any given sunday

Here I am trying to do the best I can with what I have, the raw materials at my disposal are flirting with their used by dates, but there's still a little time left. Very little. I can't help but feel things would have worked out more favourably than they have now if I had only started a little earlier. There's probably a good reason for this.

Maybe Indiana Jones can make me feel better, "it's not the years honey, it's the mileage", I guess, or something, so all is not lost. Not much wear and tear here, not until the season started anyway. After the last two games I've managed to convince my knees that I've been playing on concrete rather than grass, my left shoulder feels like it's hanging on by a single tendon, and at least once per game I feel like I've been knocked out. Feeling like your knocked out and actually being knocked out are probably as close to being the same animal as wining and almost winning, still black misty impaired vision occasionally accompanied by stars, making me feel like I've teleported to a different time zone (we play mostly during the day), are close enough to the real thing to fill me with healthy sense of unease.

Multiple near concussions aren't the best way to spend your Sundays. I used to go to church instead. I am currently in violation of the sabbath. I've considered pulling a Steve Young, implementing my own version of the sacred day, Monday sounds good this week or possibly Wednesday, I'm just not sure my ecclesiastical leaders will approve (I don't make enough money). Should I use what remains of my talent for running over the top of people before it fully expires or should I cut and run and pay homage to my possible creator, on the biblically designated appropriate day, leaving my taste for preternatural violence to other equally barbaric humans? I think we all know the answer to this question. God you understand, right?

What's that? No reply? Very well then. Christian Bale has given the big screen so many wonderful gifts, let me count the ways: full frontal nudity as a serial killer, his turn as a poster child for anorexia, as a brooding saviour of humanity with that fondly irritating lispy-wannabe-Clint-Eastwood-JC-voice, and let's not forget as a brooding vigilante with that fondly irritating lispy-wannabe-Clint-Eastwood-bat-voice. Somehow The Dark Knight was still good. With that wonderfully tuned instrument he delivered the immortal line quoting Katy Holmes before him"It's not who you are underneath, it's what you do that defines you." Is this ever more true than in the world of men? Some say I'm a misogynist, but they've got it all wrong I'm actually a misanthropist, I make a point to not interact with any of my team mates unless absolutely necessary. I strongly believe in equal opportunity discrimination. As of late, although working through a protracted drought of tries (aka touch downs), what I've been doing is just running rough shod over the competition. It's amazing how people start kissing your bum when they see what you can do.

This is a different kind of religious experience, paint me gold and call me Baal. Like I said I should have started this a lot sooner.

(just kidding, kind of)

zen mind crazy mind

This is madness. This is not Sparta. This is me perpetrating a pale imitation. That's OK though, the Spartans were gay. That's OK too. I'm not gay which is also OK. You get the idea. Doesn't political correctness make you sick? We've taken a wonderful ideal and through the sophistry of social engineering we've wrought a twisted bastardized version of what we always wanted. Isn't life grand?

I feel compelled to qualify every sentence I utter, which in many instances require their own qualification. Where's my luckdragon, it's the Neverending Story all over again. That's OK, it's all OK. During my infinite regress or recursive reflection depending on what way I feel like defining the quandary of my daydreaming, I reach maybe the third level down and I start loitering. There's far too much to take in here. I can almost hear Elton John singing.

Language is too beautiful not to use, I complain about having to explain everything, but deep down I want it to go on forever (The Elements of Style be damned! but only when I'm not using them). This blog can acurately be described as an incredibly prolonged argument with myself. I'm also in love with the passive voice and I am not ashamed. Writing this is a lot cheaper than seeing a therapist.

At present on the third level down when I start with Australia as a catalyst, things move quickly to rugby league. Which then morph roughly into how ridiculous this all is. Sure I just told you where my true love lies, but I also have a real fetish for absurdity, so I just can't help but feel immensely impressed with myself right now. I'm doing something that makes no sense and is about as likely to end in success as an atom exploding into a full blown universe. Hey, Pinocchio walked on water (or at least he could have being made of wood) and Jesus became a real boy (you know like he was like a God and then he magically became a fully fledged fetus, oh I'm qualifying again. Forget it). 

