Well, I've got pretty ambivalent feelings on the movie Troy except for two things: the fight between Achilles and Hector, which was glorious, and I'm kind of crushing on the actress who played Briseis. Tangentially, I want one of those blue vest/sarong outfits.

Not sure of the veracity of this, but according to one of the kickboxing instructors the phrase "Say my name!" came from a boxing match that occurred just after Cassius Clay changed his name to Mohammed Ali. Apparently his opponent was giving him crap and kept calling him by his old name, so the natural response was to intersperse said phrase amongst a total beatdown. Awesome.

EarthStation9 - massive resource pool with easy access (via Wyatt)

Sephilopolis - art

Phil's Smoothie of Death:
-orange juice
-club soda
-mandarin oranges
-peaches
-strawberries
-ice
(as opposed to the Smoothie of Destruction, which contains apple juice)

Chaos is a pretty good French movie; the back of the case describes it as Run Lola Run meets Thelma and Louise, which I thought was pretty apt. The cinematography was kind of unique, in that it seemed to be shot with hand held cameras, if really high quality. And the editing complemented the 'chaotic' theme of the movie, which makes you pay attention, but was a nice accent.
best lines -
"Allez en enfer!" (go to hell!)
"Ce n'est pas le premier fois de quelque chose." (basically, 'it wouldn't be the first time') (though the subtitles for that were 'I've already been there. Now I'm back.')
***
Romanization Tables from the Library of Congress (very useful, if you're trying to learn, say, Arabic...)

One of the aikido students posited a reason for America's rampant obesity: the parents, who when faced with children complaining of being full and not wanting to eat anymore, feel the need to point out the famine in other countries ("There are starving children in China/Africa/possibly France!") and force the excess food upon their younglings.

Nice take on old Japanese Edo period paintings

Funny take on Western paintings

The best is when you nail them in the face. I'm thinking it could be done with some kevlar and target points.

Samarost - takes patience, but do-able.

Enlightening; bit surprised by the Snapple, though.

"We, the most distant dwellers upon the earth, the last of the free, have been shielded...by our remoteness and by the obscurity which has shrouded our name...Beyond us lies no nation, nothing but waves and rocks" -Calgacus, chieftain of the Picts circa Roman campaigns in Britain

At a dinner for a Hindu anniversary ceremony it was great, not only because of the Southwestern Monsoon Wedding type atmosphere, but also because of the people. There were Indian and white families (my mom the gorgeous Arab in Southwestern style clothes), Jews, Sikhs, Latinos, saris, suits, sparklies and flowers. Good times.

Copper - great comics

Interesting conversation, apparently straight from Iraq

The trouble with the world is that the stupid people are cocksure and the intelligent peoople are full of doubt. - Bertrand Russell
**
from an article on low-functioning autism in SciAm:

"Years ago in India, a doctor told his parents that the boy could not understand what was happening around him."-->"'I understand very well,' said the spirit in the boy."

"Wanting to talk, Tito once stood before a mirror pleading for his mouth to move. 'All his image did was stare back,' he wrote." (he often refers to himself in third person)

"Schizophrenia involves a detachment from reality and a turning in on the self, with an excessive but loosely systemized production of fantasies: it is as though the 'id,' or unconscious desire, has surged up and flooded the conscious mind with its illogicality, riddling associations and affective rather than conceptual links between ideas. Schizophrenic language has in this sense an interesting resemblance to poetry."

Interesting column, via Wyatt

"TeenQueen - How I went from emulating Molly Ringwald to lusting after Lindsay Lohan"

"Although connective tissue is found in every bone, muscle, and organ, it's most concentrated at the joints. In fact, if you don't use your full range of joint flexibility, the connective tissue will slowly shorten to the minimum length needed to accommodate your activities. If you try to flex your knees or arch your back after years of underuse, you'll discover that your joints have been "shrink-wrapped" by shortened connective tissue. " - another interesting thought

+ Collection of recovered texts on Western martial arts, as it were, in ye olden days

+ and just to show that I don't let my opinions of Brazilian jujitsu override my appreciation for it, a nice survey of techniques

"Yin and yang are relative terms, not absolutes; any phenomenon can only be yin or yang by comparison with something else. We can't point to the moon and say, "The moon is yin." Compared to the sun, the moon is yin: It's cooler and less bright. But compared to the Earth (at least from our perspective), the moon is yang: brighter, higher, and more mobile. In addition to being relative, a yin-yang comparison of any two objects depends on the trait being compared. For example, when considering location, the heart is yin compared to the breastbone because the heart is more hidden. But when considering substance, the heart is yang compared to the breastbone because the heart is softer, more mobile, more elastic." - never thought of it that way before...

