Q: What happened to the Pope when he went to Mount Olive?
A: Popeye almost killed him!
If College Students Wrote the Bible, the Ten Commandments would actually be only five, double-spaced and written in a large font.
Two nuns are hard at work painting the monastery. It is very, very hot and one nun says to the other, “Do you think it would be evil if we took our habits off since we’re working so hard and it’s so hot?” The other nun said, “Well, we’re all alone and no one ever comes here, to the monastery, so it will be fine.”
So the nuns took their habits off and were painting in the nude when all of a sudden, a knock was heard at the door. “Who’s there?” they cried in a panic.
“The blind man,” came the reply.
“Well,” said the first nun, “if he is blind, it won’t make any difference.”
So the nuns opened the door.
“Nice tits!” said the man. “Where do you want me to put the blinds?
David is not feeling very well and he decides to go see a doctor. While he is waiting in the doctor’s reception room, a nun comes out of the doctor’s office. She looks very ashen, drawn and haggard.
David goes into the doctor’s office and says to the doctor, “I just saw a nun leaving who looked absolutely terrible. I have never seen a woman look worse.”
The doctor said, “I just told her that she is pregnant.”
David exclaimed, “Oh my, is she?”
The doctor responded, “No, but it sure cured her hiccups.”
One unfortunate day, three men died in a horrible car accident. They all found themselves at the pearly gates waiting to enter Heaven. St. Peter had just one requirement for them: On entering they each must present something Christmas-y.
The first man searched through his pockets, and found some mistltoe, so he is allowed in. The second man presented a Christmas cracker, so he was also allowed into Heaven.
The third man casually pulled out a pair of panties. Confused at this last gesture, St. Peter asked, “How do these represent Christmas?” The man replied, “They’re Carol’s.”
PS I forgot to mention, I’ve added geographical information to both eutony.net and this page, which means you can jump along to the GeoURL website and find websites that are close to where I live. I should add that there is an added error in the data, so it’s no use turning up at the house at exactly this lattitude and logitude!
Well, the phone arrived on Monday, and it seems to be very nice. Small and sleek, yet also fast to use, and I do like the blue edge lights. I haven’t used it in anger yet, as it’s still locked to O2, but the unlock cable is due to arrive on Monday which will free me to fly in the world of Orange.
I have been carrying it around in my pocket (mainly because the unlock cable is being delivered to work, so I was going to unlock it there), and it feels fine. Of course I’ve yet to see how noticeable the vibrate is, and all that stuff, but so far it’s a big thumbs up!
The camera shutter noise is back, sigh, although it’s loads better than the K700i noise! If I get very excited I might flash the firmware and get rid of it, but I don’t think firmwares for this phone are particularly out and about just yet.
So as soon as it’s unlocked, the K700i’s off to eBay. In it’s state it’s in I’m hoping to get 30 or 40 quid.. It’s looking like I’ll get about the same from my old Garmin, which means I’ll be all set for the new GPS early next year! Well, I say new; I expect eBay will be my friend once again, which will save me another 30 or 40 quid on a brand new model.
Anyway, this entry is 100% avoidance as I’m meant to be finishing off my sermon prep for tomorrow evening.
Borrowed off a friend at work. Actually really enjoyed it, although it bordered on being a bit too graphic for my liking.
Attention all Shipping
I don’t think travel books are my favourite genre, but this was a pleasing little read. It felt a bit like hard work towards the end, mind.
Finished Miss Garnet’s Angel
Really enjoyed this, and it finally inspired me to get around to reading the Apochrypha
Going Postal
This was actually fab – best Pratchett for a while, I reckon.
H’mm – not as many as I thought, but then it is only since August, and I’ve been reading lots of “churchy” books. I’ll probably do a list of those somewhere.
Can’t say I rate the O2 website – except on price, I suppose. I ordered the phone, as you know, and got the usual flurry of confirmation e-mails. However, after a few hours, I got another e-mail that informed me said phone was in fact out of stock, that it would be shipped as soon as they had stock (and the figure of 5 days was banded around), and in the meantime I could check my order status through the website..
Could I heck! Apparantly there’s meant to be a “My Orders” section – no such thing. I sent off an e-mail, and got an almost instant stock response telling me that the web-shop was either down (try again in two hours), or it was a problem with my browser. Needless to say neither of this applied.. two hours later (two days later, come to that) still no ability to check my order online.
… However, barely had the “out of stock” e-mail arrived, then another one arrived telling me it has been dispatched, and I could track on DHL’s website with a magic number! I put in the magic number, and yes indeed; there it is; “marked for collection.” Quite how something can be out of stock and then collected for delivery is a little beyond me….
