Murdoch threatened to sue himself
Apparently Rupert Murdoch threatened to take legal action against Fox Entertainment for parodying Fox News' 'news crawl' (the ticker-tape) in an episode of The Simpsons last year. Fox Entertainment is no longer allowed to use the news crawl, in case viewers think it's real news.

'We'll call him/her ESPN.'
Yesteday I said something about the ridiculousness of the idea that my parents would've given me Booth for a first name. But apparently two American babies were named ESPN (pronounced 'Ess-pen') in 2000. Found that out from this article about parents brand-naming their kids, through Yak Sox's blog, which I found through GeoURL.

I have an exam for Mass Media. It's on Friday November 14 at 1:30. I have to get 23/30 to pass the unit. So I'll be aiming for 30/30. If it's something you do, please pray for me.

Tab now has a blog.

Jesup
Apparently that õ is my new name.
Yesterday, in Yolande's car, ont he way to Camp St, Maggie though my last name was Jesop. Flip thought it might have been because Jesop sounds a bit like Christop. But it doesn't much. Then it somehow became Jesup.

Harvey used to think my name was Chris Brooks. So he told Tab it was, and she thought it was too. He also used to call Trav Barnes Trav Jones.

At my second high school there were about a dozen guys called Chris, so we were all called by our last names. In year 11, this guy called Carl asked me, 'Hey Boothy, what's your last name?' he actually thought my first name was Booth. Like my parents said, 'What should we call him? How about Booth?'

PM John Howard answered my letter!

Dear Johnny,
What do you and Janette reckon about the new Salads Plus menu at McDonalds?
Christop

Cristop,
Personally, I've always been a Happy Meal Man. The toys in those things rule. But you know what sucks about McDonalds? The pickles in their burgers. Once I was going to try to pass legislation to make pickles in burgers illegal, but John Anderson didn't reckon the National Party voters would go for it. Losers.
But anyway, the new Salads Plus menu looks to me like they're trying to suck up to hippies. They even put a hippie on the ad. I reckon that McDonalds is a celebration of all things American, and hippies are always protesting about America, so they'll ruin the place. They should go and eat their lentils and tofu somewhere else. Like Cuba.

Lightning strikes twice
As well as being accused of anti-Semitic intentions, Mel Gibson's film The Passion of Christ has had problems in the form of lightning strikes. First assistant director Jan Michelini was hit while they were filming in Matera, Italy. Then he and James Caviezel (playing Jesus) were both struck while filming during a storm, just outside Rome.

Antidepressants: cure or cause?
Studies are being done to determine whether antidepressant drugs actually contribute to adolescent suicide.
At 16, when I started using Luvox (a.k.a. fluvoxomin, one of the drugs being tested), I actually got a lot worse. But I'd been told by my doctor that it would get worse before I got better - my body would need about a month to get used to the drug, also to build up enough of it to be effective. When I didn't feel any better after a month I pretty much stopped believing it would start to work, and that's when I was most in danger of suiciding. It took two months for the drug to start working properly. Although I made it in the long run, I'm not sure it was worth it.
I'm glad these tests are being done, as I think that a lot of doctors just give depressive teenagers drugs as a quick fix.

I'm considering living at one of the university's halls of residence next year. It's $87 (not much more than I'm paying now) a week to stay at Gillies St. It's $130 a week for a Camp St apartment, but the facilities there are a lot better, and everything's new.

miTunes
Students at MIT seem to have come up with an effective and legal alternative to file sharing.

I've just started been salvaging posts from my old old blog [WARNING: it's fallen to bits and has about 50 error messages] and adding them to this blog. January and February 2003're now complete, and I intend to archive the whole lot, back to April 2002. However, the time signatures of the retrived posts aren't accurate, and there're no hyperlinks within the posts yet.

Ramadan
As you may already know, Ramadan started today. Ramadan is the Islamic holy month, when most Muslims abstain from eating and drinking during daylight hours, as a means of humbling themsleves before God and concentrating on prayer.
Although I don't agree with a lot of Islamic beliefs, I've also decided to fast for Ramadan. I figure that there'll be a lot of Muslims praying for Christians and other non-Muslims, out of genuine concernfor us, and that if we [Christians] are genuinely concerned for non-Christians, then we should also be praying for them. I'll also be praying for a deeper understanding between Christians and Muslims, and an end to the War on/of Terror.

