I Wish I Was Ern Malley

My colleague TheTeak has done a fine job clearing the air about certain myths that surround the McDonald’s fast food chain. Just wanting to verify some of the facts in his entry (I was sure it was pre constituted pig snot in the apple pies) I was disturbed by this image on the McDonald’s front page . (You might need to refresh a couple times if you don't see it at first) Remembering that this is meant to be a positive image selling McDonald’s products, I think that tells us all we need to know about the effects eating McDonald’s … erm… food.

The iTunes Music Store is open in Australia Talk about anti-climaxes I've literally been waiting years for the iTunes Music Store to open in Australia, and when it did I expected it would be a major event. I'd expect that since it's taken apple so long to hammer out the deal with local record companies that they'd be making the most of it once it did happen. But no. It's not even the major story on Apple's Australian web site , it's a secondary item (although with the title "The biggest story in music just got bigger". If it's the biggest story shouldn't it be the biggest thing on the page? I actually don't know when it was launched since Apple's Hot news item doesn't give a date. All I know is that the shop assistants in Myer have been wearing "iTunes Music Card" badges, but they didn't seem to know much about how you'd get the songs if you bought the card "you just download them" they said. Y...

Hey look mate, you know I'm right, so pull your head in. Every last one of us is a jerk*. Why do you think Jesus had to die for us? If we'd all been perfect and nice he wouldn't have had to do a thing. And if you don't believe me, believe the Bible: “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.” 1 John 1:8 ( ESV ) So if you sin, you're bound to hurt people. And if you hurt people, especially in a big way, and if you keep on doing it you're a jerk, at least in my book. Which is why it shouldn't surprise me when Christians let me down. It still does, because—naturally enough I suppose—I expect more of them. Christians shouldn't be jerks because God tells them (frequently) not to. Even someone who isn't that familiar with the Bible will know how Christians should behave and point it out to them. For example, I was saying this week that if you want to shoot novelists in the neck you should do the job properly a...

Thinking up titles for blogs is hard. It's kind of like thinking up a name for a band or a Laundromat. You can only have one Suds-R-Us and then every other band has to call themselves something else. Unless they're a cover band I suppose. In the early 90s there was an Australian band called "People with Chairs Up their Noses", which right up there with Exploding White Mice as one of my favourite band names. I wanted this blog to be called "Boring", but blogger wouldn't let me do it. Maybe they thought it would erode their brand if they had a boring blog. Actually a quick search may confirm this since none of the hundred boring blogs is on blogger and utterlyboring.com has its own domain. Still it shows that boring is a fairly common theme amongst bloggers or at least self-deprecation. I wanted to call this blog boring because years ago I when I worked for a Christian organisation I had it in mind as the title for a magzine. I've worked on a co...