A blog, by any other name... is still a blog
And it's getting close to the end of the day. Man, for some reason I'm really tired. I think part of it might be the lion dance practice. We had our first full practice session yesterday. I have blisters on my hands now because of it, and I was just completely exhausted. A good three hours of practice. The type of thing where sitting in a horse stance is actually RELAXING, compared to the rest of it. Seriously. And the first real test is this Thursday morning, at Holland Hall. It's a light one, only ten minutes. Although ten minutes is longer than you might think.

Practice was interesting, though. We had one of the old lion dance experts come to practice. He hasn't been in the lion in years, though, so he's quite out of practice. He brought his daughter, and she was originally kind of scared of the lion, but she eventually got really friendly with everyone. I think she was about 8 years old or so. She made a habit of jumping at most of the guys in our class and latching on. Everybody did something different when she did, it was funny, though. When she jumped at me I looped her around my back (swing-dance style). I think she liked it, because she did it again. And then she got into the lion when we were done, and she's small enough that she sat inside the head, and the head was still completely touching the ground. It was funny to see.

It's been a bit busier at work, although I still feel like there's a lot of things I'm capable of that they don't even realize. One of those things where you're unappreciated, when people don't realize what they have. I've been feeling like that a lot lately, actually. Eh, it's THEIR loss. Someday I'll find my appreciation. Someday.

The weekend was mainly full of lion dance stuff, even though NOBODY showed up on Friday. Except for me and Justin. So I took that time to go and visit the new place in town, the Guitar Center. The place is INSANE. It's got every guitar you'd ever want. And all playable. I just lost track of time there, and they had to boot me out. I did get in on their string deal (buy two, get TEN free), thanks to Courtney. Thank you, Court! I'm afraid to go back, because eventually, I'll actually want to spend some real money. I saw multiple items I'd be interested in, none of which are extraordinarily cheap. I'll go back, sometime, when I have money to burn there. But it'll be a while.

Saturday night was the chance to try out the new version of Risk, Risk 2210. Yeah, the board game. It's really fun! They've changed a LOT, so there's a bunch of new rules, but it makes the game have a lot more chance, and abilities for players to surprise each other. I think it's quite a bit better than the first one. If you liked the first one and get a chance, I recommend it.

Okay, and I'm tired still. So I'll leave you with a random link. Sort of. I've already "given" this to a few people, so some of you know. But those who don't - I've got a friend for you to add to AIM, for those who have it. The name to add? SmarterChild. You should at least try it.
- posted by Pootenheimer @ 3:38 PM | 0 comments

 
This and that and those and these
Well, I made another change to my blog template. I have ads! Woo! You may wonder why I'm happy about commercial enterprise interfering with my blog. Well, you can see it's not really in the way. And that the links actually look interesting. The other side benefit is I'm getting paid for them. Yes! Indeed! Making money in intriguing ways! So any time anyone clicks one of these, I get cash money. Not a whole lot, and if it's not above a certain number, then I don't get anything. But hey, I thought I'd try it, see what's up. I can't ask you to click on it, but IF you per CHANCE see something up there that looks INTERESTING (like lion dance costumes) that you might want to check out, go ahead! It very well might enlighten you. And enrich me. In a purely "I am loved" sense, of course. It's an experiment for now, so really it's educational for the moment.

It is SNOWING outside. Quite heavily. Interesting. It's a good thing I found out yesterday that my remote battery for my garage door is dead, so I could replace it. It's quite nice to not have to worry about wiping the car down before traveling anywhere. I have fond memories of losing sensation in various extremities while trying to remove large quantities of H20 from my car before going to work, while I was at school. And they're fond because they're MEMORIES. I'm fine leaving them that way, and just having my car all nice and warm inside the garage. And if you're feeling any sort of envy or wrath (or any of the other five deadly sins, for that matter), you shouldn't - I DID go through more years of that already than you probably will. At least in a school environment. But on the other hand - snow is pretty!

