New Music

Check out new stuff from:
Coldplay "X and Y"
Foo Fighters
Waveaid DVD
Faithless DVD and CD
all due out during June '05

Caroline Ritter 2nd in line

Caroline Ritter from Singleton has topped off $80,000 spent on memorabilia by travelling to LA and so far queing for 6 1/2 weeks to be second in line for SWIII. The group lined up outside the famous 'Chinese Theatre' where Ep IV premiered... hoping to force Lucas Film to shift its planned Sith premiere fom a Theatre down the road!!

Star Wars Tragics

Check out the website related to the 150 or so punters lined up in LA awaiting the premiere of Revenge of the Sith... Lucas Film complimentary tickets in hand! Donate to charity on liningup.net

IPhoto 30GB 

Apple iPod iPhoto

Wow, I have recently purchased an iPhoto after doing everything I could to choose another less trendy brand... BUT It just has the features, intuitive way around it and simplicity that I need...

I look forward to leaving an entire utility case of CDs behind in future and the sound quality for escaping into my own introversion is excellent!! Besides I love a good accessory so the iPod fits that bill!!

ENOUGH ROPE

Andrew Denton is a brilliantly intelligent and generous interviewer who usually nails an interview when the subject is willing to answer questions honestly and thoughtfully. With some people he skillfully draws this out of them or just gives the opportunity should they choose to take it!!

Andrews interview with Bob Geldof last week was a shining example... brilliant, surprising, emotional and insightful.... I will find that tape useful in all sorts of settings: leadership formation; worship; speaking at Camps....

Check out a transcript at http://www.abc.net.au/tv/enoughrope/transcripts/s1343226.htm
And hopefully it'll be on the DVD for this series!!

It was also a lot darker than it looks in most photos 

The Chapel with its understated decor 

The Sistine Chapel

It's so funny to think back to 1989 when we travelled thru Europe and visited Rome... I'm not sure what I expected in the Vatican but I hadn't quite prepared myself for the Sistine Chapel... with four or five hundred other people... as you walked around it was hardly the silent smells and sounds of history... perhaps they were drowned out by the hum of chatter or the click of Canon EOS cameras.... It was amazing but it wasn;t the solemn and solitary place I had imagined. A bit like the Trevi Fountain with a thousand tourists all sitting around it... not quite the postcard view.
I imagine the Cardinals will have a unique view of the ceiling this week though!!

The Presidents daughters probably gave Dubbya a standard white and silver model 

Youth Ministry Notes

Catch YMN #1 at the website www.nsw.uca.org.au by following the links! These will eventually become a Folder [when there's 50-100 sheets perhaps!!

All the President's tunes - on his iPod
April 13, 2005

Los Angeles: As he ponders the future of the free world, the fate of social security or the state of his Texas ranch, President George Bush can turn to one source for solace: his iPod.
A birthday present from his daughters last year, the Bush iPod contains just 250 songs, from the knockabout comedy of Joni Mitchell's (You're So Square) Baby, I Don't Care to the straight ahead country blues of Stevie Ray Vaughan's The House Is Rockin'.
Mr Bush, an avid cyclist, takes his trusty music player whenever he can. On Saturday he took the opportunity of a 30-kilometre bike ride with his indispensable iPod to wind down after the Pope's funeral in Rome and before hosting the Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon.
Although Mr Bush does not do anything so vulgar as download the songs himself - that duty is performed by an aide - the selection of music has analysts scrambling to deconstruct the contents of the presidential iPod.
What, for example, to make of the inclusion of The Knack's chirpy yet sleazy My Sharona, a staple of American college life for the past 20 years? But that is about as risky as it gets.
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As for an analysis of Mr Bush's playlist, Joe Levy of Rolling Stone magazine said: "One thing that's interesting is that the President likes artists who don't like him."
Mark McKinnon, Mr Bush's chief media strategist last year, cycling buddy and fellow iPod enthusiast, defended the presidential playlist. "If any president limited his music selection to pro-establishment musicians it would be a pretty slim collection," he said.
His selection, Levy said, "tells you that the President knows a thing or two about country music and is serious about his love of country music".
"This is basically boomer rock'n'roll and more recent music out of Nashville made for boomers. It's safe, it's reliable, it's loving ... It's feelgood music. The Sex Pistols it's not."
Mr McKinnon said that sometimes a playlist was just a playlist, nothing more. "It's music to get over the next hill."

MUSIC TO HIS EARS
John Fogerty Centerfield
Van Morrison New Biography; Brown Eyed Girl
Joni Mitchell (You're So Square) Baby, I Don't Care
Blackie and the Rodeo Kings Swinging From the Chains of Love
The Knack My Sharona
The Guardian, The New York Times

WHAT SHOULD GEORGE DUBBYA HAVE ON THE IPOD?

Worship Unplugged # 30 Community Meal Response

Some more Easter Ideas will follow bu the first was used at the Hunter UC Regional Easter Camp this year with the theme "Hope is..."