Went to Bendigo yesterday for Deeper (Baptist Union of Victoria's youth ministry department)'s rural vision training day.
During lunch we had an argument with Trav (he used to live in Bendigo) and this guy called Benno about which city out of Ballarat and Bendigo was the best, based on which has more of everything.
I was talking to Jo [on MSN] about it just before and I think she summed it up nicely:

Jo says:
Have you ever noticed that Bendigo is like the weird-backwards Shelbyville to Ballarat's Springfield?
Christop says:
lol
Christop says:
always competeing with us
Christop says:
and they stole our CEO

Our Bush capital
In case you didn't know, George Bush was in Canberra yesteday to tell Parliament what good friends our countries are and have a barbeque with some rich and famous Australians.
So why was Bush in Australia for the day? His 'sherriff', Prime Minister John Howard, needs a poularity boost before next year's federal election, and he figures that being associated with Bush will make him look powerful and important. Bush is here because he owes Howard a favour. The SAS (Australia's elite forces) are the best in the world, and Bush will want them on his side in the case of another war.
I don't think what the Greens did was un-called-for. And it would have been pretty hypocritical of them to shut up once Bush was actually within earshot.
However, Although I agree we need to look out for our citizens, I don't see why the Australians in Guantanamo Bay deserve to be treated any differently to the other prisoners.

Relevant

Yesterday I bought The Living End's new album, Modern Artillery. As yet I can't say if it's any good, having only listened to it four times, but it's a lot different, just like Roll On was a lot different to their self-titled album. There is punk, there is ska, there is rockabilly, there is ska, there is reggae, there is blues, there is country, there is even a bit of electronica. Haven't watched the DVD yet. More on this later...
The band are doing a show in Melbourne City, a show in Narre Warren and a show in Frankston. I'm considering going to all three.

Found out last night that James crashed (and wrote off) his car on the weekend. Person in front of him braked real suddenly so they wouldn't go through a yellow light. James had to go to hospital and get put ina neckbrace, but that didn't stop him getting some footage for a flim that should be on Pluck this evening.

Also, Wob crashed his car about three weeks ago. Here's a pic:

On Saturday afternoon we played british bulldog on the Mt Helen uni oval. Lots of fun.

We watched The Matrix Reloaded at the Bach Pad that night. Wasn't good, but not great. I thought it was really let down by the almost complete lack of characterisation and poor script. And the CGI in some of the fight scenes wasn't very convincing. But it was still good. However, I don't think I really understand it properly yet (people were getting up and moving around all through the film), so I'm going to have to see it at least once more. I have a feeling most of the people who rave about it (I'm not talking about you Nick) don't really understand it.

Robot Frank is back [again]! And Robot Ron is up for auction on eBay!

Church Fan
Apparently in the US they have a touring TV show called Football Town, in which football fans talk about how their participation is important to the game.
James from Knowtown explains an idea for a similar show, called Church Fan...

Geoff Howard, the [insane] Member of State Parliament for Ballarat East is asking former Ballarat-boy (another person who went to the school I work) Premier Steve Bracks for more daylight savings time.
He's proabbly just trying to draw attention to himself. So I think I'll do the same thing:
I think we should just extend daylight savings time in Ballarat, so that when people go in and out of the city they have to fix their watches. Or have two watches, one for Ballarat time and one for Outsider time. Also, this would mean that Ballarat would have to have its own television stations for at least part of the year.
But seriously, I think Ballarat would be about the only part of the state that would benefit that much from extended daylight savings time, because we don't get as much sunlight because of the mountains all around us.

The universities are striking today. Flip says there were people protesting at the Mt Helen campus this morning, but they seemed to be all lecturers. Ballarat students (at Mt Helen, at least) don't seem to care enough about anything to get active about it.

The quiet re-emergence of the church
The Age

Props to Darren.

We got eight non-regulars at the What Happens When You Die? event yesteday. But I think the most important things were that:

we were actually getting out there and talking to people about what they believe and what we believe.

practically everyone on campus had heard about it.

people were talking about it over meals and stuff.

lecturers were talking to their classes about it.

Don't panic
Production of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy film is finally underway!

Today at Mt Helen we did the Grim Reaper thing. I walked around the campus dressed as Death, while a few of the others followed me around handing out flyers. The good thing was that most of the people already knew what it was all about!
Also we found out who was tearing down the posters. Moose saw him doing it and asked him why. The guy said he was pulling them down because he'd already spent 20 minuites yesterday pulling them down, only to see we'd replaced them. He admitted we were persistent, muttered something about 'Jesus freaks' and left.

