An Investigation

Hmm, interesting.

I burnt my arm while cooking a meal last night. It looks like a little (3-5cm) mouth on my arm now and I think it is starting to blister! Exciting.

I am taking photos and measurements to track it's progression and healing. When done I will whip it all through ImageJ and analyse it and see what I discover!

Film Reviews

I have seen a couple films at the cinema in the last couple days so thought I would just get down a couple comments on them for your (dubious) pleasure. Don’t expect much, my reviews tend to extend beyond ‘good or bad’ very rarely. Maybe I just need more practice.

Amazing Grace

A very good film. Informative, educational, inspiring, but also for a film all about Will Wilberforce, actually quite amusing.

The story is quite rightly handled sensitively, but also powerfully and yet enough attention has been made to all the individual characters in play throughout the film that they all fill fleshed out and three-dimensional.

My only gripe is that although the story is retracing history as it happened and it probably was quite repetitive at the time there may not have perhaps have been a need to show that so much on screen.

Actually, a second ‘gripe’ but more of a missed opportunity perhaps? There was not so much on the actual slaves and horrendous conditions they faced. Maybe there should have been more to hammer home the message harder? I guess though that if there was then the film would have got a higher rating and not been seen by such a wide audience, but perhaps the message would have been reinforced some more and perhaps inspired something in us to do more about our current human trafficking and slavery problems?

All that said it was a very good film, enjoyable to watch with much to think about.

Mr Bean’s Holiday

Somewhat different in tone to Amazing Grace and somewhat attended only by me and some early-model teenagers, who were surprisingly well behaved throughout. Bless them.

You know, I’m still struggling to think what I made of this film. I am a huge Bean fan and am always amazed at what Rowan Atkinson can do with the character, but for at least half of this film I just felt it was struggling to find its feet and decide what type of film it wanted to be.

When it was good it was great and when it was not so good it just felt flat, dead flat. So flat in f(l)act that it felt as if my life was being drained away from me and being gobbled up by termites or something.

Not sure who wrote it or directed it, but there were times when it just felt like a completely different set of people were working on it to other points. Again like in the first Bean movie I think aspects of it take itself far too seriously and that kinda limits what Bean can do or what sort of an impact he can have on the audience.

Positively though unlike in the last film there was much less repetition of old jokes from the TV show which I think helped it a lot. The only really obvious one I could pick out was the restaurant scene at a train station in Paris, but it was still done a bit differently this time so I’ll let it off.

Despite all that though I did enjoy it even if there weren’t any horribly brilliant laugh out loud moments anywhere in the film. Scratch that, thinking about it there were at least three. An opera singing Bean has to be scene to be believed for instance!

Maybe Mr Bean is just unsuited to the big screen and to actual stories? Maybe, maybe not, but Mr Atkinson thinks this is the last we shall see of Bean which does actually leave me a little sad.

Sniffle.

The Mystery of Mysterious Mystery-type things.

In order to show not all posts on this blog will be as serious as the last one I provide this one for your amusement and ponderous natures.

There is a computer lab in the basement of a University building in town that shall remain unnamed, but is however known to some of you. Not so unusual I hear you (faintly) cry out, but I’ll tell you what is unusual. That is how I have never, *never* got a signal on my phone in it and yet all around me people’s mobile phone’s are buzzing, whirring, chirping, singing and just generally signalling the reception of new calls/txts/whatever.

Is it just me? Am I right to be paranoid?!

Maybe the ducks will have the answer.

Are you luke-warm?! (And not actually called Luke)

Well, I guess the point of having one of these things is to occasionally use it and say something of relative importance…

I have been thinking during this week about why do we go to church? Why do we as a body of believers feel the need to congregate and do servicey type things like prayer, praise, sermons, giggling at lame jokes and noting what outfit the pastor is wearing this time.

The source of my thinking on this is at the moment in my church we are having the same sermon twice a Sunday. I would prefer to have two different sermons, but I think that it can also be good to have the same sermon twice in a quick succession as it were. Why? Because they message goes in twice, is more familiar the second time and so is more likely to get stored in my head somewhere useful and easy to remember.

However, not pointing my finger at and/or judging anyone in particular or wanting to proclaim myself ‘righteous’ I do know that this Clone Sermon Technique has put a number of people off from coming to a second service. Now, coming to two services (or even one!) per Sunday is hardly a requirement for being a Christian, but I can’t say I agree with this whole ‘missing out a service because the sermon is substantially the same thing’.

Why? Because the sermon shouldn’t and mustn’t be your whole reason for coming to church. Surely instead we come to 1) praise the Lord our God, 2) learn more of him (and not just through the sermon), 3) experience genuine community and fellowship with other believers.

In my opinion 1) and 3) are both darn good reasons to come anyway, although not strictly limited to activity only happening in a church building, it is however an easy way to work this out. And 2), the sermon is but a part of this and it is hardly horrendous to hear the same thing twice. For instance, you might read a useful and helpful book and get something else or even something more from it the second, third or fourth time through. Should a sermon (through which we believe God is speaking directly to us) be any different?

I am dead impressed with several people I know who give up parts of their Sunday’s to help others, I am very understanding to those who just feel they need a break (even if I joke that you are the ‘luke-warm’ Christians we have been hearing about of late!! ;-) ), but I do have to question and be worried if you might stay away from church simply because ‘you have heard it all before’.

Coming to church isn’t just about you, it’s about Him and the community as a whole as well. Get involved.

Amusing

Nothing amazing or original I'm sorry to say today, but a friend sent me this and I found it quite amusing.

First Post

Now, unlike most of my previous blogs I don't intend this one to become a whinge-fest on life or the state of my toenail clippings, but rather to discuss and present my thoughts on a wider variety of more 'serious' issues such as theology, society, science, church and my walk with Christ.

However still expect sweaty fanboy rantings the closer and closer we get to the release of the new Transformers movie in July.

I did have a few profound thoughts to start us of with, but that was a week or two ago and they have already gone through the ultimate tester of Time and been 90% forgotten so can't have been that important.

Neither mind, I'm sure something will come to me.

For those of you wondering what my inspiration behind this, my latest creative endeavour is I firmly point the finger at one of my fellow small group members.