Paintball Fun

I was at Paintball City last night with some friends from work. I had only done it once before and the last time was outdoors. That was back in the autumn of 2002 when I went to Wasaga Beach Paintball with the TACF Young Adults.

Although I had fun last night, I prefer playing outdoors. Wasaga Beach had lots of fields with plenty of variety whereas the Paintball City only had one venue.

That said, I really liked the attack/defend scenario. One team occupied a building and was not allowed to leave it until part-way through the game. The other team had to attack the building and eliminate the people inside. When we were attacking, I managed to get into the building and shoot a few people. Unfortunately I was then shot in the back, through a window by a teammate who was sniping from another building. He later told me that he saw movement and couldn't tell what colour the person was wearing. Of all the shots I took last night, that's the one that left a welt on my back.

All in all, though, it was great fun with everyone coming away with plenty of exciting stories to tell.

Combo without a drink?

I've found a really easy way to confuse the cashier at fast food restaurants. I wasn't even trying either. I'm not the sort to deliberately confuse these poor individuals, really I'm not.

No, I simply don't buy drinks any more. Since I got my nice, translucent-green Nalgene bottle (500ml capacity) I no longer have need of nasty fizzy teeth-destroying beverages. Instead, I fill up my bottle with the old-school option of water. (Pause for gasps of amazement.)

The problem is that most people don't know what to do if someone wants a combo without a drink. It's so easy to confuse them. When they say "What drink do you want with that?" just say "No drink, thanks." It's seriously that easy.

I've even been told that the items separately without the drink would cost the same as the combo with the drink so I usually don't save money. I need to start bartering for a free potato or something.

I just don't want to drink crappy stuff that kills you, even if it's dirt cheap.

I saw Osama!

At the weekend I bought the DVD of Osama, which I mentioned in an earlier post. I watched it on Saturday night with some friends. It was really interesting to see the country of Afghanistan and to hear their languages. I couldn't distinguish the words at all, it's really difficult for me to understand. That said, with time I'll be able to.

The film was good, although not as cheerful as I had hoped. I've watched too much Hollywood, I think.

New Work Permit! Woot!

Man, what a relief this is. I just got my new Work Permit yesterday. I'm now valid to stay here until July 11, 2005! My current permit was due to expire on July 11 this year. It's always interesting to see what's going to happen with something like that. I'd started to get a bit established here with an apartment and some furniture. It would be a bit tricky to just pack that all up and head home. Not to mention the relationships and everything that I've built up here.

Of course, I've only delayed it for another year. Maybe I should try to immigrate as a skilled worker. Then there's the whole thing about "landed" status. Hmm, must investigage.

Osama

I really want to see the movie Osama. It looks very interesting. I'm especially excited that all the language in the film is in Dari and Pashtu. That said, it remains to be seen if I'll be able to tell the difference between them. I want to buy this and watch it a million times so I can pick up some language from it.

It's also really encouraging to see films being made in Afghanistan now that people have a bit more freedom. I was reading an article that said when Siddiq Barmak, the director was looking for the girl to play the main part, he met Marina Golbahari (who plays Osama) begging in the street. He asked her "Do you want to be in my film?" and she answered, "What is this word 'film'?" She had never heard of a film.

Since the movie, she has been able to buy her parents a four-bedroom, mud home in the poorer part of Kabul, according to the Internet Movie Database.

Which (poem/country/os/city/whatever) are you?

OK, that's the last straw. I was just looking at dru's blog and I saw a link to which poem are you? (I've delibarate not made the name a hyperlink to the questionnaire in protest!)

I've now had an idea for an online questionnaire of my own. It's going to be called "Which retarded online questionnaire are you?"

One result could be "You are the 'Which American City Are You' questionnaire which is ill-thought out, quick to jump to conclusions about people and generally not very helpful."

HaloScan - I don't think we're right for each other.

Breaking up is always hard. Especially when I've got so many nice comments people posted in my blog using HaloScan, the commenting system that I'm now retiring in favour of BlogSpot's in-built commenting facilities.

