The Toll

Yes, we've exhausted ourselves into sickness. But, that's not going to stop us from somehow getting to Rochester to see the film Serenity tomorrow.

Had a job interview today. I'll hopefully know by Monday. It'll be a different sort of Diamond Mine, an HR dept. for a power transmission company, i.e. the transmission of power; nothing having to do with vehicle parts. I took my remaining energy for the day and pulled out all my metroerotic favorites before taking a six-hour nap. And, now I'm about to take another one.

I did bit of fiddling with the blog template, because I decided that I was sick of those old enetation.co.uk links on my blog causing my computer to take that extra microsecond going, "Oh... enetation.co.uk... wait, it's commented out of the code--nevermind." I also wanted to make use of the option to shut down comments when I feel like it.

Ok, goodnight.

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My Weekly Personality Analysis

Funny... I usually played Neutral Evil characters...

Chaotic-Evil 28% Good, 64% Chaotic

Plane of Existence: The Abyss, "Plane of Infinite Layers". Notable Inhabitants: Demons. Examples of Chaotic-Evils (Ethically Chaotic, Morally Evil) Jack The Ripper Baron Vladamir Harkonnen Blackbeard the Pirate Cruella DeVille Khan Noonian Singh Dr. Evil Professor Moriarty Lord Voldemort Actively opposes law, order, good, and all other sissy constraints on doing whatever he or she feels like doing. The stereotypical chaotic evil character is the black knight, roaming around on his own, looking for something nasty to do. Will not necessarily keep their word Would attack an unarmed foe Will use poisons Will not help those in need Prefers to work alone Responds poorly to higher authority Distrustful of organizations Self-preservation and personal gain are their ultimate goals. Less inclined to long term planning. Chaotic Evil "Destroyer" A chaotic evil [person] does whatever his greed, hatred, and lust for destruction drive him to do. If he is simply out for whatever he can get, he is ruthless and brutal. If he is committed to the spread of evil and chaos, he is even worse. Fortunately, his plans are haphazard, and any groups he joins or forms are poorly organized. Typically, chaotic evil people can be made to work together only by force, and their leader lasts only as long as he can thwart attempts to topple or assassinate him. These [people] will commit any act to further their own ends. Chaotic evil is sometimes called "demonic" because demons are the epitome of chaotic evil. Chaotic evil is power without control, selfishness unfettered by any law. Other Alignments and Tendencies (Tendenices are what you would more often sway towards; esp. for Neutrals): 0-39% Good, 0-39% Chaotic: Lawful-Evil 0-39% Good, 40-60% Chaotic: Neutral-Evil 40-60% Good, 0-39% Chaotic: Lawful-Neutral 40-60% Good, 40-60% Chaotic: True Neutral 40-60% Good, 61-100% Chaotic: Chaotic-Neutral 61-100% Good, 0-39% Chaotic: Lawful-Good 61-100% Good, 40-60% Chaotic: Neutral-Good 61-100% Good, 61-100% Chaotic: Chaotic-Good

My test tracked 2 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 4% on Good You scored higher than 82% on Chaotic

Link: The Alignment Test written by xan81 on Ok Cupid

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Because, the World Isn't Safe

Once upon a time, I blogged this:

I've read whole lists of "legal, improvised weapons" (pens, rolled-up magazines, and the like) that you can use to defend yourself in the case of a terrorist threat on your flight. Yeah, because only even-keeled, responsible, and law-abiding citizens read Black Belt Magazine.

Now, if you tried, but couldn't track down all those back issues and are afraid you missed out on all that valuable data, worry no more!

CITIZEN’S GUIDE TO STOPPING SUICIDE ATTACKERS: Secrets of an Israeli Counterterrorist by Itay Gil and Dan Baron

[snip]

Just some of the vital topics covered in The Citizen’s Guide to Stopping Suicide Attackers include

• facing off against knife-wielding airline hijackers alone or as a group, armed or unarmed
  
• identifying and subduing suicide bombers before they can carry out their deadly mission
  
• escaping from or disarming gunmen intent on mass murder
  
• recognizing and responding to a crazed driver bearing down on a crowd
  
• reacting correctly during the two most crucial stages of a hostage crisis

By absorbing the lessons in this book, you will be better prepared to confront the worst and stand up for yourself and your fellow citizens rather than helplessly accept the cruel death someone else has planned for you. That is the right and the duty of all civilized human beings in the 21st century.

