Around about 8:30 tonight, shortly after sunset, a sudden gust of wind beat upon my house. Luckily it has a solid foundation - not on sand, and also is constructed from Big Bad Wolf-proof brick. It was the expected cool change. I stepped outside to experience the event. Above me, Interestingly architechtural mid level clouds benignly covered 90% of the sky. They were just hanging about, not doing much except being a backdrop to a (what's the collective term for a loose association of small scudding clouds?), well, loose collection of low scudding clouds that seemed very low, and also moving very quickly. They appeared to be following Mountain highway, heading east, but then seemed to take a left turn at Bayswater road, heading north east. Never seen this before. I got on my bike and rode around the corner to where I could get a better view. As I rule I am not a sky-watching cloud-spotter, but there are times when it can be better than whats on tv. And less predictable.
Once I caught a whiff of the ocean, which is quite impressive as my nearest beach is 30km or so sth west. A few spots of rain started to fall, so I headed home before Hughie (he's the angel in charge of rain, apparently) sent it down by the bucket full. As I arrived home, the sky was rumbling and flashing ominously. It wasn't really much of a storm here, but trees have reportedly been blown over here and there. And the temperature went from 29 to 17C in quick time. Right now it's raining, and there is some thunder, but its nothing to write home about. (although people will blog on about alsorts of stuff, hey?)
Anyway, I was thinking about something I read last night in the Jeff Lucas book How not to Pray. He was talking about the concept (as set to music by ms Midler) that God is watching us 'from a distance'. In the Lord's Prayer, it starts with 'Our Father, who art in Heaven...' which implies a place somewhere out in the distance. Lucas points out that 'Heaven' would be better translated 'Heavens' which would include the sky, as well as the air around us that we breathe (cue: all that I need is the air that I breathe...). God is as close as that! Closer! Where can we go to escape God? Nowhere! Wherever you are, there He is! Psalm 139: 7-12
And how often does God work through the wind? Look at the Valley of dry bones in Ezekiel 37:9,10 (cue: dem bones, dem bones, dem dry bones..), or the movement of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost in Acts 2:1-4. But the wind isn't always of God, see 1 Kings 19: 11-13 .

You Are Pumpkin Pie

You're the perfect combo of uniqueness and quality Those who like you are looking for something (someone!) special

What Kind of Pie Are You?

PUMPKIN PIE??!? That's just wierd, man! It must be an Amerikaner thing. The Scots have haggis and the Amerikans have many foods with peanut butter in them, and pies made of pumpkin! I always thought pumpkin was a vegetable. The rule is if you can have it with gravy, it's a vegie, if you can have it with cream, it's a fruit. This is messing with my head! I get the impression that this is some sort of dessert pie, not the the main meal, like shepherd's pie, or an Australian footy tradition, the meat pie. However, as for uniqueness and quality, yeah, I guess I (modestly) qualify...

My diametrically opposed (but only in a geographic sense) friend Lynette has recently begun blogging. Already she has written more in the last two weeks that i have all year. I must not allow this imbalance to continue! (ha, you know me too well, it probably will...). Anyway, on those rare occassions when i don't have anything new here, feel free to check out her blog. So, the sun now rises over St Johns Newfoundland, after having set here over two hours ago; Tuesday 6th Dec draws to a close for me, but it only just begins for her. For every end of day, a new day dawns elsewhere. Will tomorrow bring a new blog entry from me? Or will i leave it to the Lynettes of this world to spread a little wisdom and wit to a weary wanderer...

Way back in the early part of the year, we did the '40 days of purpose' series at my church. We spent a few weeks looking at what it was to have a 'purpose driven Life' and looked at biblical principals and such. Interesting. I was asked to contribute 'spots' in the service each week to illustrate that week's theme. one week, when the theme was to do with the church being a community, a real family. It's one thing the church offers to the lonely of the world. True friendship. Or we should!!! Anyhoo, I whipped up an animation in less than a week in my after-work hours when I wasn't off playing volleyball or cricket or such like. It seemed well received, so I've put it on my animation site. http://www.freewebs.com/kinetico/
Check it out. The voice (and beard) of the preacher are from Danny Parkinson (our preacher), and funny voices by me...
Anyway, the purpose of life is to discover what will make God smile at you and to do that.