Sometimes strange things happen.  

P.S. This has nothing to do with anything except the most ridiculous buzzer beating 3 pointer since Robert Horry killed the Kings in 2002. LeBron's literal last second 3 yesterday will surely become the newest iconic shot in the NBAs pantheon of greats. I have a man crush on LeBron James. Shhh, don't tell anyone.

instant classic

Seth Rogen. Seth Rogen. Seth Rogen. 

He's everywhere, but nowhere, without body parts or passions. In all things and through all things. You can hardly go to the movies these days without noticing that he has somehow achieved omnipresence. 

How does he do that?

I've just seen Mallcop 2: Observe and Report, the ballad of Ronnie Barnhardt. Can you say cinematic genius? So I can I, but I can do a lot of things. Audiences stayed away in droves, another sure sign of success.

Ah, so many talking points... the already universally condemned date rape sketch, a scene that will live forever in infamy. The sign of a good writer is that he takes risks or is stupid or both, but never at the same time. I don't make the rules I just brake them.

Ray Liota we missed you. Like a bowling ball filling the chasm of 7-10 split, under different circumstances this would have been a goooaaal. Sorry.

This film was funnier than Fried Green Tomatoes, I Know What You Did Last Summer and Schindler's List combined. Absolutely hysterical. I laughed through the entire thing, especially when he shot the flasher at the end [oops **SPOILERS**], I don't think anyone else did.

Kobe vs. LeBron, the final word

Is this even a contest? (check out this ESPN roundtable to see what all the fuss is about) Here's how you can make it more interesting. If we're to look back rather than forward and ignore now, then we can build a semi-solid case for the most polarizing athlete in the NBA (Bryant). By any metric, right now: statistically, athletically, as a locker room presence LeBron owns Kobe; the only exception where the self proclaimed Black Mamba beats out The Chosen One is with his three championships . That is by no means an unremarkable accomplishment, but in a sport where Michael Jordan redefined greatness and transformed the way we assess excellence using individual brilliance as a measuring stick rather than team play (basketball is the most individually focused team sport possibly ever, but that is probably due more to marketing than what actually takes place on the court ), then with Shaq aka The Diesel aka Big Aristotle aka The Emperor of the Bling Dynasty (circa 2000-2002), aka Kazaam spearheading the acquisition of said championships, well this knocks Kobe down a peg or two because he wasn't The Man on the team, he was a co-star. Ever since he got top billing the Lakers have won as many titles (and made as many finals appearances) as the Cavaliers have (they're both 0 for 1).

When Jordan was a scoring machine and championshipless all the naysayers said he'd never be Magic Johnson or Larry Bird, turns out they were right but not in the way they meant. Jordan wasn't any of those guys he was Jordan and he was better than everyone else. The wrap on Jordan was that he was an amazing athlete but he'd never won any championships so he would never be in the same league figuratively as the aforementioned players (sound familiar?). Then he went and won six. This is what happens when athleticism meets talent and determination: championships. This year LeBron will win his first (this is hardly a bold prediction, it's something like saying the sun will rise tomorrow) and certain experts will start to acknowledge greatness after the fact. Why wait though?

on gyming it up 6

I never did finish this did I? The saga continues...

Our culture has created certain ideals for each of us to live up to. There exists for men a certain ideal image not in some metaphysical realm but in the world of the social. Call it a Social Form, if you will. Now unlike Plato’s forms these particular ideals are subject to change over time, much like language. The antecedents of the ideal Social Form for men were given voice during the Enlightenment period. Human well being (health) and incredibly optimistic views about our abilities to manipulate nature (power, some might say hubris) have lead to the culturally conditioned Social Form that visually confirms to us whether or not a given man is in possession of these attributes. A toned (fatless) body with generous muscle definition denotes manliness evoking a sense of power, vitality and well being; this is the Enlightenment reified.

