breath of a hog

so i've heard some things about these hog's breath cafe joints over the years, but have never ever actually been to one. that is, until tonight.

took the day off work (i like having flex :D) to attend the day session of BBT, and had dinner with my team (plus some partners, and our team manager) at a local hoggies to celebrate the end of our probation period.

had myself a medium steak (i'm never very confident about ordering steak) which turned out to be quite nice :)

found out that my team manager is only a few months older than the youngest person in our team! that made me feel old...

went to a nearby bar/club after dinner, and i got carded. that made me feel (or at least feel like i still look) young :p

padawan, Pauline style

from an interview with George Lucas, speaking about the latest and final Star Wars instalment:

In every one of the Star Wars movies, the concept of a mentor and a Padawan, or a learner, is very important. Why is that?

I’ve had a lot of mentors, especially teachers, who have helped me over the years. I feel very strongly that the future of the human race lies solely in our ability to use our brain and to learn from those who have come before us. That is a central theme in my movies, because it’s important to my life. I very firmly believe that only through education and knowledge – gaining it, then transferring it on to the next generation so they can use it and improve it – will we survive and grow.

rather reminds me of the words of Paul to his disciple Timothy:

Follow the pattern of the sound words that you have heard from me... what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also... continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it, and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus...Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory (2 Timothy 1:13, 2:2, 3:14, 2:10)

while education and knowledge may be tools in the process, it is only by God's mercy that he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead (2 Peter 1:3). much more than survival growth, and preserving the human race from one generation to the next, this is about eternal life! :)

Lessons from the Poor

from an article by Wayne Cordeiro:

...I asked, “How can I pray for you? What do you want the most?”

“Pray that we become like you,” was their immediate request. “We do not have freedom of religion. We only have a few registered churches, and the rest cannot attend. We are a persecuted Church. Pray that we can soon be like you!”

“I cannot do that,” I sadly replied. “I will not pray for you in that way.”

“But why?” They pushed back on my seemingly unchristian response.

“You came here after riding thirteen hours on a train. In America, if church is more than thrity-minutes away, people will not go. It’s too far. You have been sitting on a wooden floor without air-conditioning for two days to hear the Word of the Lord. Where I come from, if you cannot sit on cushioned chairs and be in the comfort of air-conditioning, people will find better things to do. You don’t have adequate Bibles, so you memorize what you can gather. In every Christian home, we have an average of three Bibles, but we don’t read any of them.

“No, I will not pray that you become like us. But I will pray that we become like you!”

Sometimes we learn the most from those who have the least. We realize that when we are rich, we are often the poorest, and when we are the poor, that is often when we are the richest!

early winter in brisbane

snow?! i wished... hehe. but a freakish hailstorm late afternoon (of which i was thoroughly unaware, being indoors and not quite in an affected area) left lots of hail lying about the streets where i went later in the day. took a while to figure out what all this white stuff was on the streets/footpaths as we were driving through the area... never seen so much hail in all my time here! kinda cool :)

more news (tho not many pics) at google.

why seed-plant

...there is something to be said for planting seeds, even in harsh climates. A Hasidic tale describes a Rabbi who told people that if they studied the Torah it would put Scripture on their hearts. When someone asked him why he always used the word “on” instead of “in” he said, “Only God can put Scripture inside. But reading sacred text can put it on your hearts, and when your hearts break the holy words will fall inside.”

from http://www.boundless.org/2005/articles/a0001078.cfm

Optus, you suck!

why? because:

1. you changed the conditions for rollover. again.
2. you conveniently neglected to inform me of the change.
3. not only did you not inform me before it happened, you still didn't inform me after it happened.
   
4. i wasted time in double checking my calculation to figure out where i went wrong, before realising (via a search on your website) that i hadn't made a mistake, rather you had changed the rules. without telling me.
5. this happened the last time you changed the conditions for rollover, and i had to ring customer service to find out what you did.
6. this time i thought i'd write to you via your nominated "contact us" methods to voice my displeasure, but your feedback form doesn't work!
7. i wasted more time testing your form with two browsers to confirm it wasn't an user error on my part, before confirming that it is indeed your form that is broken.
8. i then tried to use the other feedback form (for Local and long distance, television, Internet), which looked like it might not have the same problem, but upon pressing submit (with a full explanation of why i was using this form rather than the designated one for mobile customers) i am told that the submission failed because you are experiencing "technical difficulties".
9. now i've gone over my bedtime, and will have to spend more time to literally voice my growing list of complaints on the phone.
10. all this, because i was trying to be conscientious in checking over my bill before paying it by the due date... GRRRR!
    

p.s. ooh... it seems my attempt (#8 above) did actually go through, and you're going to respond within 30 days. you'll forgive me if i don't hold my breath while i wait, won't you?

Ohnosecond

That silent moment it takes for you to realise you've just made a VERY BIG mistake.

