"We are all of us beginners and the knack of making an uneven wad of earth into a smooth shape while it's centered on a turning wheel - it's not the sort of task they're used to learning. They are intellectuals, used to mastering spreadsheet programs or new marketing paradigms, and to apply themselves to something that will not listen to reason...it's hard, frustrating."
      This passage really clicked with me. Not so much because I feel that I get frustrated in that way, but in that I get frustrated by the opposite. I enjoy martial arts and yoga and poetry and little crafts because in some way or another I enjoy working with the things that I feel don't listen to reason in some way or another. Of course reason is there on some level or another, but there is always some point for each of those things where to really get it one has to step outside of logic to some degree. Conversely, I have tried to work with some horribly intelligent people who have been intensely frustrated by martial arts because they are so used to just applying their mind to something and having it instantly work. I think that's also part of the reason that the existential philosophy class I'm in is rubbing me the wrong way; religion is included in the list of things outside of reason for me, and the class' (in my opinion narrow-minded) insistence upon pure rationality is beginning to chafe.

Power Yoga: Stamina with Rodney Yee. Sonuva....I got just one of the tapes for $5 at Bookman's, and now I find them on sale for even less? Ah well. Yee does a great job as usual with very clear, pleasant instructions. The sequence is a cycle of Sun Salutations that progresses steadily in depth and speed, and introduces some variants near the end. It's worked well as a kind of warm cool-down after a regular calisthenic workout for me.

-Army robots? - if I didn't know better, I'd say there's a Harry Potter reference right in the middle of that (via Wyatt)

-Fried Wontons - some cute art and comics

-yum. (via Scott)

-apparently the force of a nuclear weapon coming out of the same stuff that made up most of the solid propellant in the Precision 1 (via Phil)

-hey, if it tastes as good as the MRE's we had in Alaska, cool (via Scott)