago. We read that one, you don't need to link to it. Don't be hurt, I say this out of love.

I think there should be a blog bi-law that states that you can't link to a post on the same page you're on. If a reader has to go to 'older posts' at the bottom of your page to get to the post, then that's okay. This should be the cut-off point.

But I may need to become one of those people, because when I'm looking for some old post about something in particular, it takes about two working weeks to find.

Usually I have relied more on labels than links, but my labeling is so haphazard and stupid (for example, this morning it took me yonks to track down that old post about Crocs because I'd labelled it under 'crimes against humanity'. Obviously.)

So, I'm going to take some steps. More betterer labelling, and maybe one of those label sidebar thingo's.

Get Behind Me

You know what I saw on the train?

A woman, rather swishily dressed; big hair, red lippy, black leather jacket, flash dress, black stockings.

Oh, and a pair of black Crocs.

Now, I've already had a sizable Crocs rant, but this was just beyond a joke. What are you doing before work that you need to be wearing Crocs? Crossing a large expanse of boggy marsh-land?

The end is nigh.

Sifted

"Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift you as wheat.

But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail.

And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers."

~Luke 22:31-32

Happy First Day Of Spring!

Remembering Your Roots

I am a big fan of movie stars running our planet. If they are not equipped, than who is?

So I like the fact that Arnie is Governor of Cali. One small gripe I have, is that a lot is made of his previous roles as The Terminator, neglecting some of his other important roles. I was happy to discover that the man himself hadn't forgotten his roots. Let's look inside his office--

And what's in that box, up a yonder?

Oh, nothing important,ONLY THE SAVAGE FRICKIN' SWORD OF CONAN!

Old Man Hands

Yesterday, a colleague kindly pointed out that I was getting liver spots on my hands. Yeah, thanks. Happy birthday.

Apparently, this was a side-effect of turning 32, that I woke up suddenly looking like Mr Burns.

It's a slippery slope from here.

A Little More On Vegan Stuff

Laetitia has written a really good response in that post last week about veganism, and gives a thorough explanation of her Christian reasoning to be a vegan. It's worth a read. Here's a bit of it-

'With respect to not killing creatures by taking these things, sorry, but that doesn't necessarily apply. It is a common dairy farming practice for calves to be taken away from their mothers so that the milk goes to humans. The boys are taken away and fed a low-iron gruel and kept from exercise in order to keep their flesh white and soft so they can become veal. Their stomach linings are used for rennet to produce cheese. The girls are kept to become the next generation of "milkers". Should I go on about what happens to get the sperm for artificial insemination?'


'I don't believe that eating meat is a sin (otherwise I'd be in a lot of trouble since Jesus ate it); if we were to go to a restaurant together, I'd no more give you a hard time for eating steak than I would expect you to give me a hard time for not eating steak or for asking for no cream sauces or cheese to be added to my meal. However, since God only gave us plants for food in Eden and all animal death is a result of the Fall, I do believe that His original best for us is a plant-based diet.'