triviaball

"I've met tale-spinners before, Jake, and they're all more or less cut from the same cloth. They tell tales because they're afraid of life." - from The Dark Tower, by Stephen King, which makes it kind of especially poignant considering what that epic does with the idea of a 'writer' - it does have some ring of truth in my mind, though

Aikido in Prison - great article

-the Khazars seemed an interesting people; both as a political power in their time, and as one of those groups that were randomly Judaic, unexpectedly

Frank's most despised term for the day: "amateur night" - basically, New Year's Eve, as described by people who think they're good at driving while drunk

traceurs and paper projectiles

Banlieue 13 (District B13), with David Belle (founder of parkour) and Cyril Raffaelli. As much as I was disappointed there wasn't more parkour, I was of course impressed by what there was in the movie. Tangentially, I love how more and more martial arts movies seem to be forgoing wire work and relying on the real, true physical ability of the actors. To me, B13 is a short story kind of a movie (as opposed to those movies which are based on short stories but which go on for several hours) and utilizes that kind of shortened-story feel to keep from taking itself too seriously. It's interesting as a text if read along with French current events and politics, on a completely different note, and might even be read as kind of a post-cyberpunk text in that regard. And yes, that is a technical literary term, actually...hm, which even fits this story quite nicely, in fact. One other thing of interest to me was that as much as enjoy the sound of the French language, it's kind of hard for me to take it seriously when they try to use it for 'gangsta' or 'badass' talk - even the lowest of the thugs seemed somewhat erudite and learned when they were threatening people in French.

So, after making a little origami blow-up box to throw at the back of Lisa's head, a thought occurred to me. That is, I think the blow up boxes are interesting in a kind of....ah, semiotic? Symbolic way, maybe? I'm not sure how to put it. I've got this plain, well, plane of paper in front of me. Then I start folding it in upon itself, more and more, making it smaller, imploding it, and finally tucking it into itself. Then I take space itself, as it were, and insert it in the middle of that folded plane, and poof! It's suddenly a kind of cube. There's got to be some metaphysical meaning there, though I haven't figured out what, yet. So: off the box goes, to bop a Mexican on the head.

-there's some pretty good insults in this note, 10 points to the Cossacks

a hiker, a Slayer, a boxer, and a spy...

...all walk into a bar

The Man Who Walked Through Time, by Colin Fletcher. I got this as a Christmas present from what I can only describe as an ornery old grandpa who works on the second floor of the warehouse in assembly. In other words, a pretty cool guy. He apparently read it many years ago, and was enthralled; I'm not sure I was enthralled, per se, but it was certainly very good. It's basically a journalistic account of the author's walk through the entire length of the Grand Canyon; I read it as a convergent evolution, as it were, to the yoga texts I read. That is, the author didn't seem inclined towards the latter in an overt way at all, but he was saying and, even more interestingly, demonstrating the same things. So, two main thoughts - this kind of writing is the kind that can change how one looks at the world, and so, is worth reading. Secondly, and almost unimportantly, people should be reading this, real as real, experiential kind of work, rather than pop culture-coated wannabe variants of the same, like The Celestine Prophecy and The Peaceful Warrior. Those latter bits have their good points, but ain't got nothing on this hiking journal from the late sixties.
--from the author, but from a different book of his: "God is light, we are told, and Hell is outer darkness. But look at a desert mountain stripped bare by the sun, and you learn only geography. Watch darkness claim it, and for a moment you may grasp why God had to create Satan--or man to create both. "

Fray, by Joss Whedon. Thanks Abby, good read! Buffy, but in a science fiction setting, and with the Slayer ten times closer to the kind of character I always argued she should be. I thought the art was nice, the writing pleasantly Whedon, and the twists were kindly twisty. The only thing I was really disappointed with was that there wasn't really room within Fray to expand the setting, but of course by nature of the story the aspects of the setting that relate to the Slayer keep it somewhat cloistered, I suppose. Ah well. It would still make an okay movie (and the art for Fray herself was modeled upon Natalie Portman...eh? eh?).

