Sing for me!

Watched Phantom Of The Opera tonight with some of the guys from church. Even though it got only 39% from Rotten Tomatoes, the film ain't that bad at all. It kind of makes me want to go watch the musical and compare it (Haha, me going to a musical??). Hmmm...Oh yeah, I also saw the trailer for this movie coming up called...wait for it...Bride and Prejudice. Nup, no mistake in the spelling. The director of Bend It like Beckham brings us the Bollywood version of Pride and Prejudice. Err...yes...that's *interesting*

Today was also the start of Sunday School holiday program. After games and songs, we split up into small groups and talked about materialism. It felt weird because it was the first time I attended Sunday School let alone leading a discussion group. But the kids were cool with it and I kinda enjoyed the experience =)

So what should our attitude towards materials be? Jesus tells us that it is not possible that we serve both God and Money for we will devote to one and despise the other(Matthew 6:24). He also tells us that God knows our needs and we should instead "seek first his kingdom and his righteousness". With the annual stocktake sales starting tomorrow, where do you stand? I know I definitely need to change...

SHORT NOTES
*Borrowed 4 DVDs off Noddy = about 100 epidsodes of Naruto. Yeha!
*Downloaded Mozilla Firefox last night and liking it already...
*Pakistan made 300+ runs on day 1 of the Boxing Day test? What the...

Naruto!

Maybe this will kick-start my interest in anime...

Now I just need to borrow the DVD series off Gordon and I'll have another reason to sit in front of the comp all day 8)

Oztag is at the halfway mark and so far we haven't done too bad. We may have lost every game but if we can work on our first five minutes where the opposition tend to smash us around a bit we might come close for our first win. I've been disappointing with my own form. Second season blues perhaps? Even Gan (the darkhorse)has scored more tries and made more tags than me. Stamina is the main problem. That's it, gonna hit the gym hard this festive season doing cardio work.

Had Sam and Vincy over this morning to discuss about the Sunday School holiday program. It looks like we'll be doing materialism this week (hehe, on Boxing Day) so that should be *very* interesting.

Yet another 21st + EFC Music Night

"The ice ain't melting!!"

Boon's 21st @ the Verandah on Wednesday night. Thanks to Nick driving, I took advantage of the 'never ending bar tab' which was still running when we left at midnight (it started at 8pm). Whisky+Coke, Bourbon+Coke, Bacardi+Coke...It got to the stage where I was drinking too fast to let the ice melt. Saw many uni guys there and conversations throughout the night revolved around the following:

*How did you go last session?
*You selected your thesis topic yet?
*You found IT yet?
*What are your plans these holidays? Going away?
*What have you been doing since the exams finished?

There were no speeches so that kinda sucked a little =(

Last night was the EFC music night fundraiser at the church hall. Jenny is leaving for a church in Malaysia soon so the idea was to raise money that will go towards buying quality Christian resources for the church. The night included performances by the music team and a music trivia. Our table didn't fare too well in the trivia since we had absolutely no idea about songs from the 80s era. Hmm...should probably listen to 2WS FM (good times, great classic hits) more. Hahaha...But it was great fellowship with each other and a fun night to chill out.

Goodbye dial-up, hello ADSL

Whoa, fast Internet...

Soccernet loads much faster, ditto Unimail. I can now access the Broadband section on Winamp's internet radio without constant drop-outs (not to mention good quality music).

Mixing it with the 'big boys' now, Hehehe...

Finally had a half-decent game of Oztag. Set up Gan's first ever Oztag try and almost scored one myself...if only I remembered to place the ball down after I crossed the tryline. Bah!

Back to downloading...

S2 results

Dear Mr Kam,

Your numbers for this session are 59,76,63,52. You may now proceed to the final year of your degree where you'll probably stuff up. Have a good holiday.

UNSW EE&T team

Warning: laptops can affect your sperm count

SMH Link

Teenagers and young men should keep their laptops off their laps because they could damage fertility, according to new research.

Laptops, which reach high internal operating temperatures, can heat up the scrotum which could affect the quality and quantity of men's sperm.