As part of the input and response time on Easter Sunday the worship/speaker input finished with an introduction to a shared Community Meal with echoes of Eucharist but a broader focus...

Four serving points for 160 punters had items, food and drink to share:
Cola, Lemon and OJ
Pita Bread and Dips
Pretzels
Rice Cakes
Croissants
M&Ms
Jelly Beans
Little foam rubber shapes symbolising something about HOPE
Black cards and white pencils for Confession
Phone Block Paper and pens for Thanks/Thoughts/Response/?
Tealight Candles to light and place near the Camp candles as a remembering of ?

Punters who wished to pray with, talk to or spend time with a pastoral carer moved to a space in the Hall near one of the serving points...

Background to this activity was the DVD footage [Geoff Boyce, Flinders Uni Chaplain SA] of "The White Lady" with looped soundtrack of "One Step Closer" by U2 and its lyrics on a second screen

"One Step Closer" U2
I'm 'round the corner from anything that's real
I'm across the road from hope
I'm under a bridge in a rip tide
That's taken everything I call my own
One step closer to knowing
One step closer to knowing
I'm on an island at a busy intersection
I can't go forward, I can't turn back
Can't see the future It's getting away from me
I just watch the tail lights glowing
One step closer to knowing
One step closer to knowing
One step closer to knowing
Knowing, knowing
I'm hanging out to dry
With my old clothes
Finger still red with the prick of an old rose
Well the heart that hurts
Is a heart that beats
Can you hear the drummer slowing?
One step closer to knowing
One step closer to knowing
One step closer to knowing
To knowing, to knowing, to knowing

3M Repositioning Glue Spray 

Worship Unplugged # 29 Repositioning Adhesive

Saw this one at a recent Workshop where the Consultants used a piece of cloth for people to stick paper to and then group like responses...

3M Repositioning Adhesive Spray [OfficeWorks and other outlets]
Spay the glue on a piece of material and you can stick, move and restick paper time and again...

I imagine prayers, responses, notes, pictures etc being able to be stuck on a cloth on the wall with scope to move things around and no need for tape, blue tack etc except to mount the material in the first place...

Simple ideas done well!!

Peter seemed to genuinely grin both nights... Finale at Manly Leagues and encore at Waveaid next night at the SCG. Two brilliant concerts... sad to see them over!! 

Young Adult Retreat Easter 2004 

Have been meaning to put this image up for a while so why not now when I'm supposed to be doing other work... You can get this picture 'on a t-shirt' from the real Kramer at kennykramer.com 

An istock photo I'm using for "Hope Is..." at Easter Love the sense of floating on air and the 'possibilities' it suggests 

Had You Noticed...

1. The sheer number of iPods walking past you in the last few weeks... bring on the BENQ joybee 720 competitor with screen for viewing pictures and an FM tuner inbuilt.
2. That ringtones in Australia and globally are so huge now that ARIA is faced with launching a chart for their sales/downloading as a potentially clearer indicator than the CD singles chart... good grief imagine that 2 hour show on TV every Sunday morning... playing your favourite polyphonic tones with some ridiculous blue frog dancing in the background
3. Civil ceremonies came up roughly equal with 'church weddings' in the last 12 months
4. U2 were inducted into the "Rock and Roll Hall of Fame" in the US this week, performing a stunning set with Bruce Springsteen joining for "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For"
5. Predictably, U2 have extended US dates, scotching pencilled in bookings for Sydney etc in December.... bring on Feb/March and hopefully 06 not 07 like previous tours!!

More soon....
Getting my photo capability back soon!!

Our Mate Dave Edwards

Things have been a bit quiet on my blog lately and the reason for that at least in the last week or so has been the simply tragic and saddening death of a great friend Dave Edwards in a car accident on Monday 7th March 2005!!
I still can't quite believe it... these things happen everyday...
BUT NOT TO SOMEONE YOU KNOW!!

Dave was working as Presbytery [Regional] Youth Worker in the Riverina area of NSW after stints in Blacktown, Jannali and Sylvania... and a wide reaching influence in Camps and events across the NSW/ACT over those years...
Dave was a colleague, friend, a mate.... who had a pervasive smile and enthusiasm...
He was brimming with ideas, resources and care..
He was non-judgemental and had great integrity in working with all kinds of people on all kinds of projects!!
BUT to me he was a helper, wise adviser, practical influence and a mate!!

Pauline, Emily and Gabrielle will feel his loss greatly and they are joined by hundreds and maybe even thousands of young people, youth workers and leaders from across the country and beyond!!

Dave's funeral was an ecclectic affair... made meaningful by:
1. Peoples reflections and sharing and the Dave those stories reminded us of... AND
2. The thought that Dave would be sitting there with us giggling cheekily at some other points

I will remember sundry phone calls, auctions, sound gear, laughter, practical jokes, lagers, glow sticks, ferral netball, the egg blow, wisdom, warmth and never taking things too seriously!!

Cheers Dave

Bono in Line for Nobel Prize?

