This weblog is dead. Long live weblog!

Don’t forget to set bookmarks, RSS readers, holographic recording devices to respond appropriately.

Oh and Internet Explorer users should just download Firefox already, or wait for me to do something about making new weblog look okay in Internet Explorer, despite the fact that it looks fine in every browser that’s not mentally deficient. Hint: one option will be much faster than the other.

New weblog soon. Meanwhile, can I interest you in reading James’ real-life reenactment of entire episodes of Scrubs, or friend Meredith’s thoughts, or traditional favourites such as a serving of Deb or Karen?

Smarter people than me have written about this, but I just wanted to state on the record that even the headline has at least four factual mistakes in it. (And no, I don’t know why we’re supposed to be a public relations organ … unless maybe they’re referring to the body of Christ.) I guess “Editor who works for independent publisher writes on forum to calm down gossip, rumours and occasional discussion about controversial lawsuit between parishioner and pastor” doesn’t quite have the same magical zingy sauce, nor the secret herbs and lies.

Brainwave: somebody should start up a collection and offer an award to the first Herald writer to report on Christianity and actually get the facts right.

G: I had the worst dream last night.

M: Was it a nightmare?

G: Is there a word for a dream so bad that it doesn’t make you scared, it just makes you angry? This dream just made me angry.

M: What happened?

G: …so angry…

M: …

G: Well, I was playing basketball. It was kind of a two-on-two game where I was playing with my brother against this guy from school, Steven Lee, who I haven’t even thought about for, like, ten years.

M: So ten years ago, when you were at school with this guy you didn’t think about him?

G: Uhm…no.

M: Right, continue.

G: (sofreakinangry)…

M: …

G: Anyway, in my dream, for some reason we had to have a shootoff to see who would win, and my brother missed, of course, so it came down to me and I had to hit the trey and…

M: The what? The tray?

G: The trey. It’s the basketball lingo for a three-pointer. You’d know if you were down with it at all. Sheesh, and I thought you were American.

M: Oh right, cause I forgot about the time you spent in the NBA.

G: (muttermuttermutterangryangryangrymutter)…

M: Are you done?

G: Yup. Anyway, it’s courtesy that if you have a free shot, they let you have it rather than waving hands in your face or anything like that. But instead…

M: Instead they start waving their hands in your face?

G: No! Steve Lee starts friggin’ punching me in the back.

M: Wait, what? Then what happened?

G: So I kicked him in the head and tried to make the shot. And then I woke up, angry because this guy was punching me in the back while I was trying to take my shot.

M: What do you think it means? Do you feel like there’s something in your life at the moment that you want to achieve, but there’s something standing in your way?

G: No. I think it means you shouldn’t punch me in the back when I’m trying to hit the trey.

M: No, I mean, do you feel stifled in any way?

G: Well, if I do, I’ll just make sure I’ll kick the stifler in the head for trying to make me miss my shot.

M: Okay, I quit.

G: So angry.

It’s taken me way too long, but I’ve put the first of our supporter’s newsletters up. You can see the link just over on the left, three down, or, if you’re really lazy, then click.

So H is married!

Last Tuesday: Haoran and Sarah come over, we chat and fill one hundred and forty bonbonnieres with passionfruit cookies from Cookie Man to the sounds of the Muppet LP.

Wednesday: Leave work early to attend suit fitting with the other groomsmen (Simon C. and Nic C.) at Grace Bros Myer. After checking we look suitably spiffing, we retreat to The Tea Centre to share our most common passion. We joke about the receptions that Haoran should have had (yum cha, high tea), when exactly would be the right occasion to drink Silver Needles Green Tea (go to Tea Centre, click on China and scroll down: $100 for 50g! They can only pick it two days each year…) or to book the QVB for your wedding reception.

Friday: We leave work and mostly avoid traffic to wend our way up to the Crowne Plaza Norwest (right next to Hillsong!) where we were having dinner and staying the night, so as to avoid shenanigans the next day. We checked in, then came down to meet Simon’s lovely wife Amy, and Sarah’s family and Sarah’s sisters boyfriends, and Jo, who was, well, being Very Jo. We had dinner in the hotel restaurant, capped it off with ice cream and chocolate baskets and other yummy desserts, and then drove over to the church to help set up and turn a hall that had been used for youth group into a place suitable for mawwiage. Back to CP and sleep in the very big, very comfy bed.

