Lisa's screaming hurts my ears

Ruthless People, with Bill Pullman, Danny Devito, and Helen Slater. I enjoyed it, though not as much as the other older movies we've watched lately. I think part of it may be that this one just didn't seem as smart/clever in its humor, and was also dated in ways the others weren't (helloooo, eighties soundtrack). Though that makes me think of a Sonny Chiba movie set in China and Japan that's entire soundtrack was crazyfunky seventies acid jazz. But it wasn't as if the movie was bad, just not as good as the others. And Bill Pullman should have had more screentime, because he's awesome, though it took people giving me references to remember who he was.

Also, Kevin's comment from earlier got me thinking about how much our ingrained, habitual perception can affect us. I mean, for those people encountering the Spaniards for the first time, horses and people riding an animal were so far beyond their ken that they couldn't even see it as someone riding an animal that would somewhat similar to other four-legged animals in their native environment, just bigger. It makes me wonder what we might encounter that would seem so far beyond the pale that we wouldn't recognize it for what it actually is, but would have to give it some mythic value (UFOs, maybe?). Also, interestingly, one of the myriad aims of meditation is to release habits of perception, to not reflexively assign meaning to one's vision, but rather to see things as they are, for what they are, so I wonder how a well-trained person might fare in a similar situation.

because the brussel sprouts quote was just odd, to the general reader...
"The first dietary intervention was when God said, 'Don't eat that apple.' And that clearly didn't work."

oh, that's reassuring, as I mail off my check...
"The term mortgage (from Law French, lit. death vow)..."

triviaball

I think this would make an interesting movie:
"Perhaps more significantly, a change in climate in the North Atlantic led to an increase in sea-ice, making communication with Europe difficult, and favoring migrations of the Inuit from northern Greenland to the south and to regular contact with the Norse, leading to violence between the races."

And this would also make an interesting movie, but in an entirely different sense - spiders in space (and from a different angle, a campy horror movie)

The slungshot: historical combat yo yo. Oh hell yes.

bang! boom! sex!

Smokin' Aces, with a lot of fun actors, like Ray Liotta, Ryan Reynolds, Jeremy Piven, and Common (who was pretty cool, suprisingly). To me, this movie is good and bad, not neither, but both. It has a lot of great moments, though they're oddly paced and placed. Sometimes there is too much context, sometimes not enough, and somehow the plot is squeezed in between the action like little pudges between a too-tight shirt and low-rise jeans. As Ms Kim pointed out, the first portion of the movie is kind of like a long movie trailer...which isn't necessarily horrible, I'll note, movie trailers can be interesting to watch in and of itself. But....? Hm. The characters are interesting generally, though the story goes a little bit too far towards "too unpredictable" in regards to them, and it's thus hard to care for the characters because of it. I would have liked to see more of Ryan Reynolds being a badass, and less of Andy Garcia and that strange accent he was afflicted with. Smokin' Aces would have made a great comic book, it was decided, especially looking at the interesting manner of doing the end-credits, but is an odd sort of good-bad movie.

-the first several paragraphs of this are great, I think, though it then delves into somewhat technical stuff for yoga teachers - Strength of Mind

-fun with ESL!

-interesting ponderball quote: "One should lift oneself up by one's Self."

Random Word of the Day: sapidity

Things of Note: A Leisurely Busy weekend

-from Bryce: January's Phoenix comic con had more vendors and whatnot, but the signing of things was disappointing for various reasons...there was, however, some dude in a Wolverine costume with functional claws
-thank you DM F-16 pilots for gunning it low enough over the parking lot that all the ghetto fab cholo-mobiles had their alarms set off this morning; that was hilarious
-Tucson as a Big-Little Town, Instance #236: Corinne figuring out that our massage instructor had also been our capoeira instructor previously, despite going by an entirely different name
-Catalina State Park is great for short hikes, but has remarkably little to take pictures of, at least in the winter
-1, 2, 3: everyone roll their eyes at the trainers in Petsmart
-MillerLite and lime juice - not bad, not that bad at all
-not only did we catch a funny night at the comedy club, we even caught a comedian who's entire routine was based on puns
-bowling on the weekend is not so tenable, we found out, also inadvertantly possibly offending some people in line
-a horse is funny to imagine from a dog's point of view, it seeing a horse for the first time, especially with a human on top as well - "ohmigod a huge four-legged thing with a growth on its back!?" - makes me think of how a deer won't recognize a human if they're on horseback

triviaball!

