Casinos

I see this as a similar argument to that below of which I have also heard today where the church is objecting to a "super casino" and its damaging gambling additiveness. Reality is most of these well meaning Christians will not have done their homework. A representative from Great Yarmouth demonstrated this well by saying "We have dog racing, we have horse racing and we already have a small casino plus endless fruit machine halls, yet our gambling problem is no worse than anywhere else in the country".

I am not saying gambling is good. But its no worse than anything else that is addictive and gambling, in small pleasurable measure is probably fun. For example, I enjoy a drink - I know that if I have too much too long, I can be lead into a form of addiction. This could be because I am vunerable, desperate for a drink. However, like a lot of people, I simply enjoy a pleasant social night out trying different beers. Similarly I have been to the dog racing and have been to Newmarket racecourse on a special day. This was massive fun but I don't have a problem with gambling. Reality is if you have an addiction, you will find ways when desperate to source that addiction. Opening a supercasino is questionable probably but only from a point of whether its needed at all - answer is it probably isn't. But is it going to fuel a gambling culture - nope, I don't think so.

Christian / Catholic Adoption

I have noticed on a few peoples blogs, well some, that this has become a hot topic.
The subject really is centred around the Catholic stance that children should not be adopted into same sex marriages. I cannot help think this is not about whether a child is loved, nutured, brought up correct with good morals, but more the stance the church takes against homosexuality.

At a basic level I understand their view however I think there is very little measure in the arguments. The reality is that a same sex couple is (from a sin point of view) doing nothing different from a hetrosexual couple. The people in a hetrosexual couple still sin, and can be responsible for adopting and bringing up children. I can only then imagine that the church's objection is purely on sexuality and its consequences and mixed messages.

Christians have become more tolerant and accepting of homosexuality in general and thats great. To be clear I think the bible is clear that the act of homosexuality is wrong, but I do believe we live in a broken world where our human bodies are torn to shreds and messed around through sin over the years. I believe God's intended way was a man to be with a woman and not that of a man with man or woman with woman. However someone that is homosexual can still be loved by God, can still no Jesus and have a relationship with him and thats that. So thats my brief view on that.

I would rather a child was handed over to a loving set of people that had nothing more in their intentions but to raise a child lovingly, caringly and thoughtfully than be handed over to a care home / foster homes or in fact, a series of them. This argument has little to do with whats best for the child and more to do with Christians being pompus again and not voting for common sense.

Blackpool Contracts

Blackpool holds some very fond memories for me. I used to be taken there when I was small and to some degree is where I learned to grow up. What I mean is that I remember having to make scary decisions which in the end benefited me. For example I remember sh****g my pants (no not literally though) queueing to go up blackpool tower. I remember the same feeling going to the fairground there and queueing for the big rides. They were all very frightening to a small young lad but I took a chance and now love going up huge heights and going on fairground rides...

I tell this little tale really because I was reminded that Norwich travel a very long distance to play Blackpool in the next round of the fa cup and I am somewhat in fear that the trip here might not be as pleasant. Even bookmakers favour Blackpool to clinch the game which is saying something.

The other thing I am led to believe is the high amount of contracts out of date this summer at carrow road. This is a joke but only serves to highlight the amount of disatisfaction within carrow road camp at the moment.

I hope we win, it would certainly go along way to curbe the criticims.

Loans R Us

My home office is currently being redesigned and my dining room table needs clearing, so I have migrated onto the sofa which inevitably means that along with working I get a daily dose of daytime TV and Sky News....

But thats that, what this is about is to rant about un holy and unethical are the adverts for loans on TV. For example, one might say "Mrs Adams reduced her debt payments from £1000 to £175". Others include statements like "You can have a loan from anything from 5000 to 100,000" over 180 months.

Having had serious debt problems in the past, which are now sorted I despise companies like this. They claim to take away the "millstone" or pressure around people who are struggling to keep up payments on debts owed. Reality is that to get a reduction from £1000 to £175, the example is a loan of £20,000 spread over 180 months (thats 15 years). AND I would guess that should someone have the financial blessing to pay of the debt, that you will need to still pay the X amount of years interest left on the loan anyway, which could be thousands and thousands.
But the problem is not solved, the debt is simply transfered on new terms and at an extra cost.