Saturday: Mary gives Haoran his wakeup call, while I hit the shower, and then we assemble to attack the buffet (“The sign says all you can eat!”) breakfast. As we came out of the elevators, we were greeted by Ben, Frank, and Will, who were our lovely camera crew/paparazzi for the day (and I just realized that I didn’t get a chance to say a thing to Ben all day - sorry Ben!). Breakfast included the difference between English and American bacon, solicitation of the omelette chef, lots of hash browns and lots of teasing of Haoran, who was surprisingly calm (even when Lorien—who was with the girls—called and said “Sarah’s calling the wedding off … just kidding!”. And then we ran around a little, in various states of formal dress, as we realized we were running late, and tried to mostly get dressed in the same room, and made sure we looked presentable enough, and made Simon make sure that our cravats looked like they should.

The boys piled into one car, with Haoran now starting to get a bit stressed because he doesn’t like being late, with wives following. Got to the church and waved to lots of people as we marched in. The church itself looked great, but the sweltering heat made for a little bit of unpleasant conditions for those in three-piece suits. We moved into another room so as to swelter in peace, prayed, and waited nervously (some a bit more nervously than others). Finally, we got the nod and proceeded out the front.

Wedding processional was all going okay until Jo began to yawn, realized that she was beginning to yawn, managed to stop yawning, realized that she’d almost yawned during the processional, and burst into loud Jo-laughter (I don’t think too many people noticed :). And anything could have happened, and it would still have been worth it to see the look on my bro’s face as he watched his bride walk down the aisle towards him.

The rest of the service and the reception passed by in a little bit of a blur of lots and lots of friends and family (who I wanted to speak to, but mostly couldn’t because of wedding errands), heaps of food, nerves about the best man speech, and than tiredness hitting like a cudgel once it was done, and they’d driven out of the reception.

Other highlights were:

• The very cute notes S&H provided in the back of the outline about all the people involved;
• Grimmo’s sermon, natch;
• As well as Sarah’s sisters, Lucy and Emma, performing a stunning version of The Finn Brothers “Won’t Give In”, on cello and piano while we signed the register;
• The Sebel (where the reception was) being kind enough to provide the bridal party with drinks and canap´s while we had photos taken;
• The tiramisu dessert;
• And great heartfelt speeches from both sets of parents.
• Oh, and having a sister for the very first time.

Gah! Must … obey …

Four jobs I’ve had in my life

• Luggage shop sales assistant
• Sandwich shop cashier
• Geocoding analyst and data manager for NSW Government
• Promotions Coordinator for Matthias Media

Four movies I can watch over and over again

• The Sweet Hereafter
• Hero
• Napoleon Dynamite
• This is Spinal Tap
• The Last Waltz

Four places I have lived

• Woodbine (Campbelltown, really)
• Denham Court
• Neutral Bay
• Kingsford

Four TV shows I love to watch

• The Simpsons
• Mythbusters
• Family Guy
• The West Wing
• Ghost in the Shell: Stand-Alone Complex

Four places I have been on vacation holiday

• Malaysia
• The U.S.
• Corumbin, Queensland (near the Bird Sanctuary)
• Crescent Head, NSW

Four web sites I visit daily

• Matthias Media
• Gmail
• Bloglines
• del.icio.us

Four of my favourite foods

• Spicy fried pork chops
• Potato (or sweet potato) wedges
• Mango pudding
• Cookies and cream ice cream

Four places I would rather be right now

• Eternal home
• On a massage table (about to get a massage)
• A shop with a large and perusable collection of second-hand CDs and books
• Eating dinner at a Swiss chalet with M.

My day was mostly spent making Haoran do this. Thanks Jase!

He is, as you can see, dressed as his little known superhero alter-ego, Bucksman. Items to note are the lovely rainbow pantaloons, cape resplendent with a capital “B”, purple punk-rock mullet wig and eye mask ensemble. Also note the young lass in photo 3, who took quite a liking to Bucksman, albeit probably following the ‘calling him names to get his attention’ a bit too far. And finally note the lovely Sarah in two balloon incarnations, in photo one as the lucky couple contemplate life, and in number four as they enjoy a quiet coffee in the extremely surly and unhelpful Centennial Parklands Restaurant (Parklands!? More like … Pest-aurant of Lark Bans.).

