"You’re Welcome."

Unsolicited Advice for Life, Work, Work/Life and Lifework

Oh, no! Somewhat scraped publicly available information from the internet! Pffft. #facebook

What happened is that someone wasted hours compiling already available material and then posted it on the 'scary' Pirate Bay website, as if they were disclosing secrets of national security. It's no more alarming than finding the yellow pages in a brothel. If you want to meet friends and share information with the world then stop whining when the person looking over your shoulder can see it all too.

Mark Ford, East Grinstead, UK

A comment that echoes my sentiment, on the BBC report about a security company harvesting Facebook users' info.

Filed under  alarmism   Facebook   internet   life   privacy   sensationalism   stupid  
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Posted 22 hours ago

How to discover your divine pathway to God

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An alcoholic turns habitually, almost instinctually, to alcohol. A gambling addict turns to gambling. A philanderer turns to sex. What do I turn to? What can I turn to?

"Turn to God," that's what they say. But how does one turn to God? Singing? Study? Walks in the park? It's always a "solitary" activity, isn't it? How about godly fellowship? Does that count as an encounter with God? Yes, but somehow not in the same way. What is my way? When have I experienced the bliss of communion with God? For me, it's always been the writing. Solitary writing. What is your way? Have you discovered it?

I keep a pen and paper and iPhone with me always, the way an alcoholic keeps a hip flask with him all the time. This is my primary "divine pathway", by which I encounter the voice of God. What's your pathway to God? What have you noticed doing, that brings you into communion with God? I know someone who sings. Songs of praise. That's what he returns to again and again. Alcoholics turn to the bottle constantly. Sex addicts turn to sex constantly. Drug addicts live only for the next fix. Is there something that you turn to repeatedly, for comfort? It could be any of the usual vices, it could be something as socially acceptable in the 21st Century as TV or the internet or online gaming or Twitter. 


May I posit that these activities can be used as crutches to fulfil an emotional craving for God? In some cases, the emotional craving has evolved as a distraction from the real craving for God. I read with sadness, how Elvis, near the end, had to ingest a cocktail of barbiturates and have an assistant inject even more into his lower back as he lay on his bed, moaning for God to forgive him. That's a sad and extreme example, but is there something in our lives that acts as an emotional crutch, to try in vain to satisfy this longing for the divine? It could be something as seemingly inconsequential as addiction to romance novels or something as evidently self-destructive as an inclination to illicit relationships.

Can I also posit that there are healthy "addictions"? These are seemingly self-indulgent activities that actually do fulfil that longing for God. The usual suspects are singing, making music, intellectual study, contemplative meditation, journalling. Maybe one of these could be your pathway to the divine.

Of course, healthy habits can become unhealthy addictions if you make them an end in themselves. That would be a form of idolatry. But that's a future problem to think of. If you currently have a bad addiction or no divine pathway activity, try adopting one. Examine your past experience. Was there some healthy solitary activity that connected you with the divine? Try that.

It should be healthy, solitary, and divine. That means you'll feel and be better after doing it. It should be an activity that you do without human distraction. It should connect you with God, provide you with a catharsis of spirit that comes only from worship in spirit and truth - with all abandon and sincerity. "Be not drunk with wine, but be filled with the Spirit", Paul said. The comparison is telling. The activity that brings us to God - that divine pathway - is something to be indulged in consistently and repeatedly until you are "drunk" - saturated, satisfied to abundance - with the Spirit.

What is your "divine pathway" to God? Do you have one? Talk back to me if you need an ear and feedback to help you discover yours.

Filed under  divinity   habits   life   practices   spirituality   wisdom  
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Posted 1 day ago

pic: 666 Facebook friends as of today. I wonder who No. 666 is...

Filed under  Facebook   friends   funny   life   photos  
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Posted 1 day ago

quote: The nature of divine plans

For I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you, and will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you, and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile.

Dedicated to all who are wondering in their wandering.

Filed under  future   life   lifework   plans   quotes   spirituality   the divine  
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Posted 1 day ago

vid: Hans Zimmer performs "Time" from "Inception" - live. Just too awesome for words.

Filed under  Hans Zimmer   Inception   life   movie soundtracks   music   Time   videos  
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Posted 6 days ago

pic: A ridiculously delicious-looking Vietnamese prawn spring roll...

Stumbled upon in the course of work.

Hmm... Vietnamese for lunch tomorrow, perhaps.

Filed under  food   life   photos   spring rolls   Vietnamese cuisine  
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Posted 12 days ago

"All I Really Need" - one of the best songs I've heard of late. Free download, too!

From the first verse:

"In the darkest hour I must face
I'm counting on Your grace to give me all I need
Sunless days and cheerless nights will pass
And work their work at last to form Your joy in me
For when I am weak
I find that You are strong..."

(Full lyrics are here: http://www.sovereigngraceministries.org/ProductBrief.aspx?pid=M4205-09-51&pn=...)

Rarely does a song move me like this. The lyrics are strong, and the instrumentation is a delight.

Plus, they're giving a free download of it. Follow the link above, get the song, and enjoy...