I suspect these companies do nothing to ensure credit cards, store cards etc etc are all cancelled. With that in mind I suspect that a lot of people taking out these loans then clear their debts but reuse the credit card / store card when convenient, quickly racking up the same bills and same debts and placing themselves in a far worse position.

Banks are not void of blame here. Although they are not keepers of peoples money management they do little to prevent you getting more overdrawn, or charged excess fees for unauthorised overdrafts. Banks are not moral / ethical disciples by any means, but they should, in my opinion, be taking care of clients in a more accountable role.

I guess there is a lot of us that just want more than we can afford. If we could just learn a little delayed gratification when we want something, or realise we don't need certain things then this would go a long way to sorting out debt problems I am sure. Maybe the old fashioned word is that most of us (I include myself in many ways, not just finance) are GREEDY....... thoughts?

Ebay Issues

I have recently delved into buying stuff from Ebay and become somewhat dismayed by two reasons.

First is that Max lost his teddy and I thought, "I know - ebay". I found someone on there that had a store or something like that selling Ikea things, including the teddy. The feedback looked really good and though the price of the teddy was double that in ikea (£1.25 Ikea, £2.50 on the website plus £1.80 p/p = £4.30) I thought it was was a good idea.
I ordered it on the 16th and still have not received it. The seller has said they have sent it and are now claiming compensation from Royal Mail. They have said they have sent another one but am still waiting. They also asked me to return the first teddy if it arrives but my thinking is that this is the property of the Royal Mail as the seller would have received compensation. I suspect if I rang Royal Mail they would either say (a) keep it or (b) give it to charity / childrens home / childrens ward in hospital.
Therefore not impressed - I even got a sarcastic email telling me I should have responded to the email they sent me. Not good and will be giving negative feedback for this one.

The second is, again for Max, I was looking for a bridge for his wooden train set. This lead me to two other issues with Ebay. Postage costs and general pricing....
On postage costs, there seems to be this "Sellers Standard Rate". For a set of tracks (including a bridge) one seller wanted the postage costs to be £20. I have sent some heavy things in the past, recorded delivery, and its never been that much. I am fairly convinced after looking around this is a money making excersise done to "boost up" the cost of an item. What I mean is that actually postage costs half of the amount quoted (£20) making a profit of £10.

I didn't proceed with this but did find a bridge. The postage on this was £2.99 and the item sold for £7.50, total cost was £10.49. However, looking at a normal shop I found the following item
http://www.321toys.co.uk/twt_60-515_wooden_train_track_bridge_arches.htm. The cost of this is £2.79 plus £1.99 delivery, total £4.68, a saving of £5.81 on ebay.

So - ebay I am sure is good - but things like this don't really do it any favours.

Annie Get Your Gun

Hi

Just to let you know that I am performing in Annie Get Your Gun for Thorpe Players.
Thur 25, Friday 26th and Saturday 27th, Feb 2nd and 3rd all @ 7.30PM

More details found here: http://www.thorpe-players.fsnet.co.uk/

Toys

Its some silly hour in the morning and both kids are demanding me to play, one has left a parcel for me on her play mat and the other is asking me to call fireman sam as there is a crocodile in the computer.....

It made me think about what toys and stuff I played with when I was young. In recollection I think there where probably four main items that I recall from my pre-school / primary school age:

Marbles - marbles where massive and very expensive. I remember though my dad who until recently worked on ship repair bringing me back some large 5cm ball bearings. Now to those who played marbles (and it may be different across the country) these were called ironies. They didn't last very long, I managed to bounce one of the floor into the glass bottomed panel door..... ooops....

Star Wars - I think Star Wars originally came out in 1977 which would have, at best made me 2 1/2 to 3 years old. My time over the next ten years or so was consumed by star wars figures and space craft and I still love the films nowadays.....

Transformers - "Robots in disguise" - I loved these toys and was quite lucky in terms of I had so many. Transformers if you don't know are machines / objects that turn into robots. In my previous posting you would have seen an advert for the upcoming transformers film.

