So today the Mexican President attended the funeral of one of his former top heads in his war against drug cartels. A few hours before the funeral, a senior detective was gunned down by seven bullets to his head & neck, and two other top police officers have also been murdered over the span of a few days.

Safe to say that the drug cartels are in charge? Wonder what has to be done. I guess it’s rough ousting the former ruling party, eh? Very sad.



The Many pains of Jujutsu
Today I had initially planned to get home from work, and then work out my legs. In reality, I got home from work, and worked out my eyelids. Because I was tired, and my legs were more-so.

My knees. My knees felt like they were suspended in pudding or something. They were slow, felt swollen, and just sort of ached a little. No real pounding pain, but it just didn’t feel like my good ol’ knees in general.

My leg muscles. My butt was sore, as were my calfs. I sort of figured my calfs would be sore from all the toe-curling action during the kicks and takedowns, but I didn't figure on the butt. So I in effect got my leg workout on already, albeit a day early.

Oh, and my foot. My left foot I think I sprained the top of it. The top of it? Yeah, the top. I was doing some rolls yesterday as practice, and I rolled onto and then over the top of my left foot, and I heard some popping. I made it through the rest of the class, but when I got home I could tell that it was probably going to be a little sore today. And I was right.

Oh well. Such is life. I feel pretty good overall, especially after my nap. Tomorrow I begin class at 11am. Hopefully I sleep well tonight. Will need it.



Tired?
Yeah. Remember we watched “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford” last night. Well I mentioned it was long? Couple that with the fact that we didn’t actually start it until closer to 10pm. I don’t recommend that, should you find yourself in a similar situation.



The Girl’s changing climate wrt Pit Bulls
For the longest time The Girl has maintained that pit bulls are not inherently dangerous, that they are trained to be a certain way.

I have not believed this myself during this time. The truth of the matter is that pit bulls are involved in more bites & attacks than any other dog type. For me, it’s safe to say that the same as labradors are instinctively drawn to water & swimming, as are pit bulls to aggressiveness. I mean, that may not always have been the case, they weren’t always supposed to be killer dogs, and in fact they do have some stigma that is not deserved (German Shepherds actually bite harder, and both pale in comparison to the Rottweiler). But the fact is that today’s pit bulls are not by rule friendly family dogs as they once were, sad as it may be.

I attributed this defensive posture of The Girl to the fact that her dog is figured to be part pit bull of some fashion, most likely American Staffordshire Terrier, which is is commonly grouped with pit bulls (duh). Yes, she’s cute, no she’s not much a threat, but that doesn’t change the rule. It might just help define it, know what I mean?

Anyway, those feelings & defenses have eroded over the past few months. First she had her mom inform her that her cat had been killed when someone brought over their “friendly” pit bull and it chased down the feline and essentially ate it. The cat was some 20 years old or thereabout. Then just tonight, she found out a coworker friend of hers had her dog killed by someone’s “friendly” pit bull at a party both dogs attended.

Not only that, but we had also read recently in the paper about some dogs that had been attacked & killed by someone’s “friendly” family pit bull at the beach. Twice. In February.

I think it’s safe to say that The Girl is ready to admit that perhaps there’s something to the idea that pit bulls are in fact inherently dangerous pets. In the same way that Labradors are inherently perfect family dogs. It’s in the breed, I’m sorry.

Peace.

Tags: Gym, Entertainment, Politics

So yesterday we learned/practiced some parrying moves & throws. They felt natural and good.

Tomorrow, I will conquer the class and then move to take over the world with my newfound abilities.



The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
I know that’s a mouthful, but it is actually, really-truly, the title of a movie that came out around October 2007. It stars Angelina Jolie’s supposedly handsome boyfriend, Brad Pitt.

It was a long movie. We started it last night because The Girl got home early and we were bored. It was a decently-good movie. The acting was good, and it kept you engaged, though it was what I might call a “quiet” film. I also saw for the second time in 3 movies the face of Casey Affleck. He did the part well.