Rocky Balboa, with Sylvester Stallone, Geraldine Hughes, and Milo Ventimiglia. If anyone who goes to see this is not immediately inspired to workout after seeing it, I will look very suspiciously at them. Yes, it was formulaic. Yes, there was a children's book moral around any corner. But since I went into it expecting nothing less than such, I found those aspects ok. Heartstrings are tugged (though that's a gruesome image, in reflection), feelings are inspired, and skulls are bashed. All 'good things.' Maybe I would've gotten more out of it had I actually seen another Rocky movie, but, all told, I think I was fine without such. Now I just need to remember the theme music every time I go to workout.

The Good Shepherd, with a whole slew of people, though that didn't save it. No, a good shepherd is an Aussie. Like, when Mattie adeptly took down the goat that had headbutted her, and rounded up the entire herd entirely on instinct - that's a good shepherd. But anyway, in the end we decided this film was like a framework, or a scaffolding, for a story that it never quite built. I struggled to find Damon's main character as superbly skilled (in, say, a Bene Gesserit manner) in self-control and self, but could only see him as something of a slight sociopath with a vaguely interesting, laid-out background for being such. On one side it's kind of a quality film, and on another side to me it's mostly just smug and contrived, and mostly plotless, but not really a character study, either (for Damon's character or the CIA). I suppose if I looked at the whole thing as a tangent from Camus' The Stranger and that kind of sociopathic existentialism it might be more interesting, in a similar if similarly unpleasant manner.

-an interesting travel article on Nepal

Things of Note - Happy Santa weekend!

-adobe houses are apparently like thermoses...thermii? whatever, anyway, when they get cold, they just get colder, and then stay cold
-Gato, the Sunrise clinic cat (who also happens to be a certified anesthesiologist), is very affectionate when out of the clinic...in-your-face affectionate
-when creating experimental chalk marker thingies, make sure the gunpowder does not explode towards one's hands
-when practicing a monkey-vault across uneven levels, make sure there are not stairs to completely eat it and faceplant on across from oneself (luckily, I managed to barely avoid losing most of my teeth and an eyeball by straining my belly muscles to catch myself)
-we all got jeans. and lots and lots of chocolate.
-Christmas day was a slew of lucky coincidences, culminating with Scott calling at 10pm to give just the right advice
-British food: mmm, sausage rolls
-British custom: if you open a Christmas cracker, you damn well better read the joke...and wear the crown
-*me singing the theme to Rocky*

I liked these passages -
"Questions which can seem academic in ordinary life become vital in the martial arts where one is thrust into conflict, confrontation and harm's way."
-
"It is not 'what' we do but 'how' we do it that matters. "
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"The [martial arts] way is to action, as the scientific method is to thought."

Japanese death poetry

Purty

Noah - compelling; and if anyone can find me that song, I'll give them a big sloppy kiss; not quite as interesting, but I applaud the effort

oldie but goodie:
"A certain sadhu, or wandering monk, would make a yearly circuit of villages in order to teach. One day as he entered a village he saw a large and menacing snake who was terrorizing the people. The sadhu spoke to the snake and taught him about ahimsa. The following year when the sadhu made his visit to the village, he again saw the snake. How changed he was. This once magnificent creature was skinny and bruised. The sadhu asked the snake what had happened. He replied that he had taken the teaching of ahimsa to heart and had stopped terrorizing the village. But because he was no longer menacing, the children now threw rocks and taunted him, and he was afraid to leave his hiding place to hunt. The sadhu shook his head. 'I did advise against violence,' he said to the snake, 'but I never told you not to hiss.'"

A couple of awesome looking exercises from some random guy on youtube

The Juniper Tree - ew.

I had no idea there were so many drones in development...I guess that was pretty USA-centered of me. Ah well, lesson learned.

