Training
The clearing was still, only a light wind darted through the leaves and branches on its way to no where in particular. The quiet rustle rose and fell as the swirls and eddies passed. The noise seemed to resonate, drowning out any other that might try to intrude. In the moonlight the worn grass, disturbed by the same wind, moved as in a silent macabre dance. Focus is the key. The reality of the world melts away before it — focus is the key. Every branch now moves predictably as if the wind was a ghostly hand now visible going about its business.
A slash of wind cut down into the clearing and it was as if it was anticipated. Focus. The surrounding trees quieted but suddenly from the undergrowth sprang a squirrel. Across the clearing it scampered disappearing out of sight on the other side. Instantly the clearing came alive, first with the sound of the grass, second the resounding choir of crickets and grasshoppers, and finally with a deafening roar the rest of the forest ambiance. Focus was lost.
A sword hung as his side looking almost awkward but somehow at home. The hilt and sheath were made of a light bamboo and looked to be of low skilled construction. As the sword drew slowly forth the age of it was evident as it was covered with nicks and scratches from long use. The blade was well cared for, it was clear that a season had never passes without a polish. Rich swordsman of the cities would certainly jeer and call it a farmers tool but those in the country saw the truth, it is a farmers weapon.
Every night he came to this clearing, standing at the epicenter and focusing his mind. Never had he made such progress as tonight. Focus is the key.
He began the forms attempting to focus on his movements. The sword moved through the air as he worked it from position to position. The fact that he was untrained was clearly evident as the strokes did not flow like water rather like rocks in a landslide. He put in his all, using his power as he thought he must but control would not fully come. Focus seemed to help a bit but it appeared not to be the solution. Eventually he would come to understand but that is the nature of training. We train today to allow for learning tomorrow.
Recession on the horizon?
The Internet abounds with information about the United States of America since the US contains the largest portion of its population. Most of the news sites that I read (primarily Reddit and Digg) talk of American politics and not much else.
Over the last year or so focus has turned to the coming election and the failures of the Bush administration. Every other story is about a new Bush policy or the Iraq war or political candidates for the next term, etc. It is very frustrating to read since as a Canadian it affects me indirectly but I have no voice. We Canadians don’t have the same mind set as sub-border-eans so it is obvious how I feel about the US currently. “Stop the War”, “Impeach Bush”, “Stop the corporate bailouts”, “Separate religion and State”, etc. These issues are all easy to pick a side and yell about. The big problem is that it doesn’t really matter since their economy is about to collapse and take many countries, including our own, down with it.
I don’t want to live through a recession as bad as the Great Depression but inevitably we are heading in that direction. Our economy is so tied to that of the US that a blip across the border ripples out and affects us quite strongly. I don’t know very much about why this is but I assume it has to do with trade and our fiscal policies. We sell a lot of wood and uranium to the US and import a lot of corn based products and manufactured goods. Our banks follow the lead of those in the US pretty closely since it is practically required of us.
2008 will be a telling year in terms of our fate. The housing bubble in the US has recently popped so the markets and the government are scrambling to figure out what to do. The issue is that people who shouldn’t have been able to buy homes were given sub-prime mortgages for huge amounts of money that their income could never support. The trick was to give them low payments for the first couple years and tell them not to worry until it goes up in the future. I can imagine most people expected the American dream to kick in for them, at least doubling their income. Of course the lenders who sell these mortgages then turn around and sell the debt to the banks with the backing being the house. Banks in turn flood the markets with securities backed by sub-prime mortgages which are bought up by other banks and investment firms. All seems well until somebody realizes that the house backing the mortgage really isn’t worth $400,000 and is only priced that high because of the housing bubble. Suddenly the developers and the current “owners” who are trying to sell are stuck with houses that will never sell for the price they are asking. Housing prices, as a result, start to come back down to reality which in some markets is about 33% of their price. What usually happens now is people start defaulting on their mortgages since they can’t sell the places or afford to pay for them. Quickly the market would come back to the correct housing value and lots of people would be out lots of money especially the sub-prime lenders and the banks who bought their debt. [The Dangerous Disconnect Between Home Prices and Fundamentals]
At the moment the Bush administration is about to enact a policy that would help people who can’t afford their house to not default on their mortgage. This is not technically a corporate bailout of the lenders but is only one step removed. If money is injected so that people can pay the lenders then the lenders will not go bankrupt and are bailed out. This very policy sent Japan into a recession that has taken around ten years to recover from. [Bush Moves to Aid Lenders] On a second front the Federal Reserve bank is injecting mountains of cash into the economy to keep it liquid so it will keep on working. With all the sub-prime mortgage debt floating around the market, banks and other investors are slowing down and being very careful which in turn shrinks the economy. [Fed Injects Reserves Into System] However, injecting money isn’t the miracle that it seems to be since essentially the government is reaching into everyones pocket collectively and taking out a portion of their cash. Injecting money makes the US dollar worth less and so each dollar in your pocket can buy less goods. This is called an invisible tax since you pay it but don’t realize it and is present in all economies the world over. [Why does fiat money seemingly work ?]
