Date: 6:25 am Tue 9th of Feb, 2010 Subject: (no subject) Security: Public

( Quiz Team... ASSEMBLE! )

Date: 8:27 pm Sun 7th of Feb, 2010 Subject: Ponders Security: Public

Shower caps. Where did shower caps go? I haven't seen one in ages. I never used one myself, it's true, but I can't think of any I have seen in film or TV for a long time. Where would one buy a shower cap?

Date: 10:36 am Sun 31st of Jan, 2010 Subject: Black and white and me, or all swirled to grey? Security: Public Tags: church

( In which our hero realises that he is already a part of debates he assumed he could stand aside from. Or, 'How I learnt to stop worrying and love the state'. )

Date: 12:11 pm Thu 28th of Jan, 2010 Subject: Get Picard'd! Security: Public

If anyone fancies taking a long weekend in February around about the 15th, there's some info here about transport from Scotland.
http://www.tridentploughshares.org/article1577#Getting

Date: 11:42 pm Wed 27th of Jan, 2010 Subject: (no subject) Security: Public

... Oliver and I were arguing about the definition of pretentious.
:o) Good time.

Date: 7:28 pm Sat 16th of Jan, 2010 Subject: An unusual alliance Security: Public

How do they come up with these things?

Date: 9:00 am Wed 13th of Jan, 2010 Subject: Love Jesus? Love Guns? Security: Public Tags: church

At the end of the Daily Audio Bible podcast there is a space for people to phone in and leave prayer requests and comments. On January 9th a guy left a long message encouraging Christians to join the (US) military. I am working myself up to leaving a response to that message, and listening to it again (it has shocked me considerably). I was amused, though, by the following chain of reasoning and its terrible conclusion:
"The church has all but completely lost its place in the military. I mean, the chaplain corps shares the same heartbeat with Wiccans, Muslims, ah, Catholics, Buddhists, Hindus and pretty much any other faith you can imagine. So it's no wonder why many men and women find their identities in revelry, parties, and just getting married too soon."
Those dastardly pagans, tempting those innocent soldiers with their promise of early marriage!

Seriously, though. It's kinda insane. And it's totally out of character for the DAB community. I have assumed in the past that they don't censor the messages that they get, but maybe some sort of oversight might be worthwhile.

Date: 9:10 am Wed 30th of Dec, 2009 Subject: Moan. Security: Public

( In which our hero feels unenthusiastic and bland. )

Date: 10:19 am Thu 24th of Dec, 2009 Subject: Meme! Security: Public Tags: meme

( 2009, feelin' fine... )

Date: 8:40 pm Fri 18th of Dec, 2009 Subject: Maybe I could collect stamps? Security: Public

"On the potential finance package to help developing nations cope with the impact of climate change, the text says: "Developed nations support a goal of mobilising jointly $100 a year by 2020."
More of the usual level of generosity...

Date: 9:31 pm Thu 17th of Dec, 2009 Subject: Entertaining Security: Public

http://www.sketchysantas.com/

Date: 1:30 am Mon 14th of Dec, 2009 Subject: (no subject) Security: Public

Bleh. Can't sleep.
Further to last post, Sainsbury's sell a sort of child's cash register toy. I noticed that they have brought in a new packaging regime, and now instead of a rather nice pale green, it is pink and red, with a heart instead of a dot on the 'i'. Considering getting one anyway for my nephew, so that he can play at having a more responsible job than me!

Date: 5:19 pm Wed 9th of Dec, 2009 Subject: "No more pink"? More like "Here's a link!" Security: Public

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8402628.stm
I was interested to note a 'Pink Stinks' story on the BBC news today. I don't have much more to say, except that I get really annoyed at the toys available for both boys and girls right now. They arrive in boxes labelled with one or the other, and there is a clear difference in the aspirations they promote.
I heard a while back that some companies were producing pink versions of boys' toys, like diggers and so on. It's not mentioned in the report, and I wonder if it is still going on. More than anything I can't help but feel that it is treating children like morons who will want something based primarily on colour, or I guess more that they will associate what is approprate for them with the colour it is... not that I meant to make a racial point, but I wonder. Still, I guess I was probably quite shallow as a child. And now!