I found the film slightly humorous in the way that it was framed. Well, humorous and enlightening.

I mean, “The Assassination” of Jesse James, by the “Coward” Robert Ford. So you know, Jesse James, the robber and murderer, was “assassinated” by the “Coward” who brought his reign to an end. Seems backwards, right? But that was the lore. James was like a Robin Hood in the tales. He wasn’t, and he killed innocent people, but that was apparently a lost point in the stories of the bandit.

So yeah, it was long & quiet, but overall well done. I say it gets a solid B.

Peace.

Tags: Entertainment

Oh yeah! Totally forgot to mention the whole Iron Man thing.

It was a decent movie. I was surprised by the good reviews for it. I mean, it was an action/adventure, Superhero movie, you know? Anyway, the free tickets.

So yeah, a few months ago The Girl got these ticket coupons at work in lieu of a tip. Well, in lieu of a cash-money sort of tip, as it were. Well this was good and bad. Firstly it was good, because this was the free trip to see Iron Man, thereby alleviating the frustration of waiting to see it on Blu-Ray. Yay! Movie night out, and a decent show at that!

The movie was very appealing visually. I thought the special effects that they used were very well done. Contrast this with I Am Legend (not), which couldn’t special effect its way out of a paper bag. The story good enough, and even had a moral point that is completely relevant to today’s politics. And there was hot chicks, yeah baby! Many online have lauded Mr. Downey’s acting on the piece as worth the price of admission alone. I would say he didn’t screw anything up, and in fact wasn’t bad at all, but I’m not going to go so far as to say that it’s on par with Christian Bale’s rendition of Bruce Wayne in the new Batman franchise or anything, huh?

My only real gripe about the movie was that it was short. I mean it was slightly over 2 hours, but it felt short, and the end felt rushed. They could have used more of Iron Man in action, I felt. That would have been super-cool, they had pulled off the visuals right, they should have put more on the screen, you know? Give us 30 more minutes of Iron Man doing Iron Man stuff. We’ll love you for it!

Overall, I’d have to say that it’s a flat-B movie, on the verge of B+. Give us more action in the Blu-Ray release, and I’ll give you the coveted “+”.



The Bad side of the free tickets
Oh yeah, remember that? There was a downside to the free tickets. You see, these tickets were a $30 value, and included more than admission. We also got 2 large drinks, a large popcorn, and a large candy (which was medium at best, who are they trying to kid?) I didn’t have a problem with the popcorn or candy, but the drinks? Oh my, the drinks.

I damn near missed the last half of the movie. I had to pee so bad. I was doing the pee-pee dance in my seat. I had to tinkle oh so very badly. It was not right. I mean, where do they get off giving people drinks so big that they only serve to test the outer limits of your bladder?

Thankfully I did make it through the movie without peeing myself. Made it all the way to the bathroom actually, which I was very proud of. And there I peed so long that I almost fell asleep. You seen A League of Their Own? Yeah it was like Tom’s "performance" in that, except longer and without the breaks. It was an amazing feat, you should have been there.



Definitely worth the wait on Blu-Ray though
So about 10 minutes into the movie, the movie stops. The lights come on, the pre-movie stuff starts playing. Again. People in the audience were like, “is that it?” Yes you idiot, you paid $9 to see 15 minutes of movie and not ONE single Iron Man suit. Jeez people are dumb sometimes. DAMN!!!!...

Anyway, it starts back up once they figure out that they broke it (not sure how). The only thing was I think we missed 30 seconds to a minute’s-worth of movie. They were on the same scene, but different characters were on the screen than before, and in mid-sentence of something that I didn’t catch. Maybe Iron Man was gay? I just don’t know for sure now, and might not until it comes out on disc.



The VERY VERY End of the movie: Easter Egg?
I heard that if you wait past all the credits, there’s like a gold mine or something. A very cool gag-reel or something like that. Well they lied. There was something, but it was not really worth waiting for. So I’ll just spoil it for you right now, save you the time.

