Q&A on prayer from DesiringGod.org pastors conference

I came across this interesting Q&A session from the recent Pastors conference held by Desiring God ministries. Some really thought provoking questions... Christianity today has profiled a bit on unanswered prayer which is worth having a read over. Prayer is a topic with some deep questions tied to it, so it great seeing some good answers. I've got Francis Chan's talk from the conference lined up to listen to as well! Enjoy the panel discussion and the interesting questions..

Forerunner - Hold Your Fire

My mate Pete Coggan's band (Forerunner) have released their long awaited EP called "Hold Your Fire"... I had anticipated this was going to a fantastic collections of songs and boy did they exceed expectations. Riff laden, hook filled, musically quite distinct and just essentially a brilliant listen. This self produced gem is well worth picking up and it's only £3.95, what a complete bargain...

I can't recommend it highly enough, go and buy it here, you won't regret it!

Monday Football Thoughts

So club football took the back seat this weekend and we were left to marvel at the international football scene... A clearly superior England team defeated a Welsh team that was hoping to ride on the Gareth Bale hype and create an upset. The injury to Wales's star however ensured that the tie was less than enthralling. Instead 2 early goals in many ways killed of the match before it had even really started. The Welsh team is young and I'm sure that one day they may cause other sides more problems, but if Saturday was anything to go by, they are quite a way off being a top international side and Gary Speed has quite a job on his hands.

The apparently new system for England seemed to work well and it was brilliant to see young Jacky Wilshere put in another fantastic performance. With each game he seems to gain confidence and I'm glad he's getting the recognition his performances deserve. Just need to hope that Wenger can talk him out of playing at the U-21s tournament in the summer. I understand that it would be brilliant to win the tournament etc... but from a strong Arsenal point of view, I would much rather he rests, doesn't get injured or burnout and remains the crucial cog in helping us achieve another title challenge next season rather than take the first few months recovering... Alan Hansen seems to agree that perhaps the U-21s tournament has no real benefit for him (here)

It was a quite weekend apart from the international fixtures, England have the Ghana friendly on Weds and then back to club football at the weekend. Hopefully Gyan won't score and make us watch him do "that" celebration once again... then again he's in my fantasy football team so maybe it could give him a confidence boost for the weekend... Oh how fantasy football messes with allegiances!

UPDATE

When I saw this had to add this on...



100 goals as a goalkeeper!... hats off the the fella

The pitfalls of ebay... perhaps a humble pie moment

So for as long as I've started writing songs and discovered how useful garageband is for making good demos, I've wanted a mac... I love how easy it seems on the program to create good sounding tracks and help try creative things out with songs idea, plus the internal mac mic produces a pretty excellent sound. While I cannot afford a new mac (I can't even dream about buying one!), a second hand one seemed reasonable and my wonderful financee donated some finances to seemingly help realise the desire.

While an actual macbook seemed out of the price range, i managed to secure a ibook G4 for fairly cheap on the wonder that is ebay... Yesterday it arrived and I excitedly opened up my package... bit by bit the dream crumbled...

Firstly the DVD drive seemed to scratch the top of CDs that were put into... okay no biggie i can live with that, then i realised garageband was not on it... okay i was sure it must be around somewhere... found it on the required disc and then watched the screen go black... doh.... a few attempts to restart it and it seemed to work again but my confidence was shaken... then this morning it really struggled to turn on at all and therefore left to ask to return the laptop. A brilliant seller means he will refund me and allow me to return the laptop but I'm left where i started... sadly without a mac...

I've been left with the lesson that maybe secondhand isn't always a good option or at least not to get my hopes up too high... maybe one day my dream will be realised fully (or instead at least hopefully my materialistic tendencies diminished!)

Bye bye ibook, you served me... well rubbishly...

p.s. if you own a macbook (that you no longer need) and would like to give it to a new home where it will be love and cherished do let me know!! it's worth a try...

Smithy Red Nose Day Sketch

I'm sure you've already seen it, but this definitely has to be the best sketch from Red Nose Day... Gordon Brown went up in many people's standing I'm sure for simply taking part!

Enjoy (once again for most of you...)