Free Lunch! - Sunday

I got up, walked some of the way to Church, saw Sarah and got a lift with her to the Church Search. The bad news was that there were not enough car spaces for the ride back, so I walked. I got half way there before Sarah picked me up and drove me the rest of the way. We got in ten minutes late but didn't miss anything beyond the initial hymns. Jonathan was talking today about Eternal Life, the key message of the Bible. It made me think about a conversation I'd had with a friend the other day about Baptism. He believed one thing and I believed another. They key thing was that though it's important, it's not something that should detract from the main message. For lunch all the ladies went around to the Mitchell's and the guys went around to the Hackers. There we had a most excellent Curry. As a new method of defining how good the food is I will add a value of what vegetables I ate with it, the better the food the more vegetables I will manage to eat with it. This curry scored 4 Cabbage leaves (technically three but one was twice the size of the others) a mushroom and I think three chunks of carrot. If I'm ill we know why. For the rest of the day we watched a Delirious DVD and went for a walk. The Hackers gave us afternoon tea which was very nice (I had a decent sized tomato slice). We then went to the afternoon service. It was about the Futility of Wars, how they don't server anything in the long run and that rather than saying it's the government's fault, we need to first look to ourselves. Specifically that we need to "Look to the needs of others". After the service I walked Lorna and Faye (I think that's how it's spelt) home and then sat around talking to them. Sarah's blog had a special thing about me, specifically she's going to start using paragraphs now. I got home, WoAed and checked the sites I check. On the ECE Forum there has been an interesting thread about the Mac Adverts ditching the "cool" guy. More importantly I quite like my response to them trying to imply I look stupid. However, after that they simply started trying to find a picture of me. PeteA is Pete from my house and we got this and this as examples of what I look like. The first picture of me being a giant isn't photoshopped in any way, it just came out like that because of the position of the camera (was standing on these small rails that are just below shoulder height, I don't know what they're called).

Better? - Sunday

Woke up at 0630, turned alarm off at 0700 and fell asleep sometime not long after that. Woke up again at 0930 as Huw rang my doorbell. I got washed and dressed in the space of 5 minutes, grabbed a cup of tea and the two of us went to Church. Rather than Jonathan leading the service we had a friend of Jonathan who normally speaks at a different Church. He did an interesting service on substitutes and how Jesus was a substitute for our sins. However, I didn't feel he explained it very well and don't feel I know anything more after the service than I did before. For lunch, myself, Huw, Phil and Siän were invited to the Hackers for lunch. It was, as it always is, most delicious and I am glad I got to Church early. There are so many students at Eastney that none of the families can manage all of the students at once. After lunch myself, Phil and Huw went back to my house where we played Halo 2. Huw also showed me some bugs he'd found in Phil the Database. Phil the person somehow got into his head that we'd named the database after him and was quite happy until I told him that the Database was quite stupid and not very competant and that in fact we should have named it after him. Huw later went to Victory Church for the evening and myself and Phil went back to Eastney. At the evening Service I forgot to take notes (silly me) but I believe the service featured about how Paul was in prison yet still joyful, how he would have been happy to die, such was his conviction and faith. After the service I tidied away the chairs with some of the Ladies from the church, while I did it I made loud and audable comments about lazy students (Steve was the only other one that helped). Sarah gave me a lift home, I found that my net connection was acting up (it's much better now). I had some food, blogged and looked at WoA a little before going to bed.

