← 2020 September 2020

  • Oh good, someone’s figured out how to make TikTok worse.

  • Autobiographies are just word selfies.

  • So many of my couples are on their third, fourth, or even fifth wedding plan.

    The couple I am marrying today had originally booked me and The Elopement Collective for the Amalfi Coast.

    When we all realised that Italy 2020 wasn't happening, we kept on hearing talk of a New Zealand travel bubble so we planned for a September elopement in Queenstown.

    Then when that bubble was never realised, and Jetstar cancelled our flights, we brought it closer to home, and planned to elope in the Blue Mountains. Then NSW was cut off.

    So this afternoon in good ol' Queensland, in the Sunshine Coast hinterland they'll finally get married.

    I've got similar stories for so many people, with so many emails, so many text messages and phone calls.

    The interesting part is that they're not overly sexy stories, nor are they terribly sad stories, I can imagine some people thinking "Wah wahh, you can't get married in Amalfi", but these are real stories out of 2020. Between the bushfires, the pandemic, the travel cancellations, the lockdowns, the people who have shut down their businesses - some for good - and those who are out of work, hold a heavy trove of stories. Britt and I are supposed to be in California today getting ready for an elopement in Yosemite.

    It's a weird old year.

  • Are we living at the 'hinge of history'?

    What makes our time hingey is that we have created threats that our ancestors never had to face, such as nuclear war or engineered killer pathogens. Meanwhile, we are doing so little to prevent these civilisation-ending events.

  • Conundrum: a confusing and difficult problem

  • Today is March 210th, 2020.

    whatdayofmarchisit.com

  • Bellicose: demonstrating aggression and willingness to fight

  • We live in the age of general. Where the average is enough.

    Where we make great arguments over Brand A versus Brand B, dismissing the million shades of gray between them.

    Where we call people and politicians left and right, like there really are only two types of people.

    Where conversation about nuanced ideas, be it faith, politics, authors, ideas, medicine, or family, are dismissed if they aren’t your own beliefs.

    I long for the age of nuance.

    For a time where we could just chat.

  • In the literature underpinning the Christian tradition, the main character of the stories, asks 307 questions. He is asked 183, and he directly answers three.

    I wonder what that means?

  • Hi, I’m Josh.

    I’m a marriage celebrant.

    I believe that the best part of your wedding should be your ceremony, and I work my ass off to make one that fits like a glove.

    I think that if you had no arbour, cake, flowers, cars, photos, seats, decorations, suits, or white wedding uniforms/dresses, that it’s still an epic day because you are loved. Everything else is just sweet sweet sugar on top.

    I think personal vows are powerful, and personalised dressing robes are cool.

    I fly a drone (DJI Mavic 2 Pro) and I like making photos of things that aren’t people. I like 90s pop and alt rock and 2000’s Foo Fighters.

    I’ve got a 23 month old daughter named Luna, another little girl here in February, and every day of mine is brighter because of Britt, my wife. She’s the brain behind the The Elopement Collective!

    We live at Palm Beach on the Gold Coast, and if there’s not a pandemic I normally travel the globe creating epic marriage ceremonies.

    I’d love to make yours!

    #celebrant #celebrantinstitute

  • iPadOS 14 would be one of the more disappointing released of iPadOS/iOS for iPad.

    No App Library, and no widgets outside of the widget area is an honest disappointment everytime I pick up my iPad now.

    I'd bet/hope that the early 2021 release changes that.

  • New tree mulch from this upstart author/uncle, @markrwriter

  • Did you know there’s an Australian journalist on the 16th day of his US extradition court case in England at the moment?

    You probably wouldn’t because it’s not being reported on, and it’s being algorithmicly pushed down online.

    What a time to be alive.

  • Relax, just do it

  • Anyone else have an issue with the idea that we as a people struggle to do the right thing in a pandemic unless our civil liberties are severely restricted by legislators?

    The idea that collectively we struggle to make good decisions for the community we live in without a bunch of rules written down on stone tablets, is getting a bit old.

    But maybe that’s the only way we can succeed?

  • Did you know the Apple Watch comes preloaded with the last time and date that a free U2 album would’ve been cool instead of a meme.

  • It’s Intermational Talk Like A Pirate Day so make sure when you visit a store, restaurant, cafe, or airport today you talk like a pirate and casually drop that you’ve been sailing through Victorian waters this last fortnight.

  • My hobby is to comment "booo" on anti-progress boomers in local Facebook groups.

  • I’m clearly going to Bunnings too much if I’m getting photos of Luna on the same date sitting in a Bunnings trolley.

  • “Transport bosses in Greater Manchester confirmed a snake was not a valid face covering.”

  • She thinks we’re playing, I think we’re training, we’re a great team.

  • I'm worried that the world doesn't know how much I really don't want my little black pocket computer to randomly start vibrating and making sounds because someone's decided how I should spend the next five minutes of my life.

  • Thought you might need to read this as well if you're making a speech at a wedding

  • The story of how Air New Zealand tried to sell Ansett to Singapore Airlines or Qantas for just $1.

  • 🐮🐮🐮 #shotoniphone

  • For security reasons, we try to change our Prime Minister every six months, and to never use the same Prime Minister on multiple websites.

    From: When you browse Instagram and find former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott's passport number

  • In 20-40 years our kids and grandkids will host COVID-19 lockdown themed weddings and parties and they’ll think it’s so cool.

  • Anyone else getting fat-wrist-shamed by Apple?

  • Day one of being a bike person. Cycling sucks.

  • 🐄📷

  • Every year there was a less than 1 per cent chance of experiencing a similar event. "However things can change, so we need to be vigilant," he said.

