Rearranging the deck chairs
15 May 2008 Jeff Gill
I moved things around on the edges of the ol’ blog today. The only real change of note is the feed of stuff I think is worth sharing (top right, just under Christine’s latest photo).
There are many people who write more important, more interesting things than I do. Thanks to Google I can share the best of it with you. It tends to be stuff focussed on children’s and youth ministry, some interesting theology, and mind expanding insights from the Archdruid and the Martial Artist. Feel free to subscribe or visit my ninja-themed* shared items page.
*Choice was limited; ‘ice cream’ and ‘sea’ didn’t appeal to me.
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tags: blogging
I visit for the sparkling prose
15 May 2008 Jeff Gill
Inspired by Keith and Larry’s post this morning I checked to see what searches were bringing people to D Train. The leading term for the last 30 days by a margin of five to one is…
It’s nice to know your audience.
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tags: silly
Insomnia
13 May 2008 Christine Gill
Sometimes, when I was 14, I would tell my mother that I was going to sleep at Shiree’s house that night. And Shiree would tell her mother that she was going to sleep at my house. And we would wander the streets of our little village for hours when everyone else was sleeping and sometimes we’d try and get some sleep in the stairway in the flats (but it smelled like pee in there) and sometimes we’d wrap ourselves in my coat (she didn’t have one) and try and get warm and to sleep in the doorway of the community centre. And finally, 5 am would come, and daylight, and we’d wander around the streets again, waiting for the milkman to come and leave us some milk (and sometimes, if we were lucky, yogurt!) on someone’s doorstep. And we’d drink our milk and continue to wander and wonder why we decided to stay out all night anyway, and let’s not do it again, is it?
But we did.
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tags: stories
DIY design 6 - toolbox: finding images
11 May 2008 Jeff Gill
Let’s review what we have covered so far in the DIY design series
- Start with the right attitudes
- The obligatory and boring post on hardware
- Page layout software
- Image editing software (Photoshop, etc.)
If you are a creative person you haven’t been sitting around twiddling your mouse waiting for me to write this post. You probably found where to get images already. Nevertheless, I shall continue writing.
Unless you are a World-Famous Graphic Designer your image budget is probably about £0. That’s okay. It is 2008; everything is free. Just search Google for whatever you want. Copy. Paste. Voila!
WRONG.
Those images took time, energy and creativity to create. If you use them without permission, you are stealing. Thou shalt not. Also, my favourite wife, Christine The Photographer, and I, the World-Famous Graphic Designer will be very cross with you.
Instead, visit stock.xchng. They have over of 360,000 image. All are free. Many are very good. There is very little snapshotty stuff. Be sure to give proper credit to the photographers where required.
If stock.xchng doesn’t have what you need, do a Creative Commons search of Flickr. I recommend searching tags only and sorting by most interesting.
Morgue File is also good.
And there is lots more here.
You will have projects where none of these sources has the image you need. I suggest you do one of the following:
- Draw or make or photograph the image yourself.
- Make friends with a photographer now.
- Think – there may be a different and possibly better way to tell your story.
If for some reason you do have an image budget find a good photographer and hire them. If that won’t work, visit Getty Images or Alamy.
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tags: design
If it was amateurcrastination I would not have to take such extreme measures
6 May 2008 Jeff Gill
The credit cards are sitting unused in a Very Inconvenient Place, but we are not rich yet and the overspend hasn’t been paid off.
I blame it on the lack of a proper budget.
I’d like to blame the missing budget on Alistair Darling, but it’s my fault. Cha-Ching’s sexy factor is not enough motivation for me to sit down and sort out the money once a week, so I have resorted to this: Tuesday evening is now the Sacred Hour of Finance.
That is why tonight, even though I’m tired, even though I have a very busy week, even though I have a logo presentation on Thursday that is no where near done, I am sitting down tonight, as I will every Tuesday night, to Manage My Money.
