Archive for January, 2008

I took about a year and a half’s worth of muay thai classes at Knockout Fitness in San Diego. For me it was mostly about fitness and working out stress on the heavy bag. There were some typical gym goers there (not too fit, not too dedicated), but there were also some serious boxers and kickboxers training for competition. One boxer had the most amazing hand speed I’ve ever seen in person, and although he was maybe a welterweight, the sound he made hitting the bags was like a shotgun going off.

Several women at the club also had chops. Even though I had maybe 90 pounds on them, I am certain that several of them could have sent me home in a body bag if we ever sparred seriously.

Gina Carano, I am certain, could knock my head off. I will readily admit I’ve had a crush on Gina Carano since stumbling upon (and subsequently watching the last 4 episodes of) Fight Girls on the Oxygen channel. What can I say? She’s beautiful, athletic, and seems to have some serious fighting skills. You gotta respect that. And as long as my wife is cool with my innocent media-personality infatuation, then we’re good to go. Hey, she used to think MacGyver was cute, and he’s got a mullet.

Whoever decided to bring Ms. Carano into the American Gladiator fold made a brilliant marketing decision. With mixed martial arts (UFC-style fighting) growing enormously in popularity and ratings, the addition of MMA heartthrob Carano will undoubtedly draw at least a few more thousand eyes to the show, if only out of curiosity. American Gladiators is sneaking back onto the air in large part to the screen writer’s strike, and smart decisions like this just might keep it alive for longer than 3 episodes.

Follow this link to MMAjunkie.com to see Ms. Carano whomp her opponent into a Steve Young-style concussion. Her Gladiator name is, appropriately, “Crush”: “American Gladiators,” Gina Carano Make Strong Television Debut

It’s a very healthy exercise to figuratively put yourself in someone else’s shoes. Seeing the world from another perspective is one of the best ways to grow as an individual. Cathartic Relief brings us this little gem, which helps put things in a different light.

From We fight for freedom - or “What if someone else did it to us?”:

It’s been eight years now. Eight long years. Sure, initially I was glad when China toppled the Bush regime…

I can say with a high degree of certainty that I’m not the only American that’s doubting the altruistic motives of our country’s foray into Iraq. And I don’t believe this is our first exercise of this kind. Cathartic Relief’s post is a poignant, profound riff from the perspective of the invadee.

Story goes that Mark Twain once read his own obituary and stated, “The report of my death was an exaggeration.” (Although I like the bastardized quote in the title better…) Same can be said for paper books.

I remember several years ago article after article saying how paper would be rendered obsolete. Remember the paperless office? That was a joke. I worked for a client who once made me print out and file every email I had in my inbox and sent folder. Hilarious! However, I’ve heard from friends that they’ve had to do the exact same thing. I shake my head at such things but so it goes. Anyway, the same was said as online retailers, or eTailers (*snort chuckle* I love made up words), were heralding eBooks. Think of the fabulous things you can do with an eBook? You can read it on your PC, your Blackberry, PDA, your Dick Tracy Watch, the head of a digital pin…All in all it will kill the paper book.

Well it sure looks like paper books are doing fine thank you. Paper book retailers are struggling at the moment, as all retailers are, but they certainly haven’t gone away and the sales of eBooks, while not bad, have not overtaken or killed paper books by a long shot. Even books that should be purchased as eBooks - like O’Reilly books on coding and books about Usability - are better in paper.

So with that in mind, here are the 5 reasons I think eBooks suck:

5) Can’t lay in bed with an eBook.
Who wants to curl up with a cup of tea and your PDA or laptop? Ever tried scrolling or paging while laying on your stomach or side in bed? I’m getting a cramp thinking of it.

4) My eyes! My eyes!
Talk about a headache…staring at a tiny screen for hours at a time? Sheesh.