    From a story in the Melbourne Age newspaper, five years ago

  • The September of the penguins

  • The moment Luna knew she wanted to be a Toddler Mutant Ninja Turtle

  • Keith: serious Murwillumbah business

  • Luna: “this TV is way better than Mum and Dad’s”

  • That's the way it's gonna be, little darlin'

  • Your phone is your castle

  • Self portrait at Keith’s

  • Now showing, at the Murwillumbah Cinema.

  • Culture behind bars

  • Orange Floyd’s wall

  • Calile-lyf

  • Here it is

  • The berds are growing in numba

  • It’s actually crazy that public policy for resuming work and life in Australia is hinging on an unknown, possibly non-existent, possibly not effective, not tested, Covid vaccine.

    It’s like me saying I’ll stop punching you once an alien spaceship arrives.

    You’re going to have some bruises and you’ll probably never see an alien.

  • Outbak Straya

  • Burd

  • I love Luna loves to read

  • Burd

  • 🥃🏡🏔🌅📷

  • Boat & chopper looking for a Great White Shark that killed a surfer yesterday.

    Reminds me of the ep of Chappelle’s Show where the Police call it an open & shut case of break & enter because they found a black man in a house where he’d put up pictures of his family everywhere.

  • What? I’m just standing here watching my kid sleep and posting photos of it on the internet,

  • ”Relentlessly prune bullshit, don't wait to do things that matter, and savour the time you have. That's what you do when life is short.”

  • Semi-intimate is the relationship status everyone wants to be reported as when your semi-boyfriend is caught out after curfew.

  • Hey, is adding “Really strong gif game” to my resume worthwhile?

    Asking for a friend.

  • Scientific American on what it means when we have unlimited access to information.

    Technology is blurring the lines between consumers and producers, amateurs and professionals, and laypeople and experts. We’re just starting to understand the implications.

  • Hey world, it’s (pretty much) beach weather, according to

  • Dear whitegoods manufacturers, no one on God‘s green earth ever requested a feature where your machine would beep when finished. Please remove the beeps from all whitegoods in the future.

    Yours sincerely, Josh.

  • I’ve just tonight finished reading Malcolm Gladwell’s book ‘Talking to Strangers” and I’d safely call it one of the most important and helpful books released in 2020.

    If you talk to strangers in your work or life, you need to read this book.

  • Important Father’s Day topic

  • Doctor Luna

  • Of all the things I’ve achieved in my life, all of the places I’ve been, people I’ve met, things I’ve said and done, they are all pale in contrast to being dad.

  • What everyone wants to belong to is a community but they keep winding up in audiences instead and I think this is the cause of a tremendous amount of suffering right now. – @girlziplocked

  • You don’t realise how much parenting changes you until after you put your daughter to bed you find yourself standing in front of the TV to find out how this episode of Peter Rabbit ends.

  • Saw these guys, far from home, in Darwin, the Young Tigers.

  • What if, perchance, we weren’t all in this together?

  • The reason I'll stay a wedding celebrant as long as they'll have me, despite pandemics and BS, is because of the bizarre and beautiful relationship I have with our couples.

    Emailing with a couple at the moment and they're literally looking into ways to get an exemption for me to be with them at their wedding in California.

    Despite 2020, the wedding industry is still the best place to be employed.

    Except for working at KFC of course. The easy and direct access to fried chicken is obviously really cool.

  • What an ad.

    Also, as much as I’d like to have that fancy new Microsoft Android thing, I’m firmly we’d to the idea that I don’t want Google’s fingers in my pockets.

  • Best karaoke song to sing if you want to establish that you didn't start the proverbial fire, but also, that you’re really knowledgeable about world history?

  • Guy on the flight on Wednesday wore his AirPods like this. Is this a thing? 📷

  • Just one guest at today’s wedding 🍻 #victoriabitter

  • 📷 Sleeping giant

  • It’s been 183 days since the first postponement email. The longest 183 days of my life. 154 displaced weddings and elopements. Some couples are onto their third, fourth, and fifth wedding or elopement date or location. 46 cancelled flights to 15 different countries. $67,200 in cancelled invoices for future elopements or weddings. Thousands more lost to non-refundable accomodation, ferries, etc and about $20,000 tied up in travel vouchers. If anyone wants to fly Brussels Airlines before December 31 I’ve got some vouchers. Who knows the actual real cost to our business (me + The Elopement Collective). 3 court appearances coming up because we couldn’t refund and the couple didn’t want to reschedule.

    1 virus.

    I’m ready for all of this to be over now. How has Covid-19 affected you?

  • Five Darwin observations:

    1. Where the goal for people in many cultures is to become a doctor or a lawyer, in Darwin it’s to become an air-conditioning salesperson or refrigeration mechanic.

    2. The true status symbol of greatness in Darwin is to drive a dust-stained Toyota 4WD. Everyone else is a lesser than.

    3. There are an inordinate number of retired airstrips in the region, which would be really helpful if you had lots of planes you needed to land at once.

    4. The flies here are much more motivated than the common fly in the rest of Australia. The territory flies have a deep-rooted belief that your skin is merely masking the best thing a fly could ever want, like searching for the proverbial pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, flies are intent for getting literally under your skin.

    5. There is a coffee conspiracy in Darwin. My current understanding is that a mean person banned good coffee beans from ever coming to Darwin and if you are visiting there is a thriving black market for smuggled quality coffee beans. This is a guaranteed method of instant wealth.

  • 📷 Burd

  • Everyone talks about a Darwin sunset. Charlestown delivered.

  • 📷 I appreciate clear and concise signage as much as the next guy, but ...

  • I just read the line in a headline “Oprah’s favourite life coach” and all I want to know is how to remove the taste of vomit from your mouth if you’re not carrying mints.

  • 📷 Florence Falls, NT

  • Hey can someone just quickly explain literally everything to me. I think I missed something.