All in all it is shaping up to be scary times ahead. The US dollar has already dropped to almost par with the Canadian dollar (1USD = 0.95CDN, Sept 06, 2007). Foreign countries are dropping use of the US dollar as payment (can’t find the articles for this). China is rattling the American cage with its substantial supply of US dollars; they threaten to collapse the value of the dollar. The wars continue. Domestic terror is being perpetrated on the people by their own government (too many links to choose from).
An election is on the horizon and the only candidate that I seem to hear about is Ron Paul. He seems to have the backing of the Internet and it isn’t surprising why. Check out this video of him answering questions at Google (long). It gives me hope since he addresses the issue I talk about here at around 23 minutes in. Ron Paul would have my vote and I hope who ever actually wins will hold some of the same values and can rescue the American economy from collapse.
All joking aside what good are pennies!? Very few people use them these days and I have it on good authority that only old people dig through their change purse for them. The rest of us pay with a sufficient bill and dump the resulting metal into a bin at home. I, personally, don’t even bother carrying cash anymore, Interact all the way.
Recently an advisory group suggested to the Canadian government to demonetize the penny and then shortly after the nickel. Immediately you wonder how a transaction would be completed that came to an unpayable amount. Other countries use a system called Swedish rounding which is a symmetrical system of rounding to the nearest available currency amount. It would be hard for merchants to fix the system always in their favor because the purchase of multiple items would come to an unpredictable value. I think it is a very good idea and would save the country millions of dollars in minting.
Take a look at the article yourself and let me know if you agree it is a good idea.
That’s right chumps!!!
Futurama is coming back in 2008 on Comedy Central!!
I’m among many fans who couldn’t believe it was canceled in the first place. I just hope it doesn’t go the way of The Simpsons or the new Family Guy episodes.
Squash Tournament Results
The first weekend in July the University of Waterloo held a squash tournament that I participated in. It was great fun and I’ll definitely be signing up again in future terms.
The tournament was sponsored by Black Knight squash who allowed the participants to test out a variety of racquets during their matches. I tested the Magnum M140 and the C2C Red models (C2C Red isn’t listed on their website since it is so new). I enjoyed the C2C Red very much and played two matches with it. The Magnum has a very large head which I found a bit awkward to play with but is great for beginners since it has a very large sweet spot. Both racquets are way out of my price range though at around two hundred each.
In my first game I played a guy named Andrew and won: 9-5 6-9 7-9. It was a good match and a great start to the day. He was quite quick and was able to get to many shots I didn’t expect him to however he didn’t make very many winner shots and won a lot of points through my unforced errors.
My second game was against a guy named Wenjin who was a very strong intermediate player. I lost the match but maintain that it would have been a lot closer if my endurance was better: 7-9 10-8 9-4. He was also very fast and was able to make some great winner shots. Early in the last game we had a long rally which pushed me over the edge into exhaustion. I had nothing left and everything I was able to run down I put into the tin.
The last game of the day was against Walid who is new to the intermediate division so I won: 6-9 1-9 7-9. The last match was a best of five where the previous games were best of three. Winning this match put me in third place overall which I was pretty happy about. Wenjin came in second and another guy I didn’t play was first.
