i am sparticus: Words

Top Five Films About Music

1. High Fidelity. It might not be quite as fantastically amazing as the book, but seeing as the book is so incredibly fantastically amazing I'm not that bothered.
2. Wayne's World. Simultaneously one of the best teen flicks ever, and a great music film. Also one of only three teen films where I haven't wished at least one of the cast died a painful death due to them being so annoying ("Empire Records" and "Bill and Ted" are the other two).
3. Empire Records. See Above
4. Bill and Ted. See Above
5. Detroit Rock City. It has KISS in it! And a boy who looks like Jaclyn! Hilarious. However I did want one of the members of the cast in this film to mysteriously disappear, so it's not quite as good as the others

Worshippy Stuff

Continuing on the vague theme of Christianity, music & the local church.
My brother John & his fiancËe, Celia, got me an excellent book for x-mas; a book called True Worship by Vaughan Roberts. It's all about worship, suprisingly enough, and it's helped me clear up a lot of things.
In the book he picks up on something that has always really bugged me, when the people leading the music in church say that we are now going to enter the presence of God through the music. This has always bugged me, although I never had a reason for it. Vaughan Roberts also hates it, but in a much less irrational way. You see through Jesus Christ, if we are Christians, we are already in the presence of God. Because Christ is simultaneously perfectly man and perfectly God He could bridge the gap between man and God. "Therefore he (Jesus) is able, once and forever, to save everyone who comes to God through him. He lives forever to plead with God on their behalf" (see Hebrews 4:14-16, Hebrews 5:1-10, and the rest of Hebrews really) . To say worship leaders brings us into God's presence eithers denies that Christ is anyone special, as anyone can bring us into God's presence, or it denies that God is special, as anyone can bring people into His presence; either one is grossly wrong.
I'm sure that worship leaders mean well when they say things like that, and I'm sure they don't realise they're claiming for their music a function that only Christ can perform, but that is no excuse. Like in any other role people need to know what they are doing; if they don't then they'll never do it properly. Worship leaders need to know what they are doing. If that means they can't lead worship till they are given some training, then so be it.

Presents

As the next few posts might be reasonably heavy going, let's not think meaningful thoughts. What did everyone get for Christmas?

Christmas Day

Merry Christmas Everyone!

Mmm Biscuits

You know it's Christmas Eve when you start eating those special biscuits in the shiny silver boxes.

It was just like Christmas

Ohh Christmassy stuff!
(If you say it doesn't look very Christmassy then clearly you are wrong)

Crimbo

I cannot state how much I hate the word Crimbo. It looks absolutely awful written down, it sounds absolutely awful when you say it and it has seemingly no relationship to the actually word Christmas.
I don't mind xmas (or even x-mas) as that is a valid abbreviation, and there is something quite cool about the fact that people see and use X (a cross) as a shortening of Christ. I mean, if you are going to shorten the word Christmas you couldn't really do it theologically any better.
I think the only good thing about all this excess use as of late of the word Crimbo is that hopefully in a few years time people will say "Oh that Crimbo word is so 2003, lets just go back to using Christmas or Xmas or whatever".

Note

Apologies to the three people (if any of them read this) who sent me something today with the word Crimbo in it. Special apologies to the last one in case I came off as over defensive of the use of the word xmas. Sorry. Crimbo still sucks though.

MSN Subliminally Destroys Grammar

If you are currently using MSN Messenger to communicate with your friends/enemies/dead pets, have a scroll back up and look at the first line of every single sentence you have just written. Actually, just look at the first letter of every single sentence you have written. Notice, how absolutely everyone of those sentences does not start with a capital letter. Okay, maybe the occasional sentence that begins with the word "I", but that's all. I have no idea why we don't bother, or why for that matter we don't bother with full stops at the ends of sentences on MSN. Tthe good news, however, is that I can't see how Bill Gates can possibly make any money out of this what-so-ever. Which is always a good sign.