Our culture is saturated with signs which give birth to the Social Form. As this composite model of what is desirable becomes ingrained in the value system of a society, we can decide whether or not to conform to the form presented. That is, we may attempt to simulate the image. The images are everywhere we see them on bill boards, and advertisements showing us what the epitome of manliness looks like. The cultural theorist Baudrillard applies an interesting interpretation to the concept of simulation. At its most advanced level simulations no longer duplicate reality they replace it. Early civilizations attempted to reproduce scenes from nature, as technology advanced more elaborate signs and artifacts became possible. The ideal male body seen in this light is a simulacra, when one attempts to simulate its Social Form a piece of reality is not being reproduced but a new object that is created replaces the former figment of reality. We now have entered the hyper-real, the real that is more real than real, the manly that is more manly than manly.

This is me re-enforcing the stereotype:

 (except I can't remember what I've done at the gym these past few weeks so the following is an approximate)

bench 87.5/2*8,4

chins, dead hang (me)/3*8

seated row 65/3*10 

front squat 90/3*5

I have found that training in-season is exceptionally more difficult than the off-season. It hurts. It really does.

the final frontier again

the new Uhura was a lot hotter than the above pic suggests

I want one thing clear from the beginning. I am not a Trekkie (that could change). A causal fan was about as far as I ever went. I do remember watching a lot of TNG episodes while growing up, but I've never dressed up as a Romulan for fun on the weekend or ever learned any Klingon. Admiration at a distance (and sometimes bemusement) was the extent of my fanboy love for the subject.

Yesterday I watched Star Trek and I was about ready to get a bowl cut and pointy ear extensions by the time it finished. Today I went to the library, borrowed some of the episodes from the original series and got out book one of Vulcan's Soul. I can't believe this is happening to me. 

J.J. Abrams reboot of this ailing franchise is in a word: Awesome! It's a movie that's fun to watch the whole way through. I didn't think they made those anymore. There's action, humour, weird head pieces and mini-skirts. What more can you ask for?

This is the story of how the captain that William Shatner made famous and his merry men and women came to be the crew of the starship Enterprise. It's the same characters only their on an alternative time-line from the original cast (thus freeing up the writer's from the weight of 40 plus years of continuity baggage) thanks in no small part to Eric Bana. You gotta watch those Australians.

The movie focuses mainly on the new Capt. Kirk and the new Spock. Interestingly both come across as arrogant pricks, but where as Chris Pine (Kirk) is surprisingly still likable in this role Zach Quinto (Spock) is not. The latter looks like he's on the verge of going postal in almost every scene. Yet by the end of the movie I ended up liking him anyway, but not as much as I loved the appearance of Leonard Nimo. For reasons that I cannot articulate nostalgia overcame me as this old actor's distinctive baritone delivered an exposition dump somewhere around the middle of proceedings. I never was really passionate about the whole Star Trek thing, as I said, but listening to Nimo talk is like tapping into a deep untouched canal of ancient zen wisdom, no matter what he's saying. 

Star Trek was a blast. It's the same, but different to what's come before and I found that incredibly comforting. Yes, I'm going to say it. May this movie franchise live long and prosper.

how hollywood lied to me 1

Man, I see in fight club the strongest and smartest men who've ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off. -- Tyler Durden (Fight Club)

By the time I'm done I will have quoted the entirety of Fight Club. 

In the movies, the idealized kind, we often see lovable losers and late bloomers overcome impossible odds to rise to the top of their chosen sport/martial art/whatever in their respective fictional universe. What a wonderful world it would be if deciding to practice really hard for one week before a super important event always translated into a glorious victory against opponents who have been training their whole lives for the same thing. Hey, it worked for the Mighty Ducks. Unfortunately as the physicists say: there's no free lunch.