Hmm, so kung fu's been interesting this week. Seems like a lot of people have decided to trade out their attendance days. Normally Mondays and Wednesdays are loaded, and Tuesdays and Thursdays aren't so much. It was sort of the opposite this week. Oh well. I've been pushing myself more than normal so I can be in shape for both lion dancing and for the trip to China. When hanging out with your Sigong, you should ALWAYS be in good shape. FYI. I think my thighs are getting thicker, and I'm gaining weight from muscle. It's intriguing. But I haven't really gotten into weight lifting (yet), even though Sihing Justin has. And he's doing crazy levels in his weights. Yeah, he weights about 180. If you don't think kung fu helps your legs, I'll just say that his legs presses are up to around 425 pounds or so. And he's benching over 200, although I'm not sure exactly how much. Plus he's working night shifts. The guy's guy an insane level of determination and persistence. Something we could ALL learn from.

Ooh, last night was Halo 2 night! I finally got XBConnect working (silly firewall, having to go and update the night before), and we were on! Three other X-Boxen connected, something like ten or twelve people between them, plus me on mine. I do think I had an unfair advantage, though, honestly, being that I didn't have to share my screen with three other people. So as opposed to the 14 or so inches everyone else had, I had 55. Widescreen. Yeah, it does give you a bit of advantage. But it was fun! With that many people, and communication over our headsets, chaos reigned. And teamwork is key. When you've got everyone working together, something about the synchronization of plans and ideas is very fulfilling. We'll probably do it again.

And work's been going fairly well. A project one team had been working on for three weeks I finally got to take a shot at and took care of it in one day. Yeah, that's right. Woo! I think they were happy about that. I've also been getting requests for my resume. Apparently another job is on the horizon. But I won't say anything until it's definite. As in I'm actually WORKING at another job. You should never take things for granted.

Lately I've been thinking about chi kung (AKA qigong). I've studied it in the past, and have actually helped influence family members to try it out. It's quite cool stuff, and it does have effects, regardless of what you may think of it being a bunch of hocus-pocus. I've contacted someone I used to train with for chi kung, and he's got his own school now under a different teacher. I think I'm going to start practicing it again, get both my hard and soft chi kung balanced. Perhaps eventually I'll be able to put out candles from across the room for party tricks.

Well, I guess I'm going to have to brave the weather to drive outta here in a bit, and then brave it AGAIN to go to kung fu for lion dance practice. Remember! Check the schedule! And if you can do it, come to either the Open House or the Nam Hai demonstration. They should both be the same demos (with lion dancing AND kung fu), and they shall be spectacular. Either because we mess up in incredible ways, or because we actually end up putting a sufficient level of effort into our practice. We'll see. Maybe YOU'LL see. Hopefully. Indubitably. They rhyme with G. And also 3.

Okay, time for random link! This is something quite random. An interesting mix of music, physics, and... monks.
- posted by Pootenheimer @ 1:58 PM | 3 comments

 
Fun costs money
Yeah, I found out about prices and so forth for my trip. I'm going in March. To Hong Kong! Woo! The only thing to worry about is finishing my payments for the travel arrangements. Which is NOT cheap. Fly to LA, then fly to Asia, then into Hong Kong. Yeah, that's roughly 20 hours on a plane, each way. A little more, actually, and on something like four separate planes. Oh boy. I'm not really looking forward to THAT too much. I'll need to take some entertainment with me, I think. But once I'm there... it'll be awesome. Yes, I'm going with my Sigong, Buck Sam Kong. And his students - and one of the other students from our school, named Pam. A pity no one else can go from Tulsa. But I'll learn a LOT. Hopefully I'll be okay through this ordeal.

Speaking of kung fu stuff, time for schedules! Okay, here's how the lion dances are going to be:
- 2/3, 8:30 AM: Holland Hall. Doubt any of you guys will be there, but it'll be interesting. Silly private school students.
- 2/5, 1:00 PM: The Academy/Kwoon. This is one you definitely should check out. Our open house! Everyone's invited! You'll get to see lion dancing, and kung fu, and fireworks. The whole kaboodle.
- 2/5, 7:00 PM: TCC Southeast. The Chinese-American Society New Year's demo. We're opening this one up, so we'll be there right at the start, and they'll be showing off all sorts of Chinese traditional stuff. If you can make it to this, it might be cool to see what they'll have to show. It's a pretty big one for us, we need to be excellent.
- 2/9, 6:30 PM: Royal Dragon. The restaurant! It's good eating. And we'll be doing a lion dance there, trying not to make the crowd TOO crazy. This is a traditional restaurant one, we do it here pretty much every year. The collecting of the offering should be interesting.
- 2/12, 11:00 AM: Nam Hai Grocery. I don't remember exactly where this is, although I think it's in Broken Arrow. This one will be a very big deal. It's going to be a primarily Chinese crowd, so they'll know what we SHOULD be doing. The pressure will be on. We'll also be doing a larger demo here, including some kung fu, so if you want to see what we do, this would be a good one to check out.

