Superspy Scuffle: the ongoing debate

Gordon started it by asking “who’s the hardest? Ethan Hunt? (The new) James Bond? Jack Bauer? Austin Powers?”

The original question prompted 14 comments coming firmly to the conclusion that Jack Bauer is the hardest! My own contribution was to cull these facts about Jack from the internet. This debate was resurrected recently when the world got to see the new James Bond. I said “I still think Jack Bauer is better than James Bond, but only because it will take a long time to justify Roger Moore as a credible hard man”

Inexplicably Gordon seems to be undecided again after seeing Casino Royale!! He wrote “the time has again come for you to decide who is the hardest: Bauer (weak American coffee man) or Bond (Scottish educated on-the-spot-cocktail-maker-upper).”

However, as unofficial supplier of 24 to the Cheung’s, and with the immanent beginning of Day6 on Sky One in January, here for me is the ultimate proof that Jack Bauer is harder than James Bond…

Torture:
The most controversial scene from Casino Royale is the torture scene, which is worse in the book from what I can remember. There is no doubt it takes a special kind of fictional super spy to take that kind of treatment, and many men will no longer use wicker chairs with any degree of comfort.

However, I’ve just seen the 10 min Prequel to Day6 !!! Day6 picks up 7 months after Day5 where it appears Jack has been under constant torture by the Chinese – 7 months of torture and he hasn’t broken – Bond’s torture only went on for a few minutes. The incident shown in the prequel (and I can’t give too much away) shows a compltely different level (and type) of torture that Jack is exposed to. And let’s not forget that back at the end of Day4 Jack Bauer died and was resurrected to get away from the Chinese, lived in exile and lost all contact with all friends and family…

Jack Bauer is the ultimate hard man super spy and could even wear a Rangers top in the Celtic end of an Old Firm Match and survive!

Day6 starts some time in January and I can’t wait!!

24Day6: the trailer

YouTube Trailer for Day6 of 24 [ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvOG6h1UaH8 ]

Also, a full 10 min Day6 Prequel available from Sky One here – I can’t get a direct link to it but easy enough to follow the links…

Christmas Eve ‘Service’

A lovely watchnight service to see in Christmas day.  As ever there was a strange mix of visitors and guests (I’m making the distinction between people with St Silas regulars and those with little or no regular connection). Christian Okake spoke and then straight after the service went on to serve by helping Alison change a flat tyre.  OK, so I say ‘helping’ Alison change the tyre, but with three ‘wise men’ from the church around there wasn’t much they would let her do.  In addition to this there was soon an audience of four to cheer on / supervise and then I came along and did the only thing left to do – take photos. And so begins Christmas day with a good deed among the fellowship of St Silas.

How to: Have a Happy Christmas…

I often wish I could see the bright side first, see the positive and not just everything that can and therefore probably will go wrong.  I wish I could just BE happier.  But it doesn’t work that way.

Anyway, in case anyone else doesn’t find Christmas very Happy, I thought I would share this post on the Embody blog titled “How to: have a Happy Christmas“

It has both useful and practical, it has things to say, do and contemplate over the next few days and can’t do any harm.  Oh well.

Movie: DeJa Vu

Interesting thriller based around time travel-ish technology.  Some new technology lets people view four and a bit days into the past, within a given area of where the equipment is.  So taking it to the scene of a crime (in this case a terrorist strike killing over 500 people) means that investigators can use this to view the crime. But can they change the past?

Denzel Washington is a great lead as the investigator pulled into all this. The Cinematography is outstanding, particularly striking during the bomb scene and when zooming around ‘in the past’. Set in New Orleans in present time the film compares the terrorist attack that takes place to the natural disaster of Hurricane Katrina as well as issues of ‘cause and effect’, ‘can we change the past’, ‘what difference do small decisions make to long term outcomes’, etc.

A good thriller, which doesn’t unfold as expected. I am glad that I didn’t recognise the baddy in this film as the actor who played Jesus in The Passion of the Christ.

Quotes:
Denny: You know you don’t have to do this.
Doug Carlin: What if I already have?

Moby

Moby’s Christmas thoughts …

Car Crash 5 – the end

10 Nov – Car Crash

11 Nov – Car Crash 2 – forgiveness

14 Nov – Car Crash 3 – The Phone Calls

16 Nov – Car Crash 4 – Written Off

And so it ends… on Monday 18^th Dec the insurance company had paid up and came to collect the hire car (well sort of, the pick up was changed to the next day, and as I couldn’t be around the lovely Lou and Colin at Biblocafe stepped in and held the car keys for me so that the collection could take place).

I began this saga saying “I don’t have much luck with cars”. I don’t have much luck in general which kind of makes me thing about ‘luck’ itself and should Christians believe in ‘luck’. However, as I was pondering this I got a phone call from Andy – the mechanic I’ve been using for years… it went something like:

Andy: Are you still looking for a car
Me: yes
Andy: This one has come in, same as you had before, one year newer at 2002, ehh it’s racing green, same engine size, 30000 miles, they are looking for £3000
Me: ehhh [ Think Think – I should ask some sensible vehicle related question ]… does it have a sun roof?
Andy: I don’t think so, around 2002 they started putting in AC instead of sunroofs
Me: [Think Think – Ohhh AC = Air conditioning ] great that’s fine, I never really used the sunroof anyway. OK, that all sounds good I’ll go for it.

So, it looks like I will only have ended up off the road for a week or so and will have got a newer, lower milage car for a few hundred quid. Well, a few hundred quid, lot of phone calls, forms, lifts, time off work, parking permits, road tax, parking permits (again), insurance again and another parking permit still to come! – what are the chances of all that before Christmas!