No, I'm not laughing at the sincere desire to survive in today's world. Nor am I laughing at those who want to empower or want to be empowered by teaching and learning.

I'm laughing at a certain segment of people who are going to line up in droves to buy this book. The ones who will absorb these techniques while fantasizing about being Passenger 57, the ones who will actually say to themselves, "Man, I wish someone would try to take over my flight!" Even worse will be the segment of this segment who will actually be on a flight and injure some innocent Punjabi man in a turban who sneezed and then innocently reached into his coat for a tissue. You don't think something like that could happen? Tell that to the Brazilian embassy in England.

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Bare Knuckle Shotokan?

A friend of mine is a Western Martial Arts practicioner, and loves to collect old manuals on bare-knuckle boxing and European/Early American wrestling styles. This is from Ned Donnelly's 1888 text Self-Defense; Or, The Art Of Boxing:



A lot of people I've trained with like to make fun of Shotokan Karate. I've joined in the jokes, too... I've studied Song Moo Kwan Taekwondo, so I knew just where to hit. But, in my defense, I've always held that regardless where one stood on whether or not kata originally meant anything practical, you could always make that training practical.

Donnelly's technique... sang dan maki... hmmmm...

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Burnout

That's how I was after this weekend.

Thursday and Friday, I had to help The Wife through some wierd back thing she had. Pretty much what I had not too long ago. But unlike me and my blind Filipino faith in Western Medicine (not to mention the yummy pharmaceuticals), E just had to see her old chiropractor ASAP. Friday, in the middle of the day, I drove her 90 minutes out to Canadegua [SP?]. But it was good for her, believe me. You could feel the difference in her back's topography.
She was still in a bit of pain, though, but she was damned if that was going to stop any of her weekend plans. Saturday morning, we had breakfast with a friend before meeting other friends later in the morning. Didn't I say that E likes to keep the social calendar full?
I could be wrong, but I believe that E had no idea that the cafe we had breakfast and the place we were going to meet the second group were across the street from each other.

That morning, I busted out the Kingdom Come Superman-shield t-shirt, because after the breakfast was Ithacon 30, the local comic-book convention. It was the first time I actually looked around a con to see other things besides the freaks and the merch tables, like the folks pimping their art or their music. All-in-all, I wasn't all that impressed. I've seen samples, as good if not better, from high school seniors final art projects. Still, even Rob Liefeld Barry Windsor-Smith had to start somewhere. I did score a couple of cheap finds. One was a story arc from Greg Rucka's Queen & Country and the other was Peter Milligan's The Minx. My set was damaged awhile back, so I scored all new copies of the limited series, except for one.

Ithacon is a small con, and according to E's friends who we met there, it's gone downhill in recent years, due mostly to the post-90s comics bust. The con had no panels, and was held in a room that couldn't have been more than 60' x 60'. Their only big name was Roger Stern, whose heyday was back in the 80s and whose most recent work was the novel Superman: the Never-Ending Battle. I guess he attends all of these Ithacons, being an Ithaca native and all.

After that, I got some time to catch up on some reading, but not too long because later, we would head to Elmira where E set up a dinner with her mom, followed by a night at the local Irish pub with the couple we met up with at Ithacon and another. It was fun, except for stuffing myself with too many wings. I think that's what stopped me from going all Withnail & I at the pub--that, and having to drive home.

Now that I sit here thinking about it, Sunday was a total blank. I do remember a three-hour nap late in the afternoon. Crap, I didn't drink that much.

Ok, I got errands to do, now...

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My Weekly Personality Analysis

C'mon, you knew this was coming...

Withnail Congratulations! You scored 40, out of a possible 50!

Most impressive, sir. Let me get you a pair of quadruple whiskies and another pair of pints, and pass you this almighty carrot.

My test tracked 1 variable How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 66% on Double Whiskies

Link: The Withnail and You Test written by redSpikes on Ok Cupid

I demand to have some booze!

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Once Upon a Time in Ithaca: Old School

I finally decided that I've had enough of half-heartedly working through dead patterns on chairs and doing footwork drills in the living room, so I decided to take it back and do it Old School. (If you're wondering, I fell out of contact with the local FMA guy, but I'll pick it up again as soon as the paychecks start rolling in.)

I forget which of the Old Masters--I want to say Punong Guro Edgar Sulite (Datu_B, check me on my facts if I'm wrong)--was trained like this: His father would hang a single stick, held in the middle by a piece of string, off of a tree. The object was to hit the stick, and just have to deal with all the different ways it would bounce and spin around. Not necessarily the safest thing to do.

