GugLIElmucci (couldn't resist =P)

I found out today that Mike Guglielmucci, a pastor of the Planetshakers church, lied about being terminally ill with lung cancer.

For the non-Christians (and non-Australian Christians even), Planetshakers is a church in Melbourne, but is more commonly associated with the conference that they hold annually. The Planetshakers band travels around to most capital cities in Australia, there are huge guest speakers and it attracts tens of thousands of people each year. I've been to three of these conferences ('06-'08)

From about 2005, Guglielmucci has been possibly the key songwriter. About 6 albums were prominently his work. He speaks at most of the conferences and is very inspiring to a lot of people there. I remember in the first year I went, Mike's sermon caused the holy spirit to move in me like it never had before. He had a huge influence in my Christian journey.

The second year I went, Guglielmucci announced that he was sick with lung cancer. The mood was tense and the atmosphere was gloomy. He was nearly crying up on stage. When he was diagnosed, he wrote a song called Healer.* This song is a beautiful, heartfelt cry from Guglielmucci asking God to heal him. It's become something of an anthem to not only the Planetshakers band, but sick people all throughout Australia. This song was one of my favourites from Planetshakers, but now I just can't shake off the feeling it's a fraud.

What would possess Mike to lie about this? Even before claiming he was sick, he was so highly respected and a role-model for thousands of kids.

The weird thing is how this has all happened. First, he announces he was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer and writes a song about it. Things would have been easy to stitch up there with an announcement he was misdiagnosed, it would have gotten him off the hook pretty lightly. A year later, at the 2008 conference, he could have announced that he had indeed been healed. That's the most sensible approach I can see. Let the people get worked up about the miracle that supposedly happened, and then forget about it forever. This all involves lying some more, but Mike's obviously not too scared to do that.

I just don't know what to think. I can't judge him (Let he who is without sin cast the first stone) and I'm sure he's going to be asking for forgiveness from everyone, which he'll get because come on, he's dealing with teenagers immature in their faith. But he has lost a lot of respect from me and a whole lot of others, I'm sure.



*I just wanted to say: when I went to find the song on YouTube, Planetshakers had videos of it removed. This happened today, because I watched some yesterday and they were removed today. This is unlike Planetshakers as the general belief is "Let the people worship God", they've never really minded. Just saying.
On a side note, Mike deleted his myspace profile which had photos of him sick and everything. I don't mean anything by all this, just letting you know.

Cause my blog is that place where I tell you my dreams.

I found myself in the biggest crowd I've ever seen in my life. Who would ever think that a single band could attract so many people, even if they were The Beatles? I shuffled through the crowd, behind a divider and took my allocated seat. Closer to the back than the front, but I could still see if Paul McCartney realised that his last step was on his right foot and wanted to put forward his right foot again but felt awkward so had to do that little shuffle. Rohan was right behind and took the seat to the right of me.

I was never a HUGE Beatles fan, but sure they've made some wonderful music in the past. I don't know why I went to a Beatles concert, especially when there was only two of the original band still remaining, but you know. Dreams do that to you.

There was some pre-show entertainment going on. A sort of large, black lady was about 10 rows in making some crowd interaction. She looked like the bastard child of my old primary school Japanese teacher, Ms. McCabe (Who insisted we called her Sensei Mekaibu) and Opera. Oh, did I mention her name was Maureen Johnson? That's right, Marueen Johnson's black in my dreams. Rohan hyperventilated.


And finally, the show begun! I dashed to the front and somehow managed to get into the front row of moshers. I saw them all, John Lennon (who sort of looked like Juan Mann, now that I think about it), Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, that other dude. They were all there! I thought they had died, but apparently my dream had other intentions. They immediately started playing a song, one I didn't know. But it was amazing. In fact it was so amazing I began singing the words. I became one of those fangirls you see on tv whenever there is a Beatles special on. I was screaming with my hands out, wishing one of them would just bless me with a touch of their hand. I passed out from being extreme and woke up in my bed. Confused I got up, opened my laptop, logged on to Blogspot and began recalling the crazy dream I just had.

Natalie Imbruleigha has a great song about this sort of situation

I'm not sure how to feel about something.

The kinks on the YouTube Insight Demographics seem to be flattening out. I no longer have a 100% male audience all between the age of 18-25. As I post this, my audience is sitting at a nice, healthy 63% female audience, with approximately 65% of all viewers between 0-18. And that's where it should be. Maybe I could have a bit more chicks watching though. If i work out how, there will be a screenshot so I don't have to explain anymore.

I feel very torn about how I'm supposed to feel. You see, I'm very happy that a good 80% of my 0-18 and 18-25 age brackets are female. It means I'm a stud to girls my own age. Score. But the opens the question: where are all the guys?

They're down in the older areas. Honestly, 95% of my senior viewing (meaning anyone OVER THE AGE OF 55) are men. HORNY OLD SWEATY MEN ON PENSIONS.

And I really don't know if they cancel each other out or not.

What social life?

1.	university (noun)
	Once a mechanism whereby smart people could raise themselves above humble beginnings and obtain a worthwhile qualification indicating a high probability of being employable. Now a complete con to get kids with high hopes into insurmountable amounts of debt before they even think about buying a house.. then they discover that the job they trained for was entirely fictitious, and they'll have to take any job they can get. At this point, they realise they should have gone into benefit fraud and drug dealing like all their "stupid" friends, who now have houses, cars and big screen TVs. That's pretty much it, hey? I'd like to thank urban dictionary for that wonderful definition! Although it probably should have said something about not giving you a life. Like it is doing to me right now. I have exams starting this Saturday for a week, so wish me luck plzkthx =)

Let's drink until our hearts stop.