Get a much better army

If I ever become king (and let's face it, how could that not happen?) I'm going to make sure the UK has a much better army. I mean it's not bad at the moment, for our size we probably have a pretty darn good army, but it could still be a lot better. Why do I want a better army? Well if you realise that war is inevitable, that sometimes your country will be involved and that it can be just (like defending Kuwait in the first Iraq conflict), then you need to have an army. Not only that, but if you do subscribe to the just war theory ⁽¹⁾ then you're going to want the war to be over as quickly and as bloodlessly as possible. So for that you need incredibly trained troops who can quickly go into a situation and deal with it effectively. If I ever did have a say, I'd make the army as tight and as streamlined as possible, and train them all to an incredibly high level. I'd also pay them lots (because it's not the safest job) and spend lots on equipment. So in situations like Iraq, they'd be so well trained that casualties (military and civilian) would be minimal.
I'd also probably want to develop laser rifles, teleportation devices and jetpacks. But that might just be me.

footnotes

1 Just War Theory is theologically speaking the theory that a country can go to war it's okay in God's eyes. Basically it says that as long as the reasons for going to war are good and not evil and that all unnessecary death is avoided then war is alright. For example, the reasons for going to war against the Nazis in world war two are generally considered to be just, although some of the actions commited in that war aren't

Help, It's a Crumpet!

HeHe. Confused?

Update

Well, that was fun. For reference help it's a crumpet is now here. The "To the blog" link will almost certainly not take you back to the blog, but that's because I haven't got round to adding a proper flash page yet, not because of any malicious false advertising plan.

Buffy Vs The Power Rangers

As cool as these final episodes of Buffy are I'm sure that I recognise Buffy's "shiney super slayer scythe" ™ from another show. Go Go Power rangers!

Exponentially

Exponentially has to be one of the most badly used words in the history of the English language. I'm sick to death of people saying "oh it's increasing exponentially" when really it is just increasing lots. Exponentially means that the growth rate is increasing, not just the growth.
Key culprits in the abuse of this word are those (awful) "Left Behind" books. They say stuff like "since the end of the world (part 1, which happened about a year and a half ago from this quote) 200,000 people have started believing in Jesus" and then just later on say "the number of believers is increasing exponentially". That'd mean that by six years into the end of the world, there'd be around 40 billion believers (I think, can some, Ie Ben, do that maths properly for me?), which is obviously ridculous given population levels and stuff (more so when you consider how many people die in the Left Behind books).

Suggested Replacement Word: enormously.

Footnote

(My quotes from Left Behind, in italics, are all loose paraphrases as I can't be bothered to look up anything)

Sing to the Lord, with all of your heart

Why oh why is the vast majority of explictly Christian music rubbish? Not just rubbish in the "I don't like this style of music" sense, but rubbish in the "absolutely no-one likes this music" sense. It's shocking. Really. I'm sure if Christians concentrated on making music that tried to best express the glory of God and didn't concentrate on trying to make it sound hip and trendy we'd be writing the best music in the world ever. Instead we get out of date badly written rubbish. That's no way to sing about God.

Couple

Is it just me, or does everyone under the age of twenty-five use the word couple to describe a small number, ie two or three? I mean when people are talking about a couple as in a relationship, they always mean two people, but when they are talking about a numeric quality certain people always say that couple is two, whereas others take it to be a much looser term. Generally it seems that the younger you are, the looser you use the term. I don't know why, but twenty-five seems to be the dividing line. Odd.

Viewing Trisha

Cafferine, her bloke Andy, her friend Louise and myself all saw Trisha being filmed yesterday. The topics were "I'm a moody teenager on pot who is married to a thirty three year old and I want a son" (you felt it was a shame that he wasn't a girl, as then he'd only want a pony), "I don't want anymore babies, and neither does my husband, but we came on air to argue about it anyway" and "Is my uncle my father?" It wasn't wonderfully exciting, but it did make me realise Trisha has changed her chairs! This proves a lot of stuff. Possibly. Also Trisha probably doesn't wear a wig. Possibly.

