The Sect of Homokaasu - The Gematriculator

Awesome. :D

Oh my gosh this rocks, especially for those of you who played the original NES Duck Hunt (Timothy, I'm looking at you...:) :
DuckHunt 1945

Found on Noel's blog.

This is funny, especially if you've played text adventures before.

Iraqi Invasion: A Text Misadventure

Oh, and note that I am able to laugh heartily about jokes I don't completely agree with.

Hahaha.

This is awesome: Noel just started up a web page called the "Jack Bauer Torture Report" You know - Jack Bauer...24? If not, then you probably think our dear pastor Noel has gone bonkers. If you do, you probably still think our dear pastor Noel has gone bonkers, just in a good way.

From the site:

OK, so we all know that Jack Bauer likes killing bad guys and torturing them even more. In fact, in matters of national security, they don’t even have to be bad guys.

The question is, “How much does Jack like to do this stuff?”

And, no, we will not accept “a lot” as an answer.

We want numbers.

That’s what this site is dedicated to. We pledge to report on the number of people Jack tortures and kills. It’s our service to you, the loving reader.

Hey all,
Thanks so much for praying. Joshua completely and quickly recovered in the night after my post - he's doing really well, fever is gone and he's as happy as...a..uh....very happy person. :P Anyways, a real answer to prayer! Thanks!!!

Hi guys...
Joshua's sick, he has a 39°C (that's about 102°F) fever and is just so miserable, he's quietly crying as I type this.
This is the first time he's been sick, and it's an incredibly helpless feeling as a Dad (and as a Mom ;) to not know how to really help him.
Could you guys shoot up a quick prayer right now that he'd get better, also for us to have wisdom at which point to go to the hospital if we have to.
Thanks! I'll keep ya posted.

Ahhhh, this picture totally makes my eyes water - thought I'd let it mess with your mind as well. Done by Mason Inman, found via BoingBoing.

Famous.
Yes, I not only have now been mentioned 4(!) times on THE Noel Heikinnen's blog, but I am now additionally mentioned with a definite article in front of my name:

Thanks to John, (yes THE John) for the dumbest dog you'll ever see.

Seems like Noel is ever so graciously sharing a fraction of his immense popularity with me - and oh, how much popularity that is.
Now, if I could just get more than 10 people to stick and actually read this thing regularly. :P

hay'kin'en

P.S. I also just noticed I've always been pronouncing Noel's last name wrong.

*laughing very hard*
...
This is awesome:
dumbest dog you'll ever see - Google Video

Edit:
For my faithful German readers who get the "Thanks for your interest in Google Video. Currently, the playback feature of Google Video isn't available in your country." message, simply follow this link instead. ;) All it is is an "anonymizer" (found here) which hides the fact you're surfing from Germany. Hack the system. :)

Global Rich List

Nice perspective.

Found via being free.

Like I promised, here are a few thoughts from the Awaken teachings that really challenged me:

Teaching #1 by J.R. Woodward

We are made in and as the image of God. To the world in which those words were written that was a completely revolutionary thought - especially from a social perspective, because the only ones whose images were made (usually in the form of coins) were kings/gods - to say EVERY person is an image of God made EVERY person as valuable as a king whose job it was to represent God - this completely overturned the typical Egyptian theocracy idea.

This also made Jesus' answer about paying taxes a whole lot more powerful - when he says "Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar", he's talking about Caesar's image - which was on the coin they showed him. When he says "but give to God what belongs to God", he's talking about God's image, which is the entire person! He's basically saying "Go ahead and give money to Caesar in whose image this money is, but give your entire life and everything to Him in whose image you are."
During the teaching J.R. had us say to the person next to us, "Good evening, your majesty." That stuck with me.
-> Do I treat others like they are God's image, like they are majestic?
-> Do I view myself as majesty?
-> Am I portraying an accurate image of God?

Teaching #2 by Noel Heikinnen (yes, THE Noel Heikinnen! I actually brushed by him in the bathroom after the teaching!)

This was about Jacob and Esau, whom he nicknamed "Heel" and "Hair", since that's what their names literally mean. He told the story from the perspective of Jacob being a complete wuss and pushover, however God still by his grace calling and changing him, using especially the "wrestling God" experience, at which point Jacob becomes Israel ("fights with God" - something God loved about Jacob!)
-> God, the God of Jacob - the God of Heel, of Deceiver (another meaning of "Jacob"), Liar, Conniver, chooses and blesses us regardless of our past (Gave the song "Give Us Clean Hands" a whole new meaning - "God let us be a generation who seeks your face, o God of Jacob")
-> God desires for us to not be spiritual pushovers, but to wrestle with him, to show tenacity. The name "Israel" is not a put-down, but a compliment!

Lunch break is up, so I'll do teachings 3-5 later (maybe).

Is it true that catching a cold has nothing to do with being out in the cold?

Yes. A cold is a viral disease. It is passed from one person to the next, usually by way of airborne droplets from a sneeze. You can also pick it up if your hands are dirty (with the virus) and you touch your eyes or nose. Catching a cold has nothing to do with the temperature outside, or whether or not your hair is wet.

Thought Stephi you all might be interested to hear that. :)

Whoa...you all know Polaris, the North Star, the Constant, by which you always can tell where north is? Well, straining the Hubble telescope to the max, NASA just figured out it's actually a triple-star system, not a single star!
There's More to the North Star Than Meets the Eye

...Did someone say "incredibly beautiful symbolism"? ;)

Found via Slashdot.

CNN.com - 'Truthiness' is word of the year - Jan 7, 2006

Truthiness is defined as the quality of stating concepts one wishes or believes to be true, rather than the facts.

...

"Truthiness" means "truthy, not facty."

"The national argument right now is, one, who's got the truth and, two, who's got the facts," he said. "Until we can manage to get the two of them back together again, we're not going make much progress."

Whoa, that's deep - so maybe, in order to not push any postmodern buttons, we should start talking about Jesus being "The Way, the Facts, and the Life"?

Coolness alert! Sketch something and this site will (quickly!) search out Flickr pictures that look like your sketch. Sa-weet.

retrievr - search by sketch

Here's another article (story? thought experiment?) I really enjoyed, which I guess once again proves how strange my humor actually is:
This Is the Title of This Story, Which Is Also Found Several Times in the Story Itself

Happy New Year!

I had this really weird dream a couple of nights ago: I was up in this tower overlooking Amsterdam with windows all around, and there were fireworks going off, while about 30 Spaniards enthusiastically sang "Jingle Bells" in Spanish.

Oh, wait. That wasn't a dream, that was my New Year's experience at Awaken. The fireworks were incredible (everybody and his brother were shooting off whole boatloads of fireworks at the same time), the view was incredible, and the Spanish enthusiasm was very contagious. :)

Awaken itself was a very cool conference put on by Great Commission Europe, especially considering it was the first one ever for Europe. I'll hopefully be putting up some of my thoughts to some of the teachings in the next couple of days, as they were very thought-provoking and action-provoking.

Anyways: Happy New Year everyone! What did you all do to celebrate?