"But, after all, what was beauty but some kind of harmony between the rock and my senses?" - nothing much to say at the moment, I just thought that was a particularly nice way of describing the abstract concept of 'beauty'

The other day while running, I finally got up enough nerve, and felt I had enough endurance to do some parkour on the way back up Mountain Ave (on the west side of the street, obstacles are sparse, but on the east side there is random rock art scattered about and different levels of curbs). A few observations:

---even the minimal tricks I did (basically, proto-tic tacs, jumps for accuracy, and balancing) take a bit of extra effort, and are also just fun, and so wear me out much faster than regular running, as I begin to run faster with...uh..glee, I guess

---breakfalling training is useful - not just potentially, as with me almost eating it several times, but also in the principles it teaches; for example, I didn't realize, coming from a high leap, that I could 'reach' for the ground with my legs in a similar fashion to the way you never, ever 'reach' for the ground with arms when falling...from what I experimented with, corroborated with reading, I think a certain kind of reaching is necessary, but only with the body integrated into absorbing the impact force

---which leads to the third observation, that (in my opinion) parkour is kind of a yielding art (like aikido, jujitsu, and judo) with one's self and environment. That is, half the point of it being maximum effeciency in movement (like any martial art), one has to yield to and blend with their own momentum, so one is worn out by muscling through things, and yielding to and blending with one's momentum for use in vaults and jumps, and in dispersing the impact energy of landing and falling through tic tac kind of stuff, rolls, or breakfall principles.

Things of Note: A Pre-Christmas Weekend!
-"Mexican...Mexican...Mexican...Mexican..." - Kevin, reading the license plates of an entire row of the parking lot at the mall
-Cherries. Fun. Though it may lead to inadvertant, drunken hittings-on.
-Good call: 151 Georgia Peach's, yummy, surprisingly not too expensive. Bad call in retrospect: choosing the cheapest, rubbing alcohol variants out of little sample bottles of alcohol.
-I haven't played Smash Bros Melee till almost the sun came up in years
-eggs over-hard? I still don't quite get it, but it bears trying
-who needs nails or staples for Christmas lights when you have duct tape? And people heckling you as you teeter precariously on the roof
-Indian food can include crayfish - yum!
-Ms Kim is an awesome mistress of ceremonies (as it were)
-I also climbed a tree, for a semi-practical reason

Apparently it's ponderball time.

Is convergent evolution a possible argument for extraterrestrial life to local life? Or would the environments just be way different?

"There is a relation between the hours of our life and the centuries of our time...The hours should be instructed by the ages, and the ages explained by the hours." - Emerson.
I thought this was nicely layered - I especially like that key difference in using the words 'instructed' and 'explained'

"...for when it comes to smells, our language is poverty stricken." - is that perhaps why when it comes to describing subtleties of wine and cigars and beer, words that seemingly have no relation to those things are used (taste being closely related to smell)?

From Grapplearts, a survey of Kimura variants, some insights on using an omo plata, and the lovely, innovative 10-finger guillotine. Interesting history tidbits in the first couple, too.

-from the TWoP for Serenity, combining three great things - Jung, Buffy, and Firefly (found by Ms Connie)
"Mal, stricken, steps aside to let Simon investigate her. Outside, Jayne submits that if she "goes woolly again, we're gonna have to put a bullet to her." Split-screen Mal and River, both speaking the line: "It's crossed my mind." There's a significance to the Watcher/Slayer relationship here that brings the Gollum stuff back in, which is basically that she serves as an anima projection that carries the shadow. I promise that I won't bring up the Jung stuff after this, but it's another angle on the central conflict of the movie, which is that the violence of Mal's anger at the shackles of the Alliance is expressed wildly through the outward violence she implies, the "meddling" that she, and her brother Reavers, embody. Like Giles, he exists at cross-purposes to the prosperous governing body, the wizards, who only want to send her out like Ariel, lion of God, to do their bidding -- but he doesn't agree with that either. So what do you do with a tool you're bound to protect, if you can't use it the way you're supposed to? From the First Slayer on, it's the girl -- the super-powered girl -- that carries the demon, so that the Watcher doesn't have to. But if she becomes a danger to the society she exists to create/patrol, where does that leave the Watcher? He can't kill her -- she's part of his soul. She's the psyche, the butterfly. This is a story about how they're inextricably bound, and about how Mal has to protect her, without controlling her. To hold the butterfly in his hand without crushing it. Not because he hates the Alliance, but because he loves her. If he can make that work, he'll know salvation, but if he ever figures out that balance within himself, he will know grace."