Days Unfold (we know the drummer!) is awesome. To be completely honest, I don't even know that I was expecting anything in particular at all, but regardless I was pretty surpised by what I heard - I'm actually really glad we finally got to hear them. Yay local music!

I love living fossils, though this one is a bit...unpretty; hm, not that a coelacanth would win any beauty pagaents, I suppose...

from Mr Phil, an awesome idea

a random interesting battle I'd hardly heard even the context of, much less the players involved

a book!

llGuilty Pleasures, by Laurell Hamilton. Yay dark fantasy chick lit! Yes, some people might look at it and think "silly" (re: it being derided on the way home from Buckeye the other weekend), but it certainly doesn't take itself too seriously and is easy to read. Hamilton's Anita Blake is a fine character in the Stephanie Plum tradition, but with much more of an edge to her, and yet with that same quirkiness and uncertainty that makes for the charm. And I love what she's doing with her expanded setting, it's able to do stuff using the entirety of its setting that, say, my other favorite (White Wolf Publishing) is only able to do with an apocalypse - for example, stuff like making the monsters 'public,' and making the supernatural mainstream without resorting to extremes.

crash

I decided to go running with Mattie the ofanim (for the exactly two people who might get that reference) yesterday, and thinking it would be a short run, decided to try letting her set the pace for as long as I could. Hoo boy. I think I was sprinting, sliding, and sprinting for a lot longer than I meant to; another mistake I made included grabbing the wrong Underarmor (for extreme heat, not winter cold) and so I was oddly even more cold than I would have been shirtless. Then Mattie decided to make an agile little dodge around a telephone pole, and I let go of the leash, thinking I'd be able to pick it up again quickly, and then a lot of stuff seemed to happen. I slid on sand, heard a car, saw Mattie pick up speed, put my head below my center of mass reaching for the leash, and had a burst of panic thinking Mattie was going to bolt beyond my reach.

And my body...crashed? It was like it was operating independently of me, and all the while I was willing myself to just step on or grab the damn leash and please please don't face plant on the thorns and asphalt, and there was lots of pain. Which I later realized was the headache I felt a moment later. Now, it's kind of a chicken/egg as to whether headache preceded or followed my body-mind going wonky on me, but either way luckily Mattie turned to see what was up with the stupid human instead of sprinting off, and I managed to stumble us home. And sit in a chair on the porch and keep from throwing up from the headache. Oof, wierd, painful experience.

I can logic out the heliotropism of leaves, but why would flowers track the sun?

Wow, old school staff - but where are the thrusts? It's interesting how there's an entirely different priority from the Okinawan style I'm more familiar with

nouveau?

Some of my favorite kinds of moments are when everything in my perception is suddenly unfamiliar. The most general example of this I can think of is when I've been out of town and am driving back into Tucson, and my mind is somewhere else, and I don't recognize the roads and shops and views I commonly see. It's like it's new all over again to me; I guess I'm often that way with food, though I didn't consciously realize that till it was pointed out to me, but in a sense somehow yeah I guess food does seem kind of new to me each time I try it, even if it's something I eat practically every day. So I suppose in the end I'd take that observation as a really nice compliment, because I think it's good to do more than just go through the motions, and I'm happy to be more aware that I might have been acting that way even unconsciously. Or perhaps especially?

After I meditate, if I'm especially centered, I'm left with that unfamiliar feeling for a period of time. Unfamiliar isn't really the right word, though, I think that might have some negative connotation; more like everything's newer, and in being new again, and me consequently paying more attention, everything seems bright and fresh and interesting, even if it's just the subtle movements of the blinds across the window, or the red of the drapes in my room, or (and for some reason I love this in particular) the green of leaves swaying in a sunny breeze. Or this morning, I somehow woke up in a kind of new-state, and the first thing I saw was my girlfriend's lovely butt clad only in underwear, and that was something I was very happy to see all over again for the first time.

all sorts of crazy people

Benny and Joon, with Mary Stuart Masterson (aka Jennifer Garner) and Johnny Depp. Cute! Though from the few years of experience I had with similar characters at the hospital, I had a spot of trouble believing that such a pleasant conclusion could come out of this, but since I'm really an idealist at heart as I've realized in the past year, I didn't really care. I thought that the 'non-crazy' characters were kind of reacting too abruptly, not hardly giving each other any sort of chance, but I think that's more a limitation of the medium than anything else (ie, it would be much easier to develop that aspect in a novel, say). But, overall, a well put together, classic, gem of a movie.