At the end, Iron Man comes home to Samuel Jackson, who’s the leader of SHIELD, the agency that tried to help cover up the tracks of Iron Man. He wants to talk to him about joining a program called “AVENGER.” This is comic book gold apparently, if you care. I don’t. They’ll either make a sequel or they won’t. Time will tell, not some slop at the end of the credits.

Peace.

Tags: Entertainment

So we had time yesterday to pop Juno in and give it a go-around. You know, it’s that movie that has a young high school girl getting pregnant, and shenanigans ensue. No, not Saved!, that movie was funnier. This is the less-funny version.

It’s not bad, and I think it could have actually been better than Saved!, if only it had lost a little bit of the “edgy” dialogue in lieu of some more refined dialogue. See, I get that they’re young and all, and they maybe talk a little different, but it felt like the characters were forcing crap to escape their gums; it had no flow. It was not believable. I do not expect my 7-11 clerk to tell me my “Eggo is Preggo.”

And see the whole premise is that this young girl acts more mature than her age would imply. Except that damn language! She manages to sound like a 9 year-old that watches too much Nickelodeon in the most inappropriate of spots. Like meeting the family she’s going to let adopt her kid. That whole scene needed to be reshot, minus the schtick, in my opinion.

But hey, I say it wasn’t bad still. Those are just where they could have improved it some. It’s OK. I don’t see it as the dark horse of the year or anything though. It was an ‘alright’ flick that got maybe even more coverage than it deserved, I thought. I give it a B-. Hey I’m a generous soul.



Jujutsu
Ah yes, before the movie began, there was that; jujutsu. I had mentioned signing up for this before, right? Well last night was ‘the night,’ as it were. I got to go go my first class, and look like a royal ass and make “HEE-YAA!” sounds all over the place, and generally accomplish nothing, whilst still being sore to show for it.

Ought to be fun!

I’m not actually that sore, except for a spot on my hip joint that I could feel popping over and over again on a specific move we were learning. The Move? “The Samurai Walk.” The use? Looking silly. No really, that’s it. I hurt myself on a maneuver designed to make you look silly.

Could maybe be why I didn’t like Juno as much; perhaps I was too busy looking at all the characters, thinking “I could totally juju his ass to hell.”

Hey I can’t help it anymore; I’m now a highly-trained death machine.

Peace.

Tags: Entertainment, Animals

OK so last time we talked about how using brown paper bags seems to work better than newspaper, right? OK so here’s another tip I discovered.

It was one of those “hey, I think I am on to something” moments. I tore off the top half of a brown paper bag to light the barbie, and this part when open looks like a big brown donut, right? Well I crumpled it up like it was, and put it in there like a small brown donut. The figuring was that this would keep the paper from snuffing out the flames below completely, allowing all the heat to hit the coals directly. See because now it’s a chimney all the way through, not a ceiling of paper and then a chimney.

Trust me, it works so very well; your coal will light so much faster & easier. Trust the ‘bob, OK? Give it a shot.



Dammit! I’m made a LIAR!
The Girl made me do it, OK? Not long after I posted the blog about waiting to see Iron Man on disc, she went and told me that we had two free tickets to the movies. Free. And, Tickets.

Of course now we have to go see Iron Man. Tonight. :-D.

Dinner will be ready in 10 minutes. I will be ready a little afterwards. Iron Man and I will meet in person about an hour later. Oh Yeah, baby.



Zoey went OUT today!
Well I wanted to take Miles out today, and Zoey wasn’t limping around nearly as much, and I wracked my brain figuring out what we could do about it. Well I figured a trip to the beach would be OK. The sand would be forgiving on her foot, MIles could still do everything he does, and we’d get out of the house.

It worked wonderfully. So wonderful in fact, that Zoey was running around full-tilt. Yeah, limp at home, go full-bore on the sand apparently. She had fun! She even went so far as to go swimming. Yeah, swimming. Zoey. Swimming.