After testing out a racquet players filled out a survey and were then entered in a draw for a new racquet. At the end of the day Walid won the racquet which I figure was worth around eighty to one hundred dollars. I was a bit jealous since I badly needed that new racquet as anyone who has seen my current racquet can attest to. Since the tournament I’ve purchased a new Dunlop racquet which I love, expect a post with some pictures soon.
Next term I am going to be participating in the squash league at the intermediate level with that hope that by the winter term I can move up to advanced. I really need to work on my finesse game as that is where I am currently lacking. See you on the courts.
Managing Expectations
I just finished reading an article about the declining sales woes of the recording industry. It occurred to me that the RIAA and the major labels need to start managing their expectations.
The term “managing expectations” may be familiar to some but is probably not generally known. It is a common marketing term that refers to the practice of making sure the clients expectations for a product meet the reality of what can be provided so that there isn’t wide spread disappointment. As an example let’s take a group of people attending a conference. The conference provides several events that people can participate in which run the gamut from boring to extremely fun. Unfortunately not everyone can attend the fun event since there are not enough slots, in fact let’s say only around ten percent will be able to attend. The conference must now manage the expectations of the people by only hyping the average events so that only the people in boring events will complain rather than everyone not in the fun event.
For years the recording industry had brought in record breaking sales every year. The popularity of physical media was so high that it allowed them to go through two standards changes without losing ground; from records to tapes and from tapes to CDs. If the recording industry tried another change at this point it would almost be guaranteed an abysmal failure. The introduction of CDs was an incredible success due to their low cost production and high initial price point they made a great deal more profit per sale than ever before. Over the years the price per CD really hasn’t gone down and the profit expectations of the industry have become wildly inflated. Some would call the pricing collusion and extortion by the RIAA but the argument doesn’t really matter any more. Today the demand for physical media has severely declined leading to a sharp drop in profits. Everyone agrees that the reason is the Internet but very few people agree on the specifics whether piracy, iTunes, radio, etc.
It is not surprising, given the hit that profits have taken, that the RIAA is striking out to try to increase revenue from other aspects of its business. Recently they pushed for a extremely large increase in the royalties that Internet radio stations need to pay to play music. Unfortunately the planned increase is based on greed and is more likely to have an opposite effect on royalty profits. Most radio stations will immediately close their doors since they could not hope to be able to pay without going bankrupt. In protest, Internet radio stations went dark today showing solidarity on the issue. Given the power the RIAA has in the American political system the protest will likely fall on deaf ears but here is hoping.
I learned something about business when I was younger that I will never forget. “In a finite universe an economic model based on constant growth doesn’t make sense”. Yes it is a quote — by who you ask? David Suzuki. All business can only grow finitely before slowing and eventually contracting. There are of course various reasons for this but it is absolutely true; no exceptions. In the last few years the recording industry has seen its core business contract and the trend will continue. It is time for them to realize that physical media will only generate less and less profit and adapt by managing their expectations. The only problem is that it is almost impossible to manage your own expectations, especially for a corporation. I foresee a crash in their future and I can only hope that music as a whole will not suffer.
What happened to Michael Bay?
Hollywood is a tricky place to be an artist. You can be the most talented actor/director/whatever but as soon as you make it, there is so much money and so many “yes” men that it becomes hard to pick the right project and put your integrity into it. Hollywood has turned the tide on itself causing the general public to look upon big budget high production value movies as almost guaranteed failures. *cough* Transformers *cough*. It seems that the more advertising you seen on TV the more certain you can be that a movie is terrible — e.g. Ghost Rider, Catch and Release, and Premonition.
If you will allow me, I’ll throw out a few director examples for your edification.
Kevin Smith
Kevin, born and raised in New Jersey, brought us great movies such as Clerks and Mall Rats. Each movie explored the angst of New Jersey youth using fantastic — now cult classic — characters, comic books, and great comedic timing. I’m sure a lot of people don’t like his work but a lot of people do and that is the important part.
These days Kevin is entangled in the Hollywood machine and is treading a dangerous path. Clerks 2, his latest big movie certainly has a higher production value but has none of the raw edge that made the original great. It became a vehicle for shock based comedy which really didn’t take the viewer anywhere substantial. Kevin also acts and was one of the only decent parts of Catch and Release — the most recent Jennifer Garner flop — with his goofy portrayal of a grieving friend. This movie seems to have been destroyed in the editing room so I can’t fault his choice but it worries me for his future none the less.
