mr t. conquers cancer - to appear in rocky VI

funniest thing i read all day:

"In 1995, Mr. T was diagnosed with B-cell lymphoma but he pitied his own fool cells until the disease turned into T-cell lymphoma. Upon closer inspection by doctors, the cancerous T-cells now had mohawks, gold chains around their nucleus and were tired of the other cell's jibba-jabba."

more

paris then and now

this guy retraced the footsteps of a famous turn of the century photographer and made side by side comparisons of paris from 1900ish and 1996ish. looks like it's one city that hasn't changed a ton.

paris then and now

fall disc golf photos

the very first picture I took after saving that disposable camera and WOW. best photo i've taken in a long time! This was at Justin Trails resort in Sparta WI, way west towards LaCrosse. hole two, i think. right after taking this, i threw a foot from the basket.


that corn is TALL, ate my damn wraith.




if you click for a bigger ver, you can spy the basket just left of the broken tree. you tee off from behind this, where the photo point becomes a hill blocking your view of the tree below.


the same basket viewed closer


Pettibone park, getting darker, you can see a riverboat through the basket


between LaCrosse and Madison, Krouskop park has some wooden holes.


...and some tough putts...


Krape in Freeport IL is one of the prettier courses. this looks like a well-used riverside rest--its' ceiling black from smoke.


Matt tosses a few into the drink


this was taken from the passenger seat of a car, with water on the other side too ^^ it's man-made, and the course passes you by the top too. sculpted 1800s era park.


yulga's the best totally-flat course i can think of. usually i hate em flat.


hyzer or anhyzer? decisions decisions


look close and you can see the hole far through underneath the leaning tree. pic taken from a hazard to the left and ahead of the tee.


my personal vote for prettiest hole in WI: standing rocks #1. though here it's getting a little dark. ths is the one i was expecting to be the best photo. it's ok--doesn't convey that downhill depth. just an awesome downhill S through the trees. taken standing at the end of the am tee.


i'll mention again my webpage for diving directions to courses nationwide:
Google Maps Disc Golf Courses

two topics: on post-wwII german culpability and the anime 'elfen leid'

get ready, this is going to have an odd transition between subjects.



exerpts from a conversation

auspice's original point:

This has been a serious topic among my friends lately. If you're going to respond, READ THE ENTIRE GOD DAMN THING FIRST!

I am not a Holocost denier. I don't like Hitler at all. But let's take the actual Germans who were in the NAZI armies.

After WWI, the rest of Europe fucked Germany hardcore in the hopes that they could never ever get any stonger. WWI was just a confusing mass of death over ally treaties, nobody was really a hero in that war. All of Europe was shitty.

Now let's say you're a starving German man. Suddenly a man rises up and gives you hope and FEEDS YOUR DAMN FAMILY! You turn your back at relocating the Jews because "Hitler IS making things better."

(Keep in mind that the German people just thought the Jews were "elsewhere." Only a handful of people actually knew of the horrors they were put through.)

Then this man who has earned your loyalty says "We need to stop the evil dictator that is opressing our fellow Germanic people!" How is going after Stalin a bad thing?

This occured to me after listening to a woman who was one of the children freed from Stalin by the NAZI army. She says she'll never forget how they marched in and liberated everyone, and showed compassion towards her and her family. They will always be heroes to her.

MY POINT: The crime of the German people was NOT that they were mean-- they didn't question their authority. They gave Hitler the benifit of the doubt because of the good things he DID do. This is important to study because of modern comments like "We should trust the President in times of war."

As a side note: The JAPANESE armies in WWII were evil. The soldiers were the ones commiting the atrocities.

my response:

much as is useful to separate the church from its' religion when discussing such, i beleive your points are inherently muddled because you only partially separated the nazi leadership from their citizens.

as goering so chillingly said, "Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger." which, as you know, has parallels even to today. (fairly depressing when viewed that way huh? to make a quick aside and lighten that view, such was even MORE true when machiavelli or sun tzu wrote, but it while still true today, is less so. as the masses become more educated and experienced in the lowest-common-denominator, the problem lessens. I agree with your conclusion, a critical populace is THAT important.)