So she’ll probably be a little sore later, but hey now she’s run off some energy and we know that she’s OK. Might have set her healing time back a day or two, but I would bet she thinks it was worth it.

Tags: Animals, earth conditions

Has gone. I gathered that it was not the creatine, but rather some serious sinus-cavity backup. I figured this because a few days prior to the headache I was having issues with my tooth aching, which I had hoped was a sinus/drainage issue and not a dentistry issue (because I loathe dentist trips even more than doctor visits). I noticed that as the toothache subsided, the headache began. Then they both started disappearing as my midnight breathing improved. So…


The Creatine
I’m went back on it. Going to give it a shot, see if my muscles just absolutely explode out from where they are. If I’m not ‘ahnold’ by July, then truly this stuff was a gimmick :-D



Zoey’s Foot Update
Well the foot wrap lasted just 24 hours from put on to stayed off. She lasted longer than we thought she would honestly, but eventually it was off. We figured that since she’s home-ridden until it’s better anyway, we’d see how she did with it off and not struggle about it. Well shortly after the wrap came off, so too did the little flap that was hanging on by a thread.

It seems to be healing well, though. She’s not really limping on it anymore, she’s still being cautious about it, but not overly so. In fact, we’re contemplating taking the dogs – that’s both of them – to the beach later this afternoon. See I figure the beach is a great place to test her out; it’s soft & forgiving, and there’s really just not much there for her to hurt herself on. The only worry is sand in the wound, but it’s mostly sealed off now, and that’s just a wash away from being a never-ran thought, so whatever.

I wish I would have taken a picture of it when it happened or when we got home and cleaned it up, so that you could see the progress it’s made. Sorry though, wasn’t thinking of it at the time.



Iron Man
This movie has been on my must see list since I saw the trailer. It looked fun, and I knew it was going to be a Summer blockbuster, so I wasn’t overly-concerned with the plot premises being weak, which I totally expected. Well it turns out I needn’t have feared at all.

The overall reviews for the film are far better than I had predicted. Now the trouble is trying to keep myself from having the “high expectations” mentality when I finally get around to seeing it. Which, of course, won’t be until it comes out on Blu-Ray. So, end of Summer?



Also looking forward to…
The Dark Knight. I hear that the teaser trailer in Iron Man is like 6 minutes long and has caused people to consider other religions, it’s so good. Which for me is actually enough reason to avoid Iron Man in the theatre. See I really really want to see The Dark Knight, and I have since I saw Batman Begins even. But I fear they’re hyping it too much (see “high Expectations”). Not only that, but they’ve gone so far with the whole Exclusive Trailer bit that I’m afraid I will have seen the whole movie by the time it comes out this Summer, and ends up on Blu-Ray this Winter when I will actually watch it.

Anyone else feel me on that?



Don’t f*ck with Cyclones/Hurricanes
Myanmar was recently hit hard, some are expecting the toll of dead to reach well over 10,000. WOW. That royally sucks.

But yeah, I’ll gladly take the occasional earthquake over the yearly thousands of dead and billions in rebuilding, thanks.

By the way, did you know that Cyclones & Hurricanes and whatnot are really the same thing? Just a different name depending on what ocean they stem from. Kinda weird. I know a lot of people that think that cyclones are something much worse than hurricanes. Nope!

Peace.

Tags: Animals, earth conditions

F*cking f*ck this f*cking headache is killing me
I am now on day four of this damn throbbing headache. No creatine yesterday! May not be the culprit. Whatever it is though, is pissing me the hell off. Four days. FOUR DAYS! No workout today though. Just in case it’s a “sick” thing instead of truly a “headache” thing. You never know.