So there you go. All sorts of lion dancing, and it's hard work! But yes, ALL of you should try attending at least one to see what it's all about. It's usually something you don't often get to see. And if you miss it, you ARE missing out.

That's the news. In other news, I've been doing a lot of kung fu! Oh wait, that isn't really other news. But I have, and I think I'm getting into better shape. It's fun, though. Exercise is good stuff. I should probably stop drinking Pepsi, though (sadly) and get the healthy side of food. Although pizza and Pepsi is so easy.

I've watched a couple of movies lately. Rental movies. One of which SUCKS, the other of which was pretty good. The good one? Cellular. It's believable, it's the type of movie where when you shout instructions at the "hero", they actually DO it. They do things that make sense, and it makes it easier to go along with. I did enjoy it, and Kim Basinger is still pretty hot, even though she's gotten slightly older. It's a good "just sit and watch" movie, the way movies should be. The OTHER movie, the abomination I should not have spent time with, is The Forgotten. Oh man. It made me mad. In this case, the movie does NOT make any sense. Basically, the heroine (if you want to call her that, which I actually DON'T, so I'll just call her Fool) is in the struggle of having lost her son. Well, things happen, and it looks like maybe Fool can get her son back. So she stops at NOTHING to get him back. "Sam! SAAAM!!" She says that more than once. In fact, too much. You'll have to get used to it. She stops at NOTHING, even at remarkable events that don't normally happen to people. In fact, events that have NEVER HAPPENED to people. Fool's motto continues to remain the same. "What? Gravity in this specific location of time and space has reversed? It doesn't matter! I need my son! Sam! SAAAM!!" This continues through the ENTIRE MOVIE. Ooh, it made me mad. Now I can understand loving and cherishing family members, but going to such extremes where you ignore EVERYTHING else COMPLETELY is ludicrous. "What? Five other people have died? I don't care! Sam! SAAAAM!!!" The only way I would have been happy is if it ended to reveal she actually WAS insane, and perhaps all of this was in her head (easily explained by the silly plot twist they choose), when in fact she's comatose in a bed. Or something. But no, the movie ends, and I am quite aggravated. BAD movie! Don't see it, unless you're prepared for lots of "SAAAAAM!!".

Thankfully I saw Cellular AFTER Fool's story. I wish I COULD forget the Forgotten. Oh well. I still have all my good, good movies. Science fiction done right. Such as either of the first two Alien movies. Mmm, Aliens.

Okay, I think that's a long enough blog for today. I shall leave you with a random link now. If I haven't put it up yet (which I might have) I should have. In either case, here it is. Common sense is good to have. Too bad some people tend to lose it when it matters most.
- posted by Pootenheimer @ 4:26 PM | 1 comments

 
I have no title, and I must scream
It was a busy weekend. Kind of weird busy, but yeah. Of course, plenty of kung fu. Need to have that.

So Friday was the beginning of it all. I went basically right from work to kung fu to do lion dance practice. And we practiced! It was some basic practicing, adjusting a few moves Sifu had in mind. Not too much. And then from there it was off to play Halo 2, LAN style! Yeah, nothing like networking some X-Boxen together for Halo 2 goodness. It was 3 on 4, and I was on the team of three. We dominated for a bit, then swapped some players which evened it up a bit, so it was pretty fierce. We lost a bit, but wrapped up the final match with total annihilation. And my plasma sword skills did come into play quite a bit. "Triple kill!" Oh yeah.

And I stayed up a bit too late playing more games with a friend I haven't seen in a while, and her friend who I hadn't met before. Although she was cool. We were going to try watching a movie, but the apparent urgency of educating them on the latest console releases became a priority, so the time got too late to actually watch a MOVIE. Silly movies. So yeah, a bit of Resident Evil 4, some Splinter Cell 2, and of course, Katamari Damacy. Excellent examples of what gaming SHOULD be on all three systems. They were each played... and I was spent. A good evening.