Date: 10:27 am Sun 29th of Nov, 2009 Subject: There's something about the BVM... Security: Public

The more I read the Christmas stories in Luke and Matthew, the more impressed I am with Mary. She really gets on with it, in quite an unenviable situation. If it were a novel you'd expect her to die in childbirth, but she survives, goes into exile and then has a whole load more kids and is still active and fit enough thirty years later to chase Jesus around, trying to get him
to stop scandelising everyone. Say what you will about women who choose children over career, but she still does a fair bit of careering around. And she clearly knows more about Jesus than anyone else. And the Magnificat is brilliant. I keep reading bits of the Bible and wondering "how did that get past the censors?" 'feeding the hungry and sending the rich away'... I love it.

Date: 9:38 pm Sat 28th of Nov, 2009 Subject: Aha! Security: Public

I thought of a good example of a song where we now pause earlier than we used to. Do you know that song "You are beautiful beyond description"? The chorus starts "and I stand, I stand/ in awe of you", and nowadays we sing the second "I" to be much longer. So it's "I stand, Iiiii stand"...

Date: 9:25 pm Sat 21st of Nov, 2009 Subject: Headline confusion pt 94 Security: Public

I really thought that the BBC had flipped and were broadcasting racist threats...

news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8371000/8371917.stm

Date: 9:00 am Sat 21st of Nov, 2009 Subject: Blood of the lamb, mofo! Security: Public Tags: church, cpt

( Short thoughts about 'the overly feminine church' )

A question for my church-going friends - have you noticed something with worship songs where the last word of a line is sung differently? I don't know musical jargon, but here goes. Instead of singing through to the end and lengthening the last syllable, the penultimate sound is lengthened for a beat.
The only example I can think of right now is 'How great is our God', the last two words of which I would normally assign equal time to. The fashion nowadays seems to be to spend more time on 'our'.
Just interested to know if this is something other people notice, or can explain.

PS - I am also figuring out what exactly I am going to do with CPT, and think I'm going to take some of my own advice about not waiting until I had everything neat and tidy before acting. That's good advice, isn't it? If you do the wrong thing for the right reasons, that's okay, right?

Date: 3:16 pm Thu 12th of Nov, 2009 Subject: Grumpy about phones Security: Public Tags: question

There's a thing on the BBC website about a possible end to landlines phones, and right now I am thoroughly in favour. Yesterday I got four calls, all of them from robots offering me advice. Actually, two of them were from the same robot, even after I pressed '9' to get myself taken off the list. I just had a call there - hung up as soon as I answered.
Bring back the post office, I say.

Also, while I am posting, so far no-one has come up with an answer as to where all the heat is going (see previous post). I've spoken to quite a few people and none of them have known, although we've had some possibilities, such as heat is being stored in organic bodies. A more promising prospect came when someone told me that hot stone treatment teaches that when the stones get cold quickly it's because they are absorbing lots of negative energy. This suggests that the general grumpiness of the planet's population since the agrarian revolution has countered the increasing spread of heat-producing activity like cooking fires and nuclear reactors. So therefore, bad vibes are the best solution to global warming.

Seriously, though. I don't want to have to consult an expert or the internet to find out. Let's take this on as a folk science project. Answers, please.

Date: 6:59 pm Tue 10th of Nov, 2009 Subject: Where has all the warmth gone? Security: Public Tags: question

I'm currently reading Naming the Powers by candlelight, so posting with my palmtop iPod Touch feels very anachronistic. However I was looking at the flames and wondering where the heat goes. Does heat energy turn into something else? My understanding was that it didn't, and that eventually all energy would be reduced to heat and it would be the Heat Death of the Universe. However I can't figure out where it is going. Does the planet shed heat? If so then I can understand, but I thought that heat had to be in matter, and aside from space probes and meteors I understand that the planet and atmosphere aren't accruing more mass or losing it.
I presume that there is a property of matter or energy that I don't know about. If you know or can guess where I have gone wrong please let me know.