Kills all.....

I got a new coffee mug. Its a bit of a rant against legalism in Christianity, when the traditions become the focus and lead people ultmatley away from Christ....



Don't get me wrong, I believe in Christ, he is my saviour. I'm not ranting against him. I'm venting some of the frustration that has built in me about the people, who claim to be his, yet don't act like it.

I'm not getting on my high horse, i've been as guilty as the next guy, i've screwed up mighty and i'm sure i've been a discouragement to others.

Change is needed.

To my brothers and sisters in christ, while spreading his message just remember, before you speak: All you need is love, love, love.

Ross and Ali's wedding

Congratulations and a big Hararya to Mr and Mrs Ross Thompson.



Ross is a good buddy, and he and Ali are a lovely couple. Pictured below is Ross' legendary Christian Rock band "5 dollar soul" here they are:


Andy, Aaron, Ross, Matt

The wedding was in Randalstown, and even though me and Jo were going to be on time for the service there was a major accident on the M2, holding up most of the guests and the groom! All is well that ends with an "I do".

I'm not the biggest coldplay fan in the world but...

There is no justice being denied your first ever number 1 slot in the UK charts by a pain in the ass ringtone.

Is this what we've sunk to? Has hope for music run out? Yip.

Coldplay, if nothing else, no matter if they aren't your taste in music, are hard workers. They write songs, good ones. Anyone who attends university purely and solely for the purpose of improving their song writing ability deserves a pat on the back.

Ok, they have had there fair share of nonsense. "Yellow", by own admission of lead singer Chris Martin, is a light love song with not much substance, "the silliest song i ever wrote" i believe he said at one radio one road show. I like it. its well written and of good cheer.

The only thing left to do now is inflict my wrath on the thing that has kept a hard working, yet maybe slightly repetitive band away from their goal....



AAAAAAGGGGHHHHH! I feel better.

Weapon of choice

This online test came curtosy of Dean, the numerical one:

Shotgun You preferred a weapon with 50% power over speed and 74% range over melee.

You use a Shotgun. While not the fastest gun in the west, a shotgun's raw power and ease of use make it an extremely potent weapon. Some shotguns can also be loaded with many different types of ammunition, providing a versatility many guns don't have. Choosing your shots, you fell your opponents immediately and without pause.

My test tracked 2 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 65% on power You scored higher than 87% on range

Link: The What's Your Signature Weapon Test written by inurashii on Ok Cupid

Team orders

While discussing tactics over lunch, it would appear that the team orders for tonight are "be carefull as frekin' possible, cuse if we make an ass of ourselves we'll get thrown out."

Below are some rather boring pictures of me pete and michaeloid driving back from lunch. An extra one of pete's face is thrown in for embarrasment!

Karting tonight

The steria (insert name of your nemisis here) Karting challenge is this evening. There have been training sessions on how to "Back end" and "overtake aggressively". Team orders will be in effect. The tension is unbearable.

I got some practice in on the way to work this morning.



(i love photoshop)

north coast e-bay pics

Joanne Has her latest excellent offerings on ebay, click here to check them out if you have a sec.

Catchin up.....

Ok, so here's what happened in the last week.....or so...

Getting fitted up last saturday....

With the upcoming wedding of brother andy and sis meelan i had to go get decked out for my best man suit. It took all of 3 minutes, and because the place was so packed i had to get changed in the kitchen!



I had a chat with alan white on the journey back. Al is living dangerously in Leeds at the moment.

I then rushed off to MPLEX, where i bought Jo a lovely new motherboard, processor and ram. I spent all afternoon getting all the bits and bobs out of her old PC case in preperation for the new board's arrival, onnly to find of course that iti didn't fit in the old case! Off down to MPLEX again to get a ne case then....

In total that means i've bought a new hard drive (which didn't work on the old board) a new board (that didn't fit in the old box) and a new box!

Just a small upgrade then!

Having lunch with My parents last sunday



Walking the dog last Sunday

Me and Jo took a walk with Tyson along Loughshore Park at Jordanstown, Newtonabbey. T'was a lovely day, apart from thneare interesting things you can find on the beach like hyperdermic (bad spelling?) needles and random rubbish.



While Joanne frollicked with Tyson, I took the opportunity to call Ross Thompson, a busy man who is getting married soon to the Lovely Ali Pup. They had better have a good wedding band, or there'll be trouble!

During the week...

Among other things, two guys, (Henry and crazy Gav), nearly choked to death on consecutive days. Henry nerly fell foul to a snickers bar, which is pretty bad, but gav nearly expired by lodging a chocolate eclair in his throat.

Thing is, Gav, probably cuse he is a top bloke, was probably trying not to make a fuss and was just quietly choking for about 30 seconds in the corner before we realised anything was wrong. Thankfully after what he said seemed to be an eternity the blockage dislodged and normal service was resumed. Good job really as the rest of us stood there, both arms the same length not really knowing what to do. (sorry gav). Good job for dave (the same guy who looked after my random pin stabbing accident) coming round to give the all clear.