Other toys - other toys I remember is a telephone set. They came with about 50 feet of wire between the two and rang. A little square game with lights on - you could play various colored puzzles. BBC Micro B - this was great and launched my career. I basically played games on it with a mate for hours and hours. Its great nowadays as you can get an emulator for BBC (as well as spectrum / acomdore / etc) - my favourite game and I have this on my PC is Chuckie Egg and Fat Man Sam.

Titan

I have always been intrigued by Titanic and its story. There is something romantic but tragic about the story and shows humans at their best (achievement, drive) and worst (rush, cockyness, short sighted).

However I stumbled upon a story that has amazed me. I read it via a link on seehere.blogspot.com and linked to top 10 coincidences. Here it is and I have tried to remove paraphrasing as much as I can....

The story goes that a ship was built and was the greatest ship built by man and the largest on the ocean. Both internally and externally the ship was made to the highest luxury and highest standards with stewards cabins being refered to as first class in their own right.
The latest technology was used in the building of it including the addition of '..nineteen water-tight compartments.. With nine compartments flooded the ship would still float, and as no known incident of the sea could possibly fill this many. It was was considered practically unsinkable.

Because it was considered unsinkable she only carried the minimum number of lifeboats required by law - 24 - able to carry 500 people. This was not enough for the 2000 passengers on board. It hit an iceberg in the North Atlantic Ocean and sank. 2987 people died in the disaster.

If I asked you what ship that was you would be forgiven for naturally saying Titanic. Acutally the ship it refers to is called the Titan. It gets better - Titan is the ship described in a Novel called Futility by Morgan Robertson. Finally - to top it of - this Novel was written and published in 1898, a full 14 years before the Titanic disaster.

Just unbelievable, even more striking similarities can be found here:

http://www.historyonthenet.com/Titanic/futility.htm

New Photo for Profile

Just adding a new photo to update my profile.....

Music and Church

I was chatting with a friend the other day with regards to church and its attitude to music. The conversation went along the lines that the church my friend goes to advocates that as a christian you have no need to listen to secular music (secular music being things like Anastasia, Snow Patrol etc etc). People are encouraged at certain services to give up their secular CDs and they are then destroyed.

The same church insists that if your part of the leadership team that you sign a waiver that you will not drink alcohol at all (and its not methodism). This is because drinking is frowned upon within the church.

Frankly, to say I get dismayed with this attitude is somewhat short of the mark. It makes me angry. One of my vices, issues, things I struggle with is moderation. This is what should be preached to be fair. A moderation between good christian music / teaching and secular music should be healthy. Similarly with alcohol. Getting slappered every night is not good, and for some having a beer or two at most once every other day is too much - its all about moderation for yourself. Jesus drank wine and could, by his deeds, say he promoted it drinking wine at least.
I know some churches encourage a no drinking attitude and I can understand that to some degree, but it needs to be a self choice not forced by elders upon you. This should then be moderated through accountability especially if in a leadership place.
But to categorise non christian based music as "trash" and encourage them to ditch it and ignore it, is like saying ignore the world and what its involved with. I also believe music is about creativity and ultimatley creativity comes from God who created us in his image.

2007 Films

Being a film fan and not being able to get to the cinema recently I am now looking forward to finding many babysitters and seeing some of the films coming out this year as I think its going to be good. Looking forward I predict 2008 will be good personally, there will be Star Trek 11 (or is it twelve) and Indiana Jones 4.

Today I had the day off, so after my singing lesson me and em went bowling at the riverside. Since we needed to pick the kids up from Nursery and we didn't have time to see a film as well, we bought some popcorn and drinks and spent 3/4 of an hour slouched in the Odeon (nee UCI) watching the trailers on the big screen in there.

