Another Victory For Science

The news the other day contained this story (ABC):

Pope Benedict has paid tribute to the work of the 17th century astronomer Galileo Galilei, who was convicted of heresy by the Catholic Church in 1633.

In an address marking the 400th anniversary of Galileo’s earliest observations using a telescope, the Pope said an understanding of the laws of nature could stimulate appreciation of God’s work.

Galileo was able to demonstrate that the Earth revolved around the sun and not the other way around, which directly challenged the church-held view at the time.

Earlier that day I had been reading a book by a Muslim about how Darwin is wrong.  His argument was fairly typical of religious fundamentalists - everything is too complicated for ‘random chance’ to have ‘created’ it, and besides Darwinism, evolution and science generally asks too many questions that we may not yet have a complete answer to yet (always asserting that God does have an answer).  It made me wonder how many years it will take until Darwin is vindicated and ‘paid tribute to’ by religious leaders?

Most religious people must realise that throughout history scientific discovery has been made and shattered the popular belief of the time, usually to the detriment of religion.  Then religious thinking shifts as the leaders of religious groups try to remain current.  Why can people not understand that it is possible to remain spiritual (if they wish) without denying scientific advances?  Surely “an understanding of the laws of nature could stimulate appreciation of God’s work”?

Instead some religious groups use a pseudo-science where they pick and choose scientific facts to prove/disprove a ‘belief’ or an ‘idea’.  I think the moral to the story is that you may pick and choose parts of your religious text which is relevant to you (and completely ignore the other things the text says which are just plain stupid in a modern situation) but you cannot do the same with facts discovered through the use of logical thinking and the scientific method.

National Theatre of Brent

Years ago, I saw purely by chance a few episodes of a comedy series on TV called “Massive Landmarks of the Twentieth Century”.  The series covered a range of landmark events in our history which highlight the massive achievements of 20th Century man.  The genius behind the series was the National Theatre of Brent; two actors being Sir Desmond Olivier Dingle and Raymond Box.  As it turns out there was a third member of the company who did not participate in this production.

The following is taken from TV.com:

This short series, first aired in the UK in 1999, has garnered quite a cult following through (very) late night repeats especially in Australia where the fans have literally inundated the National Theatre Of Brent’s website demanding a DVD release. Alas, to date this has yielded nothing.

The series features the pantomime skills and talents of Desmond Olivier Dingle (Patrick Barlow) and the entire cast of The National Theatre Of Brent, Raymond Box (John Ramm), re-enacting six of the pivotal events of the last century, from the death of Queen Victoria, through the Cuban Missile Crisis to the Clinton/Lewinsky Affair.

Although generally played for laughs - mostly centred around the fact that the two lead actors play every character in every scene with scant effort to disguise the fact - there are some quite poignant moments of insight especially in the Cuban Missile Crisis episode with respect to Cambodia’s role (or lack thereof) in the Vietnam War.

Most people who actually get the chance to see Massive Landmarks love it with a passion.

I have not seen the entire series but desperately wish to but because it has never been released on DVD I cannot see it … or so I thought.  Then I found this blog post where the comments section had been almost hijacked as a forum for sharing National Theatre of Brent material (radio programs and the long lost TV series).  I posted there, almost expecting no response, to see if I could get my hands on a copy and, to my surprise, in my inbox this morning was an offer to post me two DVD’s containing this fantastic series.

Thanks to the kindness and generosity of others I will be able to finally revisit this show and share it with everyone who has no idea what I’m talking about.  If you would like a copy, please leave a comment.  I want to spread the laughs as best I can.

Christmas Time Is Here Again

So, if you couldn’t tell from all the pictures I’ve been drawing recently; the spirit of Christmas has once again overcome me. I have a bit of a love hate relationship with Christmas usually and I swing from being excited, festive and joyful to being grumpy, annoyed and generally Grinch-like. But overall Christmas is usually a fun and happy time where I get to catch up with family and friends I have lost touch with.

With much of my Christmas shopping completed and my artistic inspiration dried up there isn’t much left to do but enjoy the holiday season and hope I get the gifts that I want (a new job being number 1 gift). Like usual the Christmas music season has also begun and the festive tunes are belting out of my speakers almost constantly. The reminders of Christ are left, right and centre.