- - - - -

above "workplace definition" spotted recently in an internal newsletter at work. speaking of which, it's been a bit busier last few days, and for some reason i seem to be taking longer with my calls, and occasionally giving out wrong/incorrect advice or failing to observe set protocols for call handling... hence the ohnosecond which kinda happens after hanging up, or the delayed onset variety where i find out later i did something wrong.

bleh. and it's budget night tonight, which probably means we'll get swamped tomorrow...

been walking to and from work too, given that the cost of my current parking arrangement has recently undergone a 180% hike! more environmentally (and personal health?) friendly... that's what i tell myself :p

- - - - -

more definitions...

Salmon Day – The experience of spending all day swimming upstream only to get screwed and end up dead.

Percussive Maintenance – The fine art of whacking the life out of an electronic device to get it to work.

Adminisphere – The management layers which begin just above the rank and file (ie people who do all the work). Decisions that fall from the adminisphere are often profoundly inappropriate or irrelevant to the problems they were designed to solve.

hand to the plow

sometimes in life, you
stop in your tracks to wonder.
shifting your gaze with a backward glance, you find yourself
stroking your chin over the why, and
scratching your head over the how.
sighing follows a confused "huh?!!", and
soon your wondering reaches a dead end. then
shaking your head and
shrugging your shoulders, you return to
staring ahead, and
soldiering on forwards.

lettuce eat pizza :)

"lettuce" is the name of our bible study group. we got together for our first social/outing tonight, and ate some...
homemade gourmet pizzas! the first of which was a "hawaiian plus" affair by mellow and fei-lo, and rather nice with the sweet tasting pineapples. but i forgot to take a picture, so... this is the third pizza (yeah i didn't get a pic of the finished product for pizza #2 either... which was a tandoori chicken one) - it's a salmon special i think... both #2 and #3 were by dook
the pizza that quop made! haha... a half and half with chicken, ham & mushroom topped with cajun spices on one side, and pepperoni, sausage, onions & cashew nuts topped with a sprinkling of thyme on the other. don't ask me how the chicken tasted cos i didn't get any...
jesske's super 4-in-1 combo featuring gluten free pizza base... it's a pizza in a pan cos the base kinda got stuck...
designer chinese pizza, featuring hoisin sauce base, bits of char siu pork, some lap cheung, mushrooms, cashews, sweet chili sauce?, and a dash of soy sauce and sesame seed oil. it actually didn't taste too bad (except for the uncooked grains of rice someone threw in!)
last but not least, it's the pingster's meatasaurus monster - we were all quite full by this stage :)
during the night, we also shared our stories of how we came to Christ, and ended the evening with a few rounds of the card game masters and slaves. ironic that the one who brought the game to the group never made it out of the slave ranks :p

a jacobian effort!

after a 6-7 year wait, my "red wine" friend wed his girl :)

- - - - -

that was last weekend. today, yet another wedding.
that's the 5th for 2005 (of 11) i know about, and 3rd that i've actually attended.
some people meet their match at other people's weddings.
hasn't happened to me yet, tho this year is certainly providing many an opportunity :p

home! and back to my own bed :)

except that i can't quite enjoy it until i clear away all the stuff that's been piling on it the past 6 weeks :p ahhh... it's nice to get away sometimes, but also good to be back home after an absence.

but it also serves to remind me that i'm really not home yet.

divergence acceptance

even if two lines are as close as being parallel, they're never going to meet. much less divergent lines, which may start out close, but the distance between them grows with time.

thus i'm prompted to ponder, in a tangential but not altogether unrelated kind of way...

我有个问题：
知己，应该去寻找，
或者该等待？

sore forgetful

i started a poem, but can only remember the first few lines... not that it was anywhere near completion, but i'm feeling rather forgetful

a house -
an empty house.
many rooms -
unoccupied, unutilised.

actually i have no idea where i was going to go after these few lines anyway. all i was doing was thinking upon being reminded that my current housesitting stint is fast drawing to a close. and though i had plans and visions of having people over to socialise, cook, eat etc, that never really eventuated. so it feels like a bit of a loss/waste. so yeah, four lines is about as far as i went!

- - - - -

i'm also feeling rather sore. have been playing a bit of sport the past few sundays without too much ill effect, so i'm not sure whether it was the attempt at a little footrace this week (which i lost! but i was up against younger opponents, so this is one rare occasion where it's advantageous for me to claim age concessions :p) or the extra running around i did on saturday, which is contributing to my aches. didn't get to play ultimate this week, but i still think it's the best social game to play :)

- - - - -

and i'm very tired/sleepy. doing training in the city the rest of the week - will get a free taxi ride between my normal place of work and the training venue, but it does mean having to get up much earlier, and a brief return to ironed shirts.

now let's see if i can manage to have an early night...

constructivity

i remember learning in high school geography (i think... or was it science??) about constructive and destructive waves. i think the constructivity principle has been at work in my life - timing wise, i'm still dealing with the ebb of one wave and being reminded of the memory of another from about this time a year ago.

makes for a big wave.