Needless to say, I said "Screw it."



I worked that for about twenty minutes before I realized that I was just hanging out on the outside. I played around with it, and came up with this configuration:



Now, I worked this facing the tree (my "opponent") as my frame of reference, the idea being to have to stay inside those boundaries, which I could modify as I saw fit. Then, things started getting fun for the next fifty minutes.

Now, I realize that all I've done is reinvented the wheel (one of my biggest pet peeves), but since this is the first time I've actually tried this, I learned quite a few things right away. (And, no rolling your eyes and going "Duh!")

• Somehow I managed to figure out that how much more effective it is to keep hitting, as opposed to hitting and waiting for a "counterstrike" to deflect and attacking again. I suppose this means I've finally made the connection that deflection isn't necessarily a "passive" act, so to speak.
  
• When in doubt, "candlestick."
  
• If you keep the angle of the stick to your wrist at 90° it's easier to do that.
  
• When I could pull them off, gunting movements with the double stick are nice.
  
• The strangest thing, I managed to work in every deflection (depending on how high or low I hung the stick) except my favorite, the reverse umbrella. And, I tried, believe me. Oh well, guess I'll always suck at that move ;).

Any thoughts or suggestions would be much appreciated. I gotta go do some chores... can't train and blog all day ;).

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The Finest Film Available to Humanity

I originally wanted to see this movie as part of a Doctor Who Movie Marathon where I'd seek out films with appearances by various actors who've played the Doctor. I got it after stumbling onto Nicole Kidman's The Others which featured Christopher "Ninth Doctor" Eccleston as her husband. I decided the next one would be Withnail & I, with Paul "Eighth Doctor" McGann as "I" and Richard E. Grant, who played the Doctor on a BBC webcast, Scream of the Shalka.

The movie appealed to me immediately because Withnail's dress (on the right) resembles the way I dressed back in the 80s (even if the film itself is set in 1969). I almost forgot how Warren Ellis noted the resemblance between Withnail's dress and the Tenth Doctor's costume.

I thought the film was hilarious, even before I realized what a cult it was. I knew I'd seen it referenced a lot online, but now I understand why. It's a dark, almost plotless, and eminently quotable (just ask The Wife ;)) film about two out-of-work actors who "Went on holiday by mistake" out in the country. They expect peace and quiet among friendly country folk. They get anything but. That's pretty much 95% of the plot right there.

It's really a combination mood/character piece. Alcoholism, drug use, swearing, debauchery and a person's desire to get away from it. It's Trainspotting before there was a Trainspotting.

You just have to take my word for it and watch it. Go here for some quotes.

Next on the agenda, providing I can find it: 24 Hour Party People, with Christopher Eccleston, to be followed by The Omen with a cameo by Patrick "Second Doctor" Troughton.

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Monday Bloggery

It feels like I've been away longer than I have. Anyway, let's get started. One of the things that's kept me away was our social calendar which E keeps pretty full. To be fair, I was never forced to take part in any of our impromptu social gatherings. But, you know how it is--you don't want to look anti-social, and once you get past the initial nagging "I got other siht to do" feeling, you find you're actually having fun.

Other things that have kept me away are movies (one in particular that I'll write about later) and an overload of RSS feeds--48 at last count, mostly blogs. Yes, it's information overload, and I haven't had time to comment until now, and that's only because I'm making time (that is, until the temp place deigns to call me back or I hound them again, which I will later this afternoon).

ITEM ONE
A good number of the thirtysomethings I know wonder, in our nostalgia, why we no longer see certain things on TV, like The Muppet Show.

Personally, I miss Crazy Harry. (Via Monkey Disaster)

ITEM TWO
Whoever said Bruce Lee is God apparently isn't all that far off.

The Art of Fighting Without Fighting

Muslims and Catholics unified by image of Bruce Lee.

Two years after the Urban Movement came up with the initial proposal, the Bosnian town of Mostar, has collected enough financial and popular support to erect a monument to Bruce Lee in their town center.

ITEM THREE

I posted awhile back about what became and what is still my favorite episode of This American Life, called "My Experimental Phase," which featured the story of a Hassidic Jew who led a double life as a local rock star.

Tina Fey's working on a script for the movie.
(Via lindsayism)

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My Weekly Personality Analysis

No no... It's not true... That's impossible!

