Kerinthian's

Just a short entry this week I’m afraid, I’m on hiatus in New Zealand’s stinkiest tourist town – Rotorua. This week my blog took a crash dive into the realm of hardly any hits and I couldn’t figure out why… The possibilities were that either aliens had abducted my various readers or Y2K has happened 12 years too late. In any case I hope it wasn’t because of my poor skills in arithmetic! For a whole week I had published the wrong figures on Part 11 of this series, leaving most of you to assume I’m a complete moron due to my obvious miscalculations! Nevertheless, I have gone back and corrected the fault and am back on track. This week’s figures reflect a more accurate picture of where I am at. In my defence last week was a rather rotten one for personal reasons which I won’t go into, because the purpose of this blog is not to depress you. But as I have mentioned before, the beauty of what I am doing is that it requires little effort (for the most part) and for the 7 days ...

Oh look there's the finish line, just over there in the near future where a hundred bucks is waiting for me! I wonder if I should start taking bets for how many more weeks this is going to take? The idealist in me says one more week but then my internal realist is making sure that the idealist keeps his seat belt on! Anyone want to place a bet? Though, as far as this task is concerned, the past week has been a very productive one. I sold: Clavell's King Rat for $3 Feist's Murder in LaMut for $3 The Secret Garden for $6 Dune for $6 Thus injecting a further $18 into the exciting process! Keeping with my system I relisted the 34 unsold books and rummaged through some more dusty op-shop book shelves for eight more bargains to sell, spending a total of $5.50 for new stock which I quickly added to my listings at the cost of $2.40... Bringing my stock up to 42 items! So with a bit of fanfare I'd like to announce to the world that after subtracting success fe...

My life changed when I got an iPhone, in some ways for the better and in someways the worse! On one hand it gave my penchant for addictions a new habit to hook into and consume my attention with every five minutes! On the other it has dramatically introduced my fingers with an unusual amount of exercise, giving my fingers muscles that a concert pianist would envy! The one thing worth comment however is the way owning this smart device has revolutionized, in no uncertain terms, how I now do online trading. Whether it be through eBay, Amazon or New Zealand's Trade Me there is an App for it - and selling stuff has never been easier (now all I need is to get rich to take care of the buying stuff!) In the olden days, about a year ago, a cyber-century in days past, listing an item meant taking a photo on the old digital camera, removing the memory card and turning the drawers inside out to find the fandangled memory card adapter, plugging it into the laptop or PC via USB cable ...

In my enthusiasm to go heavy on the "Classics" (AKA movies that don't carry the taint of the 21st Century) you can imagine my excitement when in a local discount store I spotted The Bounty, starring Anthony Hopkins and Mel Gibson, for only three New Zealand dollars! Not only is this movie clothed in the talents of the above "greats" but it somehow managed to capture in it's talent net the two equally admired star fish, Daniel Day Lewis and Liam Neeson before they were drop dead famous! Sorry, my idioms are all over the place today... Needless to say this move was a gripping tale about the tense and complex struggle between Master's Mate Fletcher Christian (Gibson) and the infamous lieutenant William Bligh (Hopkins), Captain of the ill-fated Bounty. The story, though legendary in the telling is in fact true and if imdb is anything to go by the movie is the most accurate depiction of the tale that exists in film, portrayed in flash back style throu...

Me: How did I get such a wise wife? My Wife: I don't know, but I do know that "Wife" and "Wise" are only one letter apart!

Every now and then I feel compelled to write a piece about something that I know from the outset is not going to be popular and may cost me some readers. Oh well. I’m writing this as a response to some negative feedback I’ve been receiving from a Vlog I posted about a year or so ago on YouTube. At the time I had started a series called, “Ask a Christian…” which didn’t last for very long, because of my becoming despondently aware of how inadequate my knowledge was at the time to answer some of the questions I was being asked. So I shelved it. Nevertheless I did leave the videos online and they continue to get the odd hit and, naturally, the odd bit of ridicule which finds its way into my inbox and occasionally gets on my nerves. The video that received the majority of mild animosity was one in which I attempted to answer a question about whether I thought smoking was a sin. Oh dear. Please understand, if you are not a Christian and you find yourself reading this – this article...

Blogging from my phone again! This morning I was happy to discover one of my articles is being featured on The Wealth Building Carnival along with some other interesting reads! Check it out on: http://my-wealth-builder.blogspot.co.nz/2012/08/the-wealth-builder-carnival-87.html?m=1

I may not be a celebrity capable of the kind of endorsement the following people deserve but I want to do something nice for two fellows I know who, like me, are putting their skills to good use and sharing them with the internet community... The first one is my brother who, a geography teacher, has produced a unique one stop shop on YouTube for everything you ever needed to know about geography, from how to measure a tree without climbing it to the magnificent and recent erruption of Tongariro which my country recently "enjoyed". He's also produced some great clips of our native birds so please, check it out for everything you ever needed to know about New Zealands crazy geological happenings! Then there's this guy... Shane Cammell. Classical guitarist. He does not need a review - his fingers plucking the strings are worth more than my humble words can project! I've known him for half my life and his musical genius never ceases to please. He even pl...

