Good News/Bad News

Some Good Some Bad today. Good: Fearless Leader and Mrs Fearless are back from Germany/Greece/Oz/China and a range of other countries after 8 months away from "home", we had a good catch up as the team is back together for the first time in quite a while. Bad: Everybody bailed on the plan to go to Cuddington tonite which I'd been looking forward to all week. Good: Found out the Wycliffe Centre has open access wi-fi so next week during foundations I will have internet access contrary to prior predictions. Bad: Worked all day on an assignment and still didn't manage to finish it, rather frustrating.

Dad pointed out on my last post that I should at least warn my mother if I'm going to blog about near death experiences. After careful consideration I have decided upon the following- 1. when blogging about near death experiences the title field will read "more lives than a siamese cat" and that should allow mum enough time to leave the room. 2. in the event of my actual death, i promise not to blog about it.

Forest Gump is on TV and I have more work to do on that irritating assignment so I better vamoose!! Ciao Bambinos!!

Still Alive

Had a close call today. Atari Man was driving us both to a Youth Network day over in some place that I forget (thats really bad as it was like 3 hrs ago but hey, was a cool Christian Youth Resdiential place that deserves a plug, check out Youth Blog and Im sure they'll get a mention as Ian was running the show today) ANYway, so it's absolutely tipping it down on the motorway and we're running ;ate so Atari Man was driving like he's in the Nascar on Sega3000 or something (harsh but fair) and Im torn between closing my eyes and praying fervently for our souls (coz at this point its not a matter of the chance of death, it's more a matter of how long till we die... Here's where Atari Man makes the save of the Century and wins the Nascar all in the one smooth move: for no apparent reason (Im calling it "prophetic driving" with all seriousness) he changes from his prime position in the outside lane into the centre of the motorway, perhaps to flaunt his blatant superiority over the other racers in the game who are perhaps more sensibly just focussing on keeping their cars on the road, (just used perhaps twice in the one sentence but o well) and ten seconds later we pass a car that has crashed into the barrier in the middle of the motorway and is blocking off the lane that we had just vacated. Death narrowly avoided. Silence fell in the Surge for several moments. Breaking the silence I compliment Atari Man on his prophetic driving and suggest that now we are winning we let the other cars catch up to make the race more interesting.

The rest of the day passed uneventfully (in comparison) and dinner 2nite saw Alice lash James with another brilliant serve from her silver tongue. I really enjoy Alices tongue lashings when they're directed at someone else. So far her two best lines have been "but you know all about bashing your head on gravel tho, don't you Mark? -turns to me- only, were you drunk?" and then 2nites effort "zac's my favorite adopted brother... sorry james" [that one needs explaining, James' older brothers used to tell him he was adopted, when he went to his parents to check his dad said "now james, if we were going to adopt someone, do you really think we'd have picked you?" so there is an ongoing joke that james is adopted, poor boy will be scarred for life im sure]

Foundations is next week so there may not be much happening on the blogging front unless the place should happen to have wi-fi, which is possible but not likely. Will try and post some more before then, tide you over the withdrawal period...

see you on the dark side

I won't need to eat for the next week

Sunday lunch was this massive roast at Ians place, beef, potatoes, yorkshire puddings, parsnip, carrots... mmmmm was beautiful but I ate enough to keep me going for the whole weekend. Then sunday nite a mate bought me dinner from the chippy and that was huge as well so I shared it/gave most of it to Pete who could eat 3 horses and a turkey for breakfast and still be hungry (seriously, two hours later we were in Maidenhead getting nacho's coz he was hungry again)
I had meant to post on thursday (coz thats the best day of the week) but i got half way thru my post and the internet cut out and i managed to lose my piece of literary genius frustratingly to my own stupidity (i had been in the process of trying to save it from the farthest reaches of cyberspace when i forgot that i had copied it and proceeded to copy something else over the top of it!!) I attempted repication of said genius but gave up as it was never going to be the same...
Thursday I spent in Oxford, always love the chance to spend some time there. Highlights were wandering into an HMV store (thats a music and video store for those in Oz or otherwise youth culturally impaired) and staying there for an hour listening to the kooks new cd Inside In/Inside Out waiting for Naive to come on which is near the end of the cd (click here to listen to naive on the Kooks My Space page) I also visited St Andrews Christian Bookshop and found a copy of the Screwtape Letters published in 1946 (proper old school!!) And I also had a doughnut and a coffee with Ian from YouthBlog in the coolest Krispy Kremes building I've ever seen, they converted Oxford Castle into a really cool complex, will have to get some photos next time Im there.
Sunday saw the roast dinner and other feasting that I already mentioned. Back to work today and Dan and Danni are finally back from Oz, they brought the kids in so i spent a good half of the day babysitting but it was good fun. Gotta run for Cell Group now...
See you on the Dark Side

God Put a Smile Upon Your Face

Is a very cool song by Coldplay. I had a smile on my face quite a few times in the last day (and by day I mean 24hrs coz Im including something from last nite) Lets start with last nite.