Your Daddy Is Darth Vader

What You Call Him: Big Daddy Why You Love Him: He takes you to Disneyland

Who's Your Daddy?

Noooooo... Noooooooooooooooo!

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Temp's Up

Yesterday, I caved and went out to a temp place. In truth, we could probably go until the New Year without me getting a job. Well, maybe Thanksgiving. In any case, I admit it, being a house husband was boring me to tears. And sure, being a kept man is nice. But, I'm also trying to keep it from getting old to the Wife, too.

Our most recent in-joke (well, mine) was from Family Guy where Peter's talks about how hard he works, etc. so that he can talk Brian into doing a dog show as a favor. Brian's response:

"If you want me, I'll be out on the veranda, since you're already on the Cross."

See, right now, it's still funny when E talks about how hard she works and wants foot rubs when she comes home, and I say that. It might not be so funny in '06 if I'm still not raking in some money somehow ;). It reminds me of our other injoke. Picture this.

INT. OUR LIVING ROOM - NIGHT
DON is pulling a finger out from deep within his own nose, easing the flow of blood into the brain. He checks the clock, still in somewhat of a haze, and looks over at THE WIFE.

DON
Ahhh... it's 2007. I guess I better find a job.

Again, it's funny now. But who knows for how much longer, and why take a chance?

So I go back there with IDs and such today to take their little typing tests and their little true/false questionnaires with items like "Is it professional to cuss out a coworker who's giving you trouble?"

EDIT: Well, looks like they wanna try and get me into this 40 hour/week gig, 8-5, in Downtown Ithaca. Which is great, because if it pans out, it'll be yet another fulfillment of what E and I used to call our "pipe dream" of life in Ithaca. I remember thinking that when I'd get a job, I'd want a gig in or near The Commons.

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Sunday Dinners IV and V

Yes, we've still been having them, even if I forgot to write about them.

Two weeks ago, we went to a Labor Day barbecue and hung out with a small crowd o' people. It was a hike, but the food and company were more than worth it. The men-folk had a nice discussion of Western fencing and its similarities to FMAs. I got to show off the little bit I learned from Fight Club last year about the WMA mindset about the innovation of technique.

Last week was just going to be The Wife and I having "spisghettis" and "eye-talian sass-age." But, at the last minute, E threw out an invite to a co-worker of hers who could've used the break and the company. She (the co-worker) chipped in for beer, so it was a win-win situation for everyone involved.

As much as we miss old friends, it's nice to know that there's some cosmic yang to that ying in making new ones.

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Author's Comeback

Well, it's not really, but this is certainly the first piece of writing I've enjoyed from Anne Rice in over a decade. It's about her home city that's been in the news lately.

But to my country I want to say this: During this crisis you failed us. You looked down on us; you dismissed our victims; you dismissed us. You want our Jazz Fest, you want our Mardi Gras, you want our cooking and our music. Then when you saw us in real trouble, when you saw a tiny minority preying on the weak among us, you called us "Sin City," and turned your backs.

Read the full article.

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My Weekly Personality Analysis

I was lazy this week and only felt like answering a minimum of questions. All it wanted to know was my sign.

Star Wars Horoscope for Cancer

You may whine at times, but you've developed a thick hard shell (like that of a crab). You are strong willed and persistent - until you get what you want. You never shy away from a fight, even when things get dangerous. Mentally sharp, you are starting to master the elements of mind manipulation. Star wars character you are most like: Luke Skywalker

What is Your Star Wars Horoscope?

All that, and the power the cloud mens' minds! Mind-taking! Muahaha!

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Lost and Found

It turns out I've recovered not one, but two things at The Commons.

1. A nice, metrosexual haircut.
   
2. My sunglasses that I've been missing for about a week, which was not at one of five-hundred sushi places where I thought I left it, but the obvious choice, the coffee shop! Never occurred to me that I might have left them there, but there they were.

Now, all's I need is for the weather to drop about 8 or 9 degrees, and I can bust out my old leather Shaft coat!

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Can You Honestly Evaluate

...the story from within
Without part of you blocking the way

-The Sons, "Freedom"**

Yesterday, I sat down and went to therapy--with myself, that is. I decided to take stock of things after hearing news that Dad was in the hospital again last night. He's ok, now; blockage in his gall bladder that's now cleared up. But when I talked to him, he seemed less interested in discussing his condition than how my life was going up here.

