I guess I really should write up XF.

[chess]

Which I will do in the manner of a survey, to begin with, and then elaborate some more.

Lessons: Calmness. Peace. Joy-despite-circumstances. Eating a bowl of All-Bran for breakfast and then drinking hardly anything all day is a really, really bad idea.

Pinkstuff: Too much milk makes Pink Goo rather than Pinkstuff. The Pink Goo was also a lot more filling than the Pinkstuff, it seems, which I suspect I could have eaten entire trays of if everyone else hadn't mostly beaten me to it.

Techstuff: Haskell is weird. Kali was obviously in a much better state to show off the day after we tried to show it off at the Talentless Night than on the night. Jon Cooper got Debian onto Aivas, at last. And it works in 800x600 in X, with sound and the network card that wouldn't work in Win98 working.

Themepark: We went to Thorpe Park. I went on Colossus twice - once so we could drag Neil on, then again because actually it was pretty cool. There were reports of a workman dressed only in a thong and a blue hardhat on Thunder River^W^W Rhumba Rapids, but thankfully I didn't have to witness this horrific sight. Warm sugary ring donuts are good, although still not as good as proper doughnuts filled with chocolate spread. More managable, though. Neil and Jon Cooper ate the sugar left in the bags. Kela had a drink which was simultaneously frozen (Slush-Puppie style) and fizzy, which I declined a taste of, in virulent blue and red swirls. Both the teacups (we got a nasty stiff cup that wouldn't spin well) and the whirly thing (which was obviously not running at full speed or height, and at one point a car collided with the hut) were a bit disappointing, although Pirates 4D was funny - Naath will be amused by the fact that the chairs vibrated (when there were a bunch of wasps around).

Comments

[passage.livejournal.com]

So the first part of the Love/Joy session on Love wasn't atall memorable then?

Ho hum.

Neil

[naath.livejournal.com]

Guess you had fun then.
And you managed to get Neil onto rides! *shock*

[chess]

It's not that it wasn't good, it simply wasn't what God wanted to teach me in particular at this XF. He taught me about that at the first XF, and somewhat at LW.

[chess]

Hey, he went on Colossus by his own free choice the second time around...

[passage.livejournal.com]

I found it kind of odd doing that study actually, because of my church background 'God's Love' was a concept I knew a lot about but until recently I wasn't nearly as aware of his holiness, his anger or his wrath as I ought to have been.

Hence I spent some time thinking "I don't want to tell the campers this, I suspect they already know, I want to tell them about God's holiness."

However, God's holiness isn't so easily directly applicable to how you live your life[1] and that's what that group at xf majors on. And anyway, the studies are aimed at where the campers are at, not where I'm at.[2]

Neil

[1] Yes, I can quote Leviticus 19v2, I just happen to think that a large part of how we do that is through love for others and for God (nearly all infact).
[2] And ideally don't use the word 'at' that much (note: never start counting how many times Margaret uses the word "basically": you'll never again be able to concentrate on any of the useful things she says).

Re:

[naath.livejournal.com]

eeeep.

Who is he and what has he done with Neil?

[passage.livejournal.com]

A lot of rides scare me the first time, but I'm fine after that.

Both X:\No Way Out and the Magic Carpet were like that: I did not enjoy my first ride but I did enjoy my second.

So I didn't enjoy the first time on Collosus, but I wanted to go again to see what was actually going on as the first time I'd spend the whole ride staring at my shoe and putting holes in my hands by clenching fingernails in fists too tightly.

But it's okay, I'm still a woss, I went faint in the dentists today.

Neil

Friends page colours

[passage.livejournal.com]

Any chance you could choose a darker colour for me on your friends page? Only the present one clashes so badly with the purple background, and you don't want me not posting for fear of it making you feel ill, do you? (Hold on ...)

Neil

Re: Friends page colours

[chess]

I don't notice colours clashing, so there's no need to worry :).

Plus, I have every single background colour accounted for, I think, and some people are already desperately in need of recolouring (due to being white-backed like the stuff I only skim), so losing a colour would be difficult. (Anyway, the yellow's worse.)

Re: Friends page colours

[passage.livejournal.com]

Well as I see it there are two potential solutions: remove from your friends list someone with a more preferntial colour scheme then I can steal theirs or change the background colour to something blander (I've found white to work quite well).

(Alright, so unfriending me is a third option, but I was hoping you wouldn't spot that one).

Neil

Re: Friends page colours

[chess]

I use the background colours to quickly work out whose post something is if it's a long post. So I have to have distinct background colours for distinct people, and white is what I use for communities like 'dinner' that I only skim.

Re: Friends page colours

[chess]

Oh, you mean the purple.

I propose a fourth solution: You stop criticising the colour scheme on *my* friendspage which *I* find perfectly acceptable, and friend people yourself if you want to read their journals :).

Re: Friends page colours

[passage.livejournal.com]

Bah ;-)

(And being as you're blattently around, why don't you come on SP?)

Neil

Re: Friends page colours

[passage.livejournal.com]

Ah, you don't follow me: I mean the *page* background colour, not the "this is an entry by neil" background colour