"whoa" moment: leaning against a window sill at UMC, talking to an old Senora patient, I happened to unfocus from the window and focus on the metal-beaded cord for opening/closing the blinds, and saw something move. When I looked closer, I realized I was reflected on every little bead - when I tilted my head, twenty tiny reflections tilted their heads, all perfectly clear, if minute. Made me think of the old everything-in-a-grain-of-sand thang (minus the egotistical implications of comparing that to a reflection, I would hope)....

Okaaay, E3 equals....

Republic Commando - gods. awesome.

Mercenaries - looks cheesy but fun

Dead or Alive Ultimate - DoA just got weirder and cooler

Halo 2 - boo'ful scenery, and "the ultimate anti-sonuvabitch stick"

X-men Legends - for the people like me who wish they had the money to spare for expensive comic book addictions

Dawn of War - it's hard to say, but this might be better than a Dan Abnett novel - and that's saying a helluva lot for those who've missed out on that

100 Bullets - crazy fun gunplay

Ghost - now they just need a 3d version of Starcraft and they're set

.....and many more I probably missed...

So in watching my roommates play Knights of the Old Republic, I decided that the game is much more interesting and engaging than the Star Wars movies, on this basis: besides the structure of the game allowing for much more character development and (obviously) interaction, the plot of the game is based more upon twists and mystery than the fairytale/myth archetype which the movies had a foundation in.

Point from a CC newsletter - when you train with weights, you tear your body down to rebuild, which is all well and good; but with bodyweight exercises, you don't have to tear anything down, you only build using motions the body naturally wants to do.

Qene - trippy way of talking from Ethiopia, like Japanese doublespeak, but twisted subtly

On Spanish troops

Nice Seattle skyline effect; reminds me of The Wild Shore for some reason

Beat A. Von Weissenfluh

--ageproject - kind of like hotornot, but seemingly more intelligent for some reason

--like Melt Wizard, random, but clever

"The authoritarian tendencies of conservatism must be corrected by myths of freedom, while a conservative sense of order must temper liberalism's tendencies to social irresponsibility." - summarized theorist's point in a lit. theory book

Well, not exactly Cung Le or Shannon Logan, but you take what you can get

So many options for Kerry...

Rockfish - fun indie CG (I want his truck-thing)

Interesting aspect of the torture issue.

Oh good, we're also fighting slavers now.

"He's not really blind, you know, but he only has eyes for her..."

Not sure how for-real this is, but might be fun to decide the new wonders

Hmm...apparently Kerry, when asked what kind of car he owns, has been saying different things at different places...not particularly significant, but interesting

"Apparently they speak good English."
"They speak English well?"
"No, they speak good English."

So, if Husserl isn't right with his idea of meaning coming before language, or even the qualified version of that with a "private language" unique to each person, here's the place where I'm at right now in understanding the issue. I can speak English to my heart's content, but there are distinct registers that I use in turn with small children, professors, girlfriends, dogs, &c. So in that vein, combined with the posit that language produces meaning rather than the converse, in my head is just a different register of the language I always use, rather than a totally unique language or lack of one.
(aka topics arrived at after spending eight hours talking to someone who is clinically insane)
(no, I wasn't talking to myself, thank you very much)

Hooboy....time waster, right here.

Kind of a less intelligent version of Carolyn's grandmother. (what's also funny is that on the source page there's a really dumb picture of Gene LeBell, for the one or two people who might recognize him)

More news that gods know few people'll ever see...

Facetious, but a bit funny

This is interesting, but I also find interesting that the crazy dictator's train had passed through relatively moments just before that...hmmm...

Labyrinths throught the ages - fun music plays for the solutions

Whoa - maybe a guide to what the hell Brad Pitt is saying in Snatch?

A liiiittle bit overboard, but fun t-shirts (via Scott)

      Bracketing off most issues dealing with religion (unless anyone wants to discuss that in some other medium than this blog; I'd be perfectly happy to talk), I thought The Passion of the Christ was very interesting, even if only as a period piece. I think it would be wonderful to see more historical movies in the actual (or some approximation) languages that were spoken at the time. In that vein, I would also love to see movies about Mohammed, Zoroastros, Baha'u'llah, and say, some updated Robin Hood in Middle English (right langue? not sure) or something about the olden dynasties stretching back to Charlemagne. I mean, the upcoming (in the US anyway) Hero with Jet Li is in what is the Mandarin equivalent of Middle English; we just need more!
      As an aside, I thought the several demons at the beginning of the movie were very interesting, though I think I missed the biblical connection to that. In any case, I heard them say "shedim" in the Aramaic when there was a demon perfectly appropriate to the myth of that kind, and I thought it was quite interesting how they made Satan androgynous (as that fit the whole angelic side of that as well, in my opinion).

sweet