The good news

Six months

On Saturday it was six months since the day that Mehrin came up to my house and said she thought she liked me, and I said I liked her too. We're not sure if that was when we started going out, or whether it was the following Friday, when we had dinner with Nathan and Viki. So we decided that Mehrin would organise something for the first date, and I would for the second.
So on Saturday Mehrin organised a picnic for us at Treasury Gardens.

In the afternoon we went and saw Wicked at the Regent Theatre. One of the ushers yelled at me for taking this photo:

Afterwards we saw the giant hamburger (which is now looking a bit worse for wear):

We had dinner at Toto's Pizza House in Lygon Street, which was the first pizza restaurant in Australia.

Surrender 2008

We were at Urban Neighbours of Hope's Surrender Conference on the weekend. This is Spriggsy driving the van on EastLink when we realised we weren't going to be late for the panel that Gin was going to be on:

This is where Spriggsy, John, Jono, Mehrin and I camped:

Spriggsy, Mehrin and I were looking after the Urban Seed table. (They had this area where there were tables for mission organisations to put propaganda on.) We built a wall out of cardboard around our table, to hide it. On the outside it had images and 'beatitudes' representing what the global economy promotes as success, and on the inside (hidden, for people to find) it had the beatitudes of Jesus, along with images to represent the economy of God. (I also used the vine from State Youth Games.) Here are some pics (some from when we were still constructing):

I don't think what we did was that worthwhile, but that's okay because it's the first time we've done something like that at a conference, and I know how I'd want to do it differently next time. And someone from one of the other missions organisations (with a much bigger budget) said they wanted to copy our idea.

Kevin vs Godzilla

K-Rudd has lasers.

Sabbath

I saw this ad when I was down in St Kilda this morning, and it made me think about the Jewish and Christian idea of Sabbath:

I've written a bit about it on Advoc8, which you can read here.

TV-land

Today they've been filming an ad for the Lord Mayor's Charitable Fund in our laneway, because they give us money to help run Credo. It's a bit weird because there's all these extras dressed up as 'homeless' people.

'Happiness is in your choices'

I've been reading Colossians Remixed, a book that attempts to interpret Paul's letter to the church of Colossae in it's original context, and in the context of postmodernity and the global economy.
Early on in the book the authors write about how postmodernity and globalisation work together despite seeming incompatible, because both see people primarily as 'units of consumption for whom choice is the defining characteristic.' (p32)
I came across this advertisment the other day, and I think it demonstrates this idea quite well:

Far Far Away Pasta

Judging by how it looks, I hope it stays far far away...

'Spoil yourselfnot the planet'

Saw this ad in the window of the Body Shop this morning, when I was walking around town seeing what was going on:

It made me wonder whether we can actually spoil ourselves without spoiling the planet, seeing as human beings appear to be a fairly significant part of the planet. It's funny how we tend to see ourselves as being seperate to the rest of creation.

24 photos

I had so many photos in my camera, and I thought I'd blog them in chronological order without explaining them:

Coke and water

I've just done a post on Advoc8 about Coke's water use. Click here to read it.

Coke's Christmas promises

Have done a post at advoc8 about Coca-Cola's Christmas advertising campaign. Click here to read it.

Isolate yourself

Saw this on the way back from the market this morning. Reminded me of a discussion I was involved in recently, where someone was talking about her brother being given a portable DVD player for Christmas, and how that encouraged him to spend less time with other people.
It's going pretty crazy in the city now, because it's getting close to Christmas. There's fake stars everywhere. (You often can't see the real ones around here at night, because of air and light pollution.)

Noticed that some of the Christmas advertising is encouraging isolation too: