shout out to Jayk and Zoombie...for the one person who would get that reference, who I'm sure does not read this blog, heh

The Laughing Corpse, by Laurell Hamilton. Ok, I am officially back into the Anita Blake novels. Normally I'd say it's the adeptly expanded setting that hooked me, but I really enjoy even more the confidence and moxie of the leading lady. Though it might be in the vampire chick lit section, I'd say it's quite not, this is more in the badass chick lit section. Yes. I think I also clicked more with this second novel than with the first as it was just less busy, this one only had zombies and zombie related activity (with a simultaneously creepy and badass ending); the first had vampires, lycanthropes, and zombies, which are all well and good, but would have been better served having established each of the categories first. Also, this book cemented my resolve to get some practice in with pistolry.

Got to give the dude kudos, painting accurately having been born without eyes

systema notes - el-dog-o edition

-first thing was jogging combined with breathing exercises; it didn't actually alter my ability to run at all to alter my breathing pattern consciously, I'm used to doing that on my own, but I did notice I have this huge difficulty really extending my exhale, I find it curious
-a battery of pushups to strenghthen the structure of our arms, and learn how to consistently keep the wrist aligned; staying in a pushup position while someone else does pushups on you works the most random muscles isometrically
-squats on other people lying down, front and back - pops the back nicely, interesting for the squatter's balance, and the bottom person's breathing-under-duress
-doing systema-situps while being hit, to work on moving under duress, and also learning how to pick where to hit to stop a given movement
-agility drills that looked like breakdancing combined with rolling, then rolling to evade and absorb someone trying to kick you while you're down - I think at this point my parents' dog randomly arrived to tackle me and then do figure-8s around the class, to everyone's amusement
-then most of the class was working on attempting to feel and achieve the "heavy hand" state so important to systema strikes; to be honest I didn't quite ever really feel it, that's definitely still a work in progress for me, I'm going to guess I need to relax my shoulders more
-I came closest to it when I was advised to let my hands just be dead-weight in a wingchun-esque drill; then, like aikido, it didn't even feel like I was doing anything when I was apparently (by his reaction) hitting immensely harder
-when it got too dark to see well for punch-for-punch, we switched to sitting shoulder to shoulder and trying to hit each other, like siblings on a roadtrip...quite fun, and a great skill to develop, to boot, really gets you rolling with punches to the head and thinking up unorthodox strikes
-apparently I've improved a lot in relaxing, but still have a lot of work to go...a little blow to my ego, but I'm excited to see what drills the teacher said he'd give me to work on it

his little boat looked like fun

Charlie Bartlett, with Anton Yelchin, Robert Downey Jr, and Kat Dennings. And, yeah, she's pretty damn hot. At first I couldn't quite get into it...something about drugs being the easy quick fix for things and making people like Charlie and there being no better answer than popularity...like, I felt it was good and funny but couldn't agree with it. But then it picked up and deepened progressively more and more towards the end, so I guess I ended up liking it and agreeing with the sentiments expressed by then. The main characters' relationships are very cute, Downey is great as usual, Dennings is wonderfully curvy and charismatic. I'd almost say it's kind of a very oblique tangent to Igby Goes Down in some senses - just much more uplifting, purposeful, and pleasant.

Thirty-six Stratagems from Sun-tzu - chock full of interesting little anecdote-stories of sheer cleverness winning battles and wars.

"dibs on the mountain guide!" - see? funny, but also, treats her like an object

Ten Monkeys, Ten Minutes, by Peter Watts. As usual with Watts, interesting and disturbing, real make-you-think sort of pieces (it's an anthology of short stories). But I wanted more, damn it! Each of the stories seems to me a perfect seed for a bigger story or novel (especially so in the first chapter of Starfish being included, but that just helps my assertion, I think). Weather that's 'alive' and aware in some sense and trying to exterminate humanity? Entropy taking on a faster pace, breaking down the very patterns of things? A scarier, shiver-inducing take on Jasmine from the show Angel (with same name, even)? Of course there was a miss or two maybe (the hate/fractals story) and a humorous one off (hippies + hungry orcas = hilarity) - all in all, worth a read, it's quick and snappy.

Journey to the Center of the Earth, with Brendan Frasier, Josh Hutchinson, and Anita Briem. Oh man. Dumb. But, great for kids. The 3D aspect actually didn't even seem that prevalent for a lot of it, more of an interesting complement to the cinematography than anything, but became more interesting with pop-out-of-screen scares and getting to watch little kids reach playfully for the illusion. Makes me wonder whether 3D might eventually become a standard complement to regular movies, just as an accenting thing, like an extension of HD or something. Anyway, I think this would have been better as a regular, epic kind of movie, I wanted more of the underground environment! I'll also note the female character who starts off (though in skin tight clothing) as more competent and effective than the male characters, though as the narrative becomes more dangerous, she becomes less competent and more reliant on the males, and her clothing becomes progressively less and less, then she gets wet, then is attacked by tentacled plants....heh, I didn't mind it, but at the same time, it seemed blatant undercutting of a female character.

slightly nsfw, actually kind of badass pattycake

the gelatin one is the most interesting and disturbing, to me, if you imagine that as a body

shawarmaball?

but, what about :P?