Still if it is going to turn up on Monday or Tuesday, as promised, I’m not complaining. To be honest if it doesn’t turn up for a few weeks I’m probably not going to moan too loudly!
Needless to say I coulnd’t leave my Psalmic musings hanging, so I thought I’d start by doing a Google, and Lo and behold
a nice exposition of Psalm 42 came up, by Ray C. Stedman. The whole page is worth reading, but his dealing with verse 7 resonates with my intuitive understanding of what the Psalmist is getting at.
He is still despondent. His remembering of the past has not worked. Usually it does. Usually this is enough to deliver us from this nagging fear that God is not going to do anything at all. But now it does not, and so he tries to help by remembering something else: an experience that he had when he was in the northern part of Israel near Mount Hermon, at the head of the Jordan River, on a little peak of the range where Mount Hermon is located, called Mount Mizar (which, incidentally, means “little mountain”). On that occasion he could hear the waterfalls of that mountainous region, the thundering cataracts. He became aware of how they seemed to be calling to one another, “deep calling unto deep,” and it reminded him that the deeps in God call out to the deeps in man.
One of the amazing things about nature is the silent voices that call to one another across vast spaces. The moon calls to the deeps in the sea, raising the tides. Twice a day the waters rise in tides across the earth, because of the moon calling to the ocean. You know how the sun and the rain call to the deeps in a seed, causing it to stir with life and to spring up and grow. There are vast distances that call to the deeps in wild birds, causing them to wing their way across trackless wastes to lay their eggs; there are voices that call to certain fish, sending them across the seas to spawn. In this way the Psalmist is reminded that God also calls to man. There are deeps in God that correspond with deeps in man, and he calls to them. The Psalmist specifically names two here: the deeps of the love of God, and the joy of God, calling out to the corresponding deeps of prayer in the believer.
At our work prayer group this week we were looking at Pslam 42 (As the deer…), and we all found ourselves tripping up over verse 7:
Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls;
all your waves and breakers have swept over me
On one level I love this verse, as it’s so evocative – Matt Redman certainly thought so too, but when you actually stop and take stock, it’s not at all clear what it actually means. Perhaps we’re used to depth being a positive thing; “how deep is your love?” or “she’s such a shallow person” – yet there’s also being “out of your depth”…
The context suggests the pslamist is somewhere between desperation and despair at this point, and one commentary I read said that this verse talks about the depths of despair, and misery upon misery being piled upon him.
How can this be, you ask? Well, it turns out that O2 have a special web deal of said phone for eighty quid, which includes a free bluetooth headset. Ok so I don’t need a bluetooth headset, but this deal beat the pants off expansys’s 180 odd, or indeed the best eBay can do.
I will probably need to unlock it, but that’s only 15 quid or so; not too fussed about that. But I did want to take advantage of this deal before it vanishes!
I’ll give the headset a try, and if it’s better than my current one, I might do an eBay. Or I could keep it as a spare, I suppose…
On the subject of ‘free verse’ type music, how could I forget to mention Katie Melua?
There are nine million bicycles in Beijing
That’s fact, It’s a thing we can’t deny
Like the fact that I will love you till I die
It’s sort of displaying parallelism too – the Old Testament poetic metric of reinforcing an idea by either expressing it in another way, or constrasting it with it’s opposite. For instance, Psalm 2 has
I’ve identified something of a trend in my recent music ‘likings’ – many of them bend or break the traditional rules of rhyme and rhythm. For instance Juliet Turner lyric:
I will not be leaving you
cos that is not the way I do things
Can’t get worse, might get better
Has always been my way of thinking
…
or perhaps
I’m standing next to lady liberty
She brings a sentimental tear
A little water in the eye
Always good to have a cry
Take some time to wonder why
Then business as usual, business as usual.
Of course KT Tunstall is another
My heart knows me better than I know myself
So I’m going to let it do all the talking
I came across a place in the middle of nowhere
with a big black horse and a cherry tree.
Ok in this verse she does go on to rhyme “talking” “walking” and “tree” with “me”, but this pattern doesn’t hold in the second verse; “two” and “tree”. Writing the lyrics down only half captures this tho, and they play fast and loose with the rhythm too, particularly Juliet Turner (count the syllables in the Lady Liberty lines!)
Not that this is a new phenomenon – songs like Park Life, Cool for Cats do the same kinda thing.
I was trying to decide if Hayley Hutchinson fits this pattern… The best I could manage was her bridge:
Sing to me some sweet meleody
I don’t think it’ll help me sleep
I’m tired but I’m so guilty
I cut you down with my honesty
I would probably also edge the Kasier Chiefs into this category – although they do rhyme, there’s something a little odd about their structure and timing.