It's like the Matrix, but with sharks

Who knew, my favorite camera brand, Canon was originally named after my favorite Chinese goddess

Gasp! I figured out what that spider I took pictures of is! Though this just freaks me out.

I think it would be even more fun if they combined Monopoly and Anti-Monopoly somehow, with players on opposing sides

Interesting word of the day: linguicide, as in, say, a language falling into disuse by way of cultural imperialism for example

One time, at Rocky Point, I stepped on a skate. It scared the living daylights out of me, and I fell over in the water in what I'm sure was a hilarious fashion, when the fish decided to make like a banana peel. Which reminds me of my mom's possibly apocryphal story of a Palestinian man escaping certain death, only to later step on a banana peel and break his neck. But anyway, I certainly didn't catch the fishy.
-relatedly, yes, I am going to call it yabbying from now on, when we want to make our Ramen-yabby soup

If I were an ant, this would totally freak me out (especially this one, all Invasion of the Body Snatchers...)

Robert Silverberg apparently wrote some interesting novels - at least, their synopses are fun, quick reads

From Wyatt's great find, Crossfit, an Parkour manual and an instructional on the triangle choke

So Lisa was sitting here telling me a story about "the other Frank," this guy who works in the warehouse pulling reels. She said don't get on his bad side, he's a "straight-up thug" because he carries a gun around all the time. So I'm thinking, that's great, what's he thinking he's going to do, get angry and shoot someone and be awesome? Ignoring any consequences there. Or, maybe, just threaten if he needs to with it? Because that always turns out well and not dangerous. Perhaps, he just feels better carrying it around? Because that's not compensating at all. So why does Lisa, acknowledging that he may, in fact, be a moron in that regard, still think he's that much more awesome for being a "straight-up thug"? Oy.

"If you feel ill health coming on, brew a wellness elixir. Simmer three sliced lemons, one teaspoon freshly grated ginger, one clove freshly minced garlic, and one quarter teaspoon cayenne pepper in five cups water until the lemons are soft and pale. Strain a portion into a mug and add honey by tablespoons until you can tolerate the taste...Drinking this potent mixture of antibacterial, antiviral, and antifungal ingredients three times each day can ensure your symptoms never progress into a full-blown illness." - hmm, well, I'm willing to try it once, at least

This Batman villain could be an English major's dream, but I don't think they'd ever really go anywhere with him

"Once the mind is clear, the very word clarity is like a snowflake on a red hot stove." - yeah, I think I get where that is going

Histoire d'O (Story of O), by Pauline Réage, and The Almond, by Nedjma. These books were both very good. The endings of each baffled me. Both were written originally in French, but from very different cultural perspectives. Both are billed as erotica, but neither really is; they have erotic moments, but they're not really for the purpose of titillation in my opinion. Each is narrated by a character whose thought process is entirely dominated by her sexuality, to exclusion of anything else. Nedjma's novel has a very interesting structure that highlights the different aspects of her character's development; Réage's novel is more elegantly simplistic in the same regard, but provides different insight into her narrator in that regard. The Arab novel is more beautifully written, and the French novel is oddly compelling in its style for some unaccountable reason. Obviously, I think one could have a great time doing a close reading of these for essays and whatnot, and am curious to look up articles at least on Réage's novel, which I think there are.

Oh man, I wish they had video of this sensei, for serious

Oo, trendy

Idol Teachings - mmm, chock full of insights, especially the middle-to-end section

Beerfest, with the people from Super Troopers. Ha! I enjoyed it. Actually, not quite as stupid as one would think it would be. And when is making fun of various nationalities not horribly fun? Especially Europeans. And hell, it was really only the Germans that were made fun of, all the other nationalities were variously praised, in truth. And they avoided the stupid kinds of drinking humor, ie, the gross-out vomiting kinds and whatnot. Not the frog-gross-out kinds, though, ew. I really want to find a German, though, just to call them an "umlaut" and a "Deutsch-bag." Yes, I am snickering, thank you.