I totally want one just so I can name it Shawarma:
"The Rock Hyrax has been jokingly referred to as a "Shawarma Bear." This references its size and shape, which resemble shawarma."

but: is there a Ms Reef calendar for me?

that is so metal

dang, wish they'd thought of that earlier - Palestinians shooting cameras

systema notes, again: monsoon season

-wow, never occurred to me, but practicing martial arts outdoors with a cool stormy breeze, thunder nearby, and a fiery brilliant sunset is lighting up the palm trees like torches is...well, pretty effing awesome
-still getting used to doing pushups only on fists; my middle knuckles are a little bruised, which I think indicates I need to disperse my weight across more of my fist (which, I realize, is naturally more like a systema punch, than a 'standard' 2-knuckle punch)
-some built up strength in my lower arm structures and connective tissues will be nice, for both the above conditioning and for feeling more confident in that kind of, relaxed-half-fist the systema punches seem to use
-tricky: an extension of the extreme non-telegraphing movement (to the point of not telegraphing even on more subtle levels), to hit without rancor or intent to hurt...say, to punch someone hard enough to basically shut them down or knock them out, but without any negative or harmful intent beyond moving them the way you want...hard to explain, obviously
-interesting sensitivity drill of feeling another's breath/heartbeat, and extended from that, a very subtle point of directing another's attention by touch
-plastic man! man, if we'd had that back in the day....basically just letting another person manipulate you gently as if you were moldable plastic, to figure out how the human body-structure works, where it loses balance, how to make it lose balance, etc...that would have revolutionized all of our prior training in jujitsu and aikido if we had done for 10 or 20 minutes every class
-short work: working with continuously flowing strikes with an opponent at within-arms-length range, the goal being to get them to be shut down right at your feet. for some reason I kept standing my opponent back upright, heh, it was pretty funny, it was like I was helping him back up after knocking him down

Talking monkey, yeah, yeah. Came here from the future, ugly sucker, only says "ficus".

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, with Robert Downey Jr, Val Kilmer, and Michelle Monaghan, who still doesn't do anything for me, really. I mistake her for that girl in Lost, I guess, that's about it. I'm glad I finally got to see this one, despite having forgotten it to the point of only the name being vaguely familiar when we glanced at the dvd. I actually had to consciously stop myself from trying to imitate the cadence of Downey and Kilmer's wit after the movie was over, but hey, it really was hilarious. It was odd to watch another movie with metafiction in it in such quick succession, but here it was less central and more an amusing sidenote. Only downside of the movie for me was the ending, which was ok, but kind of trailed off in a meandering, uncertain way, like they couldn't pick just one ending...though, the wit remained, I suppose, in the kind of self-conscious narration about it. So there's that.

eeep - hate to imagine that happening in the diner, we had enough trouble back when that fermented ketchup splattered the walls

but, how can they top DK for a sequel?

Funny Games, with Tim Roth and Naomi Watts. Interesting in theory...it's the kind of movie, I think, that's a lot better in being talked about, but, I'm not sure it's all that great to sit through to get to that point. That is, it's artsy, in long cuts that have purpose and nice cinematography and great acting. But it's also gratuitously violent....well, but not really, because it never actually directly shows any of the violence, all of it taking place off-frame...just the effects of it in the characters' emotions and psyches. The real highlight of the film, though, is the metafiction and breaking of the fourth wall, which I think had there been more of, it would have elevated the film and made it available to a wider audience - are the boys demons? Travelers from "reality"? Just insane in that extra-insightful way? Just plain insane? See, fun to talk about, not so fun to watch.

The Dark Knight, with the Batman Begins cast, plus the wonderful replacment of Katie Holmes with Maggie Gyllenhaal. Well, it was long, but it never quite felt like it. Ok maybe in a few points where I was kind of going, "Where are they going to go now?" - but note that that's not "Where are they going with this?" Actually, wow, just noticed on imdb the rating's at 9.6...I wonder if that's unprecedented. I was a bit mollified by at least improvement on being able to see what Batman's doing when he's fighting, and twisty plot and characterization and shudder-inducing (and yet, laughter-inducing at inappropriate moments) Joker and acting. Nice.

Investigating Farscape, by Jes Battis. See my review on Amazon in the link when it goes up in a day or two, couldn't help but to respond to a doof.

waaaaiiiit a second....

Further thoughts on Step Up 2 the Streets:
-again, why in the hell was all the dancing illegal? Was that a really oblique attempt at political commentary about the danger of the Bush regime being so fascist or something?
-it says in the trivia that Hoffman actually participated in underground dancing to prepare for the movie...so it's real? That's pretty cool, I suppose, how do we find it? Or does it just mean he was dancing with mole people or....gasp! No, not the monsters from The Descent! Now there's a sequel. (seriously go watch the extra features on that latter movie, do it now.)

"be like...I don't know how to say...jello?"

notes from Systema! and stuff.
-it was hella muggy. Moist, if you will. Park + humid = itchy.
-there were more Russkies than Amurricans...one was supercute, though
-passing a knife from hand to hand while doing pushups (without tossing or rolling the knife) is incredibly challenging
-getting stabbed by a blunted metal knife still hurts a lot. I'm not dead or bleeding copiously, but yeesh.
-achieving that relaxed and sensitive state needed for being able to turn with a slashing blade, or sense one getting drawn in closequarters in failing twilight, requires being nigh meditative while fighting. This is going to take some practise.
-bigger "sticks" (ie, large clubs) are preferred to little kali sticks (which apparently don't hurt enough to be proper incentive to move). Metal pipes are popular in Russia.
-it's frustrating being with other students who rely on previous martial arts experience, rather than doing the non-technique drills, when I'm expending noticeable energy trying to unlearn bad habits (yes, you used to be a ninja. I used to be the opposite of a ninja. moving on. actually that person wasn't so bad it was more the tkd person.)
-the other frustrating thing is a general lack of instruction; yeah, I get that it's like creative writing, and you really can't tell someone how to improvise, but the lack of instruction I mean...actually, it's not the teacher, when working with him, his instruction is great (if confusing in a koan-way), it's just working with others and the wild inconsistency in what they do at times (not in skill, just...hitting hard, hitting soft, trying to hit vs trying to show, moving feet vs not moving feet...)