Incredible! No sooner than I post my previous blog but I get an almost instantaneous comment reply! Started off as from my friend Anonymous, but they sign there name 'Tiffany Burrel' at the end. She seems to think there is money to be made in blogging. She even provided a link to a free book. I sense Irony...

wow! i feel there are people out there who find this page! i got 4 (four!!) comments to my previous post! But guys, if you do comment, don't be quite soooooo generic in your comments or i might think that you hadn't even glanced at the contents, and where just doing it to get your personal site visited. That would be cynical of me to think this way, I refuse to. There is quite enough professional cynicism in the world at the moment without me trying to add my amatuer attempts! Constructive comment I don't mind, but I'm not sure if the guy who wrote the following even glanced at all at what I blogged...

'Awesome Site

I like your blog. It really cuts straight to the point.
Great people in here. You guys have helped me greatly. I can't thankyou enough.

Come visit my site. It deals with....'

I mean, if anything I tend not to 'cut to the point' (except while playing cricket, except even then I cut backward of point...), preferring to beat around the bush a bit. And the 'you guys..' is just me, moi, ich... If I have wronged you, 'Anonymous' or, the other guy, co-incidentally call 'Anonymous', who also is apparantly into this sort of game, please forgive me.
Actually i should thank you.
I probably don't rant enough!

ahem, let's try to give you something you can actually click on for your convenience and netsurfing pleasure ;-)
Animation

For the loyal reader who has been watching this space for the last week or so, here, as promised, is the Chicken Little movie. Don't expect it to be of the same sort of quality as the Disney effort, but then, I don't have millions of dollars and man-hours to throw at this... But be that as it may, at a saving of several million dollars, heeeeeeeeeeeres Chicken Little!
http://www.freewebs.com/kinetico/ Just click on the Chicken Little link and that should take you to the Chicken Little movie... oh, er, no sound either, but that is to make it a totally interactive experience. Feel free to vocalise your own sound effects, it will add to the whole effect!

introducing CHICKEN LITTLE!
Chicken Little is the creation of Ant, a work colleague of mine, and is a fiesty little character who comes out on top against all odds. (remember when 'fiesty' was the adjective of the month? Any actress of the late 90's who showed any sign of standing up for herself was descibed as 'fiesty'. Never really heard the word before then, and haven't heard it much lately... Anyway, getting off topic!) Ant had Chicken Little battling the evil Skeletor after Skeletor had defeated his arch-rival Cartlidge Man. The Chicken nonchalantly won with nary a ruffled feather. Another villian to suffer the wrath of Chicken Little was the deranged genius Kalculator (pronounced kal-COOL-a-tore). Why are there so many comic bad-guys with the suffix 'tor' in there names? Why is that? The only tor I have come across in real life is Brandenburgertor, which is not so much an evil entity but a symbolic piece of architecture in Berlin!
But be that as it may...
The real purpose of this post is this. A little while ago I visited my local cinema. In the foyer was a board advertising a forthcoming cinematic event courtesy of our very good friends at the Evil Empire of Disney. That movie was the Disney interpretation of the Chicken Little saga. Ant knew nothing of this! Ant's little character, his pride and joy, was being turned by this media Conglomerate into a paranoid piece of poultry... It however is not the first time that Ant's idea has been ripped off. Right here on the internet is Ugly Mean Chickie, much more in caharacter like our own Chicken Little, though certainly a more alcoholic, violent cousin. Some time ago I threw together a Flash animation of Chicken Little. The time could not be riper for unleashing this onto the net. Watch this space...

yeah, I know... I've been a baaaaaaaaaaad blogger. I have these little spurts of creativity, or blog activity, or little insights that I decide to inflict on the world at large, or at least those silly enough to find themselves here. But they are rare and widely spaced. This, I know, frustrates my regular reader... I will try to make amends. I have some new thoughts, both of which I will try to discuss here in the coming days. more soon, more later...

actually THIS is the movie poster of which I speak... 

Movie poster that explores the myth that Elephants are afraid of mice...  

Lollipop showing his snowboarding prowess. Do cats snowboard? hmmm. guess they do now! Picture from the Winter party room. 

its all up in the air, but i have been neglecting my blogging to daub paint on walls in the far off nether regions of Narre Warren 

snow bunny at lollipop's winter wonderland 

lollipop the cat, mascot of Lollipops play centre, enjoying a day at the beach... 

surfie elephant. One of the characters I have painted on the walls of party rooms at "Lollipop's" indoor play centre at Narre Warren