So the next day I woke up strangely early, had some food, played online a bit, then fell promptly asleep. Until SEVEN. Yeah, I slept all day. On the sofa. While trying to watch a horrid movie. But it was okay, I needed it. And then it was time for Spaghettifest! Which is lots of spaghetti, put together by the Newman center. I went to help out and chow down on some spaghetti. So I did both! And I actually got to sit next to the Bishop, and chat with him for a while. He recognized me, but didn't remember my name. Although THAT is changed, now. Muahahahaa! It's good to have connections.

So yeah, hung out with the Bishop, then helped clean a bit, then it was time for broomball! Broomball is a ton of fun. It's like road hockey, but on ice. With no skates. And more than thirty people. With a ball. And goals, with nets. It's CRAZY. Crazy FUN. Yeah, it was tons of fun. Good exercise, plenty of banging around on the ice, I'm sure a lot of people have nice bruises from it. I only fell once, and it was glorious. Right on my bum, although I managed to smack my elbow and knee, too. But yeah, any opportunity to do it again I'd be all over. It was fun stuff.

So then that left one day for the weekend madness. Which consisted primarily of kung fu. More lion dancing! With lots of people. Shannon is back to help us out (the old senior student). He's used to being part of the lion, although he learned how to stack as the head for the first time. The stack is sort of an acrobatic feat, and the head has to be the mobile one, the tail the solid one. It was a lot of work. And then I worked on some new variations on the stack, which were scary. But cool. And you should see them! I'll put up the full schedule later, but for now, it's known that we're doing a morning demo at Holland Hall early in the morning a week from this Thursday. And then we have a big demo the Saturday after that. Which is one that is probably worth checking out. The big, BIG one is a week after that, at a grocery called Nam Hai. Like I said, I'll give the schedule later, and you should try to check out at least one, just to see what it's all about.

Okay, random poll.

You Are 23 Years Old

23 Under 12: You are a kid at heart. You still have an optimistic life view - and you look at the world with awe. 13-19: You are a teenager at heart. You question authority and are still trying to find your place in this world. 20-29: You are a twentysomething at heart. You feel excited about what's to come... love, work, and new experiences. 30-39: You are a thirtysomething at heart. You've had a taste of success and true love, but you want more! 40+: You are a mature adult. You've been through most of the ups and downs of life already. Now you get to sit back and relax.

Yeah, that sounds about right.

And that is all for today. I'm going to give you a random link now! I'm lazy, it kind of sucks. Just a new trailer for today.
- posted by Pootenheimer @ 2:35 PM | 4 comments

 
Friday rhymes with highway
And yes, it IS Friday. I am at work. Not too many people are still here, which is funny. And I did a lot of work this week, so I don't have too much left to do today.

Yeah, I did lots of work! My first week on my own (without my "mentor"), so I had to do a lot of installations at other facilities. It kept me busy, I got to meet a lot of people, and I think I finally convinced a few people here that they don't need to worry about me being able to do the work. So it's been pretty good. And I even offered a few other options that surprised some of my co-workers, in a good way. Woo! It'll be too bad when I have to leave after finding a plush NEW job. Someday.

And kung fu is getting faster and furious...er. More people are joining, and some of the students who've been there a while are starting to advance enough to make me nervous. To make me want to actually progress, for once (I spend more time teaching than training). If I can finish my Phase 2 test, I'll feel better. It's a rather difficult thing to do. Six forms, all at once, plus self-defense manuevers. And that's not mentioning that two of these forms are basically two of the hardest forms in the whole style, by quite a bit. It's difficult. I'll need to get into prime shape. Plus I need to be in shape for the trip to China in March. And for lion dancing!

Speaking of lion dancing, we've got a lot coming up. We thought there'd only be one or two, but it's looking more like six or seven. So I'll have to be GOOD at it. We practice tonight, we'll do our best. And I think there's the bonus that at one of the big big ones we'll have multiple lions (although the lion I'm in will be the "main" one), plus a half-hour kung fu demo. I'll put the date and time when I find out for sure, and some of you guys really should come to check it out. I know not many of you even know what a lion dance is, but it's worth seeing at least once. The pressure will be on to be GOOD.