Filed under  Christian   church   downloads   life   Mark Altrogge   music   songs   Stephen Altrogge   worship  
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Posted 13 days ago

pic: Does this PETA ad promote vegetarianism or cannibalism? Tell me... #fail

If they were really serious about this ad, they would have chosen a model who looks like a cow. Not some "former Baywatch babe". Come on, PETA.

End the exploitation of women!

A woman sized and shaped like a cow marked up like that - that might put me off beef. A naked *man* sized and shaped like a cow... Now, that would *definitely* put me off beef.

This particular ad is particularly telling. "All animals have the same parts." PETA thinks of women as animals. They've been showing it pictorially for years - shackled, in cages, naked, wrapped in cling film on a plastic tray (hey, doesn't it sound like kinky porn?) - but this is the first time I've seen it stated explicitly in ad copy. In the headline, what's more.

I don't think this "naked" campaign is going to end anytime soon, though. Do you know why? These women want to do it. And people (men *and* women) want to see it.

I look at this ad, I think, "Hot babe. Maybe I'll have steak for lunch. Tenderloin."

These are the equivalent of anti-smoking ads, for meat-lovers.

Filed under  advertising   art   causes   exploitation   funny   life   marketing   nudes   nudity   PETA   photos   women  
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Posted 22 days ago

FASHION TIP: If you want to feel really different, put on something special...

I wore a vest to BLC today. It all started last night, when I updated my Facebook and Twitter profile pics - or "avatars" - with a custom-designed madmenyourself.com self-portrait. The only outfit that I liked included a vest. Mel said that the vest looked good, so I said I'd put on a vest to church - if I could still button it. (I hadn't worn it in years.) 

It fit. (I didn't keep it buttoned, though, because I enjoy breathing deeply.) Quite a number of people commented that I looked good in the vest. I also got a couple of "cowboy" references. (I matched the vest with deep blue jeans and pointed black leather shoes that looked like boots under the jeans. "Where are your horse and hat?" Sonia asked. My trigger finger itched to whip out my six-shooter.) Anyway, I was feeling pretty good about myself, this morning. 

I was still feeling pretty good, by the time I joined Adeline and the gang for lunch (I had a meeting to see to, after church). We were eating at the Korean restaurant opposite Coffee Ritual in Section 14, Petaling Jaya. I can never remember it's name, except that it has three syllables, and the third is "Bum". I found them in a private room, where they were already well into their meal. So, I stepped outside to find a waiter and make my order. 

As I walked towards the counter where a gaggle of waiters gathered, I noticed a young woman waving at me on my right. She was looking intently at me, and waving. Do I know her? Is she an old friend I've forgotten? I couldn't place her face. 

Or, maybe she was just asking me over to join her and her friend for a drink of Korean ginseng tea. It wouldn't have been too surprising. After all, I was getting oohs and aahs all day long. 

As I looked more carefully at her, she mimicked writing in the air, an invisible pen held between her thumb and forefinger. 

This, in case you are unfamiliar with Malaysian culture, is the universal signal for, "Check, please." 

I smiled at her and waved back, just as her friend realised her mistake - the friend's mortified expression is still burned into the pinhole camera of my mind. 

Anyway, I moseyed on over to the Waiter Gang and told them, "Them over at that thar table yonder's askin' fer their bill, pilgrims."

A cowboy's got to do what a cowboy's got to do. No matter the circumstances. 

... 

Here's the cartoon avatar that inspired today's adventure: 

 

Does he look like me? I think it's the chipped tooth and coffee mug that do the trick. 

And, here's the girl who got me dressing as a waiter, today: 

Is it just me, or does she seem to be saying, "Gotcha!"? 

... 

Remember this ad? 

It happens.

Filed under  fashion   faux pas   funny   life   slice of life  
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Posted 25 days ago

I get so tired of hysterical people preaching fear and loathing over every new technology...

I get tired and bored of hearing the worst case scenario as a knee jerk reaction. With the rise of location-based services such as Foursquare, people are raising issues again - the "obvious" issue of people being able to stalk you. And then there's the site comeandrobme.somethingorother which announces to the world where everyone on Foursquare is, so that thieves will know you're not home. 

Duh. 

Why not just go rob peoples' homes during office hours? Anyway, it's not as if just because one person has checked in elsewhere on Foursquare, that the entire house is now vacant. Thieves will still have to go scope out the actual location. Unless they're stupid thieves, in which case they deserve to get caught. 

(I also secretly hope that someone on that "comerobme" site will actually sue the pants off those attention-seekers.) 

I'm proud of a friend who saw the good side of checking in. If ever she goes missing, she says, it'll be much easier to trace her path and last known location. Of course, that's still a bit dire, but it's looking at the usefulness of a thing, and not pooh-poohing it out of lame habit. 

Let someone try and stalk me in a 2-mile radius. (If they really wanted to stalk me, anyway, they'd need much more precise tools than Foursquare or Twitter geo-location.) If I check in on Foursquare, it means that I *want* you to know where I am. Same as all the other hundreds of thousands of Foursquare, Gowalla, etc users. 

Don't want people to know where you are? Don't tell them. That technology hasn't changed in thousands of years. 
Filed under  fail   fear   foolishness   geo-location   lame   life   location-based services   technology   technophobia  
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Posted 28 days ago