Walking through Wheatley to catch the bus I walked past a corner and as I took my next couple of steps the dreads buzzed (a bit like spider mans spidey sense my dread locks tingle when Im in danger or there's free food or if a pretty girl is close by) looking back over my shoulder I see a man leaning against the wall with his arms folded, head down but his eyes looking up at me. There's a slight grin on his face. He's wearing a police uniform and has another officer a few metres away. I grin as I realise one or more of the drunken rabble up the street are probably going to have a similar experience in a rather less amusing way some time in the next couple of hours. "G'day" I say and give the lads a wink as I keep walking. I think the copper was getting a bit of amusement out of the situation as well as his grin got bigger as he gave me the nod.

The second smile was this morning before I had even woken up. I had a dream where I was at school (i know this sounds like a nightmare as opposed to a dream but trust me on this one) only me school was on a beach and there was a whale 10metres out to sea. So I went swimming with the whale. How cool is that?!?!

Third smile was for Cris who passed his driving test this morning. He's been hanging out to drive forever basically, I can empathise coz I was pretty similar when it came to driving, so it was very cool when he rocked up to give me a lift into to town this morning.

Fourth smile was in Aylesbury. Went to the physio and despite my best efforts to destory my body he says my knee is fine and to keep doing my exercises and it will hopefully prevent it from popping out again.

Fifth smile. I bought an old school england football top a few months back during the world cup and really liked it but managed to shrink it in the drier after the first time I washed it and ended up giving it to James (it fit him perfectly). But today in sports world I found the same top for half the price of what I paid the first time round!! Too nice!!

Sixth smile. I got my picture messages to work on my fone!! It's been annoying me coz someone tried to send me one and the icon has just sat there on my fone reminding me that i cant see the stinking picture for three days.

Seventh smile. Was the fun I had beating up James after he picked on his sister. Unfortunately his mother didnt realise that was the reason for the beating... Alice did back up my story tho.

And the last smile was for the moral of the story on Gazza's blog. You'll have to scroll down to September 11 to read the story, it's under the Karate Kid. Well worth a read.

And thats me for today. See you on the dark side.

Sooo Cold

Englands summer is gone. Bye bye. Finito. Gone.
And now it's FREEZING. Ridiculously cold. I didn't want to get out of bed this morning. Nice and toasty in there and could feel the ice in the air outside of the doona... not good.
Englands summer is awesome but the winter (which lasts 9 months of the year) is pretty horrible. I had to go home from work today to get a jumper and a pair of socks, i still refuse to wear shoes so im looking v cool in my socks and thongs at the moment.
The upside is that there are a lot of group hugs in an effort to stay warm, i rekon we were huddled outside church on sunday nite for a good half hour chatting and freezing, it was fun.
Anyway, gotta shoot to youth cafe and then tidy Dan and Danni's House before they get back from Oz. Ciao Bambino's!!

NOT a morning person...

Part of being a Nite Owl is NOT being a morning person in any lucrative sense of the term. One thing I share with my father is that Rose Braun has on (numerous) occasions I'm sure described us as "the most spectacularly un-morning person ever" how we both manage to be the most ever is irrellevant the point is that I did something rather silly ie. ask James to wake me up at 7 this morning so that I couldn't sleep in... He obliged my request and I have spent the last hour in the process of waking up, realising that there is actually nothing to do at this time of the day and wandered around in my half dead, still asleep, go back to bed you donkey state of being. Alice asked me if I was ill, much to her mothers amusement, and I said no, I'm just still asleep, Barbara said she didn't think mornings agreed with me... I'd agree with that...

Nite Owl

It's 2:30am, Sunday morning. What am I doing awake?? I'm writing my talk for church 2moro evening. I have a habit of leaving things to the last minute (tho I have made a commitment to myself never to write a talk or complete an equivalent task in the last few hours again) so Im writing my talk the nite before.
Seems to work ok for me because Im a nite owl and because I get some space and time at nite to focus, there's not much around to distract you from work at 2 in the morning other than bed.

This Week:
I signed up for My Space which is a network of teenagers (mostly) from around the world. It has two great benefits so far, 1- you can listen to music from heaps of bands who have a site and put some songs on the net to promote themselves (im a regular visitor to the Kooks My Space as of last Wednesday) 2- it's put me in touch with two awesome people who ive been missing, my little sister and my best mate from when I was about 5 Josh who moved back to America about 8 years ago.


Youthblog and Waiter are my regular reads at the mo.

I did my first nite as a Bouncer on friday at the Band with No Name gig. Spent most of the nite pressed between the stage and a mob of screaming teenage girls. Was especially cool coz a few of us had got to meet the band at dinner the nite before, cool by association points are going through the roof. I finished the nite by talking to about 10 kids for an hour or so about the talk Chip gave at the end of the gig and about life in Risborough. Was kind of affirming for my Youth Work ego that we had to be kicked out of the back room coz they were trying to close up and the kids just wanted to hang out some more. (probably more of a testament to how little there is to do in Risborough for these kids normally and how much they loved the gig and meeting some people who are actually interested in them)

Must mention Street Wars. These guys will be on the side bar as soon as I get a spare minute to play with the blog again (so some time in the next decade with any luck) but they run a 3 week long wide game. Me and Andy both were in the moment we heard those words. Basically you have to assassinate a target with a water pistol or bomb, if successful you get their target as your new mark. No more words necessary to tribute their genius... a moments silence and respect please.

Anyhow must get back to work... see you on the dark side!!