What’s that you say? Is it possible that my writing this blog entry is a delay tactic?
Impudence!
Cheek!
Maybe just a small delay tactic.
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tags: money
How I succeed at barbecues
5 May 2008 Jeff Gill
Yesterday, the Gill family was at the first i61 barbecue of 2008. i61 barbecues are famous for immense quantities of fun and food. Friends who accept the invitation to come usually find that before too long they are part of us and inviting their friends to barbecues.
People often ask me two questions at i61 barbecues. The first is: Did you make these chocolate chip cookies yourself? I reply, Yes, with an appropriate amount of honesty. The second question is: Can I have the recipe? Today, for the first time ever, the answer is, with a complete lack of modesty, Yes, you can have what is probably the best chocolate chip recipe in the world.
The ingredients are listed in a mix of American and British measurements, so you might need to use this.
Get a big bowl, and put this stuff in it:
- 300 g butter
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 cup dark brown sugar
- 2 eggs
Mix them all up. Don’t taste it yet; it’s too slimy and gloopy.
Now add this stuff:
- 1 1/2 cups plain white flour
- 1 1/2 cups wholemeal flour. This is important.
- 1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
- a bit of salt
Mix again. Tasting is good to do now.
Chop up 300 g of really good chocolate, 2/3 milk chocolate and 1/3 70% cocoa plain chocolate. If you are living in North America and you are tempted to use chocolate chips or anything that has Hershey’s written on the label, resist. Put the chocolate in the bowl and mix one last time.
Grab some dough, make a ball and put it on an ungreased baking sheet. Repeat about 35 times. Bake all those little balls for about 9 minutes at 190°C.
Eat all that you can within a couple hours. Store the leftovers in an airtight container.
Your results may vary.
You’re welcome.
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tags: church,
community,
food
Awfully proud of Ikea and Volvo too
3 May 2008 Jeff Gill
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tags: silly
Blogging will turn you into a self-righteous [insert naughty noun of your choice here]
2 May 2008 Jeff Gill
It’s easy. Just make sure your feed reader is stocked with a steady supply of bloggers you agree with. Make sure you cut out most of the non-Jesus blogs so that all your culture comes filtered and packaged like a carton of Tesco Value apple juice. When you are not online, try to be in your church office. It’s comfortable there. Read enough rants conversations about Mark Driscoll/John Piper/Bill Gothard/Some Other Reformed and/or Fundamentalist White Male to be at least strongly tempted to write something about him yourself – nevermind that he’s on a different continent and spends a big chunk of his life trying to connect people with Jesus. Once you’ve got all that in place, sit back and enjoy the slide into becoming exactly the same kind of [naughty noun] that only a few years ago made you think seriously about whether or not you actually could carry on being a Christian for much longer. Don’t think twice about any of this until your 15 year-old throws out a statement like, ‘You don’t like anything that’s different.’ Immediately deny it and try to ignore its truth by reminding yourself that you aren’t narrow like all those other people. You’re just right. You’re a pastor at the hottest church in [your region], for crying out loud. Carry on with some success until you start to prepare to talk to your teenagers about an area or two where they aren’t acting like Jesus. After you have been crushed by the weight of your hypocrisy, you might find repentance is the best tool for re-inflating your lungs.
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tags: blogging,
church,
humans
The good Samaritan goes home
20 April 2008 Jeff Gill
Inspired by this sketch I wrote a sketch which avoids the wife-hating and features a ninja:
Joanna: Where is he? He should have been home ages ago. She gasps. What if he was the one they attacked! No, they said he was a Jew. But Nathan looks like a Jew sometimes when the light is low…
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tags: drama,
silly,
stories
More good Samaritan
20 April 2008 Jeff Gill
Our news sheet was very personalised this week, thanks to Google Earth:
The pub where we meet is touching the y in the copyright notice. The town just of the right of the i61 is Conwy.
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tags: design,
i61