freshbytes

A couple of days ago, I was stinge-ing (pronounced st-IN-ging) a lift home from a friend, and he had to go to the bank.

Now this then entailed me waiting in the car, which was totally fine by me, but then he said: “You can always go buy a pie…”

He said it with such a look that said: “…and I want one too!”

Now, I didn’t go buy a pie – primarily becuase I didn’t have any money on me, nor my wallet, but I was thinking about it later – I asked myself the following question:

Had I had enough cash, would I have bought him a pie without him asking for one?

Unfortunately, the answer to that would be no. I’d love to think that I would have, but in reality, I’d have an outside chance of doing so.

And that’s where the problem, dear reader, lies; I’m a selfish person. I freely admit that, evidenced by the real-life scenario above.

Obviously, this isn’t a good thing. Now I know that buying someone a pie without them asking isn’t exactly life-threatening, but it’s the principle (that I’m selfish as all hell) that counts. By not buying my friend who was generously giving me a lift home (as he has done many times before), I was violating my own set of rules.

Most of the time I’d like to think that I have a good grip on reality – but the reality of the situation is I wouldn’t have bought my friend a pie, but not because I’m intentionally selfish, but because I’m un-intentionally so.

At least Radi8 was good – Radi8 turned one! We had some games (an sort of mini-Radi8tion) and Black came last, with Red taking out the cup. We had $50 worth of chips from the fish and chip shop on Hawthorn Drive, and after that, small lifegroups time followed by another inspirational message from an young American who spoke at the Hillsong conference.

Speaking of which, he said: “I’m preaching just as well as you’re responding!” To which the crowd shouted and whooped it up. Which is what you should be doing here.

In any case, chemistry homework is far too much, there’s only so much you can write about Zinc, and I’ve almost written it all.

Song for this week is “Do Wah Diddy” by Manfred Mann – truly excellent stuff.

Freshbytes – where our grip on reality is increasing every day.

Comments below.

written by Benny Ling \\ tags: Blog, chemistry, hillsong, pie, radi8, radi8tion, selfish, zinc

No deep and meaningful today fellas (although there may be later on, depending on how I feel ), just a straight news-only post because Chris did was supposed to do the blog post last week.

Radi8 last week (8/8/08) was awesome as usual – I wasn’t there for the first part because I thought they were cleaning up the dirt jumps, but instead they watched a movie.
After a Maccas dinner, we had some Lifegroups time where the Year 7-8 girls were the only ones to have a seperate group – everyone else was lumped into the one big group! It was different, actualy, to hear everyone else’s opinions… That being said – I didn’t enjoy it as much. Maybe I’m a small-group kinda guy
Our time after that consisted of watching the new Hillsong DVD – which prompted me to buy it the very next day after work. Favourite song at this very moment from that album is Where We Belong – love the vocals, the melody, and the music – but especially the message.

On that note, (pun seriously not intended) I had no idea that Hillsong and Planetshakers were available on the iTunes Music Store! Previously, I had been looking for them under “Gospel and Religious” but not under “Inspirational”! Here’s the iTMS link for the new Hillsong album. If it wasn’t for me looking for a song that Dean plays every single time he hooks up his iPod to the speaker system (without fail), Planetshaker’s “Saved the Day” from their album “Free”. then I would never have discovered that the iTMS is such an awesome place…. Which reminds me, by the time you read this I’ll have bought that album, too!

Sadly, I didn’t go to the KidsMin Drama on Friday night, instead spending the night with the NoSpoon crew – for once, James G and I played Diablo II online. Sure, it was only two of us, but it sure as hell was every bit as fun as TrackMania Nations Forever and Counter Strike: Condition Zero after it was. Killing the Undead monsters with Corpse Explosion, a Vengeance, and a Blessed Hammer is just awesome. Far too awesome to describe in words, in fact.

Now the Kingston Combined Churches event – what a farce. If I say anymore I’ll just rant, so if you do want to know how it went – talk to me. On a brighter note (again, pun not intended) the Radi8 youth band were excellent to the point of Nathan needing a new amp halfway through. I have no idea what happened to his other one, but it just seemed to stop work for no apparent reason! Epic lulz.

Youth Alive is on soon (August 30), so you better get your PayPal on if you want to go to Launceston to have an absolutely smashing time. I’m going – so that means you should be too!

I’m not going to the Radi8 Winter camp, though, because none of my friends are going

I think that just about wraps it up – if there’s anything else I’ve left out, leave it in comments.

written by Benny Ling \\ tags: Blog, condition zero, diablo 2, hillsong, itunes, NoSpoon, planetshakers, radi8, trackmania

Yeah, another community service message. I found this while trawling the internet – actually, it was from one of my all time favourite websites, MacTalk Australia.

From member Andreww says:

As a friend once said, “Assuming makes an ASS out of U and ME”

So anyway, that got me thinking – that is so true! If you make assumptions about anything at all – you’re potentially making a huge mistake, and I’m talking EPIC sized here.

Of course, the main thing to bear in mind when you are making an assumption is that it shouldn’t be confused with judging others. If you judge others in the ten or so seconds that you’ve known them for, you’ll probably dislike them for whatever reason, all before you’ve even spoken to them! It’s this kind of predetermined, on-the-fly stereotyping that makes us act harshly towards people in the street, just because of how they look, act, smell (ewww…) or their attitude.

I’m sorry, but that’s not how it’s supposed to be.

On the brighter side, I know it is sometimes hard to let go of all your assumptions and start fresh with something, but it can be one of the best choices you can ever make. You’ll get the experience new things, and hey, if it still sucks, you can drop it and not touch it with a 10m pole ever again, or you can leave it and come back to it later down the track. The choice is yours.

