Update

I've added my visual bookshelf from Facebook to the bottom of this blog, it shows books I own, I'm currently reading and books I'd like to read.

It's a cool little tool!

Weak Gospel

Just a quick one today. Yesterday I came into contact with some weak gospel (i.e. that becoming a Christian is great, Jesus is our best mate, Christians never have any troubles and so on) and I've had a bible passage and a song going through my head ever since.

John 16:33 says "In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."

And the song says this:

When you feel weakest, dangers surround,
Subtle temptations, troubles abound,
Nothing seems hopeful, nothing seems glad,
All is despairing, everything sad:

If all were easy, if all were bright,
Where would the cross be, and where the fight?
But in the hardness, God gives to you
Chances of proving that you are true.

Keep on believing, Jesus is near;
Keep on believing, there's nothing to fear;
Keep on believing, this is the way;
Faith in the night as well as the day.

We will have trouble, we ought to have trouble, because we preach something that is foolishness to the wise, and a stumbling block to the religious. The Bible says that there is not one good enough. No one can get to heaven on their own (and the alternative is hell), it is only at Christ's expense that we may approach God.

Want to know more? Visit http://www.needgod.com/

RIP Favourite Jeans

Just a quick one.

Yesterday, whilst sitting down to watch the Heroes from Wednesday, I ripped my favourite jeans :(

Considering they're about 7 years old and were bought in Primark, that's fairly impressive.

I will miss them...

Oh my goodness

Wow! I just came across this on the internet. I've actually ordered something from this company through ebay, and was checking the status of my order (only problem ordering from Hong Kong is the delivery time!)

So, this company called Uxcell sell a watch which plays music, displays your photos and even plays videos! It has 2GB of memory, which is enough for a reasonable mix of the three (enough to keep you entertained on the train to work). And here's the best part, the whole thing costs under £36 (not including P&P of course).

I was so amazed that I just had to tell the world, OK, so the 6 people that read my blog ;)

Still, it doesn't compare to my GP2X. Games (old and new), movies, music...

GP2X

I recently purchased a GP2X, a handheld gaming/media device. And I am currently awaiting it to be delivered. It should be arriving sometime tomorrow or Saturday hopefully.

The GP2X is incredible, because it is LINUX based. This means that it has (built-in) a music player, a movie player (which plays virtually anything), a photo viewer and an e-book reader. In addition, because it is simply LINUX-based, you can have any of a load of emulators (giving you the ability to play games from all sorts of classic systems from the Spectrum up to the Playstation), palm-top software, homebrew games and virtually any software you might want. Oh, and because it includes a USB interface, this also provides opportunity to use a wifi dongle for wireless internet too...

The reason I've had to wait is because I pre-ordered the latest version, which also includes a touchscreen (thus hopefully making Palm-top stuff a lot easier, and opening the door for DS-style games).

I'm really excited, which is really annoying Lucy. She'll probably end up playing on it more than me anyway. I'm mostly getting it for it's media capabilities. Movies and music on the go for about the same as an equivalent, except the sound quality and toys will hopefully be better, the screen will be bigger, it has TV-Out and it plays games. Rock on.

More info here (plus, if you buy one I can earn some dosh): http://gp2x.co.uk/go.pl?A188

University Today

Someone sent this by e-mail to all of the students in my department at University. Whilst I don't like the idea of a first year using the mailing list to send junk round to all of the undergraduate students, it turned out that this was rather good.

This is a video created quite recently, highlighting modern University life. I'm just glad that it's not just me.

Anyway, take a look: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGCJ46vyR9o&NR=1

If that interests you, you should also look at a video called Academia 2.0 at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vZ1jFaXgTnw

Learning today needs serious rethinking, and not just at University level. Kids in school are being pumped full of facts, but are lacking in understanding or the ability to assimilate the information. Also, no one is taught any vital life-skills. Not at school, because they're too busy trying to pass exams; not at home, because both parents have to work in order to live the way they think they're supposed to.

