I’ve had this song in my head now for quite a while. The lyrics are some of my favourite ever, especially the second verse. Watch the song, read the lyrics and see what you think. The band are All Together Separate, which is kinda funny as they’re no longer together. I believe this song came out in 1994.

Everybody loves a rose,
but will you be thankful for the thorns?
Love is easy when you’re loved,
but do you curse another when you’re alone?

Chorus:
Oh, I give my life to You
so I can gain it back again
Oh, I stand solid
while the paradigm is shifting

You say live and let live,
but people are dying everyday
And you say what I don’t know won’t hurt me,
but if what I do not know is the very thing I need,
then I say…

Humanity sees truth through a shattered window pane
That blocks the view, and plants the seed
So we draw the curtains to close but I say
That the sun can still shine behind a closed mind
And sticks and stones do hurt when tossed from the tongue of mankind

All Together Separate - Paradigm

So it’s the big one, the one we’ve all been waiting to see for years. I went to see it last night, and what a show it is!

I’m beginning to really enjoy going to the movies over here. You can always rely on Americans to be over the top. And in typical American style not only did security have to control the crowd at the theater, we had to turn up an hour before the movie started to get a decent seat. And funniest thing of all, some hardcore fan came dressed as Duffman. Ooooh yeah! He was the minor celebrity of the night getting photos taken and everything.

It was very amusing to hear everyone booing the previews, all eager to get to the main feature. There were a few heckles of “Spiderpig!” and “Get to the movie” - needless to say there was rapturous applause when the movie actually started. So on to the movie itself.

The Movie

Without giving away too much of the plot, it’s basically an extended Simpsons episode with some jazzed up animation and production. The start has a revamped Springfield fly-thru with Bart’s blackboard lines reading “I will not illegally download this movie”. That self-parodying theme is paramount throughout the movie.

One thing that was surprising to see is some mildly adult humour. There’s nudity, mild swearing and even a hint at a sex scene. It’s like all of Matt Groening’s ideas that he wasn’t allowed to show on TV suddenly released! The movie is highly referential of the American culture too, which I’m not sure would be as funny if I saw it back home.

Also, it’s weird to see the Simpsons up on the big screen. All the characters that are so familiar seem like movie stars when you see them on screen, and it’s as if it’s an old series that has suddenly come back 20 years later. Very bizarre.

All in all the movie was all it could be. It’s not going to please everybody, and it’s certainly not one of the best movies I’ve ever seen but it is very entertaining and won’t disappoint die-hard Simpsons fans. Doesn’t beat the TV show though, it’s still vastly superior. But definitely a must see for anyone who does the daily 6 o’clock suppertime on Channel 4.

Hilarious from start to finish.

On Monday I had the day off so I was supposed to go to Lake Tahoe. I got up at 5.30 and was ready to go when I get a phone call from the girl I was going with telling me she wasn’t able to go anymore. Really disappointed. I went back to bed and got a few more hours sleep and eventually decided to head to Berkeley on the Easy Bay. So I hopped on the BART and explored Berkeley.

Berkeley is probably most famous for it’s university, UC Berkeley. In the 1960’s it was the centre of student dissent and protest and part of the hippie movement. These days, it’s not as active as it used to be but it’s still got it’s fair share of anti-establishment going on. It’s a nice city, but when school’s out there isn’t a whole lot to do if you’re a tourist. After about 2 hours I felt I’d seen most of what the place offered. It was very warm as well, the bay area is usually a good 20 degrees warmer than San Francisco.

So in the evening I decided that I wanted to get out and do something. I scalped a ticket for the sold out SF Giants vs Atlanta Braves game for pretty cheap outside the stadium. It was hyped to be a great games as local legend Barry Bonds is currently on 753 career home runs, just 2 behind the all-time career home runs record held by Hank Aaron of 755. Everyone was out just to see Bonds break the record, which explains the 42,000 capacity crowd. I was quite excited that it was my first baseball game and I could well be seeing history in the making.

As it turns out, the Giants were crap. In the end they were defeated 4-2 and Bonds, given 4 opportunities to bat, managed to hit the ball twice and I don’t even think he scored anything. Disappointing to say the least, but the experience was cool. I hadn’t actually realised how slow a baseball game is. It was 2 and a half hours long and there was a break between every inning. The helpful guy beside me filled me in on what was going on, which helped me make sense of it all.

The Giants home stadium is AT&T park, which is pretty nice stadium. It’s got ridiculous amounts of advertising and stuff going on around it, and it recently got a new screen installed which is apparently the largest HDTV on the west coast. I got a pretty decent seat in the end, was able to see everything. It’s in a nice location, you can see right across the bay into Oakland from up there.

I took this shot before the game. By the time the game had started there were quite a few more kayaking people and boats gathered in the water, all there to catch a Barry Bonds home run if he knocked it out of the park. Bit of a waste of time if you ask me, but testament to the mentality of the American people.

A couple of other things I’ve been noticing the last few days is some pretty famous places around the bay area. For example, I only discovered today that Bebo is located on 10th St, which is like 5 blocks from my office! I’m gonna check it out tomorrow on my way to work. Another place I MUST visit is the Mesa Boogie factory. It’s in Petaluma, which is like an hour north of here. And they do free tours! Lastly, maybe on Friday I’ll head to Half Moon Bay, it’s about half an hour south, just before San Jose. That’s where Mavericks is - home to the biggest waves in America. It’s a surfing Mecca, so I really want to go down and watch them for a day. Should be fun!

