That last post was in fluent Christianeese - sorry for those of you who don't speak it or don't speak it very well, who will have thought it all sounds rather weird and OTT - it's just how that sub-culture speaks.  I maintained Christianeese for a few hours after that and for some of today, and it's actually been quite hard.  I'm speaking a few too many language variations now - I'm getting all my little jargons and slang terms mixed up and my tone and emphasis is wildly off the mark.  It's just too much dialect! 

This week I've been speaking in fairly equal portions: Leet Speak; Financial Terms; Business Lingo; Christianeese; Gay Talk; Technobable; and occasionally... English.

So please forgive me if I act a little strange - for I know not what language I'm speaking anymore.
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Phil
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p.s. thinking up two titles for every blog post is getting hard.

p.p.s.

Failboat ftw!! ^_^

I was very sad to hear the news about Heath Ledger.  He was a really great actor, and so young in his career.  To the gay community, Heath had given a gift by his part in Brokeback, a film that powerfully spoke to millions world wide.  I was taken back by the news, and that suicide is suspected, or at least an over dose, makes it truly all the sadder - any suicide is a jaunting thing, it seems wrong with the world.

The next day I saw on my headlines, that 'God hates fags' campaigners intend to picket his funeral, as they have service men who have died at war, causing deeply distressing trauma to their family and friends on an already difficult day.

To quote from their leader:

"Heath Ledger thought it was great fun defying God Almighty and his plain word; to wit: God Hates Fags! & Fag Enablers!
"Ergo, God hates the sordid tacky, bucket of slime seasoned with vomit known as Brokeback Mountain - and He hates all persons having anything whatsoever to do with it.
"Heath Ledger is now in Hell, and has begun serving his eternal sentence there - beside which, nothing else about Heath Ledger is relevant or consequential."

It's been chewing me over a little bit.  Mortal sins and how we might be judged at our end.  At a gathering of Christian friends tonight we touched on the topic of evangelism.  "Well, I don't really believe in evangelism anyway." I said, not really in jest but allowing it to be received that way for those who wanted to.  Then just now, Josh and I were talking over the thoughts that have been spinning through our minds, and at one point, I got to ranting, and I wanted it to be heard...

Josh says:
Will they have those last moments before death to repent and believe or is it *kaput* time up?

Philip - www.MercyOnMySoul.co.uk says:
I honestly believe God is great
God is so great that nothing is greater then him
I believe the Lord God Almighty of all Creation, is love itself, and power, and wisdom.
And I believe that my God, who is so amazing, has these things in hand
And I do not worry for the souls of others, or my own.
Heath Ledger is not burning in hell for his part in anything at all - nor for his suicide.  He is in Heaven, cleansed and renewed into his perfect created form by his Creator, baptised into new life eternal.
Because God loves him, and God would not stand for such a beautiful thing as one of his children, to suffer eternal damnation.
To suggest that a human being, whom God wants to save, would be condemned to hell, is nothing short of blasphemy against His infinite power and grace.
So I don't worry at all.

And that's just about how I feel on the matter.

My thoughts and prayers are with the family and friends of Heath.
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Phil

Well you no doubt know my blood pressure has been significantly raised by this little experiment.

I hadn't done enough research before hand to get good prices so it mattered little to me if I varied my route each day so that I could at least find the best way for my expenses.

Monday: Walking & Train
(NB: I've put walking in here cos there's about 30 minutes of it involved in the route - the other days the walking is small transfer distance)
Leave house at 7:40am
Arrive at Office at 9:15am
Arrive home at... I forget - 7pm-ish.
Route: Walk to Rochdale; Train to Manchester; Walk across Manchester centre; Train to Stockport; Walk to office.

Tuesday: Bus & Train
(NB: The bus home would not normally take that long, but was heavily delayed)
Leave house at 7:25am
Arrive at Office at 9:15am
Arrive home at 9:15pm
Route: Bus to Manchester; Train to Stockport; Walk to office.

Wednesday: Bus Only
(NB: I actually left the office at about 5:50, instead of 5:30 appropriate to the 9:30 start - this was just cos I was into something so that 20 minutes is not GMPTE's delay)
Leave house at 7:15am
Arrive at Office at 9:35am
Arrive home at 8:30pm
Route: Bus to Manchester; Bus to Stockport.

