Mr. A-Z

I think the first time I heard of Jason Mraz was through these YouTube videos made by a group of students from San Diego (aka Wong Fu Productions). I remember thinking that this video was really cute and this one called 'Yellow Fever' was pretty funny.

Yesterday I had the opportunity to go see Jason in concert at the Tivoli here in Brisbane and it was pretty awesome. One of the opening acts was a gal from closer to home, Vancouver Island, named Hayley Sales. She had a great "sultry" voice and great guitar skillz to accompany it. The second guy was terrible. I think I could have done a better job. Jason was great to watch live because of his great voice. He seemed to be able to sing so effortlessly for the whole evening. We were standing about 20 ft away from him and the sound was at a level that you could actually enjoy. Couldn't quite see but I think Jason used a Taylor made nylon string guitar the entire time. It was funny because he joked about not having a guy hand him differently tuned guitars between songs/sets as he occasionally paused to re-tune his guitar. He had a pretty sick bassist backing him up and there were a few songs where he busted out some crazy slapping solos.

We were close enough to the stage for me to get a couple shots with my little point and shoot camera. Unfortunately, when it came to getting a picture with him and his autograph, we were ousted by the many female fans. Mike and I stood no chance against the ladies.

F00d

Yesterday I was told about a "turducken." Your probably saying the same thing I did when I first heard the word..."What is a turducken?" Well, it's a chicken stuffed inside of a duck that's stuffed inside of a turkey. You can fill in the gaps with all sorts of other things like sausage or stuffing breadcrumbs. Doesn't that sound appetizing? Apparently, the world record for a nested bird roast is 17: a bustard stuffed with a turkey, a goose, a pheasant, a chicken, a duck, a guinea fowl, a teal, a woodcock, a partridge, a plover, a lapwing, a quail, a thrush, a lark, an Ortolan Bunting, and a Garden warbler. Now I love meat but that's pretty gross.

I don't know if anyone else has tried putting ice cream in their coffee but it tastes really good! I came up with the idea when we ran out of milk and I was looking for a cream alternative. Instead of cream and sugar, I just put some ice cream and voila. It tastes great but I don't know how healthy it is...

I don't think I've ever eaten so well in my life. Normally when you picture what a typical student would eat, it probably includes a lot of food purchased on the go (if they can afford it), a lot of quick fixes, and a lot of junk foods. That has not been the case at our place. We've been having gourmet meals pretty much every single evening. We rotate cooking duties each week between the 5 of us and I have been very impressed with everyone's effort and skillz. Alan's busted out the mad BBQ skills with some of the best BBQ chicken I've ever had and healthy homemade pizzas. Albert's made a couple Korean dinners recently. Last night he made bul-go-gi beef with rice and a seaweed wrap and some kim chi. And a few weeks ago he made these tofu pockets stuffed with sweetened/sticky rice ("Yoo-boo-jo-bup" I believe it's called) and this miso-like soup. Oh, and kim chi too - can never have too much kim chi! Just tonight Laura made a killer lasagna and we're waiting for her to make her amazing salad again. I love it when Susan cooks because she often will change things up with Chinese style stir-fry noodles (nice to have a break from rice once in a while). Had my first stuffed peppers thanks to Susan and I'm now a fan.

It's great to come home after class and sit down to a meal like this... =)

One of Albert's Korean dinners made for us.

Reconnect

After a long waiting period, I am finally reconnected to the internet at home. Ever since I've arrived here in Australia back on January 13th, I have not had access to the internet from where I've been living. We finally had a technician come in this past Monday (March 10) to have our ADSL2.0+ line installed and we haven't looked back since. I'm afraid to admit it but there were a few good things that came out of not having internet at home for the past couple months - mostly due to the fact that it can be a huge time waster. However, it's just not worth the inconvenience it is for school and for communicating with people via e-mail and chat.

Last night at a church group meeting, we were discussing Saul's conversion on the road Damascus and we took some time to reflect back on our lives to a time when God revealed Himself to us in an undeniable way that caused us to think, "Wow, God is real - no doubt about it." It reminded me of the prayer journal that I used to keep. I still have the journal sitting beside my bed, but, sadly, there hasn't been a new entry in it since April 12/07. Looking through it now, I see a time when I was fairly diligent at writing all of my prayer items in it and checking off those that were answered; a green check meant God answered 'Yes' and a red check meant that God answered 'No' or 'Not now'. It really amazed me at how many green checks I was able to put down. Some of the prayer items were super specific too and included dates and specific time frames. I remembered that it really changed my prayer life and I was able to see God answering my specific prayers.

Perhaps along with be reconnected to the internet, it's time to reconnect with my prayer journal and see God move again in that way...