Open letter to Burger King regarding sad cyclist’s disease.

writing ‘open letters to’ seems to be the thing to do these days and i haven’t done one yet, so i thought i must give it a go.

i looked around and the ‘Open letter to Miley Cyrus’ and ‘Ben Affleck the new Batman? Great hordes of catfish’ inboxes were both full and overflowing and so i had to look elsewhere.

fortunately as i was pondering this very thing on my cycle home from helping out at a local Spanish congregation youth group [in which we sat around the table and bilingualled – it’s a word – what to do when you get a small stone or pebble in your shoe] i was presented with the perfect opportunity to do so.

realising on the ride home that the small stone or pebble might have been metaphoric [in which case my very practical assistance might have been somewhat off the mark unless it miraculously translated into helpful metaphorical advice when turned into the Spanish] i realised i was hungry and would give anything for a Burger King Coke slushee and sweet potato fries [i realised this by being hungry and the subliminal message magicked my way by the Burger King sign i chanced upon did the rest] and by ‘anything’ i meant the appropriate amount of money [or a quick lesson in three ball juggling if they were up for some skill swapping]

but when i got to the Burger King, the door was locked. and so in was sad because now i couldn’t enjoy a burger king Coke slushee and the aforementioned sweet potato fries [and i was prepared to settle for normal average potato fries if need be, i’m not that picky]

and then it dawned on me. no, i’m just kidding, it wasn’t THAT late yet. but i did come to realise that there was an alternative means of getting my mealic [that’s probably not a word] satisfaction… as i looked to the right i saw the Burger King drive-thru and knew that all my problems were solved [well not ALL of them, it’s going to take a lot more to get that nasty itch away, but that’s a different open letter]

so i cycled up to said drive-thru. and i decided upon my exact order [add chicken nuggets to the aforementioned slushee and fries cos i have to get my beautiful wife something] and got the attention of the person behind the speaker screen and started to make my order.

she interrupted me. something about “I’m sorry sir, but we can’t serve you because you’re on a bicycle and not in a car.”

I’m sorry, WHAT? Had i missed the ‘don’t make an order if you’re not in a car but on a bicycle’ sign? I looked around. I hadn’t.

Was Burger King really going to push the word “Drive” from the phrase “Drive-thru” to its extreme? They were.

oh I’m sorry [I wasn’t!] – is my cycling money not as powerful a persuasive buying resource as the next person’s car money? [turns out it was not!]

and i don’t they would have even have let me barter my poorly-looked-upon cycling money for the next person who drove’s up ‘highly-appreciated car money’ either. she sounded pretty definitive.

i felt as awkward as a Will Smith family at a Miley Cyrus twerkathon.

the end.

you hear that, Burger King? The end. No happy ending. Just a coke slushee and sweet potato [or regular potato, I’m really not fussy!] and chicken nuggets free evening.

of sadness.

i hope you will consider adding ‘cycling money’ to your ‘car money’ monopoly ridden drive-thru’s in future revampings of company policy. i imagine i am not the only sad cyclist you have caused on this continent. do you want to be responsible for sad cyclist disease?

yes, oh Burger King, sad cyclist disease!

wait, is there an actual Burger King? what is your crown made of? argh, who cares, you suck. cycling money!

your humble servant [who thinks you’re a bit of a car money tyrant!]

brett fish

something something Miley Cyrus, something something Ben Affleck Batman, oh and by the way, Syria!

hm. so i couldn’t sleep. just had too much going on in my head. so i thought i’ll jump on here and throw a little bit at the screen. probably more for me than any of you, but that’s okay.

the one thing is the crisis in Syria. which to be honest i don’t really know a whole lot about. not enough by any stretch of the imagination.

i know that a while back over 600 people had been killed. but i also know that chemical attacks were made. i know the death toll is well over 1000 now.

i know that America are paused to intervene. i know that UK, France, Germany and Turkey have joined the calls for intervention.

i know that America does not have the greatest reputation both in terms of their motivation for getting involved in world skirmishes and also their actual involvement in a number of countries, both in the middle east and beyond.

i read that Kevin Rudd, prime minister of Australia had this to say: “I do not believe the world can simply turn a blind eye to the use of chemical weapons against a civilian population resulting in nearly 300 deaths, or more, and some 3,600 people hospitalised.” [The Guardian: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/26/syria-us-un-inspection-kerry]

AND THEN THERE WAS MILEY

meanwhile from the corners of the CNN.com website to the front page of the Onion satirical online news site, from Twitter to Facebook and beyond, a huge number of people seemed to be spending the last 24 hours obsessed with the goings on at the Video Music Awards show.

in particular, Miley Cyrus and the number she performed with Robin Thicke, that was so sexually explicit and in-your-face dodgy it sent a picture of the reaction of Will Smith and his family while she was performing viral just by their looks of disbelief and what-the-heck-is-going-on-here-ness

i watched the video and it was too much of too much. as Robin Thicke’s mom commented after she was shown it, “I can’t unsee that.”

it is bothering me that the Miley Cyrus thing clogged up the Facebook status and Twitter feeds and only here are there is there mention of what is happening in Syria