Ooh! And I've been thinking about going back to my thesis, to do more work on advancing it. It's very theoretical and highly mathematical, and because of that not many people do similar work to it. But I still like it. I just need to get a side server with a bloody fast processor and a decent amount of memory. Everything else could be on-board with the mobo, but I just want something that can crank numbers. If anyone has recommendations on what to use, let me know. And NO, not Athlons, I don't want to heat my computer room like that. Oh, and if you know how to program Fourier transforms in C++, please let me know. With array-based integers for radices higher that 36. Yeah, I'm sure I'll be getting e-mail from ALL of you.

Mmm, life is busy. And I should probably figure out how to handle all of my many interests in an orderly fashion. And maybe figure out how to keep my apartment clean, on top of that. Although the magnitude of difficulty that THAT would be might rival the combination of all of the other objectives I have. Perhaps someday. I can dream.

Random link! This is a NERDY random link. If you like role-playing, you're a nerd. And if you like computers, you're a nerd. And if you like BOTH to the EXTREME, you're a huge, huge nerd. Which I am.
- posted by Pootenheimer @ 2:51 PM | 2 comments

 
Quickie double blog day
Yeah, I'm blogging again. Mainly because of a few things I didn't have available before, and some other stuff I didn't mention.

One of which was that my week last week kinda sucked. Hard, actually. With the being sick and all being a big part of it. Managed to get a major couple of bruises on my leg, too. In fact, here! This is the worse one. (The other one had the same scab, but no bruises.)



Pretty, ain't it? When conditioning the shins, it's best not to kick TOO hard against objects that are made of strong materials. Such as, oh, STEEL. I didn't feel it when I kicked it, but when I checked it later, apparently I had kicked it fairly hard. It's one of my ways of venting frustrations, in addition to playing loudly on the guitar, or playing a video game with violent bits in it. You know, stuff with firearms. GTA3 always worked well for that, although I haven't used gaming as an outlet in a while. Kung fu seems to be the best way.

Oh yeah, and on my way to the retreat, less than TWO MILES from my destination, I get pulled over. Yeah, so I was about ten over the limit, but still. Two miles. Thankfully, I only got a warning. ANYway, sucky stuff happened, but life goes on.

In other news, I took a little test that's been passing around a bit. Here's mine.
The Dante's Inferno Test has sent you to Purgatory!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Extreme
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	High
Level 2 (Lustful)	Moderate
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	Low
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Very Low
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	Very Low
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	Very Low
Level 7 (Violent)	Low
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	Low
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	Very Low

Take the Dante's Inferno Hell Test
I guess I'm a good boy! Woo!

Okay, and ONE more random link. This one's a good one. For when you need to laugh, this might do the trick.
- posted by Pootenheimer @ 10:51 PM | 4 comments

 
Sick and BUSY
Yeah, I'm still on my medication, so I'm not completely back to normal. Yet. Mainly lately I've been trying to rest (when possible), although it's been hard these past days. Primarily because I've got a lot to do at work and I had a retreat this last weekend.

Yes, a retreat - known as TEC. I didn't have much of a voice, but I DID have a guitar, so my role as part of the music crew turned out okay. Apparently quite okay, because I did get a decent number of complements on the music. It was a lot of fun. And I played for four separate masses, which was a lot of work. But I think it was appreciated, and I did like doing it. Playing the guitar is relaxing for me. I'm impressed I didn't actually have any problems with callouses getting worn through. I also got to teach one of the candidates a bit, since he had brought his guitar. He came up and played on the last day, and it turns out he's quite good, for the amount of time he's been playing (only about a year and a half). Anyway, I did that all weekend, and while rewarding, it's also exhausting. I still need more sleep.

Last week I took a few days off to recuperate, which mainly consisted of sweet, sweet Resident Evil 4. It is very good. Intense is probably one of the better ways to describe it. Something about the experience of being on the edge of a rooftop with a massive crowd of insane people intent on killing you below, reaching over to toss the ladder down so they can't climb and barely ducking under the chainsaw being swung at your head. Then taking a shotgun and firing at the chainsaw-wielder to take him to the ground below into the crowd and then throwing a napalm-style grenade down after him, only to see flames erupt through everyone before they can get the ladder back up. Yeah, it's intense. Very well done.