Zoey cut her foot real bad
We took the dogs out to the local delta yesterday. All was well until we got ready to leave. We took a few steps from where we were sitting, and I turned around and noticed she was now limping, and her paw was covered in red. Let me tell you:

A 40lb dog is not really all that heavy. A 40lb dog you have to carry ½-mile is a freaking lead ton. She had sliced her foot on something – I am not sure what – and was bleeding bad enough. It obviously hurt, so I opted to be the goody daddy and carry her back, so that it would alleviate her pain and also keep the wound clean. Well, cleaner.

I had to stop a few times, though. Take a breather.

It was a clean cut. She got herself on something sharp, I would suspect glass except I saw none from where we were to where she was cut. But she cut her main pad, took off a piece about ½-inch long and ¼-inch deep. Hanging on by a thread. I figure that it’s going to fall off, because there’s so little holding it on at the moment, but we left it there just in case it ‘fuses’ back. Right now it lies cleaned, neosporined, and wrapped.

I actually expected her to throw a fit about having her foot wrapped. She’s been OK with it. Surprising. Hopefully she recovers quickly, because I have no plans to take her out until she’s 100% in that regard. Will probably be a while though.



Gone Baby Gone
Watched this last night. It’s not too bad! I rather liked the movie itself, though the whole premise about it is really a question of whether the means justify an end. In the case of the plot line of this movie, I think I would have left well-enough alone, where the main character could not. I’m not going to say too much about it. It’s not going to bring a tear to people’s eyes as they contemplate the new direction of cinema that this film did not bring to Hollywood. It’s not going to make the AFI’s top 100. But it’s good. I’d say it’s easily B+ material, almost maybe an A, but not quite.

The lead actor is a man named Casey Affleck. As you may have guessed, this is a relative to Ben Affleck. His younger brother, to be precise. And let me tell you, you can tell. They look quite similar. To me, Casey looks like Ben probably looked when he was 20 or something. He’s got that kid-face going on, you know what I mean?

Anyway, worth checking out. Despite its morbid premise, I found that I burst out in laughter at a few spots. I was the only one to do this, which made me quite glad we rented it instead of going to a theatre. Apparently my humor is a bit off. I knew this already, but the audience might have been a little disgusted. F- ‘em.

Peace.

Tags: Animals

I think it might be related to a recent change in my ‘diet,’ actually. See I wanted to try a newer creatine product to help my lifting. This stuff was supposed to be more potent, aid more in uptake by the body. Well it might be working too good.

See, creatine essentially works by helping your muscles hold more water. This helps weightlifters because it basically gives their muscles the reserves necessary to get that “one more rep” out, and really tear down the muscle fibers more, so that the rebuilding process has more to do. More rebuilding, more mass! Well I think that my headache – that has now lasted 3 days straight – might be a function of dehydration in the parts of my body that are not muscle. Yesterday, not only did I have the headache, but I also had aching in my hamstrings. I started to think it might be dehydration and began drinking a lot of water, which by the beginning of the evening had helped to alleviate the headache and hamstring aching.

But I can only drink so much water at work, and when I got home I started feeling depleted again. The kicker was when I crawled in bed, I got a shiver and started… uh, shivering? Well anyway, my abs flexed, and they flexed hard, so hard in fact that they cramped up and I couldn’t get them to release for a few seconds. And at that point, I realized that for sure, I do not have enough water in my body.



Off the stuff
So I am going to stop taking the creatine, at least for a little while. See if it’s the X-factor or not. I think so, but I like to test. I’ll be drinking lots of water today, no creatine, try to drown the cramps & headache in wa-wa. I think it’s going to work.



The last straw, Clinton?
Clinton wonders why people defected to Obama. Well let’s see… Might playing up the gas tax break for Summer – which serves no real purpose and is against almost everything else we deem important, like the environment and the attempt to break our oil habit – be a hint?

I’m proud of Obama for his stance. He’s right in that realistically, it won’t solve any real problems. It would save me a whopping $100 over those 3 months. Meanwhile, it just might aid in putting more pollutants into the atmosphere, and really just give the gas manufacturers more reason to raise prices as they see fit.