From /Karen/:

1. My guitar: Quite a few years back now, I was playing music at a Christian camp. Unfortunately, my guitar (and a friend’s bass) got stolen (not by any of the Christians, we’re pretty sure). The insurance money took a little while to come through, but when it did, it was a pretty good payout (it was a pretty good, and very lovable, guitar). I used the opportunity as justification for myself to spend the insurance money plus the same amount of money again to purchase myself the Maton that I still have today. This ranks as a guilt for me, because I’m very aware that I have a guitar that far outweighs my ability or diligence. I’m just quite average in the guitar stakes. But then, there are some days when it sings in harmony with me and it feels pretty darn right and like one of the better things I’ve done that’s not God or Mary-related. So definitely a pleasure.

2. Second-hand music shoppes: This has definitely calmed down a lot from a couple of years ago when I was a much more avid music buyer, but I could still fairly happily while away a day in Sydney going from second-hand music store to second-hand music store (if by happily, you meant evenly frustrated at all the things I wanted that wisdom would say I shouldn’t buy). I love music. I love rock and roll and the indie movement and bits of grunge and soul and parts of underground hip-hop and emo and folk (new and old) and I know more about than most people (should). And so it’s kind of exciting when all this ridiculously useless knowledge in my head has a basis in the real world in being able to pick out a $2 CD from the bargain bin, say “Hey, these guys are supposed to be really good. Not as good as their classic unheard masterpiece, but heck, it’s probably worth $2.” And then, you know what? It totally is.

3. Afternoon naps: The only drawback is waking up.

4. Movies: Not all movies, but I do feel I have a peculiarly strong affinity to some films that might be difficult to explain if you didn’t know me that well, and so should probably a bit more hidden than other, more winning aspects of my personality. (Although some of M.’s choice in media can be quite strange: one of the things she likes about MTS is that she now doesn’t have to leave the house before Rugrats comes on. [Although, as children show addictions go, it could be worse. A certain med student I know, who shall remain nameless has a disturbing addiction to Hi 5. You didn’t hear it from me.])

5. Friends: In some ways, not really a guilty pleasure. But one of the best feelings in the world is when you’re with the right friends, feeling warm and safe and completely comfortable, and your stomach hurts from laughing too much, and it completely doesn’t matter what you’re doing because anything any of you do will make the entirety of all of you smile, and then a hope says that you wish it could be just like this forever, and a bit of guilt pipes up for even wishing that was true, and then reason sets in and drowns out that sucker, because you know what?

One day, it totally will.

Dear Reader,

Susan and I have developed a method for getting to the heart of a design problem. At least for CP, it works just about every time. There’s no ‘critical path’ to follow. There’s no magic mission statement (ugh) to compare sketches against. It’s not about making a list of pros and cons. Nor thumbtacking a wall full of magazine pages, color swatches and screenshots. We don’t make concept boards or matrixes of 3” x 5” index cards, nor assemble demographic, ethnographic, psychographic or any other kind of graphic profiles. We just do this.

We screw around for a while and then we start throwing things away until we’re done.

The short essay, What We Talk About When We Talk About Work covers some of this ground. In essence our methods are subtractive rather addititive. It’s why Josef Muller-Brockmann and Stanley Kubrick are heroes. It’s why we love whitespace and simple geometric compositions. Hell, it’s even why The Pixies are important. It’s the application of craft in pursuit of the simplest, most focused communication of an idea. But, this isn’t really about work. Last week, while on a lazy Mexican vacation with my family, something occured to me.

What’s good for design is good for life.

From Coudal’s Infrequent Mailing, Jan 14, 2006

Today, the writer turned 24. Things surrounding and to do with my birthday were:

• A combined birthday/Christmas Un bash with the compulsory tradition of eating Too Much Food;
• The singing of happy birthday in French by Tal;
• According to MM tradition, the singing of happy birthday to the tune of Smells Like Teen Spirit and then Come As You Are by two girls on the MM staff, also chocolate cake;
• Lots of hugs from M.;
• A cute SMS from Jai Jai;
• A biopsy;
• Two CDs (Two Gallants, and Bonnie “Prince” Billy);
• Pretty much my favourite movie, in this great special edition I’d never seen before;
• A cute Chinese dragon motif tea cup with tea strainer inside;
• Three Red vs Blue DVDs;
• Two shirts and a pair of pants;
• Very pretty bound and illustrated Neil Gaiman short story;
• Another beautifully bound book that I apparently read in my childhood. Unfortunately I don’t remember lots of bits of my childhood (year 4 is a complete mystery), but I’ll take my brother’s word for it;
• And a reason for me to run out of excuses why I’m not yet (but maybe soon will be maybe) Reinventing Comics.