atrocities were committed on nearly every side. some were sanctioned at the highest levels. some were defacto-sanctioned by creating a culture of hate towards whatever enemy. some were just individual sickos using the situation to justify their sickness. the level of committment that the japanese soldier brought to war with their concept of honor was EASILY seen as evil to americans. women and children, jumping off cliffs, was often their own decision (but don't forget--they were grossly misinformed about what the americans would do to them upon capture)

so where's the responsibility? naturally the leaderships are easy to point the finger at, but do we give "the masses" a blank check for atrocities so long as someone else is convincing them? hitler likely never got the chance to turn on a gas chamber personally. and anyone who's organized anything simply can't look at the activities that went on as less than thought-out.

fact of the matter is, millions of individual decisions were made by millions of people to do these things. some were misled, some were misleading, some acted on hate and some on compassion. THE single most important aspect about wars to me is that they mean SO many different things and SO much to SO many people. trying to simplify them to a single purpose is a completely wrong approach from my view.

maxx asked:

Is there a right one? (is it still simple?)

and i replied:

yes and no. flawed question.

there are degrees of correctness, and varying breadths of consideration in peoples' views. correct isn't the greatest word though, because there are both immutable truths (ala, joe shot phil) and there are opinions (phil deserved it), and any discussion of correctness tends to muddle the two.

the 5 year old girl who saw the nazis as liberators from stalin.. her opinion is equal to the 5 year old jewish girl who saw them as a nightmare.. based not at all on validity, but based sheerly on the impact that impression will have the rest of their lives. both impressions manifest themselves in the way they live their lives and teach their children years afterwards. wars are far more than commanders shifting imaginary lines; they are cultural events even more so.

continuing a new post on the prior subjects:

the psychology behind what allows people to rationalize such attrocities is... to say the least.. a difficult subject to comprehend


nana's everyday life (pretty damn sickie)

and it was this interesting little cartoon that led me to 'elfen leid'. the above is a fancomic based on it. i checked out all 13 and the OVA. i must be getting old, because i can tell i would have loved it 10 years ago. to me, it's pretty recycled stuff: the main character's looks, background, and personality are 95% shampoo from ranma. the rest is half fanservice and half the romanti-victimization-crap the gothies should just eat up. ahwell, at least the jap victimization complex usually presumes a happy ending, if not just bittersweet. overall i felt guilty to enjoy it when i did (not for it's violence or sexuality, but for the teenage-reading-level it's accomplished at) and i can DEFINETLY NOT see even discussing this one amidst non-otakus. the fanstrips above turned out to be the more interesting part. er, despite knocking the reading-level, i guess i should still give it points for trying harder than american material aimed at teens.

new photos: apartment & new computer

so i've had a camera in my fridge since september, the new computer a little later on, but i needed an excuse for the rest of the pictures. i got it during the last few weeks of frisbee golfing and let me tell you, they are totally unexpectadly some BOMB ASS photos. but i wanna take the time to label & rescan them. a few more days.

in the meantime, check the photos of the computer & apartment!


my HDTV is the computer's monitor too, w/ wireless keyboard & mouse. scanner/printer on the table, dreamcast, saturn, and xbox below.


the guts:
asus p5wd2 premium motherboard
p4 3.0ghz overclocked to 3.7 (upgradeable to 4.7 dualcore & higher)
2 x 1g corsair ddr2-pc6400 coupled & overclocked
asus geforce7800GTX-256mb pci express (could run in SLI if i get another)
-dual DVI out--my monitor's my 46" DLP-HDTV (wireless keyboard & gyromouse)
-combined with the audio card, inputs to capture & encode video
koolance pc3-725 case (modified lian-li)
water cooling on cpu, chipset, graphics card, and 2 harddrives
plextor dual-layer dvd+-rw drive (ready to burn xbox360 games)
TWO hitachi 500gb SATA2 drives (1tb total @ 3gb/s transfer speed)
soundblaster audigy 2 zs platinum (w/ optical in for my xbox surround)
Logitech Z-5500 Digital 5.1 surround sound speakers





the frisbees on the wall are mostly from the 2005 wisconsin disc golf tour. one for each tournament, though a few didn't have any special discs and a few had two. four plainer ones on the right are my holes in ones, and two not visible on the left wall are signed by barry schultz and ken climo.