If you've posted any comments on my blog in the past, I'm afraid they're not going to be shown any more. However, you can always comment on my new posts and make up for it! If fact, if you REALLY want to, you can always look through my archives and post comments on things I wrote months ago. Maybe I just need to move on... The old comments are gone but life goes on.

Spiritual Authority!

I was teaching at an Encounter Weekend that the TACF Youth Network had organised this past weekend. I was teaching on the subject of Spiritual Strongholds, a pretty important teaching because we do a lot of prayer ministry and deliverance after this teaching to bring people freedom from the strongholds they have just identified.

I had been warned ahead of time that the enemy would try to distract and confuse people to prevent them from hearing what God was trying to say through me. Well, just before we started the session, a storm started to pick up and there was thunder, lightning and some pretty loud winds as well. When I started my talk I said,

"It's no co-incidence there's a storm outside just now. There's about to be a storm in here as well but you don't need to be afraid unless you're a demon."

Well, part-way into my talk one of the staff of the camp we were using came in and said that there had been a tornado warning and that we should be ready to head down to the basement if anything happened. He also gave us candles in case we lost power.

I instantly remembered the Jason Upton CD, Remember which I mentioned in my blog last week. He rebuked a Tornado and it left. I thought, "Right, here we go. It's my turn to rebuke the weather now. If Jason Upton can do it, so can I!" I waited for the staff member to leave the room and then I prayed. It wasn't overly complex. It was something like this,

"Daddy, I just take authority over this storm in the name of Jesus and tell you storm that you have to leave now. Enemy, we're not impressed with you and we're not going anywhere. Tornado, you are not coming here. I rebuke you in Jesus name and tell you to go. We're not leaving becuase we need to stay here and deal with our demons."

I then went back to my teaching and didn't think any more about it. Well, I don't know how soon afterwards it was that I noticed but all of a sudden it was very quiet outside! I stopped for a moment to listen because I was actually surprised. It really had worked! I took authority over a storm in Jesus' name and it left!

Now, you need to realise something here. I don't pray in tongues for an hour a day. I don't do any special, complex intense devotions each day that give me more authority than mere mortals. No, I'm just a Christian! I'm a child of the King and I recognise the authority that gives me. Authority over the spiritual forces of darkness and all that they control.

It's time for us to rise up and stop letting the enemy push us around! Church, realise your authority and RISE UP! For too long we've been hiding in corners, scared of the enemy. Check out Psalm 18. See how David starts out hiding in God, his stronghold. He is not doing well:

v4: The cords of death encompassed me,
And the torrents of ungodliness terrified me.

By verse 37 he is the one doing the attacking and the enemy is the one on the run:

v37: I pursued my enemies and overtook them,
And I did not turn back until they were consumed.

Too often we live in verse 4 when really, Jesus has done all the work. We're in verse 37 now! Let's live like it!

This blows my mind!

I just bought Jason Upton's new album, Remember. There's something on this CD that amazed me like never before. I'm being serious here. There's the voice of an angel on the CD! I'm not talking about someone with a nice voice. I'm talking about a supernatural sound that appeared on the recording that could not be attributed to any of the people or instruments present at the recording. In the CD information, Jason Upton explains that when they were mixing the last track, Fly, they found "a soaring voice over the top of the other voices". At first they weren't sure what it was but they discovered that it was only coming through Jason's microphone. It was another source, near where he was.

If you listen to Fly and skip ahead to around 6 minutes 11 seconds (I think it actually comes in just before then) you will hear an amazing voice singing a really high melody. It sounds somewhat like a choir boy's voice. The first time I heard it, the power of God hit me really powerfully. Even now, when I hear it I feel an amazing presence of God. At first when I started thinking about it, I was a bit disappointed that the voice similar to something we know - a choir boy. Then I thought of something else. Why do we get choir boys to sing in the first place? It's because they sound like angels! Or think of movies such as Lord of the Rings where they want to create an "angelic" mood. They have choirs of pure, high, clear voices. This isn't a co-incidence. This is the reason why. People already know what angels sound like.

God is good. He is real. This stuff's not just for Sunday School!