I got this comic called Walk In, from the new Virgin line, and was kind of thinking it was 'eh' since I've read it. But, looking it up out of boredom if nothing else, I come across this interesting article, which pertains to both modern occurrences and myth - I knew that Virgin was basing their new comics on Indian mythology (hence my initial interest) but didn't realize that this particular comic was included in that. Points to them for subtlety. Now, I'm interested.

Wow, I don't think they could make a movie out of it, but Loop is an interesting story, and for some odd reason reminds me of Pulse

From Wyatt, a very odd shippy boaty

triviaball

akabeko = cute

I'm still waiting on the prime-time-news-magazine special on drunken bees

I heard this Madagascar...i? Madagascar-an? Anyway, instrument, on the Global Express this morning on the community radio station, and it has a very interesting sound to it, and even more interestingly, if made in the traditional fashion, if one string breaks, the whole instrument has to be tossed, because the strings are made out of the bamboo body of the instrument itself. And the song was almost as catchy as that lemur-techno from the movie Madagascar, to boot, which is saying something.

Wow, did anyone know that there could be chicken eunuchs, that even perform a similar function to historical human eunuchs? Well, except for the getting eaten part, I guess.

ponderball

I just had this memory of...fifth grade I think it was; we read a dystopian short story about massive overpopulation, and I remember the stark despair contained in the narrative. Then, remembering that, I thought - whoa, that was fifth grade?! Props to that teacher, that was great stuff that challenged us, and it fired me up. Hell, I think that might have also been a point in time where I had an impulse to create/write first developed, I remember writing a story about an visiting a science-fiction-y alien zoo for that same teacher - it might have been silly, but damn was my imagination and interest engaged.

-passage on various yoga views:
"A classicalist might quiet the mind and withdraw his senses to gain freedom from the material world and access the spiritual. A Vedantist regards the sunset as being part of the spiritual world but believes that seeing it as a sunset is an illusion. A Tantrika recognizes the sunset for what it is in the regular world but sees it as part of the divine whole. What's more, she fully delights in the experience while it lasts."

-and a funny little passage on panache that I'm kind of furrowing my brows at

-on being happy:
"We sometimes forget that we are allowed to feel this way all the time. " - an interesting thought, I thought

-ah, using one of my favorite movements (the armdrag), here's a good idea for when using a butterfly guard

Things of Note: A "Global warming my ass!" Weekend

-first of all, thank you to Mr Andrew for calling suggesting I 'make a break for it;' dude, that saved me a lot of driving on blowing-snow-tilted-hills-no-streetlamps-carswithbrightson trouble, I'm sure it would have gotten worse had I left later
-it's funny to do yardwork, then have it snow later...the piles of weeds/grass I'd meant to burn slowly are now piles of snow
-apparently, "copper" can at times mean "gray;" hence, my turning off the gas for a weekend...d'oh
-petite people are apparently agile like mountain goats, at least until they have a camouflage jacket carapace on
-I felt bad for the dude who's tree we were digging up for him, what with the ghastly wheezing and coughing...till I realized he was smoking the entire time
-ah, truckstops and lot-lizards
-Hot Buttered Rum: rocking bluegrass band, when they're playing fast; when you can't see the band, and there are obelisk-like girls elbowing and crowding you, it's not so rocking
-in other news, the snow still hasn't melted yet, and schools are closed in Tucson - I think armageddon may be upon us
--
-a bit hokey in parts, but I think quite an interesting article on cycles

old school

What's Up, Doc?, with Ryan O'Neal and Barbra Streisand. First of all, somehow, someway, Streisand is ungodly hot in this movie. Hott, or hawt, if you will. Like, dayamn, if one might forgive the colloquialism. As it were. Wowza. Ironically, it's apparently also a distant reference to another movie I enjoyed, but in that case was ultimately disappointed with, The Lady Eve. But anyway, this movie is hilarious. I'm not even sure why, exactly. But I was laughing really, really hard. A lot. I think, if I were to see it again, I'd even say with more confidence that it actually has a pretty tight narrative structure, for what it is...as it was, I almost had trouble following some aspects of it, but I didn't care, I was laughing too hard.

