Sending Chills (Down Your) Back

Fellow Perthites, for the love of all that is holy, don’t buy a Brownes Cola Chill. Or accept one as a gift.
It’s nasty, nasty stuff. So nasty, I’m yet to discover what it tastes like.
Inspired by Rod, I thought I’d use a lull in tonight’s Ten Pin Bowling outing to give one a try. Bad move. Floating in the top of the carton was a congealed mass of something which (and I’m being delicate here) I sipped, and then redeposited in the carton with a flourish. I don’t know what it was, but I suspect there’s a je ne sais quoi about mixing cola flavouring and milk and leaving it to stand for long periods.
In any case, I returned it, to the dismay of the lady behind the counter. “We’ve had a few of these today”, she sighed. “Would you like to try another?”
I’m brave. I took another carton.
It, too, had a congealed mass in the top. I settled for the relative safety of a Mocha Chill.
You can’t have it both ways. While Coke seem to have settled on a formula for Vanilla Coke which isn’t too bad, it may take a while before the market is ready for Coked Milk. With or without gelatinous masses.

The Thrill is Gone

There are a few jobs I’d dearly love to do at some point in my life. You know, those occupations you know nothing about, have no training or aptitude for, but would love to have a few days behind the wheel and see what the attraction is. For me, I’d love to own and operate a Theme Park. I have no idea what to do or how to do it, but it just sounds like a fun job.
Some people want to be rock stars. I want to invent rollercoaster rides which make people ill.
Which is probably why I connected with this site, which happened by my screen today. It’s a series of very atmospheric photos of an abandoned theme park, somewhere in Japan. I don’t know the back-story here, but it seems this park has been out of action for some time. The photographer has captured a quite beautiful irony – a once-mighty thrill ride settling into a rusty retirement.
If anyone knows this park, and whether they’d accept a premise for a new reality TV show – My Rollercoaster Rules – let me know.
(Hang on, that doesn’t sound like a bad idea. Abandoned Australian Theme Park, anyone?)

S.W.A.T.

I just now managed to swat a particularly annoying fly out of the air, mid-flight, with nothing but a screwdriver.
It wasn’t on my to-do list, but I’m going to add it now just so I can cross it off. That felt so good.

Redaction Continued

When I wrote this piece about how people inadvertenly reveal the truth while trying to hide it, I thought I was picking up a small, cute example as an exceptional occurence.
Seems the problem is not small, is not cute, and could be endemic to the US bureaucracy (via Slashdot). Seems if you want the full story on the shooting of an Italian Spy by US Troops in Iraq, you can reveal the censored sections with a little cut and paste. Will people get the message, soon?

Look! Your secrets aloft on the wind of your arrogance! – Cook

Lani Scores Big

I’ve just been informed that Allanah has captured a Pikachu in the Safari Zone of Pokemon Sapphire.
I have no idea what that means, but Caleb seems to think it’s worthy of some sort of recognition.
So here it is.

C is for Correctness, Political

Stop the world. I want to get off.
The polar ice caps are melting. Near earth objects are threatening to wipe us out. The global economy is in uproar.
And The Cookie Monster is getting a health makeover.
That’s right. Once the paragon of excess (“Coooookieeeee! Augm nm nm nm…”) he’s being given a new songbook, including “A Cookie Is A Sometimes Food”.
Lies! All of it. I can only assume this is the work of The Usurper. Things ain’t been the same since The Little Red Devil arrived on the scene and started Elmo-cising. Grover got sidelined. Everyone can see Snuffleupagus. Now they’ve silenced the sole remaining voice of (in)sanity on The Street.
This CNN correspondent shares my outrage.

Let Loose The Dogs Of Ware

Is there a website out there that ticks you off? Here’s a great therapeutic exercise; with Netdisaster you can besiege your target with a multitude of plagues, including various forms of spilled breakfast goods.
Go nuts. Just don’t hammer BONWAG too hard.

Dave's Theo-Tech: Redaction, Republishing, Redemption

It’s been interesting to follow the recent trials and tribulations of the US Library of Congress as they struggle to come to terms with 21st century technology.
It occurs to me that there are some interesting spiritual parallels with their current problems.
The Big Issue is with the way they’re handling electronic documentation attached to “Orphan Copyright Works“. Without going into detail (like they do here) the office provided online documents which contained sensitive data relating to old copyright applications. Their solution was the cyber-quivalent of ‘sticking white paper over it’. Naturally enough, the techies quickly found a way to steam the glue off and get to the information. (UPDATE: It seems the LoC has fixed the problem.) Here’s an example of how NOT to hide a document’s text.
The main problem here is that although the information is obscured from view, it still exists somewhere in the document, and will one day bubble to the surface. (Highlight the previous paragraph with your mouse to see what I mean.) There are many cases where companies have sent out documents containing ‘hidden text’ which communicates a very different message to the one the company intended.
The solution is to delete the information completely, or better still, republish the document from a source which doesn’t reveal the information. (Instead of sending the document with the white squares on it, you print it again, or photocopy it. In the LoC’s case, they should have just deleted the text.)
Uh, yeah. OK. So what’s the spiritual parallel?

2 Corinthians 5:17
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.

It took a while for me to start to understand that concept in relation to sin in my life. If you accept that teaching, it means that God ‘redacts’ you – he ‘republishes’ you – so that it was as if sin didn’t exist in your life. There’s no ‘white stickers’. It’s not like the sin of your former life is hidden away somewhere, to re-emerge some day, in some awful public expose. Like the LoC.
However, that republishing comes at a price. Just like it costs to reprint a book, your redaction comes at a set, flat fee. The price is exactly: Jesus. And the printer is prepared to honour that fee until you get it right. In most cases, we get our money’s worth, and then some.
The ‘new creation’ is a powerful, popular concept that not many Christians – myself included – fully comprehend, much less take hold of. Once you can accept that your life is really washed clean by Christ’s blood, and all things have become new, not just covered over, you can stand in the light.
You’ll probably also end up with a smaller file size, too. But we’ll leave that for another Theo-tech lesson.