Live at the mall
I think it'd be great to buy a shop and renovate it into a decent living space.
Dues to businesses leaving, parts of Winter Park Mall, in Florida, have been converted into appartments. The complex is now called Winter Park Village.
St Petersburg Times

'If we knew who had done this, we could make them clean this mess up'
70 pairs of butter-filled shoes have been found in the mountains of Sweden. But the display isn't even original - just a copy of Yu Xiuzhen's 1996 installation Shoes with Butter.
Star Tribune

Nuns on the net
The Poor Clares are an Irish order of nuns who live on the remote Nuns' Island.
Sister Louis, abbess of Poor Clare Monastery, says, 'In a world overshadowed by consumerism, where despair has become prevalent, we want to offer this message of hope based on Gospel values.'
However, this is a bit hard when you can only speak to outsiders though a grilled window. They're attempting to get around this problem by launching a website.
Independent

Dubya thinks he has a blog
But, as Nick points out, 'It's just a published news feed.' Seems Bush is trying to appeal to more gullible bloggers as being ahh... blog-savvy?

Fight Club!


What movie Do you Belong in?(many different outcomes!)
brought to you by Quizilla

Okay, maybe I should see it then.

Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Memorial Kazoo Choir
Although I knew they'd been recording an album, I didn't know Nathan, Lisa and the others'd been on ABC radio. There's a short article on their radio appearence here, and you can also stream a few tunes.

sKilling Victoria?
A mine shaft collapsed in the grounds of Sebastopol College on Tuesday.
The Courier

Apparently the Australian guy who's been made a cardinal is from Ballarat, and went to the school where I work. Here's an article form The Courier.

Busted...
Back in Melbourne, my youngest bro', Justin, 's been in trouble at school, this week, for spray painting graffiti onto the roof of the gym*.
Dad wanted me to tell him why Justin would be doing that, figuring that since Justin skips class all the time and I used to to (though I avoided being caught) I would know. However, I wasn't into graffiti, probably because I wasn't allowed to have spray paint. Mum and Dad used to let Justin have spray paint for art.
I just threw chairs at people. Maybe that was because Mum and Dad let me have chairs. All their fault!

*That's a pretty weird place to do graffiti isn't it? Hardly anyone would see it unless they went over in a helicopter.

Death
I might have mentioned this on my blog last term, I dunno, but for the last three months at Mt Helen (and also a bit at Camp St) Students for Christ, we've been doing a survey on different students' spiritual beliefs. The survey's shown that most of the students are pretty unsure about what happens after death.
So on Wednesday, we've got this guy called Nigel Lane (from YouthworkerCoach) to come up from Geelong and talk about what happens after death, accoding to the Bible.
To generate curiosity, we put up 55 posters saying stuff like:

What's 100% certain?
1:1 people die.

What if...
you were killed in a traffic accident?

What if...
your parents died?

What if...
you found out you had cancer?

Can you escape death?

Anyway, by the end of the day nearly all of them had been pulled down, which is good. It means people're actually taking notice of them.
Also, this guy called Az started putting up SFA (Students for Az) reactional posters saying things like:

What if...
a pop star found out she had cancer?

What if...
your parents pretended to be cool but they weren't really?

What if...
there was a really good TV show on at the same time as church?

For the last one I thought of writing, 'There's no such thing as a good TV show,' underneath, but there are a few good TV shows, so instead I wrote, 'Kill your TV!'
We put up another 55 posters, and most of them are gone to now. Posters explaing what it's all about go up on Monday.
On Tuesday I get to walk around Mt Helen campus dressed as Death, while Moose follows me around handing out flyers. Should be fun.

Porn
After a conversation I had earlier today, I think porn's something Christains need to discuss more. The issue needs to be confronted and dealt with. This is clear from the way everyone goes all quiet and nervous whenever the topic does come up in a converastion or a sermon.
You might be surprised by this, and then again you might not, but I used to have a porn addiction. I kind of 'caught' it off one of my friends in year 12, and it wasn't easy getting over, particularly since I was to worried about what people would think of me if I admitted to it. And I was only able to beat it with God's help.

Herald Sun article on The Living End. It's not real good though. Writer thinks they're punk rockers.

The dog did it
A guy in Yucatan says his dog shot him in the back.

Same shoes for 60 years
A guy in Serbia wants his shoes put in a museum because he's been wearing them sixty years. During the Second World War he buried them so the Germans would find them.

Mozart makes more money
Recent studies show classical music makes people spend more at restaurants. Pop makes them spend less.

All from Ananova.

'Every artist is a cannibal'
- 'The Fly', Achtung Baby, U2

Why have Limp Bizkit appropriated the NBA logo when it's already been appropriated by MxPx?

Christop in TV-land
I found out yesterday afternoon, in Mass Media that I'd been on television. Monday last week I was on WIN news, walking past a real estate office in Lydiard St. Funnily enough, it was Booth and Lee. (My last name is Booth in case you didn't know that. I know that because it says so down at the bottom of the page.)

Oh yes. I also found out yesterday in Mas Media that I can still probably pass it. If I get 23 out of 30 on the exam. I probably can, because last semester, in Issues with in TV I didn't pass either of the essays, but managed to pass the unit by doing really well on the exam.