Thursday: Car, Train, & Metro
Leave house at 7:50am
Arrive at Office at 9:00am
Arrive home at 7:00pm
Route: Car to Rochdale; Train to Manchester; Metro across Manchester centre; Train to Stockport; Walk to office.

Friday: Car
Leave house at 8:15am
Arrive at Office at 9:00am
Arrive home at 6:00pm
Route: Drive to Stockport.

So, what have we learnt?  All pricing issues aside, the car comes out a long way ahead in timing, as well as setting off the moment I want to set off and from where I wanted to set off from, with no waiting outside. 

All public transport journeys were uncomfortable and involved a lot of cold/wet/smelly/sweaty elements.

Pricing issues in, public transport comes in best, with the buses at the top of the table.

I've also learnt I'm not allowed to take my coffee onto a bus.  I'm sure many drivers wouldn't mind but the one on Thursdays homeward journey did and I really had no choice but to throw my £2 cup of coffee away to satisfy the little Hitler.  My car trip and the trains had no such annoying little man with silly rules so I was able to have my coffee.

I had written another huge post of anger on Tuesday when I stumbled to my room fuming with the horrible long wait on a wet and windy evening in Manchester, but I probably wont post it cos... it's all been said really.  Suffice to say it left a nasty taste in my mouth, and the 'mother' with 2 year old 'child' that screamed the entire length of the journey didn't help me feel calm.

Some people might not know me personally and reading this blog you'd never know it, but to all GMPTE staff and passengers, I am very respectful, softly spoken, polite, and friendly.  Perhaps if I looked like I'd make life hell for the driver he'd not have sold me the wrong ticket, nor would the other one tell me I can't drink coffee... but I wont stoop to their level of uncivilised behaviour.

So what am I going to do now?  Well there's a room available for rent much closer to work, and that's option 1.  Tomorrow I'm off to sort out my finances and look at some cars, and that's option 2.  Option 3 is to do both.  There is no option for Public Transport - there just aren't enough hours in the day and I wont live like that.
I'll let you know what I go for.
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Phil
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So I've got this new job thing, and will soon be flush with cash (well, ok, not that great but I can stop pick pocketing now) - woot.  I have to wear shirt and tie for it, and while they don't expressly state that men should add a suit to that, I think it wise.  To that end I went suit shopping today and bought a nice new one.  My old one is still good but it's looking a bit tired and if I have to wear a suit I wanna do it well :-D  I did plan on buying a cheap one and ended up spending a few hundred pounds, but when you check the hotness you'll understand.

I also got a very snazzy coat, which is kinda instead of a car.  You might think a coat and a car are a bit unbalanced but then you don't know how much that coat costs :P  Anyway - it's a good thick coat, as the second problem I face is travel.  I currently live in Rochdale, and the office is 18 miles away, with mostly motorway stretching between.  It would take approximately half an hour to get to work in the morning assuming no accidents on the M60 or anything.  The company works on flexitime so if I were planning to get in for 9 and traffic was unusually bad, it would matter not.  This journey would be warm, comfortable, and flexible, allowing me the freedom to not return home after but instead go wherever I want to first.  You can see why a car is extremely tempting.
Then you look at the alternatives.  Unfortunately, there is no direct connection from Rochdale-Stockport, though that's not unreasonable.  There is not in fact any easy connection between these two towns at all.  The simplest way involves a brisk 20 minute walk to the station, train into Manchester, a 15 minute brisk walk across the centre, a train to Stockport, and a short 5 minute walk up to the office.  I've done that Manchester centre walk many a time, and in my head it's a 5 minute walk, but I've timed it lately, and really - it's actually 15 minutes at a brisk pace.  This makes me sweaty while giving me a runny nose, and that's always a great thing to do at the start of a long day.  Amazing service.

