So, long time no blog. No real excuse; I've been busy running the Diablo 3 site, making a lot of forum posts, writing the wiki, setting up the columnists and editing their submissions, and working on a detective novel I'm writing with my dad. I have been doing a fair amount of blog-style writing, but it's been via email for an audience of one, since the I.G. has been out of town on her summer project for 2 months, and with not much else do to at night, and in need of distraction from the papers she had to write to earn credit for her ordeal, she's been quite finger (and voice) chatty.
None of that excuses me from at least managing semi-frequent updates here, though. Oh well, if you want a refund, I'll send it right over.
It's lame to, since I've had a lot of interesting stuff to blog about. And I've got a bunch of reviews to post; I have read a few of the literary classics I threatened to read when the summer began, and they're quite ripe for discussion. I wrote notes for them and squeezed them into my ratings matrix, so at some point I'll flesh them out and post them. Today though, I'm just going to throw up a few tidbits about this and that.
The Olympics have begun, and while I've not had TV since last fall (I have TV, but don't want cable and don't care enough to buy an antenna, so it's just a DVD-watching device), I've seen some of the coverage online. NBC actually has a really good online option. A great option really, one that's considerably better than watching them on TV. You can see almost every event live, without any announcers or commercials. And you can see almost every past event in its entirety, also without announcers or commercials.
To watch, go to the
NBC Olympics video page, and just click on anything. You get a pop up window with a good sized video screen, and navigation that lets you select every event in the Olympics. Each event then has dozens of videos to view, far more than you'd ever see on TV. You'll want to fast forward liberally though, since it's just a straight satellite feed and between events you get 10 minutes of random shots of the crowd, of referees talking with their heads close together, of workers rearranging the equipment, etc. It's just like being in Beijing yourself! Minus the smog and occasional deranged, homicidal, suicidal, knife-wielding locals.
I watched a variety of events; basketball, swimming, the opening ceremonies replay (shut up Bob Costas), and the ones I actually wanted to see; fencing and Taekwondo. The fencing is ridiculous; there's no vestige of actual sword play in the sport. Saber is the worst of the 3 forms, since everything above the waist is a scoring zone, and since they're pretending the electrified car antennas they're using for "weapons" are cutting blades, any sort of contact scores. The sport breaks down to a lot of twitching and pacing, until both guys (or girls) lunge and whoever hits the other a millisecond before they are stabbed themselves, wins.
Some of the female foil fencing was better, since the foil only counts if you get a stab, so there's some defense and blocking in close. A few times both women would end up face to face, trying to poke each other with weird "elbow bent by their ear" moves, like a pool player trying to hit straight down on a cue ball against the rail. Which is, of course, ridiculous in any form of actual combat, but at least it was entertaining on TV. Computer.
Unlike the TKD, which, under the Olympic scoring rules, was outright farcical. No pushing, no punching, no grappling, etc. Just kicking. Hitting the huge chest pad is worth 1 point, and hitting the helmet is worth 2 points. The arms do nothing in the sport, and the less skilled combatants often ended up basically
sumo suit wrestling (minus the laughs and dog piling when someone fell), while trying to do these absurd little half hopping kicks to the side, in hopes that they might graze the life vest-style chest padding.
Nutshell version: Olympic TKD is to actual martial arts as Olympic fencing is to an actual sword fight as
Tyra Banks wandering around LA in old clothes with a camera crew is to actually being homeless.
I wonder why, though? They have real boxing in the Olympics, after all. True, they wear very padded gloves and headgear, and the fights are only a few rounds so the endurance and strategy of real boxing isn't a big factor, but there's actual hitting and occasional knockouts. They don't stand 10 feet apart and wear space suits and sensor-equipped gloves, and engage in some fist-based version of TKD/fencing, where the goal is just to touch your opponent in a scoring zone an instant before they touch you. You try that hopping, touching-for-a-score bullshit in boxing, you get laid out, since it's actual combat, and power and accuracy and impact matters. Which makes me wonder how Olympic TKD and Judo and fencing have become such effete, reality-divorced displays, when they all started out as actual forms of combat? Dunno, but it's sad, and a somewhat painful viewing experience.
I've got a lot less to say about this, but
I highly recommend reading it. It's a nicely-detailed, inside-researched article about how Hillary Clinton achieved such an epic fail in the Democratic primaries. She came in almost as the presumptive nominee, with all the name recognition, all the money, all the media coverage, the ex-president husband, etc. And through poor planning, lack of strategy, constant adviser in-fighting, and just general incompetence, she let Obama snatch the pony out from beneath her.
I read political blogs every day, but I hadn't followed the gruesome details of the campaigns all that closely, so it was great to read such a well-researched article that could effectively summarize six months of conflict in 5 short pages.
Finally, I saw
these pics today, while doing the first gossip blog surfing I'd done in at least a week. (I was too tired after a long bike ride to do anything but slouch at the computer and move my mouse hand.) They're shots of the Jonas Brothers (who are apparently famous, in a boy band sort of way. I've no idea where they came from, but I'd assume some Disney show.) at an Mtv show, and the teenaged girls sitting near them going completely out of their minds. Turning red, sobbing, shaking hysterically, etc.
This is not a new phenomena, of course. It's been epidemic since at least Beetlemania and Elvismania, but it's not one I understand. Leaving aside the cheap joke material of comparing the flavor-of-the-week teenie-bopper Jonas Brothers to the Fab Four, what is it in adolescent girls that causes this sort of behavior?
It seems to be age or maturity-related; younger girls get squealy and hyper, and adult women might salivate, but they don't turn red and faint. It's some combination of post-puberty hormones, repressed sexual energy, Prince Charming fantasies, and some other things I don't know about and probably never will, having grown up with entirely different plumbing and psychology.
Labels: martial arts, politics, psychology, sports
