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Youngest kid of six with an inferiority and black sheep complex, but determined that God saves not just his soul to heaven but the remainder of his manic-depressive life, so others won't say he became a Christian and remained a jerk.


MAIN THEMES

On identity
i won't be transparent before i'm opaque. and you'll get to know me starting from the small things: who my favourite bands are. what kind of movies i like. who are my heroes.

On Christianity
I’m convinced that when confronted with sincere, real love, the Jesus factor will become obvious. But let’s not plant the cross before we carry it. I’m not trying to con you.

On dreams
Some dreams are meant to be achieved. I know that. But maybe other dreams are meant to drive us, privately. Never known to anyone but ourselves.


OTHER THEMES

On melancholy
It is a sadness that, when choosing between crying and sighing, will choose sighing. I'd almost say that melancholy is being sad about sadness itself.

On memory and nostalgia
It saddens me when life moves forward and people decide that certain things are worth forgetting.

On language
I've learnt that the word irregardless is filed as a non-standard word in the English language. That's a lexicographer's way of saying it's not a real word.

On politics
Crowds are fickle things. So when we stand in the thousands and cry against the present government, do we know who we're actually crying for?

On society
People always want the best for themselves. But I want to sometimes take second or third or fourth best, just so that the loser down the road doesn't always have to come in last. It must feel like shit to always come in last.

On growing old
Leasehold property make me feel sad. It doesn't matter how old the family photos are that you put on your wall. It's your family but it's not really your wall.

On philosophy
I ask you, if God loves everyone, and if God is also incapable of loving evil, how can there be such a thing as an evil man?

On a daily basis
One line quips, like this.


CHAT





Tuesday, January 20, 2009
09 BRANDING

Like the new logo?

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Genusfrog [ 4:48 pm ] | 1 comments

Monday, January 05, 2009
GCB YEAR IN REVIEW 2008

I started this blog around march 04 wanting it to be an evangelistic tool. that's why i called it goodchristianboy: blog of a flawed guy trying to get it right. last year, i thought about upping the christianity content here. not for evangelism, but just to be focused. make my blog earn its url. i think it's better on that front last year than the previous two.

generally, i was happier in 08 than in 07. and it showed. after dealing with some deaths in january, this blog was decidedly happier throughout the year. more daily posts showing up around august says more about busyness than anything, though i do like the format and am gonna go for more of them this year. i got all political around february and march (who didn't?) and i wrote a quasi-tearjerker to myself in june. more dialogue posts this year, which is really just me liking the sound of my own voice, but no regretful bunny in the whole of 08. that's a shame. maybe he's been put to rest. there were about two posts about incorrect word usage. maybe there'll be more on that this year.

towards the end of the year, i started getting lazy about having an otherwise requisite 200 pixel-wide picture to go with my posts. started writing smaller posts that had no pictures. that's lazy. but the smaller post isn't in itself a bad format. you know what failed? i tried this "today i learned..." series that lasted all of one post. i think i'll bury it together with the bunny and a very brief attempt to migrate my sidebar onto the main post (the glasvegas review). bury. bury. bury. let's forget i tried those things.

otherwise, i'm quite happy with my how to buy a bible guide. i think that's not a bad one to have near the close of the year.

as for this year? i'm flirting with this idea about a moleskin sermon notes format. ok, let's not bury this one before it even sees the light of day. first, i'll need a scanner. so it won't happen anytime soon. we'll see. we'll see. happy new year, gcb.

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Genusfrog [ 4:05 pm ] | 1 comments

Tuesday, May 06, 2008

MY MODBLOG

In The red street diner, i wrote about a girl who goes home to discover that her hometown and family have disappeared.

after writing that, a part of my life also disappeared. it was my old blog.

goodchristianboy.modblog.com was in many ways the heyday of this corner of the internet. i remember attracting 80 hits every day, mostly from the small but supportive modblog community. it was the blog on which i started blogging.

i had a voice when i was there. i blogged about my journey of faith, philosophised about god, life and christianity and preached like a legitimate preacherboy with a pocketful of relevant verses and an altar call at the end.

modblog closed down in january 06 and along with it died my voice.

i wonder, how did i lose my voice? was it work? was it time? or growing old? maybe i started learning that christian material without the edge of cynicism came across as uncool. i stopped talking about jesus online. the blog of a flawed guy trying to get it right became the blog of a flawed guy trying hard to get it more wrong. by march 07, this place was already steeped in defeat. by july, it got about as bitter as it could get.

sometimes we lose things in life. and we replace them with new things. i found myself a home here on blogger. for the first few months, my modblog could still be viewed but i was so stupid, i never backed up my posts. i kept saying, one of these days i'll back up all those posts. one of those days became one of those weeks. one day, it just couldn't be viewed anymore. in its place, a page error.

i'd lost all my posts.

two years of my documented life, erased from the internet. maybe it was just as well. i had seemingly lost the same heart that posted them.