(hope you can read the small text :-/)

You can avoid the Manchester walk though, for a cost of £1.20 per day.  This is the price of a Metrolink ticket, the public transport system that runs between the two stations.  You still get the runny nose because all metro platforms are out in the open, but for £6/week you can avoid a sweaty start to the day.  Actually you'd buy the annual season pass at £250 and it works out cheaper.  This pass will only work between the two stations I want to use to get to work.  My issue with this is that I'm begrudged to part with any money for a system that always was meant to, was built on the basis of, and fekking should be included in your rail ticket.  When I buy a Rochdale-Stockport ticket, I expect GMPTE to be able to get me from Rochdale to Stockport, without having to buy a second ticket half way to bridge the gaping hole in the network.  There once were trains that ran between Victoria and Piccadilly but they were closed down because the Metrolink replaced them, at the time as an all inclusive part of the system, but now you have to pay an additional fee for it. 

Then you also pay a few quid a day to cut out the walk to the station from my house, throw in another £500 a year there.  Then you can work without getting sweaty in your snazzy suit and warm winter coat as you travel in the morning.

Still, annual cost of running a car is like... thousands.  Public transport passes will get me to work and back for a single thousand or so.  In TWO hours.  Two hours, as opposed to half an hour from my house to the office.  That's four hours of my day gone every day, and that's not a small price - I like having three hours at the end of the day to live.

I'm not one to give up easily though.  A workmate lives between Rochdale and Stockport - around 8 miles from my house.  He drives in and would be more than happy to car pool.  I could contribute to his petrol costs, and cut my lost time and lost comfort down dramatically.  Unfortunately... there is also no travel link between our houses - you have to go into Manchester and back out, totaling a 1 hour 45 minute journey by bus, for around £3.50/day. "QQ" as the kids say.

Having thought about all this I decided to opt for the car, and after choosing a brand, model, and option level, I found the exact car I wanted for a good price.  I decided I'd buy it the next day, and went to bed.  I didn't sleep well.  There's something of a Northern sense in me that grinds against the thought of paying any kind of interest, or buying anything on credit, which most of this car would be.  I woke up with the decision firm in my mind that I was not going to buy a car until most of the money was being put on the desk at point of exchange.  In part, that was hard, because I was letting go of the car I had so specifically singled out, but it's the only way I'll have it.

So my fate rests back in the hands of GMPTE, with whom I have a very poor opinion.  QQ.

There are two options left open to me, should GMPTE prove unable to put the effort into our relationship that I really need from them.  First I can buy a cheaper car and drive it for the year.  Second I can move somewhere much closer/better connected to Stockport.  But week 1 - I'll give to GMPTE.  Dazzle me with your service and reliability during peak hours.  Show me you understand the responsibility you carry to those peoples live who need you day by day.  Show me, you're not just a bunch of wasters stealing money from the public purse without remorse or guilt.

Ha!  So I'll be getting a car and moving next week then.  Low life thieves.

I think the car I want is coming though, in a matter of months, and so I'd prefer not to have an interim car which will be costly and faffy for the time I'd want it.  When I get the car of my choice - I'll be showing it off right here :D  Oooh, shiny pictures.

But that is for another day.  Until next time!  Be good :)
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Phil
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So there's this guy called Josh who I met on an event some time ago.  Despite changing my address twice and blocking his calls, I can't seem to lose him.  Ok ok, I jest - he's not a bad kid, in fact, some people might even say he's a good kid, being all Christian and devout and whatnot.  So it's puzzling to see him acting like such a man-whore with regards to the ladies.  Recently he's thrown morality to the wind and put his over-charged ego and perhaps not all that lacking charisma to the purpose of dating a different girl every day, instead of the do-goody and evangelistic causes that previous preoccupied his time.

So what's happened?  Well... basically, he's a teenager, and those hormonal imbalances have just become too much.  Lock up your daughters, Joshua is on the prowl.  He was telling me about his new found date-aholic tendencies and about the pressure on young Christian's today with regards to social standing, sex, and all that jazz.  "Do you think it was this hard when you were a teenager?" he asked in all seriousness.  Now, I'm 24 - it wasn't *that* long ago that I was a teenager.  The world was in full colour all of five years ago, electricity had been discovered, we even had crude versions of the mobile telephone back then.  But he wasn't making a little jibe as he so often loves to do - he's seriously asking us 'oldies' if we think it's harder for those under teenage pressures now.