[it should bother me equally as much that i spent more time following information about Mileygate than i did researching the situation in Syria, although Val and i both ended the evening sharing information with each other as we read up on different reports of it]

also remembering that the previous 24 hours had been completely taken up by the internet’s overwhelmment at the news that Ben Affleck would be playing Batman in the new Superman vs Batman movie [to date more than 50,000 signatures have been added to a petition asking for him to be deBatmanned]

THE EUGENE CHO CONVERSATIONS

Eugene Cho is someone who i follow on Twitter. He is a follower of Jesus and from what evidence I have of his life I have a lot of respect for him. He challenges and encourages me regularly by what he writes and shares.

he tweeted some stuff about the war in Syria and got all sorts of conversations going:

Eugene Cho ‏@EugeneCho: We can’t do nothing in the face of genocide in Syria. It may not be popular but one we must make.Praying for wisdom and courage for leaders.

Eugene Cho ‏@EugeneCho: Stunning and shameful. Over 1,000,000 children have fled Syria and another 2,000,000 children are displaced within the country. #WeMustAct

Eugene Cho ‏@EugeneCho: I’m so torn but…Yes, I do support military intervention in Syria. There’s a distinction between military aggression & military protection.

to which he got some huge pushback – some was more accusatory:

wondermirk ‏@wondermirk: @EugeneCho Really bro? I can’t retweet that. Violence is simply not acceptable. Fighting for peace is like fornicating for virginity.

Maxwell Mooney ‏@MaxwellAMooney: @EugeneCho come a long way from the pacifism you endorsed not long ago. Could it have to do with your recent political ties with the Prez?

while others were more just wrestling with the question themselves:

Warwick Rendell ‏@WarWraith: @EugeneCho It’s something we were discussing earlier. How do you protect the oppressed from the violent oppressor without violence?

And as someone who has a strong focus on non-violence [certainly a more focused intentional view on non-violence since our time over here as we have faced the idea and concept and questions related to it a lot more] it feels like a huge catch-22. If doing nothing means we see another potential Rwanda, then surely there has to be a better answer? But if entering violently just escalates the violence and creates flashbacks to time in Iraq and a lot of the mess that happened there, then what?

WHEN MILEY MEETS SYRIA

Back to Eugene Cho, who feeling similiar to me about the fact that the Miley Cyrus dodgefest was receiving more focus and attention than Syria tweeted these:

Eugene Cho ‏@EugeneCho: That so many would be outraged by #MileyCyrus and yet, so apathetic by what’s going on in Syria, Congo,& North Korea…is truly outrageous.

Which made perfect sense, until this conversation happened on Facebook:

Eugene Cho: That so many would be outraged by ‪#‎MileyCyrus and yet, so apathetic or uninformed by what’s going on in Syria, Congo, and North Korea…is truly outrageous. The former is entertainment. Yes, bad entertainment but the latter is real life.

Tracy Bieger: While I wholeheartedly agree about the horrible atrocities taking place here, I think the former is also real life. The very real implications of a young woman who is looked at by other young girls as a “role model”, and the objectification and sexualization of young girls is still okay. This only fuels human trafficking, and the rape culture we still live in. Very real life.

Eugene Cho: Tracy Bieger – Appreciate that comment. Fair pushback. Really fair and important. Another reminder why we need to be open to pushback. Thanks for sharpening me.

WHERE DOES THAT LEAVE US, ME?

To be honest, feeling pretty helpless.

What is there to do besides making statuses, tweeting my interest/horror/outrage and then moving on again next week when the next big thing hits?

And how do i differentiate in my mind the “big” thing that is Ben Affleck as the new Batman or Miley Cyrus twerking Robin Thicke inappropriately and the “big thing” that is a war that has currently seen more than 1000 people die?

To me, both are glaringly obvious symptoms that we live in a broken, messed up world. Which is both quite scary, but also quite encouraging in a sense as it just makes a whole lot of the Jesus-following stuff i believe a lot more clear.

The world is definitely in need of some saving. And i happen to know a Saviour. I don’t think that’s a huge coincidence, but I do think I need to figure out some more stuff in terms of the ‘what do we do with this stuff’ness of it all.

Anyone got any thoughts or ideas?

The Weekend Watch-up 24 Aug

So what videos caught your attention this week? From the incredible to the ridiculous, this is what held my attention:

This look like way too much fun to be had without me being a part of it – The Human Slingshot:

 

This is a bit of an older one but it’s really great and deserves a spot for those who may have missed it – Kenichi Ebina doing dance-ish Matrix moves on ‘Talent:

 

The next two were the car wreck you just can’t help slowing down to stare at as South Africa launched its new news station care of the Gupta family and it was BAD:

 

And suddenly #ANN7 became a trending tag on the Twitter… but fortunately we can’t claim World’s Worst on this one as this bad day on the job suggests:

 

If you made it to the phrase “Boom goes the dynamite” you have more stamina than most… suddenly Ben Affleck as Batman doesn’t feel like the worst thing we’ve seen this week.

How about you? Any videos you see this week worth sharing? Send us the links…fun