The underdog as unlikely hero makes for a great story. The underdog's me and I just won! Yeah! That's the (folk) psychology that makes it so satisfying. It all just has a little too much of a I've-got-finals-tomorrow-so-I-think-I-might-actually-do-some-cramming-tonight kind of feel though. Of course every one knows this approach to life works, but you'd be hard pressed to finish in the top 5% of your class. Being in the winners circle requires more effort than most people are willing to give (I am one of those people), so we chow down on the Hollywood comfort food fantasy. It's a lot easier than getting down to doing some real work.  

It turns out that once in a while you can pull off a miracle performance, but we refer to it as a miracle simply because you probably only will ever do something like it once. Ever (see the Kiwi's world cup win against the Kangaroo's last year, than compare it to yesterday's ANZAC test debacle. The universe has been restored to it's proper order). Long term every day (every day not as a going through the motions type of attitude, but as an action) dedication to a cause will beat johnny-come-latelys 99% of the time, no matter what the movies say. 

I'm not going to one day wake up and be able to crane kick my way to respectability. Or liberate humanity and stop bullets mid flight using my uncanny powers over a simulacrum of reality. Hell, I'd probably be hard pressed to make the run on squad for a semi-decent dodge ball team. This is all very disappointing. Where does that leave me and the big chunk of people who fall within the confines of the decidedly average on an evenly distributed bell curve? It's time to cast off the chains of self-imposed and outsider encouraged lethargy. Me and my lost generation. I may have implicitly bought in to the hype, believing that somehow I'd spin straw into gold eventually, but clinical tests confirm that straw is just straw. Damn. Where to from here? In spite of everything I've said I will follow the sage advice of George Eliot "It's never to late to be who you might of been." Time to make something out of that straw while the sun's still shining. 

BONUS QUOTE: 

“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.” - Thomas Edison

deus ex machina?

Never expose yourself unnecessarily to danger; a miracle may not save you...and if it does, it will be deducted from your share of luck or merit. - The Talmud

I can't tell if I'm more or less prone to accidents than others. I've only been me as long as I can remember. Going on pure intuition, I'd say I have a higher incidence than most. This is mere speculation. I wont bother to innumerate the painful details surrounding the events of my inductive reasoning here, one will suffice.

I was 6, maybe 7, years old and my parents generously decided that the passing of another birthday was cause for excessive celebration. Their gift as recognition for my being year older surpassed any reasonable expectation, considering that neither 6 nor 7 are notable milestones as far as age goes. We were a middle class family and I suppose in typical middle class fashion we (or they) spent more than they could afford. I didn't complain. They flew me from New Zealand to Hawaii. Hang loose dude.

We stayed with one of my cousins there. During an excursion to a public pool, my dad helped my younger cousin restrap his goggles which had become loose. I stayed in the pool while they worked on their little project out on the margins of the poolside area. I was instructed to hold on to the edge . I hadn't yet learned to swim. A gross over sight, as I'd soon discover, but a marginal concern at the time. I don't know if I was bored, suicidal or just stupid, but somehow I managed to lose my grip on terra firma and I found myself "floating" helplessly away from safety and into the 6 foot deep abyss of chlorine flavoured water.

I had a perfect understanding of what was happening at that moment. I was drowning and I could possibly die. That's an unacceptable outcome when all you're trying to do is enjoy your birthday present. I flailed my arms, which didn't seem to help much. I tried to yell for help, but all that did was help me take on water even faster. I learned later in life that sound travels through water more efficiently than it does through air. I know from experience though that this fact works better as a theory than it does in practice.

There I was at the bottom of the pool. Waiting for the grim reaper or hopefully someone else to notice that I was no longer visible above the surface. That's when it happened. I felt 'something', I don't know what, helping me back to the edge, back to safety. Dad came over like the police in every action movie ever made, too late to do anything useful, but just in time to clean up the left overs of the important stuff he missed. I just used up a big chunk of my allotted luck and I wasn't happy.