Here are a few chosen films that I believe are must see this year ( you may need quicktime at the latest version to play) :

Fantastic Four : Rise of the Silver Surfer
http://www.apple.com/trailers/fox/fantasticfourriseofthesilversurfer/large.html

Transformers
http://www.apple.com/trailers/dreamworks/transformers/transformers_large.html

Harry Potter
http://www.apple.com/trailers/wb/harrypotterandtheorderofthephoenix/large.html

Shrek the Third
http://www.apple.com/trailers/paramount/shrekthethird/t_large.html

Simpson : The Movie (In 2D)
http://www.apple.com/trailers/fox/thesimpsonsmovie/trailer2_large.html

Spiderman 3
http://www.apple.com/trailers/sony_pictures/spider-man_3/large.html

New Year, New Changes, New Challenges

For those that know me you will know that I have a close relationship with Ipswich (apart from the football, damn blues). For those that don't I basically moved from the North East in August in 1997 to Ipswich for a graduate job with British Telecom.

Through various means and ways I met Emma in Norwich in 1999 and eventually got married in 2001. We decided because (a) Norwich is nicer than Ipswich and (b) Emma needed to be here for her job I would move to Norwich and commute to Ipswich. This initially meant a drive from Dereham to the train station every day, then the train to Ipswich - and the return journey on the evening. 5 years ago though we moved to where we are now.

For the past few years most will know I have worked from home but commuted regularly when needed to Ipswich as that was where my team worked. However, through changes in BT which I won't go into here, the team I have worked in for 7 years is no more and I have a new role, in BT, working for another team. This team is based in Leeds, Sheffield and Newcastle and therefore it is unlikely I would be travelling back to Ipswich for anything much.

So today was quite moving, interesting, sad and exciting in one go. New year, new changes and new challenges lay before me and it should be interesting.

27 Seconds

27 seconds and toon are loosing 2 - 1 with another scholes goal..............

Barbie Dog Poo

There has been quite a lot of bad TV in my opinion this Christmas, but the worst, in my humble opinion was left to an advert for Barbie...

(Paul Scholes just equalised (12.05 am Tuesday)..... - see previous post....

Anyway, advert starts off ok, Barbie looks nice and she has a lovely little dog. Arrrr and bless, you can feed the dog treats. But as any good dog owner knows, dog treats makes prizes..... Poo prizes. Now I know there are a few people on this blog know my opinion about picking up dog poo, its should be banned, and dogs banned.....

So, anyway, you can feed the plastic barbie dog but you can also wag its tail where it then (pardon the french) shits the pelets out. In the advert there is a little pickup stick and a little bin to deposit the waste material. IS IT ME OR IS THIS JUST VILE.....

Will we see action man feeding his english bull terrier meat and seeing it come out the other end. No - so please, don't buy yourself or your children a pooing plastic poodle, frankly its probably shite.....

(apologies for the use of colorful metaphors, I am still irritated from my last post hehehe)

Gateway Vineyard and Newcastle Utd

Just to let you know that the "plant" / "sister church" of Norwich Vineyard is starting Sunday Morning services. Gateway vineyards website and more information can be found here and I wish Hannah and Craig all my best for the future and its success / impact.

Now why has that anything to do with Newcastle United you may ask. WELL let me moan at hell (at the website and not my friends).... I had spent all day today waiting to watch Newcastle Utd v Manchester Utd, even having to put up with two hours of Tourchwood on BBC3 with my wife. So I decided to surf and went to the gateway website. On the right hand side there is a fantastic little scroller telling news and sport. As I arrived I caught side of Man Utd scrolling up. Being a sport fan, I naturally glanced over not expecting to see the DAMN RESULT. I went mental. Waited patiently as a lamb to see the game, recorded from SKY today to find the score out. I believe it was 2 - 2. I am hoping I might have, possibly, mistakenly seen something else, but I am fairly sure I didn't. At this point laptop lid was slammed and a few colourful metaphors directed at my computer were used.

James Milner for Newcastle had scored a beauty of a goal as I type. And its not a bad game....

Champion

A Few things to post about....

I have had several things that I have wanted to post about....

1. Gateway Vineyard and Newcastle United....
2. Barbie Dog Poo
3. Best TV on over Christmas
4. Saddam Hussein
5. Weight - again
6. Hopes of 2007

I will start at the top of the list after posting this as its the most relevant and recent.....