New tradition! Leaving a Guinness out for Santa. Just in case he's Irish. Or appreciates liquid bread. But what food would go with that?

interesting passage -
"In most spiritual circles, the ego gets a pretty bad rap. The reason for this is that the ego, to some extent, is the principle in our psyches that separates us from one another, while spirit is the principle that shows us that no such separation exists. Sometimes the ego is depicted as an almost demonic figure that keeps us from realizing our true nature. But at its most basic, the ego is simply a tool that helps us organize the various aspects of our personality so that we can function in the world. In this sense, the ego is simply a way for us to understand and attend to ourselves at the same time as we understand and attend to the world around us. The ego is a tool that we use to navigate the world.

Perhaps the problem is that the ego sometimes gets out of control. This happens when the higher self loses control of the psyche. The psyche then falls under the leadership of the ego, an entity that was never meant to lead. The ego is meant to be definitively in the service of the higher self. When this relationship is functioning, the ego is a useful intermediary representing the whole self but not thinking that it is the whole self. Then, it is almost as if the ego is the self playfully pretending to be the separate entity called “I.” Like an actor, the ego plays the roles that the world asks us to play in order to be part of the program. In this way, the ego can be a tool enabling us to be in the world but not of it."

One reason I don't like cold is that to me in some ways it's synonymous with physical pain. Whereas (weather) heat can be uncomfortable, or be sweaty and all that, cold tightens muscles, and makes me contract around my body to try to preserve my core heat, and stiffens fingers, and clenches my jaw. Sure, one can only strip so far for heat, and all one has to do for cold is "put on more layers" - but that doesn't negate the fact that the cold was hurting in the first place. So, tbthhhh to you, abstract temperature concept. That's right. :P.

for trivia: boom!

femme gladiators?

Interesting passages from a book I'm reading:
“She was the only person who could yell at God without losing respect for him.”

“You know what? I don’t believe in sin. And, on Judgment Day, those who revel in that word will have nothing to show to the holy gaze of the Master of the world but their scabby dicks as their one and only hideous sin. They think that the vile acts that they committed with that bit of flesh are going to impress Him! Well, I’m telling you that those bastards will rot in hell for not having committed any fine and noble sins, worthy of the infinite grandeur of the Almighty God!”
(Confused, I took it upon myself to ask her what a fine and noble sin would be.)
“Loving, my girl, just loving. But it is a sin that deserves Paradise as a reward.”

Things of Note! [insert fanfare] A weekend.
-Congrats to Ms Kim for doing a nice job in Yuma! Aka, the armpit of AZ. But, as my dad pointed out, it's somebody's armpit.
-David did this tornado kick like whoa - seriously, it was up there with Scott's Buddha-poison-palm, or the first time Carolyn did her trademark neck-wrenching throw
-Mattie managed to leap up, not for the usual crotch shot, but to launch my camera into the air with both paws and watch it hit the bricks: nice job, Mattie
-it might be the case that jazz music makes you buy more comics; at least, that's the principle Charlie operates on, mayhap (nicest comic store guy ever)
-for some reason, when I do projects, I seem to get covered in something; paint, sawdust, whatever
-on Katie Holmes in Batman Begins, my dad: "What is with her mouth?" - Ah ha! I've been vindicated!

"When I heard the learn'd astronomer
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and cliding out I wander'd off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars."
-Walt Whitman
-now, that said, I think wonder might also be found by the astronomer in his 'elegant realms of math,' as it were, and in imagining the astronomical concepts and things beyond the range of vision, of course

The Emperor's New Groove, with David Spade, John Goodman, the chick from Just Shoot Me, and the funny guy from Seinfeld. The more I think about it, the more I think I liked it. In some senses it really was a perfect movie for me, in the myriad tangent-jokes, nonsensical arbitrary shifts for humor, etc, etc. Didn't expect much going into it, but it was funny! Ten points.

America's Sweethearts, with John Cusack, Julia Roberts, and Christopher Walken. Oh, Seth Green was in there, but he didn't really get to act it up. Cute! I would have enjoyed more of the pair with the hopeless-romantic thing going, but I always want more of that, I suppose. As with most Cusack movies, I had fun identifying with his character in one way or another; he's also one of my heroes, so maybe I just want to identify with him. Either way, nice rom-com.

Reflexology

falx - quite the weapon

Concerto Delle Donne