DON'T DOWNLOAD THIS SONG

BLOG RUNDOWN

It has been a while since I have posted links to any other blogs. Here are a few that I've been looking at lately.

Rajanr.com
A blog written by one of my flatmates.

Nicole's Xanga
A Xanga by one of my coworkers.
Any Happenings
A blog by one of my neighbors.

Whittakers in SingaporeA blog by another one of my co-workers.

On-line Diary
This guy goes to my church. His alias is a bit odd, but he told me it was given to him because of is DDR skills.

Scuddernet
This isn't a blog, but it is a website maintained by a friend that I've had since high school.

#1 KENT HOVEN SITE ON THE WEB

Kent Hovind, a.k.a. Dr. Dino, is now on trial for 58 counts of tax evasion, and people from all over the world are using Google to search for his name. My sitemeter tells me about the massive amount of hits this blog is getting because people are misspelling the name of the famous creation scientist and typing "Ken Hoven" or "Kent Hoven" instead of "Kent Hovind." (The reason for this is because I made a similar mistake some time back.) My page view count is now well over 10,000, so as a service I guess I'll use the occasion to give my adoring cyber constituents what they want.

Link
Workers Testify in Dr. Dino Trial
Evangelist's Trial Begins

MID AUTUMN FESTIVAL

Here are a few pictures of when our house had a Mid-Autumn Festival party.
Pointing at the moon

Holding sparklers on our roof.


A traditional Chinese lantern.

Thanks, Evon, for pointing me to the pictures!

AVOID WINDOWS VISTA

When I bought my laptop one year ago, I deliberately made sure that I had features that would probably be compatible with the newest Windows version, Vista.

However, now that an almost final copy of the software's end user licensing agreement is out, it appear that just by opening the software's packaging you are agreeing to all kinds of things no sane person would want. I found the article on BoingBoing.

Here's a link to a blog describing the software.
Link
Forbidding Vistas: Windows licensing disserves the user

PUNJABI SUIT

Last Christmas in India, I bought a punjabi suit in India at a store located near the place where Ghandi was assassinted. I've never had an appropriate time to wear it until tonight at the school's international night.

This punjabi suit was handmade in a work colony started by Ghandi. It was also very comfortable, probably the most comfortable thing in my wardrobe. However, I was told by my Indian friend A. that I should have ironed at starched it. I guess I don't treat my Indian clothes any differently than my normal clothes.

QUOTES OF THE DAY

I am cleaing up little scraps of paper that are between the pages of books and cluttered around my nightstand, mostly notes from sermons and things that I have written to myself.

I found three separate quotes that I find interesting.

"The moment you communicate rightness from a position of strength, you have ceased being Christian."
-L.T. Jeyachandran
International Baptist Church- Singapore
July 31, 2005


"Lysol Rebellion"
-Source Unknown (Found scratched on a brochure for Central Christian College of the Bible in Moberly, Missouri) In a twist of irony, I noticed that the mascot for this college is the minutemen, a soldier from the American Revolution.

"If we found out that the Christian life was not the only life that allowed people to enter into eternity with God, then what Christians do is foolish and pitiable."
-John Piper
Desiring God

MALAYSIA TREKKING PICTURES

PRAYER AND THE ART OF VOLKSWAGEN MAINTENANCE

I was fortunate enough to find this Donald Miller book at a Christian bookstore here in Singapore. I walked through the door and asked the quiet man behind the desk if he had any Donald Miller books. He quickly typed in the name. Two of the book that he had on the list were books that I had already read, but the third book, Prayer and the Art of Volkswagen Maintenance, was one that I had never even seen for sale before. I got pretty excited when I heard that they had it stock, but the bookstore clerk warned me that it might not be there anymore, because it had been stocked over two years ago and occasionally the computer was wrong.

Fortunately the book was there. It was a version of the book originally published by Marshall Pickering publishing house in Great Britain.

I've lately been mulling over some of Donald Miller's ideas, and when I flipped through the book this evening this passage really stood out.

It is Christianity, I believe, that truly faces the facts of reality. The Christian does not try to create his or her own reality. Our search for truth leads us to Christ. Faith costs something (as all things of worth do) and obedience is hard, but God has poured out his love and given us the grace that empowers us to obey.

Here's the rub. I believe everything I have just written. Living it out in the heat of every decision is a different matter.... ... ...

But if the Christian life is to be oriented in relationship, why is there so much talk of formula? Could it be that the reason we are more interested in formula than relationship is that we would like to deal with out need for religion without the complications of relationship?

Today this book is being republished in the United States under the title Through the Painted Deserts: Light, God, and Beauty on the Open Road.