I would have defended my youthful state more if I didn't like being an old man so much, and if not for the discussion I was having with Caleb just the other day about how much the world has changed in the last decade.  Josh, in fairness was asking if it was as hard when I was like... 13-16, rather than the practically grown up 19, and since I was 13, a lot of things have changed.  Indeed in some ways, things have changed more in 10 years than they have in entire centuries of history.

Technology for example.  When I was 13, very few people really used the Internet.  Very few honestly knew what it was, and access to it was expensive and limited.  I remember being on 'The Lions Den', one of Greater Manchester's most prominent WAN services.  You dialled into the WAN's server, which contained a store of cached pages and files from the Internet, much like a digest magazine.  The people who ran the den spent the day 'surfing' in 'Ye Olde Internet Explorer...ee.... 2' (or indeed, Netscape Navigator - oh yes, you remember it) to bring us, the local consumers, a daily choice.  This was because you paid for the lines you were using back then - none of this 'monthly flat fee' business.  If you wanted to look at a site hosted in Sydney, you paid for the phone lines between your house and Sydney to be used to carry your data per second.  So one person collecting a bunch of sites, then splitting the cost to local users who then only had to pay local call rates, made a lot of sense.  The Internet however, it was not.  Soon after dawned ISP's offering 1p/minute rates, and eventually, flat fees with hoourly disconnects and download limits.
So little net access, 386 computers, no mobile phones - I'll repeat that - No Mobile Phones  (ok, not quite true - some of our Dad's had a brick sized mobile thing from work or something - but generally... no personal mobiles), and the media format world was ruled by VHS (Impression of hitting rewind: Kchrk-Wzzzzzzzk-KrrrRrrrk-Vzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...).

Medical technology has come an extremely long way, understanding of genetics, psychology back then was an infant and still mostly barbaric discipline, and overseas travel was, for a limited few rich families, an annual experience.

September the 11th hadn't shaped the worlds priorities and shattered its security, our most advanced Fighter Aircraft was probably the Jaguar, Princess Diana was still alive, the IRA hadn't bombed Manchester and the Arndale Centre was that horrible scummy 70's brown tile structure.

TV's were all big CRT's with brown fake wood effect casing, there was no channel 5, CGI was yet to really make an impact on films, news services were much less informed themselves, and the test card girl dominated night time broadcasts.

Ok - I might be going overboard here, in fairness, the world was very much on the edge of all these technologies and developments, they were in part around for some.  That's the point though - in about a decade, much of the above has become a key shaping factor for all life on the planet or entirely obsolete respectively, and it just wasn't so back then.

So yes Josh, the world has changed a lot, and the era of my youth was quite different. 

But what about social pressure, attitudes to sex, and lustful stuff - is that harder now?  I don't think social pressure is any less or more in this age of SMS MSN Social Networking driven culture, than the purer playground and mates on the street kind of world I was younger in, but I wonder what being 13 with your class mates on your facebook must be like.  I don't think it's harder - but I bet it is different.  Attitudes to sex amongst the teens has ever been liberal and casual, so no, no change there either.  I do think it was pretty easy for me to resist such temptation but that was nothing to do with the world - it's just that I'm a big geek, and was a bigger geek in school, which makes morality easier to achieve than if you're uber popular and dashingly handsome (oh the poor suffering pretty people - must be tough).

I tell you one thing that has changed though - a lot more guys struggle with porn than I seem to recall in the day, which although isn't strictly picked out as a sin by direct scripture, is an indulgence largely based on lust, and that is spoken about.  In fact, the teaching I had as a teenager was that lusting for a woman (yes, always women - there were absolutely no gays back then and women are not prone to lustful thought at all) is to sleep with her, and she will one day be someone else's husband, which means you have adultered with her.  Half of you are now thinking I could have phrased that better, and half of you are thinking that's a ridiculous idea.  In part you're both right - there is some truth and wisdom to this though, and if it were the subject of the blog I would make the case more delicately, but in essence, that was, and still is the teaching.  So it's a big problem to use porn, or even to think about someone in a lustful way, if you're not gonna be marrying them.  This probably became harder when the Internet became a part of our lives - indeed now I can see all the porn, and not just images but video's and live feeds if I so desire, straight to my mobile phone anywhere anytime.  Orange was trying to sell this service to me on Christmas Eve of all times, just the other week.  It's a miracle I'm managing to keep writing this blog while obviously on a computer connected to the net, with an unlimited plethora of hot steamy live action freely available just by going to google and doing a search for 'porn'. 