Work has been absolutely crazy these last few days. It seems that everyone suddenly wants to go to either Yosemite or Napa Valley. It’s been a very tiring week.

On the other hand, I met a couple of very pretty Danish girls. One actually looked rather like Angelina Jolie, which was awesome. We got chatting and had a really good conversation. The first girl was called Vallad (think that’s how it’s spelled) and the other was Signe (pronounced like Xena, the warrior princess). Unfortunately, Signe (the Angie lookalike) was seeing a guy back home which was rather annoying.

Last night we went out to a bar just for a bit of fun. I had a great night, got back a little late and managed about 4 hours sleep before getting up for yet another busy day at work. It was so nice to get back home and go out for dinner with the girls. Really was crap that they were leaving for LA tonight. Kinda weird, I barely know them yet I miss the company. Wish I’d taken some photos now! I was pretty tempted to head down to LA for the weekend with them seeing as I’m off for a few days.

Anyways, was a nice ray of sunshine on an otherwise cloudy week!

Something odd happened to me yesterday. Perhaps my transition into properly being a legal adult (mentally I’m still in transition) is beginning to affect my behavior but for reasons I can’t possibly remember, I went to the gym.

I was given a free pass to Crunch gym on Van Ness. I thought that being free I had nothing to lose. When I got there I discovered it was on the top floor of the AMC building. If you’ve seen the film Dodgeball, you’ll have seen the stereotype of the American gym. Believe it or not, this ’stereotype’ is almost 100% accurate. I felt so stupid entering a gym where the stairs leading up to it have signs that say “Every step is a step towards greatness!”. I kid you not, these people take motivation very seriously.

Of course, most of the gym’s members are buff, oiled up and entirely kitted out with the token middle aged guy getting shouted at by his personal trainer. I played it safe and went for a half hour jog on the treadmill before doing a few turns on other things.

The whole thing made me realise how much I hate the gym. Sure I felt pretty good at the end of it, but I really didn’t enjoy going. I told them I’d call them to discuss my membership. They can expect that call the day after…never! What’s more I wasted $20 on a pair of shorts. I went out for a steak straight afterwards at a 50’s style diner which made the whole workout pointless, but I ate it guilt-free, safe in the knowledge that I’d burned enough calories to enjoy it.
The other big thing was that there was an earthquake here last night. As you probably already know, earthquakes are happening all the time on the west coast, most of them don’t register very high on the Richter scale and go unnoticed. This one registered 4.1 which is small enough to not cause any notable damage, but large enough for it to be a proper earthquake. It apparently happened at 4.45 this morning. I say apparently because I slept right through it. Perhaps I’m a heavy sleeper but it’s weird that I didn’t notice a 15 second earth movement that happened only a few miles away in Oakland. It woke most people in my work up. Kinda gutted I missed it actually!

Also, I’m now 21. Happy birthday me!

So the last two weeks I’ve been going out to City Church here in San Francisco. Despite being in a minority demographic (student) in terms of church folk, it’s a decent church. I’ve really enjoyed the teaching and there’s no two ways about it - God has been speaking to me through the church. These last two weeks the pastor has been talking about spiritual guidance, asking God for direction when you don’t know what to do. Something I’ve found myself doing quite a bit since I got here.

I was fortunate enough today to get a ride to church with Chris, a nice guy I met at the summer conversations thing last week. In his main address today, the pastor Scott Sherman was talking about getting answers from God. He brought up the familiar tale of the Christian who sends a ’spirit-gram’ to God and expects a reply ASAP. Then when the reply never comes, we’re pretty quick to blame Him for not guiding us. I particularly like the quote he brought up:

Love God, and do as you please

Augustine

On first glance, the above quote seems a bit flippant. But what Augustine meant by it was: really trust God and know that in all things if you seek to do His will He will guide you. You can’t wait around to expect something miraculous to happen, God lets us make mistakes in order to grow. This reminded me of a conversation I had with a friend, Arf, at a CU party last year. We were talking about God’s will and how to know that you’re on the right track. Arf is amazing at explaining things. In his words, God doesn’t have a specific linear path for us to follow. If he did we wouldn’t face decisions every day of our lives. He won’t always provide one clear answer to every question or decision we might have. Instead, God’s will for our lives involves change of character. God is our Father, and much like any father caring for their child they don’t have all the answers and they won’t make all the decisions for the child. God really doesn’t mind if you grow up to be a doctor and married to a specific person, or a road sweeper and single all your life. He gives us the boundary in which we can act upon His will. In the end, the specifics of your life are irrelevant - it’s been said many times that God looks within. There could be 100 different jobs you could do and the same number of people you could share your life with, but any one of them could be God’s will. The lessons learned and the changing of your heart is what His plan for your life is.

Of course, mistakes are a part of life. I’ve spent a many hours wondering in my own mind if moving here was a mistake. Again, the address in church today helped me. God reminds us that His ways aren’t ours, and if we were to know all the plans He has for our lives, we would lose the need to depend on Him. Probably the most striking thing I took away from today was the story of David. We’re all familiar with David’s biggest mistake - Bathsheba. But while what he did was definitely not the wise thing to do, from that mistake came Solomon who went on to become both a wise king and descendant of Jesus. So sometimes the mistakes we make can lead to a bigger picture.

For now I’m trying to figure out what my next move is. I’m blessed to have great friends who can advise me and still keep in contact. In all things, despite having crappy days at work and so forth, it’s still a comfort to know that through everything God is unveiling His will for my life and when I look back in years to come I will be able to see exactly how He is shaping me.