Today we have been married for 731 days. It’s a chronoptical illusion: it looks like two years and feels like always. It feels like always, but I love her more than I did the day before.

Thank you Lord for my wife, and for helping me to grasp a measureless love.

(P.S. What do they do to celebrate this occasion? Go to dinner with the lovely in-laws and see Corpse Bride. Insert ironical joke here.)

… so that next time someone asks me, “So what music do you like?”, I can point them to this URL, which will be a much cleaner solution than mumbling something about Pearl Jam and Radiohead (which is true but rather cheapens the ‘investment’ of many hours in music nerd-dom and in any case talking about music that the person I’m talking to hasn’t heard of). In no particular order.

In no particular order:

• Dylan (need more. I like saying Love and Theft is my favourite because that makes it nice and controversial. I think I may have started this post on the wrong foot.), Tom Waits, Neil Young (also need more.), Joni, Beatles (White Album.);

• Radiohead (Everything. Except Pablo Honey, and bits of Amnesiac, obviously.), Pearl Jam (Everything. Still.), Neil Finn/Crowded House (Everything except Split Enz, not as much.);

• Prefuse 73 (Working music of the year. Intelligence with funk in.), DJ Shadow (Endtroducing… was everything for a moment there.), Manitoba;

• Massive Attack (Blue Lines is contender for Favourite Album of Lifetime, although Mezzanine is, as D. said, ‘a sweet listen’), Portishead (Is it wrong to wish they made music that wasn’t so sad?);

• Bjork, Sigur Ros, Mum (Mm… Iceland.)

• Jeff Buckley (child of the 90’s etc. etc.), Elliott Smith (frown), M. Ward (one of my brother’s best music recommendations), Bright Eyes (kinda. I wish he’d learn to make up good album titles and/or not be kinda annoying some of the times), Andrew Bird (way too talented), Iron and Wine (beard like metal, voice like comfort), Sufjan Stevens (rockin the banjo!), Ryan Adams (?)

• Hope Sandoval, Cat Power, Neko Case/Rilo Kiley, Lisa Miller, Joanna Newsom, Nina Nastasia, Feist (and similar chanteusei all make my insides sigh, but especially …), Beth Orton, Fiona Apple, Lucinda Williams, PJ Harvey (Insides: sigh….)

• Blackalicious (Blazing Arrow is wonderful.), Common, A Tribe Called Quest, cLOUDDEAD, Beastie Boys (Paul’s Boutique), Diverse, Lyrics Born;

• Gomez, You Am I, Sunny Day Real Estate (I could have done a lot worse in my high-school taste in rock.), Dirty Three, Sonic Youth, Art of Fighting, Built to Spill, Bluebottle Kiss, The Beta Band, Shack (Most of the bases of my uni education re: rock music.);

• Dismemberment Plan, TV On The Radio, My Morning Jacket, Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Two Gallants, Boards of Canada, Holopaw, Devendra Banhart (all in the category of artists that I really like, so I should probably buy their album rather than just rotating through each of their free MP3 downloads for 6 hours at a time.)

• Neutral Milk Hotel, Talk Talk (who are in this category because they’re both too odd to hang out with the others (a good description of a lot of this music, perhaps?));

• Arcade Fire, Wilco, Broken Social Scene, …And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of The Dead, Charlatans, Bloc Party, The Decemberists, Spoon (recent acquistions and accoutrements, but my favourites are probably …); Interpol (Hyper-elegance.) The Shins (So sharp. Not life-changing though, that’s silly.);

• Elvis Costello (Why don’t more people my age like him?), Terry Callier, Solomon Burke (such grand old men they are too), The Band, Johnny Cash;

• Tindersticks, White Stripes (love them, but I’ve listened to my friends’ copies so much I feel like I own them, even though I don’t as far as I know);

(More clever comments later if I think of any. Also more bands, if I remember, perhaps.)

Because I’m not a genius, that’s why.

A new trailer for The Shining.

Lots to catch back up on: the weekend in the Blue Mountains was most lurvely, thanks to Mary, Wotif, Katoomba, and Vulcan’s, where I had pot-roasted beef that tasted almost entirely of bliss.

This last weekend was spent watching Keris and Em become Keris and Mrs Keris, and catching up with assorted Christchurch people, many of whom are very nice and/or encouraging indeed. (Oops, and jumping back one day, Friday night was at a very pleasant all-you-can-eat Japanese restaurant with parents and Haoran, and unfortunately no Sarah thanks to the rigours of glandular fever.) Sunday was a walk and a morning brunch with M.’s parents, and then much-enjoyed afternoon schlafen.