All this fronting & maxing… it’s politics. Obama has gained a backing because he doesn’t want to play politics as usual, and a lot of people respect that. I respect that. This may be the final straw for me.

OBAMA FOR PRESIDENT!

Peace.

Tags: Politics

I had a dull throbbing in my head all day yesterday. We cancelled our workout for the day, because the throbbing headache was afflicting us both. Well we were turning into bumps on a log – or a couch, as it were – and I wanted to get us out of that little slump we found ourselves in. So…



Dogs HO!
… we got ourselves up and ready and took the dogs out to the dunes. It’s fun there, because I can go off-roading a little, and the dogs can play in the sand and the water. It’s on the peninsula of the bay, which is rather narrow, so you’re not more than ¼-mile from the bayside to the beachside, so there’s plenty of options for fun times.

It took some convincing. Mostly me convincing The Girl, but we made it up and out, around 2:15 or so. Spent the better part of two hours there.



Nice weather we’re having
Been nice the last few days. Not hot, not cold, just in between. Yesterday it was overcast most of the day, but it wasn’t cold, even at the peninsula. Of course after we got home and took a nap, it cleared right up and was nice & sunny too. Go figure.

Of course it’s supposed to rain today & tomorrow. I am neither pleased nor displeased by this, just mentioning it. Two days of it. Then back to the same ol’ overcast & sunny days for a while.



A week from Today: Ass-kicking training
I start my jujutsu classes next Tuesday. :-) (that’s me smiling). I am happy about this. I am excited and a lil’ nervous, too. I haven’t really done anything like this before, save for a two-week trial when I was like 4 years old or something. I don’t think that counts. No one fears me when I tell them I took karate for two weeks when I was four and achieved white-belt status.

So I need to stop in and pay. And I guess pick out a suit. Oh sh!t there’s another downside to this, too.

You see, I “go commando.” It’s very liberating, as it were. Been doing it for years, so don’t act shocked, and uh, don’t get that weird look on your face that I can tell you have right now. It’s not like they’re going to jump out and grab you just because they’re not in tightie-whities or anything, OK? They’re still safely under wraps, so get over it.

However with all the tussling and stuff I’m going to be doing? I might have to go to the other extreme. That’s right, spandex. Ew. The boys are squirming just thinking about. It’s gross. Ew.



Watched “An Inconvenient Truth” last night
Not going to bother reviewing the thing. It’s a documentary, and if you have been anywhere but under a rock the past 2 years, you know what it’s about. Al Gore? Global Warming? ‘Nuff said.

Anyway, he makes a compelling case. Not that he’s really making it so much as he’s explaining it in ‘real terms’ for people. It’s one thing to hear scientists use big words, it’s quite another to see graphs about the damage we’ve done and be hit with the realities of what our future will hold for us at the current rates. None of this came as a shock to me, I have known for quite some time. But I could see others who aren’t as ‘in the know’ about this stuff as me being quite surprised by some of the factoids presented.

One of the things I was happy to see was the mention of it really more than anything being a function of our exploding population. It’s not mentioned enough I feel, and I think that a lot of the issues we face could be dealt with if we just started to control the population better. I mean, in an extreme sort of example… if there were 1,000 people on earth, would it really matter if we drove 1mpg cars around? The earth’s systems would be more than able to accommodate that sort of usage. But 7 billion people? Things get a little tighter then. I mean, it’s still the same earth with the same capacity for resources, but now you’ve got a lot more mouths to worry about, and a lot more butts putting waste out into the same limited space. It’s a big issue is what I’m saying.

So if you have not seen it, I would recommend watching it. It’s long and feels longer than it really is due to the nature of the material, but it’s not really boring. Just educational.

Peace.

Tags: Technology, Animals

He can put some surfers to shame ;-)

Anyway, check it out. It’s the one that shows him running across the beach. Titled “Miles swimming @ the Beach.” So yeah, check it out.

Peace.

Tags: Animals