With the festive season already in full swing for me, I decided at work a few days ago to revisit a lecture series by my favourite ‘Christian’ scholar, Bart Ehrman (I use ‘Christian’ to indicate that he is a scholar of Christianity, not a scholar who believes). The series covers the history of the New Testament and the history of the early church. What better way to celebrate Christmas than to learn more about the man behind the holiday.

As a self-confessed non-believer I recommend to everyone, believer and non-believer alike, to read or listen to any of his work. He provides a fantastic explanation of the history of the Bible and explains much of the history and context that is otherwise missing from the ‘good book’. Too often the Bible is read with a modern perspective and a modern interpretation without proper consideration and respect for the artefact.

With that in mind and in the spirit of Christmas, and of sharing, I am going to share a few pointers to remember when you reflect upon the Christmas story.

• The two accounts of Jesus’ birth in the Bible are contained in Matthew and Luke; and these two stories disagree with each other.
• In Matthew, Mary and Joseph are living in Bethlehem and flee when all the children two years old and younger are to be executed. After fleeing, they return to Nazareth.
• The census of the known world features only in Luke (and surprisingly not even the Romans have records of this census). This account has Mary and Joseph in Nazareth but having to come to Bethlehem because it is their ancestral home (of a thousand years ago).
• Angels appear only to Joseph in Matthew but only to Mary in Luke.
• Matthew talks about three wise men following a star to find Jesus but Luke only mentions shepherds.

So, which story is right? Well tradition dictates that we “smash the two stories together” (as Bart would say) but that would require us to include only the parts that we wanted and leave out the parts that don’t fit neatly together. There are more discrepancies if you care to find them - perhaps you should pick up a Bible this Christmas and discover more.

Ultimately we cannot make our own story of Christmas and after 2000 years or so (less probably because Christmas wasn’t recognised as a holiday or religious festival until after Jesus’ death) we are too bogged down in the tradition and the story that is passed down orally this time of year. Maybe this year you should spare a thought for Jesus and ask yourself, how much do we really know about Him?

Pink Uniko Fund

Pink Unikos, for me, are like the Holy Grail of the (fluff)Friends world. Since laying my eyes on these beauties I’ve had an obsessive desire to have one. Of course, this wonderful idea is only hampered by the tiny problem of their price. At the moment, this adds up to almost 4,700 gold (LG or Liquid Gold). Unfortunately, in the (fluff) world, LG costs real money; the kind we all go to work to earn and save up for cars and houses and such. This makes the dream slightly harder to obtain, but not at all impossible.

While (fluff) gold is valued at 50LG per $5.00US, there are many options for getting these Limited Edition (LE) items and the high amounts of LG the require. There is always the Trading Post which offers all (fluff)Friends enthusiasts the chance to trade their items for LG or LE items that they otherwise don’t have the LG to buy from the LE shop (which only sells with LG). So this is what I am aiming to be able to do for my Pinky. I aim to either raise enough funds to buy her or gather enough items of value to trade for her. This, unfortunately, is something that takes months of work.

Anyway, the work doesn’t scare me, it’s the continually rising LE prices that scare me. While I currently have accumulated almost 1,700LG in items, the prices in the LE shop fluctuate so frequently that while my items drop and rise in value daily, my beautiful Pinky seems to go nowhere but up in value. While this makes me feel as though I will never reach my goal, I intend to try for as long as I can in the hopes I reach my dream. Here is a Ticker I have to keep track of my savings so the dream seems a little closer:

The main reason for this post is simply to say that I am saving for my Pinky, it will take a long time and a lot of patience and if anyone else who plays fluff can help me by donating items of value, foods (which I can trade for LG) or LG to help me achieve my dream that little bit sooner - eternal gratitude will be yours as I could not thank anyone enough for their help in this endeavour. A million thanks to anyone, in advance, who can help me.

Royal Melbourne Show 2008

Today Mel and I decided to visit the Royal Melbourne Show with our friend Jennifer.  This was to be Jennifer’s first Show (she is American studying in Australia) and our second show in two years.  Last year however, Mel and I both were sorely disappointed by the lack of sheep memories and also, last year our show experience was spoilt a little by the outbreak and subsequent containment of the horse flu meaning no ponies at the Show last year.