Vertigo, with Jimmy Stewart and Kim Novak. Well, aside from the fact that I was utterly exhausted and couldn't keep my eyes open, it was interesting. For true, it's a good story, though we thought that the explanation of what the female lead had been doing for half the movie would have better served the story if it was explained at the end instead of the middle. Of course, I had to have the ending explained to me after dozing through it, but ah well.

-I almost want to make a pilgrimage

dooby doo

In the space of Ms Kim singing "Tony Danza" at karaoke, I caught out of the corner of my eye Cung Le completely dominating some poor guy through one round of san-shou rules kickboxing. I was watching my girlfriend, natch, but I could see in my peripheral vision at least five different kinds of throws, which is significant in my mind because most sport-fighters can do maybe one or two wrestling takedowns at best, much less spectacular, body slamming throws like that. Seriously, look up Cung Le on youtube if you want some free entertainment, and don't mind feeling bad for his opponents.

In other news, I enjoy freckles on a girl. I think they're cute (luckily, my girlfriend is naturally freckled by her long days in the sun at dog shows). Also, as much as I reflexively blocked off my ears to country music in years past, I'll admit I've grown to appreciate it for several reasons. For example, the faster songs are often just impressive, and catchy, and I enjoy how they often tell a story (which most other contemporary music doesn't at all), and also damn but I never realized a girl twang'ing it up could be that attractive.

Civil War: Fallen Son looks to be interesting, both on account of Jeff Loeb being attached to it, and how he seems to have already skillfully planned out both structure (based on the 'stages of grief') and characterization. But who's going to die?! Damn, I don't even know who to guess!

Huh, never heard of European windstorms before

the sun, crotch shots, errant agua

I went up on the roof, as I am sometimes wont to do, to take a picture of the sun. Yes, sometimes I stare into the sun. And sometimes, when I'm not on the roof, though I wouldn't be surprised if she somehow followed me up the ladder, Mattie slams me in the crotch as I look up into the sun. But that's besides the point. The point! Is that a copper pipe cracked or something, and there was water dripping down my roof from the evap cooler. I guess I should have thought to check on that what with all the pipe-bursting news I've been hearing, but alas. Lesson learned, and I now know how to turn off the water up there. I think. I'll have to check on that when I get home. Watch for hilarity to ensue when I slip on icy water that's not supposed to be there and plummet to my death upon Tia's queen-of-the-hill futon.

-they're finally expanding the Robotech series in a meaningful way with The Shadow Chronicles; or...are they? I mean, I swear they went over this in the novels (which I read every one of and which are really my only real contact with the series), but I guess maybe this is a reboot? I suppose that concluding novel was pretty 2001: A Space Odyssey in its ending...

ponderball

“In sleep a person passes in and out of two stages, dreaming and dreamless sleep. In the first, consciousness is withdrawn from the body and senses but still engaged in the mind. In dreamless sleep, however, consciousness is withdrawn from the mind as well. Then the thinking process – even the sense of “I” – is temporarily suspended, and consciousness is said to reside in the Self. In this state a person ceases to be a separate creature, a separate personality. In dreamless sleep, the Upanishads say, a king is not a king nor a pauper poor; no one is old, or young, male or female, educated or ignorant. When consciousness returns to the mind, however, the thinking process starts up again, and personality returns to the body….According to this analysis, the ego dies every night.” - I'm up for talking this out with anyone, I thought it was really interesting

-ten points if someone kind find a text that can use sexual cannibalism in a close-reading of it (actually kind of tempted to suggest that to my old literary theory teacher, it would be a fun assignment)

-I think this would be a fun topic to do a period-piece movie about - the Wokuo

-in other news, I may seem like a woman with the new template, but...uh...well, for all anyone knows who's reading this, maybe I am! Ha! Take that!