 

One thing I will state publicly Elephant.co.uk have been excellent. Have dealt with every enquiry quickly, called back promptly if needed, paid up, helped out and given me a good price on my new insurance. Other than the slightly crap TV adverts Elephant have been great!

As you can probably tell from the above (and from the fact that I’m buying a second Rover) I am not a petrol head and only watch Top Gear for the entertainment not to find out anything about cars.

Carols by Candlelight (the aftermath)

I am my own worst critic – well, actually that doesn’t make sense, I am actually a very good critic of my own work. The only thing I can focus on after big events (like the Carol Service) is the things that went wrong. So, I’ve left it a couple of days to get some perspective on this and to see what sort of feedback we can get.

As usual, (thankfully) lots of people have said that they liked the service, but in particular a lot of folk seem to be using the same phrase which I don’t remember people saying before – “The best Carol service yet”. Now that is something to live up to.Certainly several things worked really well this year. The combination of band & singers, sometimes being joined by choir was nice. The mix of funny, yet meaningful dramas very well delivered and the interaction of technology with that live drama… I liked what I saw of the lighting effects on the odd occasion that I looked up. I also thought that David pitched his talk at just the right level for that kind of service.

Again, as I said before the event, the important things are:“will people bring friends?” well the numbers on the doors were around 340 I think, although I forgot to find out if this includes the team who were already in the building or not. Either way this is more than the average service, so obviously there must have been guests. According to Nick’s blog, there were at least 12 guests and I’m sure there were more than that. “Will people from the community come?” really hard to know. I think only time will tell and in years to come I look forward to hearing people say they became a Christian through Alpha and came to that after attending a Carol Service. “What will God do?”… well, he kept us going, inspired, equipped and who knows how he spoke to people’s hearts. Photos We asked someone to focus on taking photos during the service and I haven’t seen these yet. However I have uploaded a few photos I took, mostly during the rehearsals to the St Silas FLICKR site. I’ve also added the photos gadgetvicar took and blogged here although, I’m a little annoyed that four of these eight pics show massive mistakes that we were making at the time – fortunately we recovered from this error at the start of the service and hopefully few people noticed or were distracted by it.

Carols by Candlelight (prep)

Mark and I spent around eight hours sorting things out in church today getting ready for this year’s Carols by Candlelight service. Past years (pics here) have involved multiple screens, live drama, simulated, dramatised and slightly disturbing ‘birth scene’, large choirs, soloists, specially written songs, and videos. Over the years we gradually increased the use of technology, from one PC running long and complicated powerpoint presentations to… well, tomorrow we will have four operators running sound, visuals and lighting with:

3 PCs, 1 Mac, 4 DVD players, 2 Video Mixers, 3 projectors, 2 video monitors, 8 preview monitors, 4 video amplifiers of various sizes, a 8×8 video Matrix, lots of cables, 4 Scans, 4 Dichroic lights, 12 other lights, digital lighting desk, dimmers, and a pile of stuff I can’t remember and some effects I don’t want to spoil ahead of time and I haven’t even included audio.

BTW: those specially recorded Christmas Dramatised Readings filmed in and around Glasgow for St Silas Carols by Candlelight two years ago are now available on DVD from DeepRiver – and at ‘all good bookshops’.  By ‘all good bookshops’ I actually mean Wesley Owen Glasgow, who agreed to stock 10 DVDs as a trial. Also, as we didn’t do this till a week or so ago it is probably too late for anyone organising a Carol Service and I don’t think we will sell many.

So what do we have planned for this year’s carol service? I am giving nothing away!

It is difficult to get a perspective on things like this when you are so involved (which is why I am often asking people what they think of Deeper). I hope that there is a ‘buzz’ about the carol service. One of the tricky things when we get together to plan this service (and I suppose Deeper in a slightly different way) is trying to do something new while keeping the look and feel of the service so that regulars Silas-ites will grow to trust the service and be confident inviting friends – know what to expect.  Also, we talk about not wanting to do a one off, pull out all the stops event that doesn’t reflect what church is like week in week out.

We will find out soon enough.  Tomorrow is the final set up, rehearsals, technical run through, catering people getting things ready, stewards welcoming and keeping us safe, Jenny getting all the singers and musicians organised, and David finding something new to say about God becoming human.

But the really exciting thing is… will people bring friends?  Will folk from the community come in due to the hand delivered invites?  What will God do tomorrow?

Christmas gifts

A few things I am not getting anyone for Christmas…

Koffski Wallet looks like a gun holster, and has pockets for a wallet, cell phone, keys, a pen, credit cards, and travel papers.I don’t get to do much travelling but surely this would get you some gun point attention from security.

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Tabletop fireplace… “Our Sculptured GlassFire Smokeless Fireplace was designed in Italy to show off the firelight’s dancing flames. Because there’s no smoke smell or soot, it can be used indoors as well as out. Unique, high-style design.”  And only $549

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The Muttering Hats take on two forms based on models of thought processes that we engage in with ourselves:1. The Voices in Your Head Hat: a pair of muttering balls are tethered to the hat. They may be stuck to your ears, so that all other noise is obstructed by the mutterings, or they may be detached, providing the opportunity to escape from the mutterings or to share them with a friend.2. The Talking to Yourself Hat: Through the use of a communication system embedded in the hat, you may speak outloud to yourself while retaining the right to a somewhat private conversation.All that and you look like a mental patient in the process.