3) eBooks look terrible on a coffee table and are lousy coasters.
Think of all the things paper books do that aren’t about reading. They double as coasters for your drink, press flowers, look good on your bookshelf. Use my laptop as a coaster or to squash a bug and you will see me angry…you wouldn’t like me when I’m angry. It’s also hard to pick up someone’s PDA and look at the pictures of gardening while waiting for them to get out of the bathroom.

2) Paper books are status symbols, whether it’s read or not.
Laying about the house a book says “I am reading this and I’m important.” The cover alone says something about you and what you find important. Now I’ve never read a book by Lee Ioccoca but own one. I have lots of good sci-fi books on the shelf like Snow Crash, Hyperion, Ender’s Game and Neuromancer. (All of which you should now go get and read.) When you meet a new person and come to their house and they give you the dime tour, don’t you pause at the bookshelf? Seeing what they have there instantly connects you to something about the person. For instance, if they have Mein Kampf on there, you know to immediately “get a phone call from a dying relative” and “postpone” dinner - forever. But if they have books you’ve read or know, you can say “Hey did you like this?” and pull it off the shelf and hold it up and thumb thru it… Which brings me to…

1) Paper feels good.
Face it, paper is tactile and we like touching stuff and fidling with stuff. Holding a book, putting a book mark in the pages, creasing the binding, even smelling the ink. No matter what happens, there is comfort in touching stuff. We could probably manufacture some kind of Thinsulate body warmer made of a polymer, but would it replace Grandma’s knitted afghan? Same with paper books. It’s also terribly hard (and probably illegal) to file share an eBook. Not so with paper books. In fact, lending a book helps build that common bond important to any friendship.

Books are the comfort food of knowledge. And I don’t see that changing anytime soon.

I saw this post pop up on Digg: How To Actually Win A Fist Fight. This is a recurring theme I’ve seen on sites, YouTube videos and in men’s magazines.

…You are - at some point in your life - going to be called upon to defend yourself.

Now, I recall fights in grade school, high school, a few in college (during my state school experience, not where I graduated) and a doozie or two at the bars I’ve worked at in my twenties. Maybe I’m getting old and forgetful, but I don’t recall that many fights that the subject warrants this much attention. There were pushy-shoveys, yelling matches, and yes the occasional full-on throw-down, but not everyone was getting in fights. Or, at least, I wasn’t.

Sure, I had friction with a few people—there were stand-offs, words exchanged, etc—but I’ve never had to go toe-to-toe with someone. I played sports, I was relatively athletic, and I guess I was just big enough not to mess around with. I’ve been jumped outside of a frat house once. But really, through school, the bars I’ve worked at, the clubs I’ve gone to, the situations I’ve been in, there always seems to be a non-combat way out of things.

To some extent, I think your threshold of what you’re willing to take—the point in a situation where you say to yourself “I am going to punch this person” really dictates how often you’ll need to use your fists. If your threshold is very low, if you feel the need to assert yourself, or defend yourself, chances are you’re going to get in a fight, or find yourself throwing. If your threshold is high, situations that would cause others to take the gloves off are going to resolve themselves in non-violent ways.

Don’t get me wrong: I was a teenager. I had a temper. And I was coursing with more testosterone than a 12 foot bull shark. But in conflict situations I more or less never felt like it had to come to blows. I never saw that as a requisite solution. I think the main two factors for me were:

1. I was never the kid that got picked on. I also never was the bully that picked on the scrawny kid, either. While I’ve never experienced it (and have forgotten what it was like to see that in grade/high school) I guess this does happen. And if this is your reality, then I really feel for you brother.
2. I considered the implications of scrapping with someone. Sure, this guy’s got a problem with me or I’ve got a problem with him; adrenaline and impulse is telling you it’s time to smash someone. But what happens afterward? What happens if I hit this guy just right and put him in the hospital? Smash his orbital bone and disfigure his face forever? What if someone gets killed? Humans are tough, but don’t kid yourself: you can definitely get jacked up in a fight.