-or something. I don't really know where I was going with that. I thought the template was purty, though, and pleasantly calm. So, take that!

unity vs separateness: variations

Heathers, with Winona Ryder and Christian Slater. A dark comedy curtesy of Ms Kim's impeccable taste - it's so very. My attention wanted to wander at a few points, but it was always sucked back in by the weight of meaning in the surreal and satirical threads running throughout. As much as one could look at it as one of those well-done classics and leave it at that, I think there are a number of interesting questions raised. Like, looking back to one's own high school experience, were there any parallels in the cliques, teachers, or even the suicides? Is high school really a microcosm of society, or is that idea flawed? Could this movie fly in present-day theatres without generating scandal and controversy? Isn't ironic how the person trying to bring unity to the separateness of the students (see below) is the most psychotic, dark character? Or is it not ironic? How badass is it to light a cigarette how Veronica does in the end? And how gross is it to do the same off of someone's burning flesh? And it's so very what?!
"Fuck me gently with a chainsaw."

"The mind, they said, observes the outside world and sees its own structure. It reports the world consists of a multiplicity of separate objects in a framework of time, space, and causality because these are the conditions of perception. In a word, the mind looks at unity and sees diversity; it looks at what is timeless and sees transience. And in fact the percepts of its experience are diverse and transient; on this level of experience, separateness is real. Our mistake is taking this for the ultimate reality, like the dreamer thinking that nothing is real except his dream....This does not mean, however, that the phenomenal world [what is sensed, perceived] is an illusion or unreal. The illusion is the sense of separateness." - from a foreward to the Bhagavad Gita
-
Not as bad as giving a kid a bucket of mercury to play T-1000 or Silver Surfer, but still...

I wonder what was going on behind the scenes of James Price's alchemy demonstrations - if they were just magic tricks, why would he go to such lengths to make such a claim, or resort to just doing magic tricks, if he'd really had such a brilliant career already?

Things of Note - an It's Always Buckeye Weekend

-congrats to Ms Kim for scoring points with various dawgs!
-those basenji dogs still remind me of the tiny swarming dinosaurs from Jurassic Park
-volleyball players continue to have the hottest uniforms ever
-what do green peppercorns taste like, anyway?
-grandiose plans of drinking and card games involving killing bunnies: okay, not so grandiose, I just wanted to use that word
-I inadvertantly offended a gay person: sorry, dude
-mmm...somehow, I honestly did not realize one could buy a giant soft pretzel in the mall
-I still have yet to see Buckeye-proper...if there is a central portion of Buckeye...hm
-I'd not known there could be such a stark temperature difference between the shade and sunlit areas
-comic book stores are bad for my finances
-who'd've thought a racist, anti-semitic bigot could be so outwardly nice
-Jacks and Fives: wow, it doesn't need alcohol to be fun, who knew? (he said sarcastically)

triviaball

-I'm a sucker for nice game trailers (Quake Wars: Enemy Territory)

-interesting energy idea

-do these maneuvers actually involve Red Bull?

-happy fun ball

-from Phil: guaranteed to make smiles

tpb reviews!

Homeland (Legend of Drizzt, Vol 1) - This is an adapation of R. A. Salvatore's origin-novel of the famous character Drizzt, and also one of my favorite novels-from-when-I-was-younger. So in that I wsa kind of wary of anyone being able to pull off a good graphic adaptation (ignoring the point that the novel takes place entirely in pitch black darkness with characters that see by heat). But, like the bits of the adaptation of Laurell Hamilton's novels I've seen, the lush art and dedication of the writers to stick as close as humanly possible to the novels really does pull it off, I think. There's no way it could have the richness of prose and detail a novel could have, of course, just in that one can only cram so much into a graphic text, but to me it would be a great companion to the novel, like the illustrations in The Dark Tower, in a sense.

First Foursaken (Uncanny X-Men - The New Age, Vol 5) - I got this one because it was small, and featured my favorite artist, Chris Bachalo. The first story was interesting in a short story kind of sense, and began to hint at current incarnations of the characters involved, I suppose. But it completely gives a new villain - something that's supposed to be the opposite of the Phoenix - short shrift, I think they could have gone with the same villain, but described it as something else, and made the story immediately more palatable. The second half of the collection also has nice art, but completely focuses on Storm, who I was never particularly interested in; moreover, it plays upon a Black Hawk Down trope, which while ambitious I think is another case of short shrift. Still, I think this one's worth getting if one either likes Bachalo's art or Storm.