Hmm... the readership of this page just suddenly dropped off.  Oi!  Point that browser back this way before I send the parental control in.  And you guys over there - I see you in those other tabs - stop watching those jiggling things and give yourself 10 lashes for your sins.

All this being so - lust was around before the Internet.  I remember sleepovers being dominated by a giggling hope that we might stay up late enough for late night showing of some B-rated film that would contain a brief few seconds of boobies every now and again.  Even if your parents were totally paranoid watchdogs, it's not really the boobies on TV that are the problem.  Whether it's the person you fancy, or a page three model, unhelpful stimuli is present in life, and you have only your own self control to help you.  Is it harder to control lust now that said stimuli is both more aggressively present and vastly available... yeah - probably.  Sucks to be you I guess, but if you really cared about it - you know you could move that PC out of your own room and into an open and visible area of the house like the hallway or dining room, and you know you could set yourself into a habit of more righteous or constructive activities to do in your idle time, when you're most likely to otherwise... anyway... let's get to the point - why does it matter?

Well to answer that - we go back to our case study subject, Josh the man-whore.  See if you find your life is led by lust too much, the particular girl or boy of your affections become less people for whom you may have cared, supported, and befriended.  Instead, they can become more of an item, a source of pleasure, something to satisfy you.  Indeed with enough general lusting, women/men become generally more objectified in your mind and much less individual.  I'm not saying they wont be indistinguishable people at all, but to some degree they become more of a group for purpose.  You might be told this is a terrible state of being, but that's crap to be honest - it's loads of fun!  Truth is girls like to be flirted with anyway and even objectified a little bit, as do boys, and it feels good to be interacting in this way.  The problem will come about though, when you meet one you actually want to have a meaningful relationship with.  You might well get together and go out for a while, but all this shallow behaviour that preceded this union will still be very much in your style, and you'll lust for others more, which is never helpful, as well as find it much harder to relate as purely and deeply as you could be doing, because the physical attraction of a relationship is way over dominating the emotional and spiritual aspects, which should really be equal in proportion but in previous weekly flings have been all but ignored.  The traditional values of self control and all that then, are in place to keep your heart as fit for meaningful relationships as it can be at the expense of casual hoohar.

Ok that all sounds a bit pretentious and preachy, perhaps a bit OTT.  In it lies *some* truth though - I'll leave you to filter it out.  And porn is much like the casual relationships - objectifying and unbalancing - and has an effect on your emotional and spiritual life much like eating too much unhealthy food does on your body.

Oh - since your not actually going to move your PC into an open area, stop using porn sites, or stop chain dating... I should probably make you feel a little better about it all.  It's no big deal.  Seriously - it's no big deal - not worth getting upset over or getting all low in the self esteem.  Porn doesn't make you a bad person, in fact, no fun just makes you boring to be honest - you'll finally get to your wedding bed and probably be terrified and uptight should you treat nudity and attraction like some terrible taboos your whole life.  It's something to keep an eye on, it's worth taking a moment to think about your attitudes towards your preferred gender now and then, perhaps making special effort to exert self control if you feel you're perhaps becoming a little too shallow just to keep your ability to relate on a human level in good shape.  But guilt will harm you a lot more and a lot faster than porn will, so don't let anyone tell you this issue is something to obsess over.

I think this is probably the worst explanation of this type I've ever given... ah well - I'm not paid to think... about porn... that'd be pretty awesome though... might look into that for my next career direction... which makes me think I should make a blog about the morality of being *in* porn next... yay - possible sequels.

Until such time - be good!
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Phil
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Hey - I got the job.  No no, not the RAF one - the one I applied to before that.  Yeah - the finance company one I applied for in like... April or May or whatever.  They just called and asked if I could start Monday.

Damn!  Gonna have to get up in the morning :-o

Good job though - the programming team are a few screws loose but hey, I wouldn't fit in if they weren't! :-D
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Phil

HAPPY NEW YEAR!