…there’s a very real part of fighting that you have to consider - what happens tomorrow. If you break someone’s neck and paralyze or kill them, you might be arrested or sued…

Exactly my sentiments. You’re fired up now, but the rush doesn’t last for that long. And the things you do on impulse could have major repercussions later.

Fighting in one form or another is a part of our (and every) culture. I would imagine it’s a universal human trait. In pop culture we have boxing, UFC, martial arts; it’s dramatized constantly on our television, in our movies, our books—everything. But not everyone’s a fighter. Not everyone’s threshold is at the point where they will turn from passivity to action. And maybe at some point a non-fighting person, for reasons outside of their control, really will have to defend themselves with violence. But not everyone.

I think the fixation that causes mainstream magazines and sites to discuss the right way to fight is based on the anxiety that one day we may have to turn from watcher to participant. But that’s all that it is: anxiety. Curiousity. Not inevitability.

Over the last several years amateur athletics has gotten a lot of attention, especially at the collegiate level. And the reason is exactly what you’d think: money. Like everything else, if it makes boat loads of money, everyone wants a piece of the action and everyone has an opinion on it, me included.

I was a collegiate swimmer in the late 1980s at a Big Ten school. I loved it. Swam all four years on a partial scholarship, lettered all of them. It was like a job – 5 hours a day every day. I travelled with the team, had to work in classes and studies around practice time and meets. It was hectic but a fantastic experience – one I’ll always be proud of and remember. However, collegiate swimming makes very little money and man is it expensive to operate. Sure we had a few people come and watch the meets, pay a ticket fee of a few dollars. When we travelled for training or meets, we’d have fund raisers to help defer the costs, beg from alumni etc. But in general, pools are big time money to operate and my University has two worthy of Olympic competition – they’ve hosted many Olympic qualifying meets. They also have several other pools, both indoor and out.  It’s really a status symbol to have so many and of such high quality. We also have excellent weight rooms and other state of the art facilities to maximize our techniques. All in all, we had it good. And my school is not alone.

I owe my whole collegiate athletic experience to football and basketball.

10s of thousands of people came to see our basketball and football teams. They went to bowls and the NCAA Tourney. I don’t know the money they gave our school for that, but I’m sure it’s gobs. And my sport wasn’t the only one. Pretty much any other sport uses football and basketball money. Gymnastics, baseball, soccer, volleyball, track…you name it. And not just scholarshiped sports either, club sports too. I was on the water polo team too, and it got some small amount as a club sport. Basically, without these two big time money making sports, universities could not support modern sporting. And that’s not fair is it?

I’m torn as the football players I knew did not care that much about such things. It just never came up and they liked their friends in other sports. Would even come and watch sometimes. But now? Now Universities are selling jerseys with the student athlete’s name on it. Marketing the individual. Reports are that Tim Tebow’s jersey alone netted Florida 6 million dollars just last year. He gets none of it. Now Tim is going to make a mint one day - so he’ll probably be ok. But without HIM, the University does not get that 6 million.

Here’s the other thing. Tim can’t even have a REAL job. Nope. Not allowed under NCAA rules. I had to keep my lifeguarding job over the summer a secret. Friends worked at BW3s and what not but if they had been found out, they’d have been reprimanded or kicked off the team. And I only had a partial scholarship. So where was that money going to come from without work? Now Tim likely has a full ride, so he’s not in the same boat, but is that fair compensation? It really doesn’t seem so. Seems to me the NCAA and Universities are having it both ways and it’s not right.

In the same breath, I’d hate for the small, non-revenue sports like mine to go away. I do think the smaller sports provide alot of value that makes the whole Univeristy experience better for all, including football and basketball players. Keep in mind, even in football and basketball, not everyone is Tim Tebow or JaMarcus Russell, so they benefit by getting a good education in a good environment like every other schlub.

I’m not sure what the answer is. Maybe a percentage of funds a player makes on jersey sales goes into a fund he can get after college? Or a stipend? I bet some enterprising young lawyer will file a creative lawsuit one day and let us all know…