That's when all these things inside came to a head.

I've been here about six weeks now. The first three, we were getting ourselves situated, trying to make the transition in time for The Wife to start her job at the School on the Hill. I mean, she started training the Monday after we got here, had a couple weeks off, then had to hit the ground running again.

About that time, I fcuked up my hand. It took about two weeks before it started functioning semi-normally again. Right now, I've got about 98% of my movement back, enough to swing shilelaghs around. But, it was a depressing time. I had started to confuse the feelings of unemployment with the bad parts of my self-image, which wasn't a hard thing to do considering there I was, hair growing out, 5 lbs. heavier (ok, 10), with a bandaged up hand.

So, now I've been at home, been a good house husband, letting my hand heal up, and I guess what I've been doing is sitting around going "Now, what?"

See, my normal pattern would have been to let the thing with my Dad pile up on top of all the other things I irrationally depressed myself over, and let it sideline me for a couple of weeks. And, as I was discussing with The Wife, I probably could've gotten away with it for another couple of weeks. After all, the clothes still fit, she's getting regular paychecks, and someone's gotta load and unload the dishwasher. Except that it would've been two weeks later and I would be no closer to accomplishing what I want to accomplish.

That's the other part of the confusion. It's not been a simple case of me twiddling my thumbs, watching Springer, and not doing jack crap. But, there was time wasted--or rather, misappropriated--and that's the issue. So, rather than being depressed doing nothing for two weeks, and I'm going to spend the next two weeks getting this train moving. Gonna put the metrosexual face back on and pimp myself out someplace. And, even if everything I try catastrophically fails, it still will not have been two weeks that would've been wasted otherwise. Even in the worst case scenario, I'll still feel better about myself than I have been.

**BTW, my copy of Hip Li'l Dreams came in yesterday. I'll do a review after I listen to it a few more times.

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RIP Little Buddy

'Gilligan's Island' star Bob Denver dead
Associated Press
September 6, 2005

LOS ANGELES — Bob Denver -- whose portrayal of goofy first mate Gilligan on the 1960's television show "Gilligan's Island'' made him an iconic figure to generations of TV viewers -- has died, his agent confirmed Tuesday. Denver was 70.

Denver died Friday at Wake Forest University Baptist Hospital in North Carolina of complications from treatment he was receiving for cancer, his agent, Mike Eisenstadt, told the Associated Press. Denver's death was first reported by "Entertainment Tonight."

Hey, I know there are much more important things going on in the world right now. Yes, I know there are living people who rightly deserve attention. But IMO, it's when the "little things" start losing their impact that people become slowly enabled to start caring less and less about the "big things."

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Rare Geek Post

RSS aggregation streamlined my online time. Yahoo! made it easier than what was arguably one of the best free RSS readers from a few months ago, RSSReader (or, whatever it was I posted about). Now, Thunderbird has made it even easier. Yahoo! took awhile to show new feeds, but Thunderbird's pretty up to the minute. You can control how the feed appears, too. And, it's free! However, you do need the Remove Duplicate Messages extension. The trouble with email/feed readers (at least the free ones) is that there's really no way to prevent duplicate messages from being downloaded. This extension not only does that automatically, but it compares feed messages according to whatever parameters I set. It's also been updated recently. I can autodelete dupes without ever having to look at them. There goes another 10% of the time I spend online, muahaha!

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There May Be Nothing to This, Part Deux

True, the action taken doesn't necessarily imply intentional wrongdoing. But, c'mon...

Here's that first picture again.

Here's that second... hey, wait... where'd...?

(Via Dar Kush)

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There May Be Nothing to This

Might be real. Might be fake. Might be completely accurate factually. Might be inaccurate and completely, utterly unintentional.

Does make you think twice, though, doesn't it?

(From Hyphen Blog)

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Car Talk

(Courtesy of The Wife)

I've raved before about Ithaca's public transporation system. E's started using it to get to work at the School on the Hill, so the car's been sitting for like three days except for this morning when I ran it to do some quick errands.

Suffice it to say that we've been shielded a bit from the effects of $3/gallon prices thus far. E wants to see some friends this Sunday for a BBQ, but considering the car's been sitting, it's not going to break us the way it probably will a lot of people this holiday weekend.

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My Weekly Personality Analysis

You comment, you trackback, you Google, you technorati. You wish you blogdexed.

Actually, no I don't wish I blogdexed, but close enough. Way too close enough ;).

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