Ah, I'm still tired and want to take naps all day, but I do have work to do, and I also have to go to kung fu tonight. That should be fun, though. I did somehow manage to get two very nice marks on my shins over the weekend, after choosing the wrong thing to kick for shin conditioning. Maybe that, plus I kicked a little TOO hard. Huge bruise on my left shin. And on both, nickel-sized gashes that are right over the bone, all red and blood-encrusted. It's fairly cool, which goes without saying. But for future reference, I should probably condition against wood before going nuts against metal.

Okay, time for random link. Something for those of you who are convinced new means better. Doesn't ALWAYS work that way. Oh! And if you want to know why in extreme detail, here you go.
- posted by Pootenheimer @ 4:23 PM | 0 comments

 
Ugh, and I am sick. Again.
Yeah, something about the weather and my nasal cavity just don't get along. I just got back from the doctor, going to pick up my medication when it's ready. The start of what looks like a sinus infection. I don't know why I get sinus infections, but apparently I do.

So lots has been going on! For one, Friday night was another Monte Montgomery concert to go see. I would have liked more people I knew to have gone, but it wasn't meant to be. It was a lot of fun, though, and I think the people who DID go enjoyed it quite a bit. Because he's incredible. That's really all I have to say about it. It's just that simple. And I took my camera! Which means pictures. Oh yes. Pictures.



Monte, in all his glory.




Me just chillin' with the man.


And for those of you with fat bandwidth pipes, here's a little bonus taste of what I had to see. Yeah, I had a VERY good proximity to the stage. And I'll say it now - even video does no justice to what it's like to be there, watching, with the adrenaline of the crowd filling the place.

Ah, so Saturday meant time for preparation of TEC, the retreat I'm helping on this coming weekend. I'm on music, so Chad and I got the theme song down. It's wondrous. Should be good. Then, that night I hung out with a group of friends at Senor Tequila's! Great place, and I got to practice my Spanish a bit. Since I don't speak it TOO much. Which I should. But the food was good.

Sadly, the next morning was the start of my sickness. Sore throat (didn't help in choir). Went to kung fu, though, to practice the Lion Dance. You guys should see it when we perform it - it will be spectacular! Full demo coming up in February. Lion Dancing AND kung fu! Will be loads of fun. But yeah, so I practiced with a new guy (new to Lion Dancing), but he's known kung fu for a few years, so he picked things up quickly. We got good practice down, but I forgot to put on the back brace, and kind of jacked up my back a bit. Sorta sucked, so I just went home and sat my butt on the couch to recoup a bit. I traded Fred the second season of 24 for more Naruto, to help that. Naruto is awesome! I think I shall watch more of it today while I am sick. Sickly. Fred really likes 24, so I think it's a fair trade.

Monday was bleah. Work, while I was getting SICKER, and my co-worker is now gone for a while. He was the one who was "guiding" me, although I had more fun than I learned proper stuff. Which was okay at the time, but I'm paying for it now. I did manage to make it through a day without much problem, just exhausted, somehow. I think that means naptime today. I never get to take naps.

Oh, I did find a little somethin' somethin' on a friend's blog (actually, Live Journal, but what's the difference, really) that interested me. Check it out!


Yes, I am an ultimate nerd! No one can beat me! You can try, though. Failure is inevitable. According to the site... "All hail the monsterous nerd. You are by far the KING NERD GOD!!!" So yeah. Sweet.

Okay, and time for random linking! I don't remember for sure if I linked this already, but if I did it's been a while. It's SCARY random linking. That's right. Enter if you dare.
- posted by Pootenheimer @ 1:29 PM | 4 comments

 
It's still January
In case you were wondering. Yeah, still January. And it's COLD. At least right now. Wind chill of ZERO. Yesterday was interesting. People worried about the roads and all, so a lot of people left a bit early. My card doors ended up frozen shut. I had to use kung fu to get it open. Which worked surprisingly well. And I had my scraper in there, which is a pretty good one, so I ended up helping three people get ice off their windows. It was funny, one lady I helped just sat in her car, was trying to use the wipers to get the ice off. That doesn't work so well, so I just up and scraped it for her, she gave me a big smile from inside her car, it was funny. And another lady had her doors frozen shut, too, so I helped her with that. Only bad thing is when I got in my car finally, my ears were aching. My ears are sensitive! Tender to the cold weather. Maybe I should wear a hat. Or I do have this cool ninja-style head wrap. I like ninjas.

