Mick - OSS

Over the last weekend I went to a place called Ulupna Island just north of Strathmerton (north of Shepparton, on the Murray river)

I went up there for the North East Victoria Christian Youth Convention (NEVCYC) formally known as Goulburn Murray Christian Youth Convention, or The Big Dig. This years theme picked up on the Vic/Tas Youth Ministry dinners theme of The Tap. The weekend was packed with reflections about Drought and Water, small groups looking at images of God, Trivia Night and Amazing Race competition. Once again there was the formal dinner on Saturday night where Mel and I did a NCYC Promo when the technology worked! Then there was a disco in the dining room or the chance to listen to some classics out by the campfire. The night was topped off by waking up the next morning to a very damp ground after over night rain. The weekend finished with a worship service that all the campers had a part in organising. I with a couple of others wrote a prayer of confession that was inspired by the latest Schweppes advertisement

The prayer was:

We contain our lives in small packages and we don’t always open ourselves up to new experiences and new feelings - Pick up a filled water balloon - this is your life or a certain part of it. We are like a water balloon, our external appearnce looks solid and strong but on closer inspection we are fragile. The slightest contact can shatter us.

Think of one part of your life that you have allowed to be contained. Write it on the filled balloon. Now let the balloon go, you may throw it long and hard, you may just want to drop it. Watch it as the water is released and disappears - watch the path the water takes, just like our bodies get led in the way God chooses the direction of your life in the wider world.

Follow the path your balloon has taken, spend a moment contemplating the fragments of your container - pick up the pieces and toss them in the bin!

The other people in the office wouldn’t let advertise Half Price Regos today only!  so they stay the same $499 for Budget (sleeping on classroom floors with others) and Tenting (sleeping in tents), $569 for College.   But today is April 1 or as more recognised April Fools day!

This morning started well at 6.00am on the express train from Bendigo the conductor got and said “this mornings express service to Melbourne has been cancelled. We will be stopping all stations to Melbourne”.  After many groans from passengers and comments about Vline the Conductor laughed and said “April Fools!”

Over the Years many public pranks have been played.  The following are a few. And to stay updated about whats happened this year check out April 1 2008 on Wikipedia

• Alabama Changes the Value of Pi: The April 1998 newsletter of New Mexicans for Science and Reason contained an article written by physicist Mark Boslough claiming that the Alabama Legislature had voted to change the value of the mathematical constant pi to the “Biblical value” of 3.0. This claim originally appeared as a news story in the 1961 science fiction novel Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein.
• Spaghetti trees: The BBC television programme Panorama ran a famous hoax in 1957, showing the Swiss harvesting spaghetti from trees. They had claimed that the despised pest the spaghetti weevil had been eradicated. A large number of people contacted the BBC wanting to know how to cultivate their own spaghetti trees. It was in fact filmed in St Albans.
• Left Handed Whoppers: In 1998, Burger King ran an ad in USA Today, saying that people could get a Whopper for left-handed people whose condiments were designed to drip out of the right side. Not only did customers order the new burgers, but some specifically requested the “old”, right-handed burger.
• Taco Liberty Bell: In 1996, Taco Bell took out a full-page advertisement in The New York Times announcing that they had purchased the Liberty Bell to “reduce the country’s debt” and renamed it the “Taco Liberty Bell.” When asked about the sale, White House press secretary Mike McCurry replied tongue-in-cheek that the Lincoln Memorial had also been sold and would henceforth be known as the Ford Lincoln Mercury Memorial.
• San Serriffe: The Guardian printed a supplement in 1977 praising this fictional resort, its two main islands (Upper Caisse and Lower Caisse), its capital (Bodoni), and its leader (General Pica). Intrigued readers were later disappointed to learn that San Serriffe (sans serif) did not exist except as references to typeface terminology. (This comes from a Jorge Luis Borges story.)
• Metric time: Repeated several times in various countries, this hoax involves claiming that the time system will be changed to one in which units of time are based on powers of 10.
• Smell-o-vision: In 1965, the BBC purported to conduct a trial of a new technology allowing the transmission of odor over the airwaves to all viewers. Many viewers reportedly contacted the BBC to report the trial’s success. This hoax was also conducted by the Seven Network in Australia in 2005. In 2007, the BBC website repeated an online version of the hoax.
• Tower of Pisa: The Dutch television news reported once in the 1950s that the Tower of Pisa had fallen over. Many shocked people contacted the station.
• The Canadian news site bourque.org announced in 2002 that Finance Minister Paul Martin had resigned “in order to breed prize Charolais cattle and handsome Fawn Runner ducks.”
• Annual BMW Innovations see a new “cutting-edge invention” by BMW advertised across British newspapers every year, examples including:
  • Warning against counterfeit BMWs: the blue and white parts of the logo were reversed
  • The “Toot and Calm Horn” (after Tutankhamun), which calms rather than aggravates other drivers, so reducing the risk of road rage,
  • MINI cars being used in upcoming space missions to Mars,
  • IDS (”Insect Deflector Screen̶ Technology - using elastic solutions to bounce insects off the windscreen as you drive,
  • SHEF (”Satellite Hypersensitive Electromagnetic Foodration̶ Technology, which sees the car’s GPS systems synchronise with home appliances to perfectly cook a meal for the instant you return home,
  • Marque-Wiper - mini-wipers for each exterior “BMW” logo coming as standard on all future models,
  • “Uninventing the wheel” to counter the “EU ban” on right-hand drive cars,
  • Zoom Impression Pixels (”ZIP̶ to counter new “Slow Cameras” and,
  • “BMW Instant Messaging” - using Reactive User Sound Electronic (RUSE) particles to display the driver’s words to the car in front on the windscreen.
  • A compact disc available to all BMW owners, which when played over the audio system performed minor service and diagnostic checks; when flipped over it played soothing classical music (Australia).