What the?!
Schwarzenegger is governor of California?

The Living End are on Rove tonight.

On Saturday we got four people from Warrnambool who were interested in coming on mission. Looks like we'll have about 30 team members this year. I was thinking we'd get more, but it'll still be quite a bit bigger than the last two teams.
I almost didn't make it to Warrnambool because the train line between Ringwood and Box Hill was closed, and I had to make that part of the trip to Spencer Street Station by bus, a good deal slower. Got to Spencer street two minutes before the Warrnambool train left.

Relevant

Blogger stuffed up. Ignore this post.

To use Nick's word, here's a blat:

Tim says:
I've been really busy
Christop says:
i'm busy eating m&ms
Christop says:
which are supposed
to be for on the train
Christop says:
but i'll be asleep on the train
Tim says:
lol, so you might as well eat them now
Christop says:
i think
Christop says:
yes
Christop says:
when i'm supposed to be sleeping
Tim says:
yup, you're "switchin' it up" a bit

Oh, and the reason I moved my blog is that the anonymnous guy who's been commenting lately is a guy I was friends with in high school. We are no longer freinds, which is apparently because he hates my guts and wants me to die, because apparently I'm to confident, think everyone likes me and I force my opinions on other people. However, he still tries to get back into my life every now and then by snooping around, harrassing me and my friends, et cetera. Basically he has way to much time on his hands. But hopefully I don't have to worry about him anymore.

Mmm... I've hardly posted in over a week. Here's what's been going on:

On Saturday morning I played chess with Greg, on the way up to Warranambool SUFM (Scripture Union Family Mission) team meeting in Ballarat with Andrea and Geoff. We got about twenty people at that meeting, so it looks like we'll have a pretty big team this year. Turns out I'm going to be in charge of the teenagers group, with Glenn, Lauren and Jane.

On Sunday morning, Dave and the others from Youth With A Mission came up to Ballarat visit our church. They haven't been back from Nepal and India very long, and it was great to hear about their experiences over there. Andrew reckons I should do a DTS (Discipleship Training School) next year. I don't know ... who does?

After lunch on Monday I caught the train back to Melbourne.

On Tuesday James was on Channel 31.

On Tuesday night, when I had planned to stay up until 6am finishing my Mass Media assignment, which I couldn't 'hand in' after Wednesday, I fell asleep a bit before midnight.
On Wednesday I woke up at 7am and realised I had slept through Free Internet Time and therefore couldn't finish my assignment or e-mail it to my tutor. Thus, I would fail the unit, and the uni would want to 'talk about my options.'
So I called Nadine and asked if I could use the Internet at her parents' place, because they're in South Africa at the moment, and she's housesitting. Actually, she was housesitting at that exact time, she was having a holiday in Wonthaggi. But she told me where the spare key was.
So I walked from my parents' place in Ferntree Gully to Nadine's parents' place in Belgrave. Took about two hours.
By 11:45pm the assignment was about half done. So I sent what I had done to my tutor.
I probably won't have passed the assignment, but hopefully I'll have gotten enough marks to pass on the exam, like I did in Issues in TV last semester.
I didn't really want to start the walk back at midnight, so I fell asleep on the couch and walked back to Ferntree Gully again Thursday morning.

Spent most of Thursday working on a dry pastel piece called Jonah, about the vine. It's from the last chapter of Jonah.

At about 4pm Mum, Dad, Adam and Justin got back from the Gold Coast.

Tonight [last night] I got Jonah finished, and Dad brought the 'new' car home. It's a '79 Mazda, and he got it free from Uncle Robert, who got it free from Auntie Elsie. It's a pretty good car. So now my parents have two cars. Except Doomie seems to think it's his.

Nadine came over for about half an hour.

James came over to shoot a sequence for a short film he's working on at the moment, about a serial killer. I got strangled (but not really) which meant I got to cough up fake blood. Photos soon, hopefully.
Tim thinks I should've gone outside with fake blood all over me and seen how people reacted. But I think they would've reacted by not being around because it was about 11pm and this is suburbia.

Tomorrow morning This morning I'm catching the train to Warrnambool. It's a four hour, twenty minute trip. I'm going there 'cause we're running an information day to try and get people to come on Warranambool SUFM. In the thirty-or-something years SUFM has been running there, there's never been anyone on team actually from Warrnambool, so we decided to do something about it.
And tommo tonight I'm going back to Ballarat with Trav.

I taste like Peanut Butter. I am one of the most blendable flavours; I go with sweet, I go with sour, I go with bland, I go with anything. I am practical and good company, but have something of a tendency to hang around when I'm not wanted, unaware that my presence is not welcome. What Flavour Are You?