However, what would happen if you had already stigmatised whatever you were dealing with? Those preconceived ideas and misconceptions would then affect your experience of the whole affair – leading to some sort of mess in one form or another. I’m sure none of you would want that, right?

Right.

For a real word example of what I am talking about above, read on. Me assuming that Chris was going to post something (anything!) on the weekend was close to insanity – I now know that I’ll always have to have a backup post whenever it’s his turn to post. Now it’s made an ass out of both him and I, I think I”ll just let you read on…

Well anyway, lately I’ve been feeling that my posts are a little lacklustre – not up to the usual standard. I do heartily apologise if this is the case, but it feels like I’ve been banging out posts with no forethought, no direction, no purpose. Obviously, it isn’t working that well for me, so I rekon I’ll go back to the old way of doing things – carefully planned out thoughts, like crafting an essay. Or something…

There is, however, someone you can blame for today’s late post; Chris. I, once again, have had to cover for him (not that I wasn’t going to anyway) but it would be nice if he occasionally posted something decent.

Comments below!

written by Benny Ling \\ tags: arrogance, assuming, Blog, mactalk, misconceptions, preconceptions, stereotype, stigma

I’m sorry about the delay in posts, once again you can blame Chris. Oh well, moving on…

If you missed the last post, head here to read it, or click the previous post button down after this post.

I’m fully aware that the iPhone 3G is a gadget in massively high demand, but it’s sometimes hard for Apple as a company to predict how much stock they’ll need for a particular product. Sure, the iPhone 3G has been described as “the second coming” or “the be-all and end-all”, but does it really come as surprise that the iPhone 3G is one of the most highly-anticipated smartphones to come out on the market, possibly being the best thing, EVER?!

Well, Apple apparently underestimated how popular the iPhone actually was.

ArsTechnica says:

There was a hilarious explanation given regarding shortages of the iPhone 3G. While Apple is “confident” in the ability create supply, it apparently is “difficult to predict demand.” Nonetheless, Apple is preparing a roll out in 20 more countries on August 22nd, and will be selling the iPhone 3G in more than 70 countries by year’s end.

Hilarious, indeed. How could Apple have mis-underestimated the popular iPhone 3G? Didn’t they go to all the trouble to create massive, massive speculation, “leaked” spy shots of the new model, awesome new features such as 3G, GPS, new design, the iPhone 2.0 software, and so many other cool features – it’s laughable that Apple couldn’t anticipate this. And they said Apple had “genii”….

Anyways, the weekend was pretty mad, if you haven’t already read my post at my other website, then you should go and read it now. I went to two 18ths, but three people had birthday parties – congrats to Felicity, Paul, and Ashley. I don’t know how much you drank, but I actually used my bottle-opening belt to open a bottle. I felt really tough after that, like I had just fulfilled another chapter in the Benny Ling saga. Truth be told, I have absolutely no idea what I was thinking when I bought that belt – it was a good four years or so ago though, so it’s not like it’s a new belt, by any means. Aidan just wanted something to open his Corona with, and I suddenly realised that my belt had a bottle opener. Handy.

Radi8tion07, “NagFest”, was a massive hit. Sure, Black team didn’t win – Adam wasn’t there, so maybe that was why – but we had loads of fun, and maybe even learnt something? I for one didn’t know that a horse was called a Nag. Sure, whatever. Since we’re talking about horses, I’m going to go ahead and wish them a happy horseday or whatever, because August 1 is the official horse day. No horsing-around, thanks!

The radi8 winter camp is coming up soon. It’s a winter camp, so it means lots of Skiing at Mount Field. It’s from September 18-19, and it costs $40/person. I’m not totally sure if I’m going or not – sure, it sounds like fun, but not really if you don’t have any friends that are going – and places are limited to 25, so hurry up and book!

Today’s parting video is brought to you from Paul’s bday party – video courtesy of Emily’s phone camera. Apologies in advance for the utter rubbish quality, my phone didn’t do so well either, and the iPhone, well, it can’t do video at all!

This firework was as big as your thigh, but about half as long, and it was called the “Underwater Fury”. It wasn’t actually underwater – and it was also far cooler if you were actually there – but you went to Flicks’ instead, didnt you?

Enjoy, comments below.

written by Benny Ling \\ tags: 3g, apple, arstechnica, bday, belt-buckle, Blog, bottle opener, drinking, fireworks, iphone, iphone 3g, party

Because, dear reader, there is definitely a difference. Let’s start with a definition:

Confidence, noun
1. freedom from doubt; belief in yourself and your abilities;
2. a feeling of trust (in someone or something);
Source: WordNet

Arrogance, noun
1. overbearing pride evidenced by a superior manner toward inferiors
Source: WordNet

It’s one thing to be confident, but another thing entirely to be arrogant.

Confidence is all about knowing what your limits are. Arrogance is not. If you’re arrogant, you’ll then push yourself past your limit, and FAIL miserably.

Confidence is all about knowing where to draw the line. Arrogance is not. If you’re arrogant, you’ll take it too far and FAIL disappointingly.

Confidence is all about knowing when to say “I’m not entirely sure – but I can find out for you.” Arrogance is not. You’ll lead someone on a wild goose chase, and from there, FAIL massively.

So you see, there is a difference between confidence and arrogance. If you’re confident, you’ll drink at a party, but won’t get totally smashed and wake up in the morning feeling like someone has tried to preform brain surgery with a blunt knife. Mr Arrogant, however, would drink far more than he can handle, and wake up in the morning wanting to die.

If you’re still unsure about the difference, please try and err on the side of caution; don’t go all out to see what it feels like to be Mr Arrogant. Stay on the safe side, just in case you regret it later.

There’ll be another post sometime today… check back soonish.

That’s it, comments below.

written by Benny Ling \\ tags: arrogance, Blog, confidence, difference, drinking