There are a number of explanations for this unusual occurrence, I will leave many to the imagination but here are some possibilities: I could have spontaneously learned to swim at the exact moment that I needed it the most, through some kind of strange permutation of an adrenaline rush. This seems unlikely, because I didn't officially learn to swim until some ten years later (maybe someone uploaded swimming knowledge into my brain ala the matrix and wiped it as soon as I started breathing air again). Accounting for the helping hand that I remember complicates things. It could be a false memory, a confabulation of a simple child exposed to too much religion. Or I could accept that the universe wanted me around in that and this form for just a little bit longer. This can not be discounted. Anthropomorphising the universe might be frowned upon by people who don't like that sort of thing, so for the sake of the positivists around us let's just say the universe for no particular reason kept me alive that day. That cannot be disputed. I'm still breathing air.

It's tempting to remain agnostic (and by agnostic I just mean in the general sense, a lack of commitment to any explaination at all) about my deliverance from the dread clutches of a watery grave, but that really is a soft option (sometimes). The thing I like about theists and atheists alike is that although they are often ideologically overbearing at the best of times at least you know where they stand. I can understand the merit of suspending judgment on a topic, because all the facts aren't yet in, but it's impossible for us to collect all the facts on most issues (what are you afraid of? that you might, gasp, be wrong about something, that would be just unacceptable), sometimes you just have to make a decision.

My interpretation on what happened is that singularities do exist. If you look at medicine, a discipline that has probably hurt just as many people as it has helped, you'll find that doctor's generally prescribe treatments based on a general model of how a general human will react. On average this is an effective way of working, but not always an efficient one. Each of us is unique physiologically, psychologically and probably just about any other way you can think of. The universal approach is obviously useful for any one that it works for. For patients who are different enough to respond to the standard treatments in unexpected ways (my dad is one of these people, serves him right) particularism needs to come into play. It's rare that you'll find a universal approach that is ever going to work unequivocally in all situations when dealing with complex systems. Chaos can be unpredictable, just like reality. There are just too many anomalies out there. I am one of them. I should be dead.

marvel's money machine keeps on printing notes

I liked this movie somewhat and I am incredibly ashamed of myself

Wolverine is a comic book character that is "nasty, brutish and short" (and hairy and I can't get enough of that quote). He is also Canadian. Hugh Jackman is none of these things: cheesy Oscar hosting all-around-nice-guy, tall, Australian, OK he's hairyish I'll give him that, but he's not Wolverine hairy. So, when you're thinking about casting marvel's most iconic mutant character who better to portray the self proclaimed best he is at what he does...and what he does is snkkkt (cheers, Awesomed by Comics) than our good mate Hugh. Yep, that's why they pay Fox executives the big bucks.

I'm being unfair to Hugh, but it was really hard to take this film (X-Men Origins: Wolverine) seriously, all that earnest grunting and howling while looking skyward with claws unretracted. This is no Dark Knight. In spite of it's lumbering attempts at gravitas, it still managed to pose deeply ponderous dramatic questions. Like: Why is Deadpool's mouth sewn shut? Why are there 10 million mutant cameos in this thing? Why is Patrick Stewart's face CGIed onto some random body (Has it gotten this bad these days that CGI is even used for the non-action scenes? Seriously?); did Jean Luc Pickard die without me hearing about it or something? Oh, that's right, X-Men 3.  Why do those stupid werewolf rip-off adamantium bullets mind wipe Wolvie? Why didn't Striker think of using them before the closing scene? They actually paid someone to write this dreck, are you kidding me? Why should I care about any of this?

They say the secret to never being disappointed is having low expectations. And no one could have had lower expectations for this movie than I did. I just saw Dragonball the Movie last week. That's the level of putridness I was expecting. Instead I got a moderately entertaining movie. I really didn't want to like it, there was so much wrong with it and yet I still enjoyed the damn thing. Hugh Jackman: one. Me: zero. Comparison is how I make sense of the world, so here's a list of some of the comic movies this was better than: Watchmen (yep, I said it), X-Men (yep I said it),  Ghost Rider, Superman Returns, Elektra, Daredevil, Catwoman, those horrible Fantastic Four movies, etc, etc. If you feel like some mindless entertainment give it a watch.