Pedicures are ticklish

Ok, so I know I might get a bit of flak from the macho among you but I did in fact get a pedicure on Saturday. In fact, I got a manicure as well. I figured I might as well. Both were things I'd never tried before and I was getting my hair cut and I thought I'd go the extra mile, as it were. With my toes being on public display more than ever with sandal weather kicking in, it seems only kind to society to make them a bit more presentable. That and the fact that short toenails are good for climbing, short fingernails are good for guitar and short hair is good for..emm...not overheating in the summer.

So I'm all set for summer now. Except for having pasty skin. Still a bit too Scottish really.

I wish I had a car...

...so that I could put this on the bumper:

"The Swan" annoys me

Is anyone else annoyed by all these shows coming out on TV now that smash up ugly people and re-arrange them into something more beautiful?

I mean, ok, there are people who could really use some kind of corrective surgery if they've got some kind of deformity or something like that but so much of it's just ridiculous to me. People don't need new boobs - they need Jesus! It's true! Even with the best body, you're still the same messed up, insecure person inside. (sigh)

The Swan annoys me in particular because they take it one step further. Each week two women are "made over", sorry, re-constructed, and then the judges decide which one of them gets to go in for some beauty pageant.

So, in other words, the loser gets the message,

"Well done! You're beautiful now! Oh wait...no, not as beautiful as her. Sorry, you're ugly again. See ya!"

Grrr....

ب پ ت ث

Well, I'm making really slow progress with my Dari lessons. I'm about 1/2 way through lesson 2, to be precise. So far in this lession, I've looked at the letters be, pe, te and se. (Or bey, pey, tey and sey)

Here's what I've got. They're all written the same except for the number of dots and they're pretty simple as far as the different forms. (initial, medial, terminal and detached)

Initial form: بابا
Medial form: سبزه
Final form: واجب
Detached form: ب

So there you go. More fascinating discoveries of this new language are no doubt just around the corner.

Having your own climbing shoes helps

It's really true. It helps a lot to have shoes that fit your feet rather than the rental ones at the climbing gym. That said, if you're only going to go a few times, $6 a pop is maybe a better investment than the $100 + whatever you spend on your own.


Me being me, however, I figured the best way to force myself to commit to a sport is to spend some money on it. That way I feel a financial obligation to climb, even if I don't want to. As it stands just now, though, I do still want to climb so that's cool.

So yes, my new equipment. I went on a sort of climber's hajj to the Mountain Equipment Co-Op in Toronto.



I climbed this mother of a wall while trying out my new shoes on Saturday.

So I know you're all dying to know what I bought. Well I'm dying to talk about it at least so that's always something.


First up, I got a harness. I got a Black Diamond Focus Harness which is pretty comfortable. Well, as comfortable as you can expect with all these straps around various parts of your anatomy.



Once I got the harness sorted, I spent forever and a day trying on different shoes and consequently abusing my feet quite a bit. I ended up getting the La Sportiva Cliff Rockshoes. They were the best fit for the shape of my toes. Funny how something as hitherto trivial now has pretty serious influence. I was just thinking as well that since I climb AND play guitar, I have to keep my fingernails AND toenails nice and short. Ah, what a blessing for my future spouse. Anyway, I digress...



I got a nice wee chalkbag all of my own as well. To be more precise, it was a Sickle Retro Sport Chalk Bag. Not that exciting really other than the fact that it's mine and I won't need to keep borrowing one when I go to Rockhead's.

I also got a re-fillable chalk ball, a chalk bag strap and a water bottle but I'm starting to bore even myself at this point and I'm almost 1/2 hour late for lunch so this is a good time to run along.

New Blog Layout - woohoo!

Yes, it's true! I may only have been in the blogging business for about 4 months but that doesn't stop me taking advantage of the sweet new templates that blogger has available now!

For all (both?) my atom feed readers, lay your text-only preferences aside for just a moment to marvel at my new blog in all its majesty!

Oh, how I love stylesheets.

Apparently I am Windows 2000 SP3.

Which OS are You?

It seems there are a lot of quizes out there these days based on the formula. "What [groupname] are you?" such as "What dog are you?", "What country are you?" etc. I even saw a link to "Which Nigerian Spammer Are You?".