Visiting Raj (thursday)

Visited young raj and family.(raj's site). The cardwell's are a warm generous lot. Visiting their house is always a joy. Among the other stuff we got up to, they introduced me to the willard grant conspiracy A wonderful sounding album. I'll say nothing, go listen or download. (Thanks for the CD folks.)

BIG Paul

Also during the week i had the good fortune to be talking to paul on MSN, its been a veeeeery long time. He's all grow up and has his own blog now too! check here for further details

Here's a cute photo of paul and his much better looking half suzanne (sorry paul).



Zen, the art of motorcar mainetnance, bob, coffee and swingin'

Good job i didn't head for the north west 200! I didn't wake till about 11am!

Paul rang and woke me up and stating that we were having coffee in 10 minutes. This happens a lot, the only problem was i'd run out of coffee and that meant driving into town.

We headed to clements in Botanic Avenue, after dirving through the town blasting some of the most outrageous latino music i had ever listened to, with both windows down at an ear splitting volume. We got some odd looks from the spides walking down the street and even more from the Hararyas.

Coffee was good, and on the way home we picked up a exhaust repair bandage for his decreped 306. This car which went through the MOT about a week ago is held together with chewing gum and duct tape. The exhaust also has a bean can as an integral part of the structure.

Anyhow, Joanne and I headed back into town to try to pick up some messages and some photo supplies, but we got railroaded by a parade of some sort that caused the police to close off the entire city centre. A strong worded letter should be winging its way to them, but i've no idea who they were.

We swung on out of belfast and made out way past Bangor West and off to Groomsport to meet my old boss, Bob Zeller.



Bob, now living in england, still has a house here. Sometimes I help him with his IT problems, but thankfully today wasn't about business. Joanne and I both enjoyed an hour of his company in a small coffee shop with home made buns. (Get better soon Boom).

After we found some swings opposite.....

Faceoff

I looked out my bedroom the other day and saw my cats Polly (pauly) on the left and Arthur on the right triangulating an offensive against an unknown new neighbourhood cat:



I thought it was a bit bizarre, everytime the new guy flinched the other two repositioned to not let him get away.

I watched for about 30 mins and no movement.

Haven't seen the other cat since......

Congrats to the folks getting away from school today, the calm before the storm.

Current track: Jewel "Hands"
Caffine saturation: 23%

(Jewel only made 3 good tracks in my opinion, "Hands", "Who will save your soul" and "You were meant for me". I bought the single for "Hands" in 1997 / 1998 and the other 2 tracks were on as live versions, saving me having to buy the album. Joy.)

Lets go fly a kite!

So, being Joanne's birthday at the weekend, i tryed to get at least one "silly" gift, which this year was, well a silly kite.

"Eddie" being flown below transformed my beloved into a giggling 4 year old for an hour or so, which was nice.







Aside from that we spent all saturday doing 2 things:

1: helping any and Meelan look for wedding photo locations ( andy and meelan's website)

2: basking in sarah the shiny's new Solarium

A good time had by all i think!

Happy birthday darlin'

Joanne hit a milestone today, i'm probably not allowed to say exactly how old she is, so here are some fun photo's of the last little while to detract attention from the fact i nearly did tell!









Love,

M

be excellent to each other.... and party on dude!

The company i work for put me through a service excellence course yesterday. The concept is simple, be nice to your customer and your fellow employees and everyone will be happy with you and your customers will return time and time again.

Some of you may be thinking; "this concept isn't new" and you'd be right. Remember fondly back to the olden days when people treated each other with respect and curtosy? When you knew the guy who sold you your groceries or the butcher or the postmaster or chemist ? You knew those guys and you wen't back for more cuse they looked after you.

The lesson is clear in the 1989 classic Bill and Ted's Excellent adventure "be excellent to each other.. and party on dudes'".

Here is a few pictures of us getting up to excellence:

Really splashed the boat out.....

Joanne said the above while we were talking about election posters and how one guy had really gone for it, wallpapering the whole rathcoole / fernagh area with his face.

She ment to say, "oh he's really pushed the boat out" or "oh, he's really splashed out" but instead it came out as "oh, he's really splashing the boat out!".

Please feel free to post any funny mixups you can think of.

All this election talk brings me to the question, who should i vote for? ANSWER: No one.

Now, i'm well aware of the suffering many people across the world have gone through to have the right to vote, and it is a privilage, but joanne made a good point earlier when she said: "you should be really voting for someone you believe in".

Bearing that in mind, i don't really beleive in any of them, not any one particularly over the other, so I may as well have voted for them all, or none.

Bring me someone who actually promotes peace, through the love of Christ, spreading understanding, consideration, respect. I would vote for that guy.

Anyway, back to business, me and Jo, took Raj and Sarah up to the causeway on monday, a fine day had by all. Pictures to follow. In the meantime, check out the fantastic stuff on Jo's blog.

Peace.