U2 singer Bono and Indian sitar master Ravi Shankar are reportedly among 166 nominees for the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize.
The list that also includes Pope John Paul II and former US Secretary of State Colin Powell, reports Billboard Online.
"We have received 166 nominations so far, of which 29 are organisations," says director of the Norwegian Nobel Institute Geir Lundestad. "The geographical scope is wide."
As usual, he declined to name any candidates for the prize, which last year went to Kenya's Wangari Maathai, the head of a tree-planting movement and the first environmentalist to win.
Some names have been made public or leaked privately by people nominating them.
The $1.8 million prize will be announced in October and awarded on December 10.

Row M Seat 30 Meet the Fockers

Interesting David Dale article from the Herald....
My take is that the angst driven humour of the excellent 'Meet the Parents' gives way to a warmth and farce which Aussies who've been through the experience can still relate to...
The lead characters are in the hands of accomplished actors. Robert De Niro's humiliation and ageing alongside Babs Streisands warm kookiness are good fun!!
I just laughed a lot... and that was only last week at Sydney's Openair Cinema with the vista of the Bridge and Opera House in the background at Mrs Macquarie's Chair.

The Tribal Mind By David DaleFebruary 23, 2005
smh.com.au
This was supposed to be a month of adult sophistication in the cinemas of Australia, when the kidflicks of summer gave way to the Oscar nominees of autumn.
But Australians are not showing much enthusiasm for doomed boxers, jailed abortionists, manic-depressive entrepreneurs, blocked playwrights, and wanky wine buffs. They persist in revisiting a slapstick sex comedy in which three icons of the cinema have a gorgeous time humiliating each other and themselves.
With takings of $34 million, Meet the Fockers has just become the 12th biggest moneymaking movie of all time in this country, passing such box office behemoths as Attack of the Clones, Matrix Reloaded and Jurassic Park.
It's a monument to the power of word-of-mouth. And evidence that, for the moment, Australians would rather laugh than think.
The movie distributors thought Fockers would be fleeting fun for a January without blockbusters. The eyebrows shot up when it was still around in late February with $13 million more than its predecessor, Meet the Parents, and $7 million more than the anointed summer kidflick, The Incredibles.
Apparently a lot of adults were taking their children. Some might have been taken aback to hear Ben Stiller deliver this speech about his fiancee: "I still masturbate to Pam. What? She's hot. Check out those boobs. I could take a vacation in there." Nevertheless they recommended it to their friends.
What does it say about us when Fockers does better here than in any other country? That we are more relaxed with humour based on sex? That we love how screen legends Barbra Streisand, Dustin Hoffman and Robert De Niro don't take themselves seriously? That we identify with the problem of parents who embarrass their grown-up children? Sociologists could learn more about Australians by studying our Focker-fetish than from a thousand attitude surveys.

SERVICE PACK # 2 Computer Problems

You will have noticed a lack of posts for a few weeks BUT thats because I can't load pics etc until my PC is repaired after being mauled by Microsoft!!

I will soon update a WaveAid report and a raft of new or old resource ideas and some pre Easter stuff... stay tuned!!

Row M Seat 30 The Oscars

The Oscars are just about here and again this year its darker themes and stories with a focus on bio pics www.oscars.com will have all the nominees and details including host Chris Rock.
Will Clint Eastwood keep Scorsese oscarless?
Can Cheadle, De Caprio et al unseat Jamie Foxx for his portrayal of Ray Charles?
Hopefully Cate Blanchett will win for her turn as Kate Hepburn in 'The Aviator'!!

Why so interested... well there are trends and themes in these nominees, its fascinating to see how the politics and promotion plays out... and they are films that people [including youth and young adults] will see...

Unreliable Idea # 23 Film Quiz

A recent copy of a film quiz sent to me by brother in law Justin reminded me of these creative and testing quizes where still shots from films have the heads and hands rubbed out but otherwise depict a shot from the film in question.... great challenges for groups or individuals!!
Check out one site at http://www.filmwise.com/invisibles/index.shtml

Unreliable Idea # 22 Local Swimming Pool

Having already plugged the great resource that is the Local Library.... add the local public swimming pool [or second place goes to a swimming centre]!! They are "cheap as chips" to get into and many noe have good shade areas and/or a waterslide to entertain the hordes.

Pool Attendants vigilantly watch over behaviour and groups can have a fun chill out time... its a great activity as a Summer catch up for groups on holidays and opens up a socially based Youth Group to friends of friends!!

Ensure you have permission slips with specific mention of swimming and a ratio of at least 1 leader for 5 or 6 punters!!

Some pools will stay open later on Saturdays for groups, could be talked into space for a band/bbq and activities.

Ned's less than successful Mall business 

Big money that Ned Flanders is gay

While the predictable answer would be Smithers it appears that speculation is rife following the information that a gay wedding will be included in the upcoming season of the Simpsons.

Check out the story here:
http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/content/news_syndication/article_050118simpsons.shtml

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