50 shiny cookies for anyone who can tell me where I got the title from. I don't care if it's from something else, you need to guess where I got it from.

I thought I'd elaborate on the point I'm pretty sure I made in my first post. I have a tendency to sorta leave things open for a bunch of questions, like 'why' and ''how' and 'what the hell are you on about'. Although I'm yet to actually be asked these questions, they're all pretty much assumed, especially the last one.

Drinking. It's stupid and silly and gay and stupid and silly.

I'd so much love to say "I don't drink", but I don't want to be chained down to that promise. If there's a special occasion happening and I'm in the mood, I'd like to be able to have a drink without feeling guilty cause I'm breaking a promise I made to myself or having someone come up to me saying "u'z a hippocrit OMG". I don't have any major moral objections to drinking, but I'm definitely not too fond of it.

If I had to throw enough alcohol to kill a small rhino into someone's hand and trust them not to get drunk, it'd be me. I see myself very responsible when it comes to such things. So really, I shouldn't have any objection to drinking because I know I can trust myself with it. I've only been drunk once and that was because I wanted to find what my limit was. Even then, I was aware that I shouldn't be doing anything silly because of my state of intoxication. I was very cautious.

Come to think of it, I don't have much to back up my previous statement of 'alcohol is stupid and silly and gay and stupid and silly', but really I don't think I need to. It's a choice I've made and you have no reason to look down on me if I choose not to drink.

Just to properly stress, I'm not backing myself into a corner by saying 'I don't drink', I'm just not going to drink.

The Sacrilegious Consumption of Chicken

It is a well known and widely accepted fact that the Colonel is more God than he is human. I think the ratio lies around about 2 parts God for every 1 part human. From hundreds of thousands of different possibilities, he himself managed to pick out THE eleven secret herbs and spices which would culminate a feeling similar to sex, only in a delicious, edible form. Every day, millions (that’s right, millions) of people flock to his restaurants as a daily act of surrender to the immortal being known as Colonel Sanders.

However, I have recently seen a distinct lack of respect in worshipers towards the Colonel. I am appalled at the disorderly conduct of the general KFC congregation. So, I have created a document which describes the proper way to pay your respects. I demand that it be implemented into every restaurant immediately.

Pre Meal:
Before an order of sacrifice is made, worshipers must first declare allegiance to the Colonel. This can simply be done by kneeling in front of a picture of the Colonel, and stating out loud: “I hereby willingly hand my soul over to the army of the Colonel”. Statues can be implemented in more heavily attended restaurants. Once this is completed, and the Colonel is pleased, a meal can be ordered. This must be done by contacting a member of staff (who will henceforth be known as priests. Or chosen ones.) who will pass a monetary offering into a complex machine known as a tithe register, which bears resemblance to a cash register, but also displays many properties attributed to the ark of the covenant in the Christian belief.

Once the sacrifice of chicken has been made by a priest, it is placed in a bucket and handed to the worshiper, in thanks of the offering given. At this moment, the worshiper must once again kneel before a poster (or statue) of the Colonel, hold the bucket above their head and give thanks for the meal. This step is absolutely vital, and can result in excommunication if not conducted properly. After this, the meal can be consumed.

During Meal:
Many laws surround the consumption of the meal.

• Every meal must have at least one serve of chicken and 100 calories.
• Meals must be wholly consumed within the building. Anyone who eats anywhere else is displeasing in the Colonel’s eyes.
• No artificial implement must be used to consume the meal, as it is considered to contaminate the food. The only exception to this rule is a little red plastic spoon which can be used to effectively eat Potato & Gravy (P&G).
• Chips have a set of regulations in the way they are to be consumed. If chips are included in the same meal as P&G, they must be individually dipped into the P&G until one is completely diminished. This is the recommended method of eating P&G (as opposed to the spoon method). If a burger is included in a meal along with chips, the burger must be opened up and have the middle lined with chips. This is regarded as the duty of worshipers and not of priests. If none of these objects are in the meal with chips, be sure that it complies with the first law. If so, they can be consumed alone.
• Unless you are under the age of twelve, or are ordering on behalf of someone aged under twelve, it is considered childish to include Popcorn Chicken in your meal. It is weak.
• Mountain Dew is deemed as the most pleasing drink to accompany your offering. However, all other drinks sold at KFC are still worthy.

Post Meal:
Once the meal has been completely finished, it is to be followed up with a burp and a prayer of gratification. After this, worshipers are permitted to leave. Some believe that cleaning up afterwards grants good luck for the day ahead.

Miscellaneous:
This ritual must be performed at least once a week. Restaurants shall henceforth be referred to as shrines or temples. These are the laws which will ensure a pleasing attitude from the Colonel. Please abide by them to properly respect him for his great contribution towards the global society.

title

There is a direct relationship between the speed of internet and form of blogging.

Meaning, the slower my internet is, the less videos I upload and the more text blogging I do. Obviously because this takes much less bandwidth and time. But right now, I'm sort of in the middle of speeds. I'm still on dial up, but I also access broadband at the church on occasions if I'm there, and I have reason to believe that I'm getting broadband internet at home FINALLY on Tuesday. Though this news is coming from Telstra, and I'm not actually believing it until I have it.

So right now, I'm in the middle of two speeds. I'm at that exact moment were I don't seem to be video blogging at all, or text blogging! My online social life is completely disappearing! I've filmed a vlog, but I just can't upload it. Maybe Tuesday, we'll see.

But I also don't even have anything to text blog about. So blah.