- - - - -

speaking of anniversary-like matters, looks like i'll be doing another singapore in september trip... both my sisters are having wedding-related events within one week of each other over there (one being the actual wedding and reception, and the other being the overseas reception following an earlier local wedding). don't know about my chances of getting leave in peak period, but i guess you never know if you never ask!

and speaking of weddings (as in, my attendance at...), #2 for 2005 is happening in 9 days' time.

surreptitious sightings

so prince J and i were sitting at a local mc cafe last week, and out of left field comes 3 people wearing japanese-looking attire and each carrying a platter of sushi. they stroll straight through the outside seating area of maccas, and then alternate between standing around and shuffling on in the carpark just outside. a few minutes later one of the mc workers comes out (presumably assigned the task of) looking for them, but they had vacated the premises. a few more minutes and they were back, this time venturing to the outer periphery of the carpark and hanging about at the entrance. at first we couldn't figure out what they were doing, but it looked all the world like they were _giving away_ free sushi. here's a deal going down... would have been a better pic if i got the golden arches into frame (there was one just off to the right), but i only felt bold enough to sneak one shot in, and from a distance (hence the blurriness) :p

and no i wasn't bold enough to go claim some ;) although... it makes me hungry just thinking about it... i think i can accommodate a bit of sushi any time of day :)

topics more worthy of consideration

luke 9:23...

to deny myself
and daily take up my cross
following Jesus

a change from the typical drivel of late, perhaps :)

revised count

an update to the list:

• 1x engagement from... 2 days ago?
• 1x wedding about 3 weeks ago
• 1x wedding in june
• 1x wedding i don't know when... this year/soon!
  
• 1x wedding supposedly happening later this year
• 1x engagement/wedding possibly happening later this year
• 2x newish relationships starting in the last few months
  
• and even a recent breakup is (i think?!) on the mend
  

anyone else want to put their hand up? ahhh... what can you do but smile a wistful smile. better than being consumed by it all, perhaps!

spending my time...

seems a bit of a waste... spending my time... creating original poetry... when others have come before and put similar thoughts to song :p (yes i have now managed to get around to watching (though it was 99.5% just listening to) my roxette complete collection dvd)

ahh... the memories of 80's and 90's ballads... heh.

speaking of old songs, there's one that talks about washing a person out of one's hair. just wondering (in a "the thought has just suddenly popped into my head" kind of way) whether a haircut would suffice? it's relevant because i had one this morning. but it's also a moot question i suppose, since i'll need to wash it soon enough anyways!

ok enough procrastinating, should get back to the housework. way to spend a sunny saturday afternoon... but i really need to be waking up from this dream now.

reflections on...

... romans 14 (v23):

if you want something
even though you know it's wrong
is that what's called sin?

... ecclesiastes:

i'm sitting with a group of people, who happen to be looking at and thinking about the message of ecclesiastes. one of the big points to come out is that life is meaningless; that there's no point in trying to be wise because in the end you die the same as the fool next to you.

i'm sitting in the house where she lives. we haven't really talked, and things have changed since we once did. one of the big thoughts to strike me is that there's no point in trying to be wise because in the end, the (in my opinion) unwise gets the fish, and the (trying to be) wise comes home empty handed.

how is it that one can do away with wisdom and appear to succeed, yet another try to follow wisdom and appear to fail?

yes i know that the catch of the unwise is really not, and that though the wise be catchless the results aren't the only things that count. but sometimes the gap between head and heart rivals the grand canyon.

good thing that the preacher concludes that there *is* something that takes us beyond the meaningless, and that differentiates between the good and the bad. wisdom is not futile.



... my recent posts:

FOM (one of the very select few i know who actually read these entries :p) commented that my recent posts all seem very sighworthy in an "it's all too hard" kind of sense. i guess it can seem that way, but that's mostly because you won't hear a squeak when a wheel is well-oiled and running smoothly ;) i'm still alive and breathing. and struggling at times... *shrugs*

same old, with a twist of retrograde

the danger with watching romance movies is that they suck you into a romantic worldview. and as my dvd companions tonight noted, i am (in their eyes, surprisingly so) such a one. we watched the prince and me, and guess what? i've written more haiku...

butterflyaway
edvard and paige could succeed
why not me and you?

- - - - -

closet romantic
many things i'd planned for you
they shall remain dreams

i decided to actually find out if i'm really doing this right (in terms of the haiku writing i mean), and i think i'm sort of not really. hard to say, a preliminary search seems to show that there are different "rules" around. i'll just settle for not calling my efforts anything other than basic and simple.

anyways, back to my elementary poetry and their inspiration. have been realising over the last day or few that a "bitter root" seems to be growing, with said source of inspiration being a significant contributing factor. this is partially reflected in the third haiku for today (though it was actually composed before today, and is, relatively speaking, fairly tame).

my little princess
knows not what it is you want
i cannot help you.

it's like playing snakes & ladders, getting up through a few small/short ladders only to encounter a majorly long snake. i really shouldn't be in this place. how did i get here? how do i get out?