In other news, I’m still a bit sick (ask me in person for details), but God is good: having a Christian doctor is about the greatest thing in the world. He starts praying with me and I feel like stopping him and asking him to prod me with something or something because it’s so right that it feels so wrong. Work has been wonderful too, so wonderful that it’s looking more likely that I’ll stay there next year, and delay jumping on the MTS train for a little bit more.

Finally, I have a new favourite band, thanks to the wonders of (above-board and legal) internet music downloads. Two Gallants are two fine young fellows out of San Francisco. They’re a guitar and drum duo whose music is as raw and rough as a marriage of folk and blues should sound. Like Tom Waits or The Grateful Dead, these are often old stories, set to fiery and graceful accompaniment. The voice of Adam Stephenson, the guitarist and singer, complements his lyrics perfectly: rootsy, haunted, pained and ever-so-right.

Best of all, they’ve got two songs from their album, The Throes, up for download from their site, as well as three vital live tracks (my favourite is Steady Rollin). And if that all meets to your approval, the whole show is available thanks to the wonder of the internet. Ah, internet, you do wonder so.

My favourite things (via Deb, via Kathleen):

Abstract favourite things: the Internet, truth, music.

Actual favourite things: my acoustic guitar, a copy of Lord of the Rings that my brother and I literally read to pieces, my wedding ring, a present from Elsie of all the photos of me that she took during our uni years, OK Computer.

Current favourite feelings: laughing like crazy at our Bible study, being told that a draft I wrote doesn’t suck (despite timid expectations), having Christian brothers and sisters who are determined to simply love you until you’re better, when iTunes on random serves up the perfect song (and does it again and again), Friday!, and the feeling after a spouse’s nightmare and I’ve comforted her back to sleep and wonder exactly where and when I learnt to do that (or whether it was something that God hardwired into me at birth for future reference) while listening to the rhythm of her being wonderfully, wonderfully alive.

(The sound of a rooster crowing comes from somewhere down the hall. Someone sticks their head into my room.)

“Who made that rooster sound?”

“I’m not sure.”

“I was just checking that somebody didn’t deny Jesus three times or anything like that …”

“…”

“… otherwise they’ve got a heck of a performance review coming up.”

I have this untested theorem that you could tell quite a bit about a person simply by the post-it notes or other pieces of paper that they have taped or Blu-tacked around their workspace.

Me? I have a business card for Matthias Media, a post-it with contact numbers for Unichurch and MTS. I also have a post-it with the decimal entity notation for em-dashes, en-dashes, and a variety of smart quotes (mostly drawn from this excellent ALA article). I have a post-it reminding me that I am a “(perfectly free) servant of all”. I have another one with the anti-procrastination slogan: “Do it now”, as well as a line below it with an idea that I’m testing: “There is no writer’s block”.

And then taped below my keyboard there’s some handy shortcuts for Mac OS X that I’ve compiled, as well as some of the custom shortcuts that I’ve created.

And finally, there’s a mini-tutorial on the wonderful, as-powerful-as-it-needs-to-be, killer app Quicksilver which is one of a couple of reasons why a Mac will very likely be my next computer.

What (if anything) do you have on your post-its?

Language is a Virus (via 43f) looks great for all you writerly types, and it is only through sheer willpower and pressure of impending work that I close that particular tab. (Beware fairly horrible grey on grey text though.)

Last night was spent playing cards with circles, and watching the excellent Adaptation.. (Stuff I noticed this time round: that full stop is part of the title, according to IMDB; at the end of the credits, there is a dedication “In loving memory of Donald Kaufman”, and a quote from “The 3”.)

So Wednesday and Thursday Tuesday and Wednesday, I was down on the upside with the Matthias Media crew, taking a staff conference at lovely Collaroy. Spent much of the two days in awe of /Karen/’s prodigious knitting and thinking about the state of our world and how we could (try and) fix all that problems that are. (We did an exercise where we wrote up on butcher’s paper our guesses as to what the world would look like in 5 years time. “Everyone reads graphic novels” wrote /Karen/. “Everyone blogs” I wrote underneath.)

Some great conversations, lots and lots and lots of food (I feel like I write that a lot), and some (hopefully) helpful analysis of the way things are, and the way things should be. It was pretty good.

In contrast, I am still waking up at 4 am. This is neither pretty nor good.