It’s all downhill from here. Last week I broke through the half way mark. It may have taken me 11 weeks but I definitely feel the pace picking up as I hurtle towards my target. That is, if “hurtling” means the same as “there’s still a few weeks to go yet…” In the week just gone by I sold the following books: Clan of the Cave Bear for $6 2061 Odyssey Three for $6 After subtracting Trademe’s success fees, and the money spent on replacing the books I sold, I am left with $56.16… like I said, it really is a downward slope from here on in, with only $43.84 until my eagle has landed! As usual I quickly relisted the 34 books that remained from last week’s listings and purchased 4 books to replace the two that I sold at the cost of only $3, boosting my stock to 38 books. If you would like to view my listings just click on the link below. Most of my friends and family have no idea that I am writing this blog and most of them would consider me the proverbial prophet without honor, ...

Click here to read this series from the beginning... Commandment Number Five : "If you are offering your gift at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, first go and be reconciled to your brother, then come and offer your gift" (Matthew 5:23) This commandment in my mind works like a magnet that draws to itself Jesus’ Commandment to Love One another and also to forgive each other. In the same context Jesus says, “Settle matters quickly with your adversary who is taking you to court, do it while you are still with him on the way, otherwise he may hand you over to the judge and the judge may hand you over to the officer and you may be thrown into prison.” The ultimate test of whether we are Christians is in our capacity to show love towards each other. In fact when Jesus talks of the End Times in Matthew chapter 24:10 he links many falling away from the faith with the love of most growing cold. The Apostle Paul states that God has poure...

As I dug further through the boxes of useless items under my house I fell upon even more sermon notes from some time ago, in fact what I discovered was my very first sermon which I shared with Howick C3 (Christian City Church) in Auckland sometime in 2009… The topic for the month was “Serving the House” and I have to warn you it has a certain charismatic flavor, as in my younger days I didn’t lean so far towards conservative Christianity as I do now, never the less there were some good points worth sharing so... This month we are focusing on the subject of “serving the House”. So I pondered and prayed about it and decided that I should talk about the Appendix. An Appendix, for those of you who don’t know, is a ten centimeter long worm like thing located near the junction of your small and large intestines. There’s some debate over its usefulness but given the appendix’s propensity to cause death via infection, and the general good health of people who have had their appendix’s...

Here's yet another track from days long by when I dreamed of better days to come!

Recently I decided it was time to get cultured as far as the sorts of films I watch are concerned. I’ve mentioned in previous reviews that I am a projectionist for a main stream cinema chain so I have been overloaded over the years with the, well, human waste of modern cinema. Every year there are one or two great films that come out which are must sees like last year’s Inception by Christopher Nolan and this year’s Prometheus which I couldn’t shut up about for weeks (even though I totally disagree with that movies other world view). But on the whole, most movies that Hollywood spews out these days are just that – vomit. By that I mean it’s just indigested nonsense that comes from marketing statistics, aimed at the thoughtless Youth and not the mature thinking adult like me who just craves some originality for a change, not this endless regurgitation of sequels, prequels and stinkquels! So I thought what better way to restore my faith in this artistic medium than to go back to the g...

Last week I sold The Diamond Hunters by the ever popular Wilbur Smith on Trademe.co.nz for $3.50, taking my total balance up to $50.76, which means… I AM NOW OVER HALF WAY TO MY GOAL!!! Imagine that a hundred balloons and a hurricane of streamers suddenly appeared out of nowhere and flooded the room with triumphant colour accompanied by a cacophony of insane trumpets. So what if I’ve been doing this for exactly 11 weeks! I am now $30 richer than when I began, it’s taken me very little personal effort and I have actually been enjoying myself, hoorah! If you are new to this series then you can be forgiven for not knowing what I am talking about, but let me break it down for you. 11 weeks ago I began with only $20 and set myself the challenge, here in the public forum, of turning that $20 into $100 by using Trademe.co.nz, the New Zealand equivalent to eBay. Using my love and knowledge of books I scoured opportunity shops for titles that I recognized as potential sellers and pu...

Of course I'm going to keep torturing you all with these until I run out of tracks... This one was the first in a series I called, "Menya". It came about when I asked the profound question: What if Enya had of been a bloke? Man + Enya = Menya... its logic.

Recently I found myself under my house sorting through boxes of accumulated paraphernalia, separating the treasure from the junk and I stumbled upon a sermon that I wrote for one of those rare occasions when a Pastor had allowed me occupy their pulpit. The theme was on Making a Lasting Difference, and here is what I said: I want you to imagine that you are a creature not just from another planet but from another dimension where there is no light. No one living in this place has ever seen a single thing. No one has any idea where they are or where they are going, they have no idea about who is who or what is what, they just spend every day of their lives stubbing their toes and bumping into things. This wouldn’t be so bad if they had a good sense of touch but the truth is that they don’t, and they all have this one intrinsic problem - they all have this sense of there being something more to their existence, like they know they’re meant to see with their eyes but because of this int...

I have wanted to be many things. I have been many things. But I will tell you about those things another day... For now, here is a link to something I made years ago when the one thing I wanted to be more than anything was a famous songwriter. I gave up, but now am wondering if I shouldn't have... what do you think?