gwax’s rumblings

I’ve decided that I’m going to redouble my fencing efforts and kick it up a notch. This decision has three parts to it: two mental and one physical. The physical element is that I’m going to go to club at least three times a week, fence clear through and really push my body to the limit; I did this today and by the end my whole body was exhausted, burning and felt great. The first mental element is that I plan to take a lesson thrice a week as well; until now, I’ve been taking one every week or so but that’s just not enough to stick. Now, the second mental element is something that’s got me really pumped: I’m mixing Bushido into my fencing.

A few days ago, I decided to finally get around to reading (and finishing) A Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi (the greatest swordsman to have ever lived) to see if I couldn’t glean anything that might be applicable to fencing. It turns out there are some fantastic things to be gleaned from Musashi’s knowledge of strategy (swordfighting and military combat). I took to heart one bit about taking control of the situation and leading your opponent in combat and it proved fantastically useful in practicing today. Not only did it prove useful in practice but I felt something fundamentally different about the way my mind was working while I was fencing, like I had tapped some force of power deep inside my will that normally lies dormant. It felt like some sort of fierce, primal core of my being had been let loose and it was truly exhilarating. Interestingly, there was no sense of loss of control associated with this mental state. It’s kind of hard to put into words but I’m going to work on developing it along with my fencing and I’m going to read and reread more of my books on the topics of war, fighting, Bushido and such. What’s more, I think this mental state may very well be applicable to more than just fencing, so I’m going to see if I can start extrapolating after I’ve got more experience with it.

A day is a span of time no one is
wealthy enough to waste.
Lucky Numbers 16, 22, 26, 3, 18, 32

Commentary: Ok fortune cookies, I get it, now bugger off.

I have just finished watching the delightful anime Samurai Champloo and I would like to recommend it to all you people out there. I would definitely rank Champloo up there with Cowboy Bebop and Trigun; in fact, I might go as far as to say that it’s the best of the three. So all you folks out there, if you haven’t seen Samurai Champloo, go get on it. Oh, and to all the many people that recommended that I watch it, thanks (you know who you are).

I’ve been working on a policy of aim for getting to work at 9a but based on my ability to wake up that’s been translating to 9:15a on a good day and closer to 10a on an average day. Today, one of my bosses (or superiors or something) told me that I should be getting in closer to 9a. Honestly, I was kind of expecting this to happen at some point and thankfully the way in which it was presented indicates that it hasn’t become an issue yet. All that said, the simple fact of the matter is that it’s find a better alarm clock time (so that I don’t just press snooze for two hours like usual). As far as alarm clocks go, there’s one perfect choice and it means going back to classics: Ventolin in the AM. Now, by Ventolin, I don’t mean the drug, I mean the Aphex Twin song. The song is fantastically caustic (though very good) and will wake you up like nothing else. The method I have chosen for Ventolin presentation is the same one that I devised in high school: Winamp called with Ventolin’s mp3 as an option from a Windows Scheduled Task every weekday morning. So yeah, if you want a surefire way to wake up in the morning, I highly recommend Aphex Twin - Ventolin.

I spent the long weekend down in Hartford, CT for the 2006 Fencing Junior Olympics (JOs). The JOs are the largest 20 and under fencing event in the US and they’re held in a different location every year; this year they were held in Hartford, which is so close to home that I couldn’t really justify not going. It was a lot of fun watching the fencing, cheering for members of my club and hanging out with fencing people. The fencing started really early every day, ran late every day and tended to be followed by a long, late dinner, which made for very short nights of sleeping. I would normally be fine with sleeping little over a long weekend for an event but I was fighting a cold at the same time, so this weekend has really taken a lot out of me. I feel mighty drained right now, but it sure was a lot of fun and man, oh man, watching all that fencing really makes me want to do some myself; I can’t wait for club tomorrow.

I got my first response back from a law school today; I’ve been accepted at the University of Minnesota Law School. Now, I’m sure plenty of you folks will have comic things to say about Minnesota, so I’ve prepared a few retorts in advance: I have a ton of family in Minnesota; I was born in Minnesota; I am one of those people that likes the cold; the University of Minnesota Law School is ranked 19 in the country by USNews.

You can see through people, or you
can see people through.
Lucky Numbers 34, 27, 8, 16, 20, 38

Commentary: There may be a plate glass window involved here somewhere.

For those of you partial to Mozilla Firefox or Thunderbird, I have something that may very well make you weep (and probably not tears of joy): Firefoxy (NSFW).

Suffer like G did?

As many (some) of you know, I like to single out one lucky lady on Valentine’s Day and give her a cinder block. Sadly, this year, I completely forgot about Valentine’s Day and as such have not presented a cinder block this year. This makes two years in a row that I’ve failed to give out a cinder block; poor form gwax, poor form. Anyway, that’s me being a failure at Valentine’s day (again); I’ll try to be better about it next year.