Down the Rabbit Hole (Exiles, Vol 1) - As much as this is billed as X-Men meets Quantum Leap, as I've never seen that show, I have to compare it to an old favorite, Sliders. In terms of comics, it provides for a continuous stream of what-if scenarios, returns of old characters that should be dead (like one of Wyatt and I's favorites of yore, Blink), and original characters that just wouldn't exist in the main setting. So, there's a lot of fun variability and interesting concepts and even humor from deadpan to witty, but at the same time, one already begins to realize that it won't do to become too attached to any of the characters - that same variability leads to a relatively high rate of loss of main characters. Good stuff, though.

-illuminating article on the nature of relaxed versus working muscles

-from Mr Phil, an awesome discourse on pirates

-from Ms Abby, Perry Bible Fellowship - hilarious, I tell you

commentary and curiosity

"Sport-fighting guys come across as bullies, self-defense guys sound like military absolutists and traditional martial artists seem like stubborn, irrational Orientophiles." - That's...well...surprisingly accurate, I think, if a bit exaggerated. Not by much, though. And it sums up really what martial artists turn into, I think, when confronted by the existence of a martial artist from a different, ah, 'faction.' I've drifted between sport and traditional over the years I think, more recently leaning towards sport, in the end, despite doing more traditional stuff lately - my mindset is definitely on 'sport,' regardless.

"Anybody can breathe; therefore, anybody can practice yoga. But no one can practice every kind of yoga. It has to be the right yoga for the person."

I like this description of something I'd been rather suspicious of before, or at least it helps in discerning whether to be suspicious -
"A guru is not one who has a following. A guru is one who can show me the way. Suppose I’m in the forest and somehow I’ve lost my way. Then I’ll ask a person, 'Is this the way home?' That person might say, 'Yes, you go this way.' I say, 'Thank you,' and I go my way. That is a guru….The guru is not one who says, 'I am the guru.'

One of the qualities of a person who is clear, who is wise, is not to need to say 'I am clear, I am wise.' There is no need to say this. The person knows the way and he or she shows the way. It is simple. Humility is one of the qualities of a clear person – there is nothing to prove to anybody."

How curious, I wonder if I could find seeds for shy plants

An oldie but goodie, a quick discourse on comprehensive martial arts

Perhaps more potentially uh-oh

need...fresh...air...

Something about the weather today - in its inexpressible, cool and breeze damn-it's-a-good-day way - made me nostalgic for when I was in school. That is, when I would be spending a solid portion, if not a majority of the day outside. In between classes, walking to and from school, walking to get ideas for poetry or literature classes or to work out issues, running...that was when I first learned to appreciate what I can out of the colder seasons, especially autumn with its scents and mellow temperature. The winter of the present, for the most part, however, is somewhat discontentful, as I spend most of my day outside, and when I am outside for a walk or what it's only late at night, when the cold is just...cold. Ah well, maybe I can shift my perspective enough that things look up in that regard by the season's end...

Ruh-roh

awlp! and community update, and bubbles.

Reading a book on pranayama (working with the breath), there was an interesting little snippet of a chapter on nutrition. A couple lines that popped out at me were, "It is the state of mind of the eater that is important," and "When a noble mind prevails, all but poisonous food is sattvic [healthy to body-mind]." The context for these two posits, horribly synopsized, goes something like: though food affects the constitution of the body-mind, that does not necessarily mean a jerk or a tyrant will become nicer just by eating a sattvic or vegetarian diet. Someone like a Jesus or a Buddha would probably not be affected all that much in a negative or dulling manner by eating non-sattvic food, or meat, or whatever, because they would already be in a self-sustain-ingly healthy state of body-mind, and so would have proper reverence for the life given for their nutrition. Long story short, most people are obviously more in the middle, so what I take out of it is that it helps to eat healthy and reverentially, but going out of my way to cause undue stress to myself to try to become, say, vegan, or guilting myself because I'm not, is just plain useless. And yes, I'm aware that sounds a lot like rationalizing, but I'm confident in saying I've put a good amount of thought into that, and could explain it better if needs be, and in that same vein could reference the text more.