So I got home from work and spent a day with just ME (not referring to the abomination that passes for an OS). It was luscious! I seriously enjoyed it so much I couldn't wipe the grin off my face. Just set up a fire in the fireplace, cooked up some leftover pizza (a 4forALL, with all my favorite styles), grabbed an ice cold Pepsi, popped in GitS 2 and cranked it up. It's a good movie! Probably will take a few viewings to fully comprehend the message. It's packed rather full of a lot of meaning, philosophical wanderings, futuristic theorizations, a good soundtrack, and a couple of excellent action scenes. It IS anime, FYI. Although the original is one I recommend highly, even for those of you not anime-familiar. A few scenes of violence, just so you've been warned. But it's a rare breed of movie - a mix of sci-fi, action, and philosophy rolled together. All of which I like.

I did that, then finished off Half-Life 2 (which I haven't played in a while). A lot of people have complained about the ending, but I rather liked it. The final twenty minutes or so of the game actually got me really intrigued and excited. I haven't had a game get me that psyched during play in a long time. The same type of emotions I had when I saw the FIRST Matrix, in the theater. At any rate, now I have closure on the game, and can continue on with MGS3, which is, of course, awesome. Still. When I finish that, THEN I can crack open Metroid Prime 2. Which I think is my style of play, because it requires THINKING. Puzzle-solving. All that. Halo 2 didn't have a whole lot of that, somehow. The biggest puzzle you had to solve was how to incapacitate your enemy with the current weapon you had available. Somehow I don't think that's a novel problem to solve... I think there have been some other games where you had to do that, before.

Ooh! I'm excited, too. Monte Montgomery, this Friday, live at the Stadium! I need to buy tickets today. He's so good. I'll wait on that until AFTER I've viewed the spectacle that is Monte. Again.

And kung fu is staying interesting. Sifu's changed up the schedule a bit, so there are two kids' classes now. One for the really young ones, one for the not quite so young ones. I'm helping with the latter, I think. As well as the "not young" class. But the lion dance is the big stuff. It's hard! But I like it, a lot. I'm going to have to work more on trusting the lion tail (the guy who plays that part). Right now I'm hesitant to jump up onto him with the lion head on, because I'm paranoid that I could fall and hurt the lion head. Just got to do it, though.

Okay, that's enough for lunchtime. Time to work. Random link! This one is sufficiently random, I think. No explanation necessary.

- posted by Pootenheimer @ 12:50 PM | 2 comments

 
Hello! Yes! There!
I'm sleepy today. It's because of the new year. It's a new year. So I'm sleepy. Doesn't that make sense? It should. See, my internal clock was moving in a westerly direction, and all of a sudden got slammed back to central time. Ooh! It hurts! I want to sleep MORE! But no, sadly, the state of affairs in our "normal" society decrees my sleep must be curtailed. It's okay if I show up to work with less functionality (along with less sleep), as long as it's at an appropriate time. Makes about as much sense as... (forgive me, this is what my sleep-deprived mind came up with first) Frosted Maxi-Wheats. Maybe I should be a comic. And just not sleep before I get to stage. So I'm HILARIOUS. Maybe not. I'm really not that funny.

Mmm, the week begins. And the weekend ends. Guess what I did this weekend! I did kung fu! Surprise! Yeah, I went to lion dance practice. I can jump fairly well, but for some reason, I get nervous jumping when I'm in the lion head. We have to do what's called a "stack", where the head jumps onto the tail, who sits in a horse stance. So I have to land one foot on his leg and stand tall. It's not easy, for either of us. I think I've left a few bruises on his leg.

Speaking of, I did leave bruises on the woman in class I trained with two weeks ago. We conditioned quite a bit. She had some nasty bruises all over her arms, although they weren't TOO bad. I think she's getting better, though.

I've been playing more guitar lately, too. I actually HAVE written some new songs. I just don't want to share them. Yet. Most of them are not full songs, just a couple of tracks, you know. And one of them is a SECRET song. I may reveal it to the public later. But that, I have no idea of knowing if I will or not. Yet.

Oh yeah, and a friend of mine has a new blog up, as well. Perhaps you should convince her to write more. Just like Seanicus needs to write more.