*

last night, athalia told me about something.

she told me about webarchive.org. they have this search engine there called the wayback machine and what it does is, every two months, its robots crawl all over the internet and archive web pages. it's been doing this since the 1990s.

athalia told me that it's there. that's she's found it. my modblog. she found my modblog.

today, i saw it for myself.

ripped around the edges, with pages falling off the spine, sat my modblog in the middle of some monster filing cabinet of digital garbage. some of the posts never got archived. but many of them are there. i'm not making the same mistake twice. today, i started backing them up, from 2004 onwards. i'm even reposting peoples' comments with the names they used back then.

it's strange.

rebuilding your past in a new home is like putting old photos behind new frames. and as i read what fergus wrote at 24, i'm starting to wonder if it's really a bunch of posts that i've recovered, or perhaps a voice that had been dead for too long.

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Genusfrog [ 4:41 pm ] | 0 comments

Thursday, April 03, 2008
FIRST QUARTER RESOLUTION ASSESSMENT

A quick stop in front of the march mirror lets me assess my 2008 resolutions. some are looking good and others have not taken off at all.

1. send my laundry in every thursday or other practical day within a week of that thursday
the devil is in the details, and i would fail this resolution if by thursday, i actually meant "thursday". the laundry gets sent, it comes back and this happens a lot more frequently, partly because i've discovered the best laundry lady in selangor. her name is suzie and she picks up and drops off laundry at your doorstep.

2. finish 8 books
animal farm came and went on the plane to gold coast, and persistent plugging away on my toilet reading eventuated with philip yancey's the jesus i never knew reaching a close. i know, you're thinking that fergus shouldn't be reading jesus books in the toilet.

3. meet vernon for dinner fortnightly
ok mate. i'm gonna have to pull out the pr machine, get the spin doctors in and hatch a plan that will put all the blame on you! (breaks into sad face for tv cameras.)

4. exercise purposefully for 30 mins every week
fail. i tried taking the stairs at my apartment to match taking the stairs at church. of course, that lasted for a whole two weeks or less. there have been recent proposals to play badminton, tennis and futsal, all of which i've spurned without consideration.

5. do my tenrox every friday when i don't feel like working
again, i didn't actually mean "friday" when i wrote that. my tenrox has been decent, unspectacular, but also not spectacularly bad. i've been emailing procurement and production scheduler faithfully on copy days.

6. tithe properly
so far so good. and God's been listening too. in january, with the australia trip looming, i set aside x amount to tithe and told God i'll trust him to help me out till the next paycheck. my dad called a few days later and told me he had some aussie dollars to pass me. guess how much? x++

7. produce and give away five oil or acryllic paintings
one out of five isn't bad. i painted something for mummy during cny and i was quite happy about it. was at a gallery the other day at the gardens and i think i'll spend quite a bit of the second half of this year painting in the weekends. i'm determined to make it 5/5 by christmas.

8. go for prayer meet on non-cell weeks
fail. not a single one. not even during the election weeks. but alas, every cloud has a photogenic thingy about them. and praying has become less of a second nature for me this year.

and so, three months pass and another three will go by, possibly, before i can even arrest the delay in some of these resolutions. all in a day's living when you're ever the pessimist. but i'm happy with the first three months of this year. there are lots of other achievements elsewhere that are outside the scope of these resolutions. i'm happy with those too.

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Genusfrog [ 11:38 am ] | 1 comments

Wednesday, February 06, 2008
CAME BACK

Came back from Melbourne.
Came back to work.
Came back to Muar.

More posts will follow. Thanks for logging on.

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Genusfrog [ 3:40 pm ] | 0 comments

Wednesday, January 02, 2008
ON MIRRORS AND HOUSEKEEPING

You don't really know what you look like. You only know what your reflection looks like.
- Athalia Lee

I've been looking into mirrors more than i normally do. not because i'm the new narcissus on the block either, just that i've been needing to look presentable. mirrors are curious things. look at them too often and you're vain. look at them too little and you realise you've been going everywhere with facepaint that says 'I is idiot' for the last few days. it's a tricky balance. the same balance applies when holding a mirror up on your own blog.

i think GCB was terribly depressing last year. from chinese new year onwards, i was whining about life, post after post. let's hope this year isn't as miserable yea. i tried the one-liner daily post thing in december and i'll be continuing that. (the idea is to register on people's rss feeds everyday - clever or not?)