And why does Threadless have a sale now, when I bought a t-shirt off them just a few days ago! How wrong.

Top Five Reasons This Week Has Sucked

1. Because the amazingly cool and stylish (they looked okay) flyers I designed for our drop in centre have been printed out all washed out, and now instead of looking amazingly cool and stylish look rubbish. More specifically they look a washed out pastelly sort of rubbish.
2. Because the exciting job of setting up a new website has fallen down, due to general rubbishness on behalf of domain name resellers.
3. Because it started off well, thus adding unfortunate amounts of potential energy to anything bad that might happen.
4. Because it is cold. So very cold
5. Because I missed Radiohead on Radio 1 last night

Return Your Music

Did you know downloading Mp3s in this country isn't a criminal offence, but actually a civil one. Amazing huh?
Regardless, send them all back! Via Cal (he's very nice)

The fourth, the fifth

Went to London yesterday, saw Steve! Who were good, if far too short. They had a piano bit that was very fine. Other bands played, the only notable one really was Superhero, who were alright like.
I also saw Helen, as she came down with Steve (who she works with), which was all very nice. We went into Camden (which was far too crowded) and I got a lovely scarf and a new belt and she got some boots. Exciting stuff!
Now I'm really tired, and I want to go to bed even though I only left it a hour ago. Shocking.

On an aside, Various Lego Links

Because I probably won't blog till monday

Paulo links to a bunch of stuff of which this is by far the coolest
The guy who wrote the "Prayer of Jabez" "repents". Not of his book as such, but of his attitude towards the poor. He's now working in Africa with people with aids. Good for him.
Dive into mark has infinite craziness going on which I don't understand, but looks fun.
why Family guy might be coming back and why we should all buy Futurama dvds
Parents upset because teacher tells children santa's a fake.
Photos are done see the sidebar. Work in progess by the way, so comments are appreciated. More will follow (hopefully) once I'm settled and happy with the format.
Finally, a car crashed into the back of my house in Swansea. No one was hurt, but still. Looks impressive.

McDonalds

Every morning on the way to work I walk past a McDonald's, and every morning they have a big delivery lorry, delivering whatever it is they deliver, and every morning the big delivery lorry has a different slogan on it. They all promote how great McDonald's is, and all say how healthy or child friendly or environmentally friendly it is. Today's quote on the side of the lorry was "Red lorry, yellow lorry, red lorry, yellow lorry... Green lorry".
If I wasn't such a good and upright law abiding citizen I'd be tempted to break into the McDonald's lorry depot late at night and alter all the lorries to read more accurately. Stuff like "Red lorry, yellow lorry, red lorry, yellow lorry... Green lorry... Shame about all the burger packaging that's used for approximately five seconds, and the cut down rainforests our cows graze on" and "All our chickens are free range, and all bred so perfectly that they all come out the same size, so it's easier to kill them in bulk. Which unfortunately we can't do for the cows, so that's slightly messier, and a lot more un-hygenic, but still"
Okay so my phrases aren't so catchy. But still.

Badding! Field

Daniel Beddingfield is playing Ipswich tonight. I have no ticket as it sold out before I knew anything about Ipswich or indeed moving to Ipswich. I need a plan to somehow get into the venue and see the concert. So far, my plan of walking past the venue and hoping that Daniel Beddingfield is outside and giving away free tickets has failed. More suggestions are needed

Bible Shops

Why oh why, is it possible to buy a four way parallel bible with the NIV, KJV, NASB and NLT translations, a two way parallel bible with either the NIV/NASB, NLT/NIV, NIV/KJV, NASB/KJV or NLT/KJV but it is not possible to buy a NASB/NLT bible?
I think it's a sign that I'm getting old that I know exactly what bible I'd want (Above parallel version, no silly red words, NIV style footnotes, references to the Old Testament the way the NLT does it, the font and size of my current bible (which is something serif, 10pt), a short concordance and pretty maps at the back).

Snap Snap Snap

Coming soon! Photos! No honest, I really really mean it this time.