I've been hanging out with friends lately, friend from out of town home for school. It's been fun. Friends are fun! Courtney came by and gave me a Harry Connick Jr. CD, for when I'm feeling smooth and sultry. I gave her some peppermint swoops. They're good! And Sandra and I had a battle with Rummikub, and then some Scattergories. Now that just looks like a horror movie title. Scattergories 4: Now he's back with his weedwhacker AND circular saw, ready to scatter the matter! But no, it's just innocent fun. Or NOT so innocent, depending on what words come to mind when you're playing.

And I'm off to kung fu tonight. To get my exercise. I need to get in shape before March. GOOD shape. To be ready for China. So that means I should probably stop drinking soda after I finish off my current batch. And eating more Bill and Ruth's, and less pizza in general. Yeah, that'd be good.

You know what else is good? Random links! Here, let me lay one down on you. Some of you probably like Homestar Runner and his silly site. But if you aren't sure what some of it's about - maybe I can help you with some info.

- posted by Pootenheimer @ 3:24 PM | 2 comments

 
Happy New Year!
It's now 2005. It's a big number, yes. You'd think it'd be even bigger in Roman numerals. But no. It's just MMV. See, 1999 was so much bigger. MCMXCIX. Oh well, we must deal with it.

Top of the list! The major worldwide news. As of this blogging, the number is currently listed at over 140,000 dead. I personally find that insane, and am unable to fully comprehend the abundance of grief that must be associated with that number for people who have personal attachments. Right now, the US has donated $350 million (officially), and Japan has bumped their donation up to $500 million. We can beat that! Private donations, baby! Here, let me help, if you're not sure where to start. There's the American Red Cross (for credit cards, just go here and pick "International Response Fund"), the Mercy Corps, the Habitat for Humanity, Unicef, CARE, and others. But there's a start. Pick one! Pick many! A little from everybody adds up.

Anyway, now that the important stuff is out of the way, now I can talk about the non-important stuff. Like my new year! It wasn't too important at all. I spent it with the family, chillin', watching Leno, Letterman, and Conan. Conan had an interesting countdown (for the Central Time Zone, no less). Giant replicated heads of Oprah and Jim Belushi were put up, and for the countdown, approached each other for a massive tongue kiss. Sort of. It was slightly freaky, where the only reaction you can think of to have is to laugh. So yeah, technically it was funny. But I do like Conan, he's got some good stuff.

What else has been going on? Well, me and my sister went to exchange gifts. She traded her GBA copy of Metroid (excellent game, but she has differing tastes) for the Sims on the Nintendo DS. I think she's quite happy with it. I traded the phone she got me (after I got my other phone, which she did not know about until too late - land line, not cell) in for Band of Brothers. I put down a little bit more to get that, it's ten hours. But excellent. I've only watched the beginning of it, but it's a high quality reflection on WW2 and the impact it has on people's lives, in more of a personal way. It's not like Aliens, where the loss of a character like Private Drake doesn't affect you in any major way. Except to make Vasquez really pissed off.

And aside from that, hanging out with friends, keeping up with kung fu, and playing a bit here and there. Playing Metal Gear Solid 3. Oh, so good. I do really like it. Although I don't know that everyone would. The beauty of it is that you can approach it in a ton of different ways. Go gung-ho, pull out the AK and leave no flesh untouched by propelled spinning bits of metal, or go sneaky sneaky, tiptoe behind a guy to wrap your arm around his neck and make him tell you secrets before you slice his throat. OR just avoid enemies altogether. Throw a spent cartridge on the ground to make them say, "Huh?" and look over there while you walk by. Still being sneaky sneaky, though.

I think it's time to go watch some videos I borrowed from Fred. Fred's a big anime guy, and he's got me started on a little series called Naruto (check it out if you're curious - erm, for $3.50 a month). It starts kinda silly, but then gets into ninjas! Which are cool. And some more serious stuff, always throwing in the silly for a rest. Can't get TOO serious with ninjas. It's dangerous.

So! Time to random link. I've got a good one. Being a bit of a fan of games, sometimes the best ones go unnoticed. You should try out some of the better small games that are higher quality than many of the "blockbusters" other people play. Careful, though - you might actually like them.

- posted by Pootenheimer @ 6:56 PM | 2 comments