i've always flirted with the idea of being more political on my blog. dunno if i'll go down that road. but i know i used to get really disproportionately fired up over ridiculously inane things. like people who wear che guevara tees. what an angry boy. well, i'm not so angry anymore. but i'd still like to see myself passionate again. on a mildly related note, ps lee choo always says that young adults need to stop whining about their own lives and start looking at and being concerned about the world around them. she couldn't be more right. so this year, i'd like to whine less about my life and whine more about why the world is so full of stupid idiots. (:P)

regretful bunny is still my baby. he'll pop his head out every once in a while.

otherwise... it should be business as usual. and i'm not resolving to post more. ok. i'm feeling very self-conscious now. there comes a point when looking into the mirror where you know that you don't have 'I is idiot' written on your face and looking for another ten seconds isn't gonna make it appear just so you can wash it off. housekeeping is done.

happy new year!

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Genusfrog [ 11:21 am ] | 0 comments

Thursday, June 07, 2007
THE LITTLE SOLDIER

Forgive me father, for i have sinned. (actually, i'm not sure if it's a sin.)

i was labelling all my old posts when i realised how long it had been since i last posted anything remotely pertaining to god and christianity. december 22 would be the last time. i posted on my irrational fear of the wrath of god. what a way to go.

which of course begs the question, is there something wrong when a blog of a christian person, with a christian title no less, fails to actively engage the blockbuster main event of that very christianity? for six months. if i blog about the things that are relevant to where i am - friends, growing up, rueful rabbits - is it fair then to say that god has lost his place in my life?

i don't want to be a christian who runs through the motions. i also don't want to be a christian who bites off more than he can chew. if i've learned anything this year, it's that contrary to the ears of my peers, i don't in fact have such a big mouth. and i can't in fact chomp so far into this christian shepherd pie.

i was at new life last night and i was so inspired when ps lee choo put up pics of kaka in his 'i belong to jesus' tee shirt. i dunno, maybe it's a combination of both the european cup final defeat and my own ebbing faith being put to rest that's conjured some kind of weird affection towards right-sided leanings. i miss wearing my christian heart on my sleeve, coming on here and lambasting and getting riled up and actually, actually being a sod with more than a pipetdrop of passion. i wanna confess again.

screw misery. that's not what i became a christian for.
screw defeat. i'm sick of beating myself with a stick.

and screw cynicism. i want to be a little soldier again.

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Genusfrog [ 2:59 pm ] | 1 comments

Monday, February 12, 2007
I've temporarily given up on the face transplant. That temp skin was impossible to fix based on my lack of knowhow and i've decided that this blog shall go commentless but at least look good. in the meantime, you can comment in the chatterbox on the top right. if it loads up for you at all. Am gonna be very busy so i decided not to rock this boat. Thanks for dropping by. Updates will follow now.

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Genusfrog [ 10:45 am ] | 1 comments

Tuesday, January 30, 2007
GCB is under some major reconstructive surgery. Problem was that since blogger upgraded, my old skin couldn't take to comments anymore. Hence, I've had to put together an entirely new skin (just so i can hear your comments!). Which is a shame cos i really loved my old skin and i thought i'd settle on that for good. Then blogger had to upgrade and screw up that skin.

So, as you can see, there's a new look going on but it's really, really far from complete. The few things that are due to be corrected are:

1. the logo, which will go up as soon as i figure out how to dump it into the new html codes
2. the size of the boxes are all out now. problem is that explorer and firefox are giving me different results
3. font colours should be green, as will be a thing or two more... in keeping with the branding of GCB
4. the menu headings should also be like newspaper headlines

Gosh... so much things to do. And I'm actually too busy to be even upkeeping the blog, hence it's taken ages and bits and bobs of work, stealing time from anywhere i can. So this is the bits and bobs that have been done. More will be added to the place in the days and weeks to come. Hopefully this place will look alright soon.

At least now you guys can comment. So do comment away ya guys.

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Genusfrog [ 7:45 pm ] | 0 comments

Monday, November 20, 2006
"I shall return when the heat melts away my cubic icy encampment and inspect the carcass of your sabre-tooth tigress."

- GCB 20 September 2006

Hello. The ice has melted on my so-called cubic icy encampment. I have lots of stories to tell. But I'll take my time telling them. Much thanks to Jan for holding the joint up - ciao ciao amigo. Two months is a long time. And I've aged.