Anyway, rant over. Back to work...

11 Questions

Hey

I recently read about these on Captain Andrew Clarks blog (http://armyrenewal.blogspot.com) and found them very useful.

What "they" are is a set of 11 questions given in The Salvation Army's "Orders and Regulations for Soldiers" (1950). They're not intended to become rules for living, just probing questions to aid us in our self examination.

Mentioning about them to Lucy, it became clear that they might be useful to one of her group, but not in the language they are currently in. So I have re-written them in a slightly more modern language.

The questions (both versions) are available here: http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dc6k32v6_2g63cbw

I hope they are of some use to you too

Washing

Do you think it means I've overfilled the washing machine when my clothes come out folded exactly the way I put them back in my bag after the weekend?

Is that bad?

Ho hum.

Take time to be Holy

I found the words to the song my head was searching for in the labyrinth (read the previous post). Song can be found in the Salvation Army Song Book (No. 458)

1.
Take time to be holy, speak oft with thy Lord;
Abide in him always, and feed on his word;
Make friends of God's children; help those who are weak;
Forgetting in nothing his blessing to seek.

2.
Take time to be holy, the world rushes on;
Spend much time in secret with Jesus alone;
By looking to Jesus, like him thou shalt be;
Thy friends in thy conduct his likeness shall see.

3.
Take time to be holy, let him be thy guide,
And run not before him whatever betide;
In joy or in sorrow still follow thy Lord,
And, looking to Jesus, still trust in his word.

4.
Take time to be holy, be calm in thy soul;
Each thought and each motive beneath his control;
Thus led by his Spirit to fountains of love,
Thou soon shalt be fitted for service above.

William Dunn Longstaff (1822-94)

Labyrinth

Well today the Chaplaincy at Uni have put on a Labyrinth. For those of you who don't know, more information is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labyrinth basically it's like a maze, except that there is one path in and out and that it's easy to follow.

Recently, particularly following the Holiness Weekend at Pill, I've been thinking a lot about holiness. Even my daily reading today mentioned holiness as the "punchline".

On my path around the labyrinth my thoughts settled on this particular issue. One song kept trying to come into my head, but sadly I didn't know all the words, all I knew was "Take time to be holy".

As I sat reflecting in the middle of the labyrinth, it suddenly struck me that holiness takes time, and not necessarily my own. Just like salvation itself, holiness comes only from God. It is a gift to me. Holiness will happen in God's time, by his Power and as His will dictates. So I thanked God for His salvation and His holiness.

So on my way out of the labyrinth, another song came to my head (along with the first, still trying to break out) "Thank you for saving me, what can I say?" My response to that (all in my head, since a labyrinth is usually a quiet affair) was "Here's what I can say:
Take my life and let it be
Consecrated Lord to Thee.
Take my moments and my days,
Let them flow in ceaseless praise." (BTW: for those that don't know, this also is a song)

Praise God for what He has done for me. May I be set apart for him and may all my actions be used for His glory.

Two Blogs

You might have noticed that my "About Me" talks a lot about university. That's because I first created an account on Blogger to blog about my third year project (blog at http://aivirtualcharacter.blogspot.com).

I have updated the About Me to reflect a little more about me, but since both blogs share the same information, I still wanted to keep this fairly vague.

Just of those of those reading this over an RSS feed, or on Facebook - just ignore this as you can't see the "About Me" section to which I refer ;)

Anyway, I'm off to walk a labyrinth and then lead a Cell group. Oh, and then I'm going to try and create an emotion engine using Prolog... oh the joys!

Welcome

Well, my blog has once again moved. Hopefully this will be the last time I have to move it.

The Windows Live Spaces interface was becoming to cluttered. My computer struggled to even load the page to add new posts. Incredibly my Linux laptop does a much better job than my Windows PC.

So, a little introduction to my blog: Here is a place for me to talk about random stuff, usually related to my Christianity, but also my life in general.

More interesting entries will follow (I hope)!