Mr Andrew's back in Tucson, and back in action - The Second Time Around

Bubble Rings are pretty cool - though, I like bubble rings made by Ms Kim more (mainly because it involves her in a swimsuit)

Things of Note - a Dawg Eat Dawg Weekend

-a five month old black lab puppy is vaguely reminiscint of a hyperactive toddler on steroids; hella strong, wants to put everything it possibly can in its mouth (including the picnic table?!), and isn't shy about thinking the world is its bathroom
-that said, that puppy was remarkably quick to learn its new pack leader's usual play-fighting tricks and act to counter them, enough that he was even starting to piss off the other (frustrated) dog
-watching RC cars race around a BMX track in miniature is almost more fun than seeing actual cars race
-I finally put up some of the photos from Pinetop, and like Kevin, had some time obsessively geotagging them (ie, getting down to literally the exact place I took the photo in Tucson)
-not all superglue is created equal
-comic book stores have midnight sales?!
-make sure medication doesn't have "hydrochloric acid" as part of its ingredients - no, seriously, I'm not joking
-Ms Kim had an interesting time in Palm Springs - personally, I'm just glad she was able to get there safely with that wind blowing over semi's and RV's
-
and, a quick discourse on ukemi skills

prayer

-instead of writing about The Dark Tower, I'll excerpt from it - Cuthbert's prayer for the dead, as given by Roland, for Jake (I'll assume that's not a spoiler, given that one might guess at all of the characters dying from the second book on):
Time flies, knells call, life passes, so hear my prayer.
Birth is nothing but death begun, so hear my prayer.
Death is speechless, so hear my speech.
This is Jake, who served his ka and his tet. Say true.
May the forgiving glance of S'mana heal his heart. Say please.
May the arms of Gan raise him from the darkness of this earth. Say please.
Surround him, Gan, with light.
Fill him, Chloe, with strength.
If he is thirsty, give him water in the clearing.
If he is hungry, give him food in the clearing.
May his life on this earth and the pain of his passing become as a dream to his waking soul, and let his eyes fall upon every lovely sight, let him find the friends that were lost to him, and let everyone whose name he calls call his in return.
This is Jake, who lived well, loved his own, and died as he would have it.
Each man owes a death. This is Jake. Give him peace.
-I think I might adapt it a bit, using Threnody/Karuna, just as another poem to have memorized

at a loss for words

The Dark Tower, by Stephen King. Wow. I think I kind of just rested on the couch after finishing this (and yes, I did pass the unique little coda, and finished the ending, after some internal justifying or rationalizing or whatever). I...yeah, once again, I think in the end I'm going to pass on writing more about this story, I just don't feel up to presuming any insights, yet (tangentially, I might be making a midnight trip to Charlie's Comics to get the first of the comic adaptation of Roland's 'lost years,' as it were).

Say thankya.

---
-eh, it wouldn't save them from being herded by Mattie

-yeah...winter....mmmmno

-GreenGlobe offers an eccentric gift idea

more triviaball (now with acrobatics!)

"Soon after I left the canyon I read, in an otherwise unsuccinct paper on ecology: 'Organisms themselves are relatively transient entities through which materials and energy flow and eventually return to the environment.' In my more skittish moments I am currently inclined to think that would rather like this sentence as my epitaph."

Kind of silly, but somehow endearing - an internetweb rainbow

Also silly, but it's got some clean, aesthetics-bent parkour in it (and ditto, but with Madonna)

Sosuishi-ryu Kumi Uchi techniques - old school [also - sword]

And interesting dancing

triviaball

"However, some horticulturists sell chimeras made by grafting a tomato plant onto a potato plant, which can produce both edible tomatoes and potatoes." - that's it, I want one.

Huh, I didn't know there was a Viking dog; or, that they might be an inspiration for humor (one would think there would have been a big, warlike mastiff or something, but maybe the Vikings appreciated the corgi ancestors for their cuteness?)

And, finally, an explanation of the odd racoon tail in Mario Bros 3, ultimately stemming from these puppies (incidentally, also a possible visualization of Oy from King's Dark Tower in my opinion)

So that's where Eris is

“Never question the motives of a man with no pants.”

symbols and imagination

When I first saw V for Vendetta, I remember being somewhat ambivalent towards both its message, the moral ambiguity of certain events in the story, and the movie as a whole. But was that just because they made me uncomfortable? If so, I'm glad I've seen it more times since then, as each time I've enjoyed it a little more, and come to appreciate its ambiguities and tightly woven semantic nets a little more as well (though I'm sure it'll take more watching to fully appreciate those aspects). For example, if anyone has occasion to watch the film, pay close attention to the overall dialogue concerning the nature of words, symbols, and ideas, a central theme in the movie - it's a wonderful introduction to semiotics in and of itself. Also, if anyone wants to talk out what V does to Evie to bring about change in her, I'm all ears, that's one of those things I'm hungry for any sort of opinion on.