Robert Rodriguez
I had already seen Desperado and picked up El Mariachi expressly because it was by the same, relatively unknown, director. The fact that it is a Mexican subtitled movie didn’t hurt either especially when I heard it was filmed in two weeks for only $7000 USD. Of course the movie is brilliant which is why Quintin Tarentino sought him out to partner on the sequel and a few others since.
I was extremely excited when Once Upon a Time in Mexico was announced, partly due to the title — a play on the title of a set of great Jet Li movies — but mostly because it was a sequel to Desperado. Unfortunately it was not to be, between the terribly muddled plot and the so-so performances of the cast this movie was not what it could have been.
Another strike for Robert is the Spy Kids sequels. I loved the original, let’s leave it at that. Thankfully, Sin City was an amazing return to form with well chosen, well directed actors — you can’t beat Mickey Rourke as Marv, ever, no way, no how, and I could rant off on that topic for an entire post. But I have to worry about Sin City 2 and 3 which IMDB says are in the works.
Quintin Tarentino
Let us run the list: Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, Jackie Brown, and Kill Bill Vol. 1. Pulp Fiction is among my favorite movies of all time since the first time I heard the line: “Any of you fuckin’ pricks move and I’ll execute every motherfucking last one of you.” Tim Roth is great and don’t you forget it — Yes, I know that isn’t his line I’m just saying he is great. Also, even though it isn’t a movie, it is worth noting that Quintin’s CSI episode is absolutely breathtaking to watch.
Kill Bill Vol. 1 was a tour-de-force for both Uma and Quintin each proving their mettle in their respective fields. When O-Ren Ishii’s back story was introduced via an Anime sequence I knew I was watching a master at work. My excitement for Kill Bill Vol. 2 was as palpable as it was for Once Upon a Time in Mexico but again I was disappointed. The only enjoyment I took from the movie was the short scene between Beatrix and Bill where he talked about Superman’s secret identity. Even Tarentino’s signature music choices — another subject for an entire blog post — failed to add any flavor to this bland film.
Michael Bay
Pre-Pearl Harbour I would pay good money to go see a Michael Bay movie and I did. I own all the greats on DVD including Bad Boys, The Rock, and Armageddon. Post-Pearl Harbour this guy can’t do anything right. The budgets he commands for his movies guarantee that there will be way too many ridiculous special effects with very little attention paid to the plot or the actors performances. I was especially frustrated with Bad Boys 2 due to my love of the original. When cars started rolling and nearly missing the stars they lost my interest. Oh ya and did I mention that cadavers a plenty were flying about and being run over?
I’ve yet to see Transformers but based on the marketing machine thus far I predict that it will seriously suck. They even went so far as to get MTV to give them an award the other night under the guise of a new category: “The best movie of the summer you haven’t seen yet”. It is such transparent marketing that MTV is lucky the majority of their viewer base hasn’t hit puberty yet.
This post has become exceeding long so in hind sight I am sorry for the wall-o-text. I hope that you will discuss directors, actors or movies that you’re disappointed with. I could write an entire post on how pissed I was over The Matrix sequels but I probably won’t since V for Vendetta was so awesome. Thanks for listening! End rant.
Damn, that guy can Robot!
Sara and I are hooked on the show So you think you can dance? which airs on Fox Wednesday and Thursday nights through the summer. Season 2 was syndicated relentlessly on a few channels so we caught most of the episodes. We even sat through the marathon last weekend that covered the auditions and top 20 parts of the show. It is extremely impressive to me how the participants learn a routine in a week in a host of different dance styles. During the audition phase I am constantly impressed by some of the amazing dancers out there. I love to see the breakers, poppers and other unorthodox styles take over the stage for a minute.
This past Thursday’s episode had the auditions running in Atlanta, Georgia and was quite good. For me the ultimate highlight was Bryan Gaynor a 20 year old student who does the best Robot I’ve ever seen.
I love when the music picks up and he is right along with it hitting the beat with his moves. I normally don’t like Christina Aguilera but from now on I think that song will stick with me.