No, I do NOT have a sensitive side - Sunday

I got up, went to Church, well, started going to Church and instead went to #10 to get a lift from Steve. I could not be bothered to walk today, I was slightly worn out from yesterday. While the rest of them dawdled about where to sit I simply went and say near the other students (coincidentally all ladies). For some odd reason nobody came and sat in the two spaces next to me, Ceryn said this might be because I smell, acutally that's not the full story, I said it might be because I smell and she agreed it was probably that. The service was on Bible Translations. Specifically about the TNIV and NIV. The TNIV's main failing is that it replaces almost every single masculine reference (such as "man", "brother", "father") with something neutral (such as "person", "friend", "parent"). This may not sound that bad until you take into account that it doesn't do it to all of them, thus creating some confusion. Worse yet, in the New Testement, several of the writers quote the Old Testement. In the TNIV they quote the NIV reference, thus making the Bible inconsistent. It gets worse, due to the wording in Hebrews 2:17 of the TNIV it's possible to say that Jesus was bisexual. I don't really think I'll be getting a TNIV, infact, a lot of book stores have refused to sell it! If you want to see more about it, Jonathan gave us the links http://www.genderneutralbibles.com/seven.php and http://www.phoenixseminary.edu/Default.aspx?tabid=223. After the service we went to the Thatched House and had some food outside in the sun. It was very nice and after the meal we tried to put ice-cubes down each other's backs. It was good fun. I got back home and spent a very little while working on WoA and then had to see some people about Christianity Explored. I got there early to help setup but there really was nothing to setup, so I sat and talked to Richard Priddy. He is enjoying his placement and it was nice to talk to someone who is as interested in programming as me. There was free food (I was there to help spread the gospel, honest!) and I had my fair share. As we drew the meal part to a close, the following happened. Matt: If anybody wants to get any more food, there's still some left Me: Can I take some home in a doggy bag? *lots of laughter* Matt: If you can find one, yes So, I went up to the counter, got Richard a pint of water and asked for a doggy bag. I later (to much laughter) emptied a decent ammount of food into it. There was no pudding, which means I really should have brought Toffee Squares along. My Mum made some for me and I was given them yesterday (I'm sorry, I forgot to mention them on the blog) and they'd really have been very nice (there were some nice Christian ladies there too, Toffee Squares are better than Chocolate by a long way!), however, this does mean I can save them for the Prayer Lunch on Wednessday. Linvoy Primus gave his testimony which I found inspiring and good to hear. It's a pity Peter and Gareth decided not to come (that and they had to pay for their dinners). Anyhoo, aftet Linvoy's talk I walked back home, for some of the way Ceryn and Andrew walked with us, after that I walked Emma and Cilla home. While walking home on my own, holding my coat in one arm and the bag of free stuff in the other, looking behind me incase there were people running after me again. I saw a man. I saw lots of people that night but there was something different about him, he was holding a shopping bag and walking very slowly, looking at walls a lot. He reminded me of when I was in year 7 at school and had nothing better to do with my time than hunt for pennies. I suddenly realised that he was probably not doing overly well. I stopped next to him and asked "Are youy hungry sir?". With a slightly depressive and gruff voice, likely from sleeping outside a lot he repled "Stavin'". He was not aggressive, he was not mean, he was just a poor old man who had probably eaten less than me today. I handed him the bag and bade him farewell. I sadly did not have a Christian tract to put in the bag and for some reason, words escaped me (yeah, we all know how rare an occurrence that is) and I walked off. I hope he does okay, the bag contained 4 or so bits of bread (quite nice bread) and about 8 kebab sticks of Chicken (though apparently they had fish in them too but I never tasted that). I think that's probably the best used Free Food I was ever given. I got home and began updating my CV. The Filemaker group emailed me saying they would like a copy of my CV. This is all well and good but my CV isn't really geared towards a programming job, for some reason places like Asda and Tesco are not impressed by the ability to program in 9 different languages or any abilities I might have at designing Database systems. Hang on, wasn't the title of the entry something about a sensetive side? Well, I didn't give the guy the food because of emotional reasons, he logically needs it more than me, I still have stuff left over from Freshers Fayre!

