Monday, November 26, 2007

A video

hey guys, if you're bored and interested in watching a YouTube video i made earlier this year...check it out...

Kids and Football

As some of you may know, I am a leader at my church's junior youth group...

Every Friday afternoon we do something different, but almost everytime, before the night starts, there will be a small game of soccer for the kids.

Now these kids are from primary school so they love to play soccer...that being an overstatement. It's rather, they love to kick a soccer ball, not so much the rest of the game.

Instead of working as a team by passing and setting up points, the kids' goal is to generally kick the ball. They are are instantly satisfied with themselves if they can be so nimble enough to mosh through the crowd and touch that ball. Although, this satisfaction is short. If possible, they will whip their feet in and out of the area where the ball is until they can hit it again. This tactic wouldn't go to much further until a proximity to the goals are reached and then MAYBE the kids would consider some CONTROL in their kicking. Other than this the kids have no direction, they are scalar, and do not think about hitting the ball in another direction besides the direction their foot's position makes with the ball's position...

And unlike soccer, they don't seem to able to fully grasp the concept of spreading out over the field. Because their goal isn't to pass and work as a team, but rather a personal achievement of kicking something, they don't quite know why spreading out would have some kind of advantage over the other team. The field ends up being bare except for this one large clump of kids hovering up and down.

So moving on, last friday was Sporty Sports night at Junior Underground (thats the name of the youth group). I had the priviledge to be the Referee for a match of "Three legged soccer". So if you can imagine the chaos that is a soccer game of primary schoolers, that i briefly explained earlier, tying the the legs of two kids together, and making them play soccer is like wrapping a stack of small dogs together in pairs and chucking Shmacko's at them...craziness....

So, theres my observations of primary school soccer...until kids reach high school (or join a soccer club), some kids don't seem to fully grasp what the GOAL of soccer is, that is, getting the ball into the goals...

cya

doug.

Saturday, November 24, 2007

Election Result

Well, it looks like Kevin Rudd is the Prime Minister of Australia...

personally, i didn't quite want Labour to win it...but i guess thats how democracy works...I guess we will see over the next few years how Labour can handle the economy this time around.

It MIGHT be a good thing if Kevin Rudd actually removes troops from Iraq like he said he would, but who knows, that might be too high a standard...

Another part that I didnt like about last night was Channel Nine's coverage of the election. At the beginning of the night there, on their screen, was a big banner saying how many electorates Labour had to take to win the election, as if it were the GOAL for labour to win, as if that was what everybody wanted...

Then, about 2 hours into the show, Channel 9 had a big banner saying KEVIN RUDD WINS ELECTION, even though no other stations were sure that he had. Sigh

This just goes down well with Channel Nine's use of The Worm on their Great Debate. I'm pretty sure the next time i have a choice between a station and channel 9, it wont be the latter...

Although, i wasnt fully impressed with Channel Seven's plans, who gave Joe Hockey a hard time. They kept probing him with unproffesional questions like "How are you feeling" etc. Then some other guy was trying to cheer him up saying things like "Mate, you'll wake up tomorrow morning", "you'll be right"...probally making it worse for the guy.

Then, the smiling Peter Beattie, who made a joke about how he'll have to pay Joe Hockey money now that he's not a minister....Ha...Joe forced a smile.

AAaanyway, i guess i shouldnt be this upset...life goes on...

doug.

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

My Household's Black Hole

My household has a blackhole.

Every now and then i suddenly remember that i once had a shirt, or a jumper...then i wonder why I havent seen it for ages. Matter that was once in this dimension, is now gone. The Result: there is a black hole.

Okay so MOST of the time, i will allow some room to think that PERHAPS i may have just misplaced the item of clothing, but a few days ago, i was led to believe that there IS a gravitation field in my household, and the event horizon is somewhere around my 3rd-from-the-top cupboard.

So I come home wearing my school uniform, and naturally i take off my socks. Later in the day a friend was coming around so i mindlessly collected all the clothes littered on my floor and chucked them into this said cupboard (i.e. the event horizon). Next day i have to get ready for school and one of my socks is GONE.

No, its not missing, no it hasnt been misplaced....it's GONE. It has entered the black hole, gravity too strong for it to resist, and was sucked into it, perhaps in another dimension at this point.

Does anyone else suffer from this undesired household feature? I'm interested to know...

doug.

Saturday, November 17, 2007

Facebook

I have just recently gotten Facebook to work, and even though i have done barely anything with it, i am already loving it much more than MySpace.

Myspace never really clicked properly with me. I would consider every now and then, usually after seeing a horrific Myspace page with women with barely anything on them that i should just delete my MySpace account and never come back. Not to mention the terror it is to look at some of the MySpace layouts that you get. A great man once said (imitating the producer of MySpace)

"ooo lets make a social network where we give kids absolute control of what their space looks like...ooo green text on pink background!"
- Frase T. (2007)

But FACEBOOK on the other hand has everything you would ever need in myspace, except it loses a wad of advertising, near-nudity and the control to totally destroy the already set HTML code.

The BAD side of Facebook however, is ofcourse alot less people i know use it. This sortof problem is obviously not caused by facebook, and isnt really a critism of what has been created, yet its a negative feature about it. Although, then again i have many friends who i wouldnt see on MySpace that i do see on Facebook, so everything cancels each other out.

The moral of this story, GET FACEBOOK.

doug.

Here we go again!

Hello ....hello...hello....hello

Hello cyberspace and everyone else out there. This is beginning of another blog of doug's!

If this is your first time that you have ever seen me write a blog then you don't have to worry.

But, if youve seen this sort of thing before...I KNOW what you're thinking....

"Oh boy, here we go again with another weak blog of doug's going by, already on its way to crash and burn, just like every time" *looks at Mister-T*

but, to those of you who think that, i implore you to think again. Sure this blog might go down just like every blog of mine has. But consider the differences

this time i have made a blog, not just for the sake of making a blog, but i do think that i have some things to say this time around. Within the last month or more there have been plenty of occasions where i would think, read, hear or hold a viewpoint about something and want to write it down and tell the world (i.e. a Blog). And now i have begun this blog...

so lets hope this blog is more fruitful than my last blogs...

Doug's blog awaits you...

Instant Messaging

As a proud member of the iGeneration I have grown up with the use of instant messaging programs like MSN, its just a simple part of my life just like alot of people my age.

But im learning more and more that this simple part of one's lifestyle can have negative effects.

First of all, theres the obvious reason that MSN and the like take up alot of time, but i am finding that the use of internet chatting has bad affects on your relationships.

I have heard it said once that 80% (or around about) of communication when we are face to face with somebody comes from body language. So none of that communication shows up when you are sending emails, posting on MySpace, or sending a txt. Sure, there are emoticons available but they cant give as deep a message as real life can. With this hole in communication, you can get to know ABOUT somebody, what they like, what their opinions are, but you wont really get to KNOW who they are and what they are like to be around i think.

Okay, so im not saying these things are bad and that everyone should avoid them, i mean, i love these means of communication, but i reckon theres a limit sometimes

I only really see the affects of these communication mediums when you are talking to somebody on msn MUCH more than you see them. You will start to lose idea what they are like in "real life" and then find it difficult to meet with them in real life.

So its something ive been thinking about, the more i use these programs...

doug.