Next week is the Vegas phase of the show and should be interesting. I can’t wait to see if some of the underdogs I was rooting for during auditions will make it to the Top 20. Go ex-football playing ballerina whose dad doesn’t understand him! (Had to see it I guess).
Expansion of exercise activities
A tip of the hat to Sergey who pointed out the irony in my last post before this latest hiatus being about procrastination. I’ve been working on some freelance projects and exercising occasionally which has used up most of my motivation of late. My process for writing this blog runs like this:
- find random interesting topic serendipitously (generally while away from a computer)
- think over the idea to expand it and test its viability for becoming a post
- sit at the computer and turn idea to prose (if I do say so myself; god the ego)
- relentlessly edit content for form and style
- post
So as you can see there are a number of weak links in the chain that delay blogging despite my best intentions. Thankfully with work and exercise the chain is shorter: find time, do it. I’ve mentioned before that I started playing hockey again. Our winter season is now over and we have to wait a month or so before the summer season kicks off. We ended up doing quite well in league play, finishing fifth out of around thirty teams. Unfortunately, we were put out first round in the playoffs by a team that had a fair number of extremely strong players. We played well, kept ourselves in it and I was proud of our effort.
This season of hockey has shown me two truths about myself. The first is that I am badly out of shape when it comes to short burst stamina. This problem essentially puts me out of the game after the first period. I am trying to work on it by doing sprints in a nearby field but getting myself out of the house is problematic. The second truth is that my hockey skills are very rusty. I am currently playing defense which I was quite good at in high school about ten years ago. Time has taken its toll and my skills are all equally weakened from stick handling to skating and from heads up play to knowing my position. Campus Recreation is offering a hockey skills course this summer and I am planning on taking it. The first course is focused on individual skills and the second (running in the fall) will focus on team skills. I am planning on taking both and hopefully will bring my play up so as to not let my team down in the seasons to come.
The title of this post mentioned an expansion of activities and I will get to that presently. I’ve covered the topic of Parkour several times on this blog and now that it is summer again I will be joining my friends in and around campus once more. However, squash is actually the latest thing that I wanted to mention. A few weeks back a friend lost his partner to an ankle injury which he happened to bring up one day to me. I used to play a bit at Brock but hadn’t in quite a while — even though I have my own racquet and balls — so I offered to partner with him until his regular guy healed. I love squash, so once I started again it was all over. I was recounting how much I love squash at the office and found two more partners. Sergey who I’ve now played five or six times and Mike Iley who I’ll be playing for the first time next week.
This summer is shaping up to be a very active one. I am hopeful that this will be what I need to push my weight loss past its current stall and take me down to my target of two-hundred pounds. What are your summer exercise plans?
I’m pretty sure I’ve mentioned it before but I have a moderate tendency toward procrastination. It is worse for some things than others but you can hardly blame me for wanting to put off vacuuming or doing the dishes. When it comes to work, and those things like it (exercise), I am not quite so bad but still not great. I often struggle to find motivation for that which needs to get done but am usually able to scrape together a few ounces. Some weeks, for one reason or another, the tendency is much stronger and I find myself in front of a television. One constant is that external sources will occasionally motivate me to act and even to pledge a change to my lazy ways. Tonight, a book I was reading did just that when I came across an essay which contained a quote that resonated with me…
Do not squander time, for that’s the stuff life is made of; how much more than is necessary do we spend in sleep, forgetting that the sleeping fox catches no poultry, and that there will be sleeping enough in the grave.
– Benjamin Franklin, The Way to Wealth
It is certainly an odd quote which likely made a lot more sense when it was written. I assume the fox reference speaks to the background of Franklin but I admit that I only know as much as was detailed by the kid in Big Daddy
If it was as easy as that we would all be in perfect shape due to our new years resolution. In fact, after a few years we would run out of stuff to resolve to do over the course of a year. It would probably run something like this: lose weight, read more books, learn martial arts, learn to cook, lose weight, learn to cook healthy, learn piano, write a book, make a million dollars, ?. At the end you are essentially Batman and just need to figure out a costume. But the moments of motivation pass, and quickly, so you do what you can and wait for the next wave.
Another great source of inspiration are movies, particularly those with a self-building plot line. A good example of this is during Batman Begins