- GCB 20 November 2006

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Genusfrog [ 3:41 pm ] | 0 comments

Wednesday, September 20, 2006
Goodchristianboy, this blog, is about to enter ice age. Like the cold old days where snow was everywhere, extinct animals ruled the earth and people got frozen in blocks of ice, this blog shall enter an equally prehistoric phase of existence.

It shall be an existence where Fergus had no reign over this blog but a more fearsome creature altogether - an architect childhood friend of his called Jan.

In this ice age, Fergus enters a period of confinement where his daily routine will revolve around rehearsing with actors, making phonecalls to crew people and then going on set and shouting "cut!" in the middle of perfectly good takes. And while this change of weather takes Fergus away from Goodchristianboy, the blog will be overrun by his jaw-dropping fiend of ancient famy.

Jan is an architect and we've been friends since we were six. She has been so kind as to step in and blog here while I'm away, to feed you with her inane thoughts on inane things. She's the one person who reminds me that my blog is set out to be about "ideas" and not "events" so let's see how far she breaks those rules. She's wonderful and my only fear is that you'll be so entertained by her, you won't love me so much anymore when I return.

And so, to the buddy I call my "fellow critical thinker of the arts" (it's on her friendster testimony), run riot over this snowy wasteland. The blog is all yours. I shall return when the heat melts away my cubic icy encampment and inspect the carcass of your sabre-tooth tigress.

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Genusfrog [ 4:49 pm ] | 287 comments

Wednesday, March 29, 2006
If you have any thoughts on this place (whether it's better or worse), do let me know!

cheers.
Fergs

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Genusfrog [ 12:59 pm ] | 6 comments

Friday, February 18, 2005
HOUSEKEEPING WHILE AWAITING COPY

Warning: Self-reflexive blog

Budget night. nothing to do from 9pm till midnight. i've been getting pictures for my bulletin board and resizing them in anticipation of the weeks ahead. with little on my mind worth talking, let's do a little housekeeping. hmmm... housekeeping!

... finding time to blog will always be a challenge, and i'd like to be more initiated and post better and more intelligent stuff. ok, what's happening in here? i've been fooling around with the bulletin board a lot of late, cos it's easier and faster to put things up there than on the main post. movie of the day has been going well. it's my favourite segment now, so i'm quite proud of it. i'd only just added album of the hour and book of the moment and that's been quite fun as well. bear in mind, these of the days are never really updated daily. they just sound that way, because generically, that's how they're called.

and now, i've just gone overboard with it (like how i went overboard the other time with musing of the day and act of the day, hahaa!). you can clearly see, there are new segments, i wanna check this out! and painting of the day. to upkeep these two, as well as the rest, i'll need to spend free time like this preparing a whole bunch of pictures to be uploaded at busier times.

word of the day remains one of my favourite things in this blog. so it still comes on first on the bullettin board. i've made it a personal conviction to keep God's word high up as well. and... since the bullettin board has grown so long, i've moved the links over to the left column. sigh... who the heaven cares?

i hate to scroll left and right. it's one of the banes of my cyberlife. and it has of course, come to my great horror to find that for everyone not using monitors set to 1280x1024 resolution, you'll have to scroll left and right. what a crime! no. this musn't go on. ideally, i want this place set to 1024x768 but it does this by itself and i don't yet know how to correct this. apparently there are people who don't read the bulletin board because of the need to scroll right. i better fix this quick. doctor joel, are you there?

jan said it was wrong for me to say IDEA next to EVENT in my blog on cny. she said they weren't "ideas" but "lessons learnt". i guess that's true, but saying "lesson learnt" sounds kinda cheesy and pretentious. like i had to learn something from everything. i told her "i said idea because i want this blog to be ideas based, not event based", and she said "i know". like, ok. so IDEA wasn't exactly accurate.

nor was the term "identical" in my last blog, which confused stacey and i'm sure everyone. i guess what i meant was... the event will talk about practical things and things to do with identity. and being one to push the limits of the english language to its nether- and outer-most regions, i had to be an idiot and invent the adjective form of the word identity, which inevitably, was going to be identical. haha, fergus. haha.

Ok. it's 12.55am and copy has just come in from our singapore editors. just took a look at the first para and there's already a sentence that needs subediting. cheers, and i hope for a good night.


----


4 hours later:

partially zonked from work, partially hyper from caffeine poisoning. now, it's back with the singaporeans.

these late nights, while unconventional, are somewhat exciting.

two weeks time, bring on hong kong!

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Genusfrog [ 5:49 pm ] | 0 comments

Tuesday, July 27, 2004
FIRST ENTRY

So, it was just a few days ago that myself, vernon and the rest of the guys...

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Genusfrog [ 9:02 am ] | 0 comments