So this year we had two main aims; see sheep and see ponies.  Jennifer is a chicken fan so her aim was to see chickens.  Well … BOY did we see sheep and ponies and chickens - and then some.  Here are the photos that I took.  Some are blurry, some are crap but some are keepers.

The best part for me was the petting zoo.  Ideally designed for children under the age of 5, Mel, Jennifer and I all got into the spirit and petted, cuddled and photographed some of the cutest baby animals around (especially the sheep).  It was tough getting photos of the animals without having other kids in the frame and harder still to stop my hands from wobbling and stopping the blurry shots.  But on the whole we came out with some lovely photos and even more wonderful memories.

Keep your eyes out for the mule, the baby goats and the absolute joy you can see in Mel’s face when cuddling with a lamb.  I love her so.

If you are also interested you can see the two videos that I took here.  One is of crazy baby emu’s just learning how to run and the other is of the lamb who refused to move.  Through all the hustle and bustle of the petting zoo he stood completely still just gazing around at all the silly pigs playing tag.

Mel’s photos start here.

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A Floral Tour

Looking out the window this morning, I saw a flower that I had never seen before.  It had clearly been there for quite some time but I hadn’t noticed it until it’s blooms caught my eye.  They were beautiful.  So I took some pictures of them with Mel’s new camera and they turned out far better than I ever could have imagined.  Mel and I also decided to explore our spring-time garden to see what other surprises we could find.  We were both sweetly surprised, I think, to finish up with such a lovely collection of flowers.

I love spring.

Two Little Love Birds

Spring is most definitely here.  Yesterday, outside the study window, two blue wrens were ‘playing’ together practically all day.  Their behaviour was quite repetative so that made it easier to catch on film, although they also insisted (as little birds often do) on hopping around erratically, making it hard to get a nice shot.  Below are the photos I took that turned out okay.  Mel and Jess also took some photos and I should get the nice ones up here too.

What was interesting was how the female (the ‘plain’ brown one) would perch on a flower stem and call out to her mate.  I have never been so close to a bird when it has been calling and it was absolutely beautiful.  I should try to record the call for you - they are back today!

Watching the male was interesting too although he was harder to get on camera.  See, while the female would sit and call, he would try and creep up on her so he was moving almost constantly.  Of course the male never caught up to the female and they continued to chase each other round the garden.  Interestingly, they seemed to always come back to the spot just outside the window.

I love spring.

Engagement Party Photos

Here are some photos from our party. More will be added when I get them. These photos aren’t my camera work so some are blurry and not worth looking at. Others are best viewed as thumbnails only and others are just great photos. If you have some photos to share, please email me.

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Christmas Wrap

So the festive season is almost over and this year has been the most jam-packed Christmas ever.  Mel and I both did well in terms of gifts (being that our respective families love us so) and we also brightened their season with well chosen and appropriate gifts.  We had trouble deciding what was better, giving or receiving.  Nothing will be able to compare to the surprised look on Mel’s face when she unwrapped her Jolly Wolf.  If you don’t know of Jolly W0lf or Jolly Mah you should visit nici’s website until Mel finally makes a page of her collection.

The festive season also brought about my newest project, being an online dvd database so that the family as a collective knows what dvd’s one has, what dvd’s one wants and hopefully we can prevent double-ups.

Finally, in my spare time this festive season I’ve also been working on some vectorisation work for Mel (again of Jolly Mah) which I will publish here at some point and hopefully when Mel turns them into desktop wallpapers we will publish them here also.  Merry everyone!

Christmas Capers with Cousins

The road to Christmas is a short one indeed.  Generally my extended family all get together before Christmas to celebrate and this year it is our turn to host festivities.   With that planned for this Sunday there is only really a week or so until Christmas day.  I still have a fair amount of shopping to do for Christmas (which is unlike me) but it’ll get done.  The hardest thing is deciding what to get people.  It sure is tough buying the ‘perfect’ gift.

As a side note, for the extended family Christmas we are planning some delicious varieties of homemade ice cream.  We are definitely making the crowd pleasing ‘Cookies n Creme’ and we are probably going to do a berry swirl ice cream with either blueberries or raspberries.  I think both these berries are understated in the ice cream world and should be given at least 15 minutes of fame.

So all systems are go!  Plenty to do tomorrow on top of the usual tidying of the house and what not.  Just don’t tell anyone that I’m excited it’s Christmas time.