I have a problem! - Sunday

I got up, went to Church. Today Jonathan was on Holiday so we had a guest speaker. He didn't have a single point to make but covered the miracle of the feeding of the 5000 (actually more like 20000-25000 because it only counted the men). Overall he mostly talked about God Testing us and Challenging us. He also did a cool one man sketch on the miracle (we were all laughing). After Church we went to the Thatched cottage and after waiting for over an hour, got a table. I hadn't eaten anything for the whole day up until that point. I ate just about all of the half roast chicken (partly to prove Lorna wrong, she said I'd not finnish it) and even ate a little left over ice cream that Steve didn't want (I used my fingers too, though apparently this was a bad idea). After that I went home and did some more of my MySQL WoA Database thing (we're having a competition to name it). I re-did a bit of stuff I did yesterday that wasn't working, the 2nd set of code was not only shorter and easier to read, but it also worked! I went to the evening service with Steve H (we and Chris Brough were the only students there). I am very glad I went because not only did I learn about some stuff I didn't know (Old Testament stuff) but it also Challenged me. The speaker (a different guy from this morning) said about how if Jesus returned, those that truely trusted in him would be taken up. Did we really trust in him? It's certainly made me think. Now onto the commedy! Literally. Sunday Night Live is an Evangelical event that I gave out fliers for on Wednesday (I didn't spy the pole climbing lady there). It was proceeded with some Jaz, then some Comedy from a Christian Comedian. It was incredible, the way that he told stories that were hilariously funny yet also merged seamlessly into Christian challenges. There was some free food and then more from Mark Richie (the comedian). I then had two choices, get a lift home from Steve H or help clean up. One of the things that I then remembered from the morning service was "What does Jesus want you to do?" I'm glad I did what Jesus wanted because it is going to be awesomely funny tomorrow if I get enough votes. Yes, votes, you'll read why in a minute (or less if you skip ahead). I cleaned up a load of stuff and chatted with Huw a bit, there was music playing and he managed to record me dancing to it, he wants to post it on the internet, I'm considering it. Justin talked to us a little, Justin was wearing a badge on a piece of elastic. As a joke Huw pulled it back a little and let it snap back, it got the upper half of Justin's chest and didn't make a noise. Justin, for whatever reason, did it himself. He however managed to hit his throat quite hard. It was most amusing. Now the voting. At the end of it there was a bucket of flowers. I managed to get 21 of them. Here and here are two (only slightly) different pictures of them. Emma saw me with them and said... Emma: You need to give them to a lady Me: Umm, I just took them because they were free and look nice, who would I give them to? Emma: Someone you fancy Me: And who do I fancy? Emma: I don't know, you've not told me Me: Assuming I don't fancy anybody, who do I give them to? Emma: Lizzie? Me: Why? Emma: Because she's a nice person Me: Not only has she already left, but she didn't say goodbye, I think that disqualifies her Emma didn't have a comeback to this, but that's okay because I have a solution. While walking back with Huw I came up with the cunning plan of having blog readers vote for whom I should give them to! So, without further adoo, here is a list of ladies I know that are single. Emma and Marcia, lovely ladies that you are you are not on the list as I doubt they would reach you in time. Anybody that votes for Emma or Marcia should also put down someone on the following list or your vote gets ignored. You must post your name, and if you're not a registered blogspot member, in some way prove who you are if you're from WoA. Brierley (She has got a Boyfriend) Helen (Also has a Boyfriend) Jo (Yep, she's got one too) Sarah (She's the one on the right and is married to the guy on the left) Lizzie (Single, if she's chosen I'll make sure there's someone with a camera incase her response is funny) Sarah (Yeah, she's taken too) Siän (Single, again, I'll have a camera, her reaction would be very funny) Karen (As the picture might imply, Karen is going out with Stew) Ceryn (I think she's taken) Lorna (She's taken, you'll probably remember her from this Lauren (My housemate, she's in one of the later photos, she apparently doesn't like these flowers) You've seen the flowers, now lets see some "action" shots (okay, my housemates thought it'd be funny and I had the camera out). This is Gareth posing as me, holding the flowers, waiting for the right moment. This is what happens when a camera flash goes off in your face. This is what I'll look like giving them to a Lady. If I get lucky, this might be a picture of me and {insert name of Lady in question here} afterwards, I might have to apply copius ammounts of chocolate to cover up the problem of being ugly, I might just manage it! So, you need to vote by whatever time tomorrow I have CU or your vote won't count. I do know where most of the people live and it might be funnier to do it like that, however there's something about doing it infront of 20 - 60 people that just says "funny" like nothing else. To vote, post a comment saying who you vote for, why is an optional extra.