Completely unrelatedly, having seen a good majority of Super Mario Bros 3 this past weekend, I remembered noting that for as simple as the game and its graphics and art are, it had a remarkable range of immersion. At least for me, anyway, and I guess I am known for getting a little too into things. Still, the idea of moving from pipe to pipe across a map requiring you to traverse a star filled, snowy cavern is an interesting image that implies a lot about the (surreal) nature of pipes and that 'world,' or how each level is integrated into what's shown on the map. Yeah, it's a 2D sidescroller, but between flame filled deserts with angry, animate suns and black sky'd wastelands and airship fleets and fields of carnivorous plants and haunted castles, I think if one uses their imagination a bit, Super Marios Bros 3 (or 2 or the first) can rival any Final Fantasy or whatnot.
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Bow shock is pretty (check out the imagelinks on the bottom)

ah, humorous, pointless violence

Jackass Number Two, with...well, the Jackass people, and lots of random cameos. As per usual with things Jackass, I greatly enjoyed the elaborate, cartoon-esque stunts - partly out of admiration, partly because it looks fun, and partly because they're obviously having fun. Similarly with the pranks, because they're healthy pranks for the most part, that don't horribly humiliate people, but are just simple and funny. The gross out humor? Yeah, there were a good few parts I just looked away, or half covered my eyes - luckily, I was talking on the phone for half of those, and so had an excuse to just walk out of the room. So, over all, I wouldn't go out of my way to see it, but it was hilarious, generally, having seen it.

wounds and salves

Going into the ER brought back some memories, but nothing notable, or that I haven't talked about before. I did note, on the other hand, how in the last two times I've been there, there's been some local drama going on. For example, we ended up sitting next to the family of someone involved in a bus-SUV collision, who we realized were such as they reacted to the news of the accident playing on the television above us. Or last night, as I walked in there was a Mexican family anxiously searching for someone who had been shot (that last was a bit disconcerting, especially because of a ghetto-bird's lingering presence above Adelaide two nights in a row, and where the family said the shooting took place). I guess things like that made me remember times I'd sat next to people who were in the news or victims of violent crime, and ponder Tucson being a big-little town, and while one often runs into people one knows, one can also run into 'news-worthy' people.

I got some neem oil...I'm not sure yet if it's the panacea it's touted to be, but I did realize why it isn't marketed more if it really does have all the good affects it's supposed to - it smells downright foul. As Sensei Tony would say, it's just plum raunch.
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"Can you give me hallelujah?
Thankee-sai.
Now somebody yell me a big old God-bomb amen."

Things of Note - A Snowy New Years Weekend

-Kim = the aweso for cooking for thirteen people, and making good food to boot
-it took me a while to remember how to chop wood and make fires, but damn, call me a lumber jack and a...firebug or something, by the end of it
-Kim also won forty dollars at the casino, though we couldn't make heads or tails of the slots' rules, they might as well have given us a button that says 'you win' or 'you lose'
-lots of people had bruised asses from the ski/snowboard slopes (at least, we hope it was the slopes)
-flip cup is a lot more fun than the other drinking games, half because no one really cares if you drink, and half because it actually takes a modicum of skill of a sort - and yes, twenty-three bottles of champagne were emptied, all except the odd peach flavor which mysteriously disappeared
-snow makes for fun slushy drinks; Early Times whisky does not make for good times drinks, including the bad-idea of snowy trampoline jumping and sticking the entire bottle down someone's pants
-in Pinetop, Darby's Cafe is ok, Johnny Angel's diner is bleh, and don't even go near the bowling alley
-that was the most Mario Bros 3 I'd ever seen played, though we noted that Luigi is really more of a green Mario in that one
-throwing a large rock onto a frozen-over lake doesn't necessarily mean it's safe to walk on, as we found out upon hearing crunchycrackly noises under our feet
-in other news, a snowman was violated