Christianity | inner.geek

A Rainy Day’s Entertainment

How do you stay entertained when you are snowed in?

Well if it was snowing, I sure wouldn’t be inside; Snow in Wellington? EPIC. I’d be out there enjoying it!

If it snowed so hard I couldn’t leave the house? Alright.

1. Video Games
I’d be all up playing any combination of Minecraft, DoomRL, Weird Worlds, Team Fortress 2, or Spelunky, or whatever! If my girl was with me, I’d probably Wii Bowl for a while.

2. Catch up on my bible reading
I’ll be honest, I’m currently more than a few days behind on Arise’s One Year Bible plan (M’Cheyne’s Classic). I probably should be reading up now as is.

Bible reading is pretty interesting when you have it in context, so I like to use a commentary like the ESV Study Bible. The Bible’s books, especially the New Testament was originally written by their authors with specific audiences in mind, which usually aren’t explictly me. For example, Paul’s letters were to fledgling churches around the Mediterranean: I think context helps a lot for understanding what’s actually going on and why the figures in the Bible wrote what they did. The ESV Study Bible has lots of great insight in its commentary.

3. Internet
I’d be online consuming past issues of every video on The Escapist, especially the Loading Ready Run stuff, catching up on my RSS feeds (though I do have that almost down to a science).

4. Read or listen to a book or podcast
I love to read, or listen to, science fiction. It gives me a chance to see inside other (fictitious) people’s lives and how they would react to crazy circumstances. Science fiction isn’t so much about the explaination about how futuristic technology might work, but rather how we as human beings might react to it, and how we as a race might change because of it.

What would you do on a snow-day?

January 27, 2011

What’s 2011 got in store for me?

I’m taking what might look like some big risks this year. I’m giving up my well-paid full-time work for an internship at my church in Wellington and a part-time job at a Wellington PHP and ActionScript house.

Part of the internship at Arise will be doing a Local Church Certificate qualification. It’s not much, or probably even all that difficult at NZQA Level 4, but means I’m a student again. Probably a financially-challenged student. The rest of the time I’ll be helping out where my skills and time lead me. Most likely helping with the website and creative side of things, and with anything else that I can help out with.

Slicing my work-time in half when I’m (almost) 30 isn’t something I intend to take lightly. I probably wouldn’t have applied for the internship if my buddy Dan didn’t offer me part-time work at Instinct working on ActionScript and PHP projects.

I’m pretty excited though. I’m gonna be put through this tough time to come out at the other end a different person. Beyond what I’ve said above, I’ve got very little more idea of what will go on. But I say to all of it:

Come at me, Bro!

😉

January 25, 2011

Blogging Christianity Learning Work Comments are closed Brett

ESV Daily Verse Screensaver for Mac OS X

So I’ve been mucking around with Quartz Composer for Mac OS X recently, and a few nights ago, inspiration struck. So I spent my evening making up this: ESV Daily Verse Screensaver. I am learning a lot about Quartz just making these kinds of things, and the fact that this one goes online to get stuff from the ESV’s RSS feeds is even neater. Maybe someone out there will enjoy this one 😀

I’m working on a ‘star wars’ type screensaver with the same content right now, but am having issues with pixelisation of the text when I get it at the right angle and perspective, i.e., freakishly close up.

As Quartz Compositions tend to be user-editable, I’ve decided to release all of mine under a Creative Commons Attribution licence.

August 13, 2006

Christianity Coding Creative Commons Creativity Software 6 comments Brett

Do the Famine!

The 40 Hour Famine is on this weekend, so I’m gonna join with my youth group and do the whole 40 hours without food and without technology. No eating, internet, phone, ipod, or psp. I might watch a movie, or read a book or three. And I might take some photos with my digital camera for proof.

And hey, you can help! I need people to sponsor me to make it all worthwhile. This year’s famine is about stopping child labour. For every $300 raised through the famine, World Vision will help a family in India to start a business so they can support themselves without needing their children to work in bonded labour.

And I’ve discovered that you can even sponsor me online! World Vision have set up a system that lets Faminers register their famine books online and get people to sponsor them online! It’s pretty neat.

So you can go pledge your sponsorship of me here:

https://secure.famine.org.nz/glutnix/

Even if you only give NZD$2, that little part will go towards helping children from more than twelve countries worldwide. $10 will provide a family of five with a health checkup and basic medical supplies in India. $150 will provide seeds for one Tanzania primary school so they can provide daily meals for their students for a year!

It all adds up! Sponsor me and help change the world!

March 13, 2006

Christianity Events Life New Zealand Outside 1 comment Brett

Host of the Heart

After hearing the sermon at my church on Sunday, I was inspired to write this little devotion in time for my bible study group this week. Some of the members of our group asked if I’d give them a copy, so here it is. I hope you like it, even if you’re not a christian.

Imagine your heart as a room, a room you have prepared for God to live. This room is perfect in every way — clean, spick and span.

You live there too. It’s your heart, and you and God share it.

It didn’t used to be clean. It was once like a dirty old store room, full of dust and dirt and some big old cardboard boxes you didn’t really want to open.

But here you are, in this room with God, sharing the space. You are both having a good time.

God decides to take a look around. He sees a white cloth that seems to hiding something. He takes the cloth off gently, and reveals the boxes, still crusted up with the thick grey dust of years gone by. He also sees some brand new boxes, still kind of shiny.

You’d forgotten you had put the boxes there. Just remembering that they are still there after all this time is painful.

You know what is in the boxes. He knows what is in the boxes. You know you should have gotten rid of the boxes, but you can’t put the boxes anywhere else — no-one will take them.

Except Jesus.

Jesus pops in and spies the boxes. Wanting to get the boxes out of your life, you run over and grab a box, giving it to Jesus. He gladly takes it, and starts prying apart the flaps on the top of the box. Afraid, you quickly hit the flaps out of his hand and hold the box shut.

“I know it’s painful to remember what you’ve done, but if you want to stop doing it, you’ll need to understand the reasons behind why you continue to do what you do.”

You know he’s right. The box is there, and you know he’s here to help. Together, you open the box and begin unpacking it, sorting through its contents.

It really hurts. Countless times during the time that passes you are brought to tears. And the more you dig through the box, the more things you find. The box is deeper than it looks.

After a long time, you find a long forgotten memory. It hurts so much to recall it. You want to just close the lid and forget it ever happened.

But Jesus takes it in his hands, and shows you that he was there.

You struggle to take it in. Do you believe it? He was there. In one of the most painful memories of your life. It’s unbelievable. But it’s true. He was always there. He is always there.

. . .

There’s a lot more boxes in the corner, and the memories of what lies within start flying around your head. Dealing with those boxes is gonna take some time. What will you do with the boxes?