"The increase in scrotal temperature is significant enough to cause changes in sperm parameters," said Dr Yefim Sheynkin, an associate professor of urology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

"It is very difficult to predict how long the computer can be used safely," he told Reuters. "It may not be at all, if the testicular temperature goes up high within a very short period of time."

Adolescents and young men who use laptops several times a day over many years face the greatest risk. Sheynkin fears that if laptop use is not curtailed, in 15-20 years when they want to start a family the men could face problems.

"Long-term use may have a detrimental effect on their reproductive health," he said.

Sheynkin and his team studied the impact of using a laptop on 29 healthy volunteers between the age of 21-35 by measuring scrotal temperature before and after they used a computer on their lap.

The research is reported in the journal Human Reproduction.

Even without turning the laptop on, the scrotal temperature rose by 2.1 degrees Celsius when the young men sat with their thighs together to balance the computer on their lap.

When they switched it on the temperature rose - by 2.8 degrees on the right side and 2.6 degrees on the left.

"It shows that scrotal hyperthermia is produced by both special body posture and the local heating effect of laptop computers," Sheynkin said.

A serious case of laptop burn was reported in a letter published in a medical journal two years ago after a 50-year-old man burned his penis while using a laptop balanced on his legs for an hour, despite wearing trousers and underpants.

The researchers used two different brands of computers in the study.

"All laptop computers generate significant heat due to the increasing power requirements of computer chips. New laptops with higher power requirements may produce even more heat," Sheynkin added.

ADSL is coming!

Signed up for ADSL last night so for those people I play Solitaire Showdown with, no more of this 'dial-up advantage' thing that you guys keep going on about :P

Google Ads? Spyware? It's annonying!!!

What on earth is this?? I keep getting this sidebar everytime I use Google. Used Ad-aware, Spybot, Norton and none of them found anything nasty. Can anyone tell me what it is or more importantly, how to get rid of it?

Summer Hols: Week 1

One week of the holidays gone and yeh, fortunately a fair bit happened to keep myself away from this thing called 'boredom'.

MONDAY
Our Quantum Bible Study group + Farewell Albert lunch thing didn't eventuate because there were late pullouts. Oh well, I still went out that night to my high school friend's 21st party. His parents run a seafood cuisine restaurant in Alexandria so you can imagine what we ate. Mmmm...Lobsters...Prawns...Oysters. Happy 21st Danny!

TUESDAY
Had Oztag in the evening as usual. Came up against this team that was real fit and fast (aren't they all?) and got kicked again. I think teams just smash us in the first half and take it easy in the second to make us feel a little better. It's gonna be a long summer. I jarred another part of my left hand so it's pretty much useless at the moment when it comes to gripping things (like playing the guitar).

WEDNESDAY
Did nothing during the day but had dinner out at Cockle Bay with uni friends. It was an interesting dinner as we bombarded Russ with questions about these two 'friends' he met at a party last Sunday night. If you want to find out more, just ask him =P Food-wise, Blackbird Cafe ain't bad but it's not somewhere I'd go on a regular basis. After that we went to Star City to see Russ make 1 bet on the $100 blackjack table. Arriving at the table we saw this crazy asian just pulling $100 notes out of his pocket and handing them to the dealer. In the 10 mins or so we were there, he must have splashed out 3k? INSANE!! And it wasn't like he was winning so he left pretty soon after. Oh yeah, Russ won $100 in the 20 secs he was there.

THURSDAY
Had Cell Group at night and it was a topical on...money. I can write a whole blog on it but that will just turn people off (who likes reading ultra long blogs?) so I guess to summarise, God created money and as Christians, we should give thanks to God and be conscious about how we spend it cos at the end of the day, money means nothing and is not where we should put our hope in so why bother idolise it?

"Wealth is worthless in the day of wrath, but righteousness delivers from death" Proverbs 11:4

Some of us also got our Cell Group birthday presents. I got Jerry Bridges' Transforming Grace and The pursuit of holiness. That should keep me occupied for a while =)

FRIDAY
Today Bertha, Alan, Gilead and I had our first meeting for the Two ways to live course. The aim is learn how to explain the message at the heart of Christianity to people in a simple way. And we're gonna do 'walk-ups' at the end of the course? Scary!!