What's the deal with Sushi?

Is it just me or does anyone else feel there's a bit of The Emperor's New Clothes going on with regards to everyone's enthusiasm with Sushi these days?

I tried it a couple of times, the latter being lunchtime today. I really don't see what the big deal's about. It tastes of nothing, unless you dip it in the sauce and then it tastes of sauce. Sounds like fries (or chips for my British readers) to me. I just don't get it. I wonder if it's just me or if anyone else is spectacularly unaffected by this.

Think outside of "Think outside the box"

Have you noticed how popular the expression "Think outside the box" has become?

It strikes me as amusing and ironic that the phrase which originated as an expression advocating lateral thought and creativity has itself become another glib cliché, falling victim to narrow thinking and half-baked slogans. It's one of the most over-used expressions of our time! We need to think outside the box of "think outside the box!" Maybe a good alternative might be:

"Ponder outside the planet."

or

"Hypothesize outside the hyperbola."

maybe

"Consider outside the cliché."

Add your own suggestions to the comments section under this post! Let's see what we can come up with when we think outside the... no, wait... when we employ some lateral thought!

(Of course, don't feel bound to the "x outside the y." formula here. This is all about being different, after all!)

If you were a REAL Christian you would...

You know, sometimes I get certain forwards in my inbox that really tick me off. They usually originate from some Christian or other who's trying to gain support for some hot topic such as prayer in schools, abortion or whatever. The prevailing theme in these messages is always the same, though. It's the sting at the end of the message that says something like:

"Jesus wasn't ashamed to hang on the cross naked for you, funny how you're too ashamed to forward this message on to your friends."

The latest one I received today ended with this:

Funny how when you forward this message, you will not send it to many on your address list because you're not sure what they believe, or what they WILL think of you for sending it. Funny how we can be more worried about what other people think of us than what God thinks of us.

Pass it on if you think it has merit. If not then just discard it... no one will know you did. But, if you discard this thought process, don't sit back and complain about what bad shape the world is in!

In other words, "If you really were a good Christian you would forward this on. By deleting it, you're admitting to being a pathetic person."

This kind of thing angers me so much because Jesus was NOTHING like this yet people who profess to be his followers resort to these kind of tactics to spread their message. It's funny how children of God can sound like the accuser of the brethren sometimes.

I think people need more teaching about emotional manipulation and the fact that it's NOT a good way to get your point across. Jesus NEVER resorted to telling people they were pathetic to get them to do anything. He didn't make people feel worse about themselves. If someone was genuinely doing their best, he was (and still is) the very definition of compassion and grace. The only people who he gave a hard time were those who were so confident in their own righteousness that they didn't see a need for him in their lives.

If Jesus could inspire a group of twelve people to spread a message to the world, risking their lives and dying for it in the process without manipulation then why do we feel we need to manipulate to get more signatures on a petition? Isn't the kingdom of God better than this? The God who parted the Red Sea, fed thousands from a few loaves of bread, raised the dead and forgave our sins is more than capable of speaking to the recipient of an e-mail without us beating them to a pulp in the process.

Some of the examples of Christian behaviour I see through e-mail make me sad. I don't approve of these tactics and I don't see any evidence in the bible that God's character is like this either.

سلام

I finally got round to doing the first lesson from my Beginner's Dari book.

It is mostly about the letter Alef which looks like (ا or آ). The 2nd version has a mad on top which looks a bit like a Greek tilde. (~) If a word starts with the regular kind of Alef (ا) then it's a short 'a', 'e', 'i', 'o' or 'u' sound. If it's an Alef mad, though, (آ) then it's a long 'a' sound. When an Alef occurs elsewhere in a word, it's always the long version. The mad is not written in these cases, though.

Another weird thing is that when an Alef is preceded by a Laam (ل) , they form a bizarre shape called a laam aleflaa. It looks like this: لا

So, the title of this post (سلام) is "salaam" which is a greeting in countries such as Afghanistan and Pakistan. I believe that literally it means peace although it's often used as a "hey, wassup" kinda deal as well.