There’s a fantastic new show on television in the UK right now called the IT Crowd. The show doesn’t air in the US but the first two episodes were originally available online legally and, of course, they can all be gotten through not so legal mean (torrents available by searching the pirate bay). The show centers around the IT department of a large company (two socially awkward guys and a woman who lied her way into the job) and is fantastically funny, even if you don’t know the first thing about computers. The IT Crowd is, in my opinion, one of the funniest shows in rather a while and you are doing yourself a disservice if you don’t give it a look.

Life to you is a bold and dashing
responsibility.
Lucky Numbers 20, 2, 37, 9, 18, 6

Commentary: Life to you is a board game and amusing cellular automata.

I present you with two important questions about the phrase “i binna tellyneck bendosack”: can you identify where it’s from and do you know what it means?

Make your life an [sic] mission, not an
intermission.
Lucky Numbers 16, 40, 22, 33, 8, 1

Commentary: Intermission is when you can get popcorn without missing part of the movie.

Anyone that’s driven between Carlisle and Chelmsford more than a few times should be well aware of Jesus Cat and I am happy to report that he still exists. I have driven the Chelmsford-Carlisle route a number of times recently but had not seen Jesus Cat, which had left me concerned that he had departed this world, but on a return trip from Chelmsford tonight, I spotted him; long live Jesus Cat.

For those that are unaware, Jesus Cat is a plush cat that has been crucified to a telephone pole. I consider Jesus Cat to be a staple of the Carlisle experience as he’s been there since before the first time I ever drove to Chelmsford (so at least 6 years).

Today I tore apart the trim on the passenger side of my truck, and ripped out the God foresaken “Premium Audio” factory installed amplifier. The factory amp has long been the bane of my truck’s stereo system for a very long time now. The number of problems I can blame on that stupid amp are many and I won’t bother enumerating them but now it has been replaced by a by-pass I bought at Tweeter, which consists of nothing more than 8 wires and a couple connectors. Now that I’ve gotten the thing out and my truck’s audio is finally up to par, I’ve got to figure out what I’m going to do with this silly amp; I’m not electronically inclined enough to do anything really interesting, but I’m open to suggestions.

Things sound so much better now; I’m so pleased.

It may be well before my sailing season gets underway, but I happened to be in a West Marine recently for other reasons and I figured that I might as well grab myself this year’s Eldridge Tide and Pilot Book. I may not have any use for it now, but I will eventually and it does a fantastic job of reminding me of sailing; oh man, boats.

Yesterday, my car stereo died on me; it scratched the crap out of one of my CDs (thankfully a burned one and not one of my real ones) and then started playing other ones very crackly and wrong. Needless to say, this really pissed me off, so I went by Ciruit City to get a new one and then went about installing it. Installation was neat because I ripped the wiring harness off my old after-market stereo and soldered it up to my new one; I haven’t soldered anything in a while so it was kind of fun. Then I went out and installed it, and, get this, only my hot-wired speaker worked (that’s another story). I had to run off and do stuff so I couldn’t try to figure out what was wrong until later. After poking around the Internet, I determined that my factory amp was causing the problems and I had to do a little bit of rewiring of the harness. Thankfully after rewiring the harness and reinstalling the new stereo today, everything is working about as well as can be expected. Of course, as well as can be expected is not as well as I would like because my factory amp is still limiting my new stereo. There is, of course, a solution to this problem too, which is to by-pass my stereo amp and I’ve already gotten the wiring harness to do that. Now I just have to tear apart the paneling in the back of my car and install the by-pass. (Maybe I’ll remove the factory amp and see if I can’t tear it apart, beef it up and have a nice little external amplifier.)

As I’ve mentioned, I’ve recently gotten back into fencing, which I’m having rather a bit of fun with, and it’s led me to an interesting opportunity. I’ve started directing/refereeing for small local tournaments (mostly high school competitions), which, in addition to being something fun, is something they pay me for. In spite of the fact that I’m not anywhere near as good at fencing as I used to be, I’m still plenty good at watching it and knowing what’s going on and it’s a whole lot of fun. That they’re paying me is almost icing on the cake.

As of a few days ago STOP Western Union has stopped supporting Telegram service (discussion) STOP This is something that saddens me immensely STOP I always thought that telegrams were totally awesome STOP I especially liked the whole ending sentances with stop thing STOP Now I will never know the joy of sending a telegram to someone STOP The worst part of all of it is that I was going to send someone a telegram a while back STOP Instead I decided the five or so dollars was too much STOP What a fool I was STOP

He who hesitates is last.
Lucky Numbers 7, 29, 14, 38, 46, 55

Commentary: Is an apple tree really an apple tree if it bears no fruit?