one of my favorite things visibe though is a peice of st. vincent basillica's (in Latrobe PA) old stained glass window.

a few animation cells, a voltron & megatron toy are visible. not visible are all the rest of the animation posters on my walls. intentionally. my decorations are entirely outdated from myself, but i haven't any replacements really. i'm unhappy people's reaction is "oh you're THAT into this shit", when truly, i once was, and still am casually an anime fan, but i know it's time to find something more mature looking. i just don't know what nor do i prioritize it because noone's over generally.

hookers: masters of the lost american 1on1 martial art

this is an exerpt from a larger conversation

if getting into pure fighting, it's always a tough discussion. fighting styles are usually tailored to a situation, so what's good for the middle of a chaotic battlefield isn't neccessarily what's good one-on-one..

that said, the style i hold in highest regard for one-on-one unarmed combat like that UFC is, would be the ORIGINAL wrestling before showmanship entered. ala 19th century travelling shows.. the expression "no holds barred" comes from there, where the wrestler would take on anyone willing to pay, and no rules besides submission and pin. the beginning of spderman had such an anachronism.

these men had to be professionals, quickly submitting bigger men who weren't above hairgrabs and cockpunches. the most respected of these men, whom even the others feared for being able to break limbs even when in a seeminly disadvantageous position, were called "hookers".

one such man was Lou Thesz

the only info i find on someone doing this in the modern age is this guy. that second link has some good video links, though some of them are dead. boy i'm curious to see the illegal-in-olympic-wrestling moves tape ^^

more on lou thesz

Flip said:
>i could almost guarentee it's just jiu-jitsu and
>sambo tactics, choke holds and semi-complex
>joint locks, since that's, well, illegal in olympic wrestling.

well, just like i started off saying, different tactics have different focus. jiu-jitsu is battlefield-focused, rather than individual-target-focused. sambo i don't know much about.

according to the page tho, the specific "illegal-in-wrestling" tape cites this as the curriculum:

-hair pulling
-setting up hooks with facial attacks
-attacking ear, nose, and throat
-breaking fingers
-eye gouging

that's just that tape. from the info page describing catch wrestling in general:
"Finally, hooks differ in kind from those taught in jiu-jitsu and judo. "use your whole body as a weapon, use his whole body as a target" is the motto. A Catch Wrestler should be close to a hook at practically all times, in any position. You can submit a person using your back, knees, head and shins. Hookers employ more crippling holds and fewer slow, gradual pressure holds. As judo and jiu-jitsu are the gentle arts, Catch Wrestling can be viewed as the antithesis. It is not for everybody, but there is no question that it is effective. Styles all have benefits to offer. Instead of labeling one "better" than the other, appreciate the differences and continually strive to improve"

further:

"The main distinction between amateur wrestlers and Catch Wrestlers is that there are no illegal holds. There is so much more to hooking than arm bars and chokes. A Catch Wrestler should understand the science behind body manipulation. Leg locks, shin locks, hip cranks, forearm locks, bicep compressions, and neck cranks are all incorporated into Catch training. It doesn't matter if you are on top, bottom, sideways, or upside down. Once you understand the physiology behind hooks, you can apply them from any position, in a powerful and crippling manner."

and here is a link that mentions both ju-jitsu, sambo, gotch, and one of gotch's teachers/predecessors, farmer burns.
During Gotch's first trip to Japan, he won the people's heart and soul with a display of REAL wrestling ability they had never seen in the professional ring before. Not only could the 6'3" - 250 pound Gotch throw with the grace, speed and finesse of a lightweight, but on the mat, he was an unstoppable force. In workouts with Japan's top judo and jiu-jitsu men, he beat them so badly, even with a gi on, that they cried for mercy. Little did they know, that before emigrating to the U.S., Gotch had also gone into the judo halls of Europe. And in his native Belgium, he earned his black belt in ONE DAY! Gotch's technique was so brutal that his wife once told a friend, "I was so glad when Karl quit going to judo and jiu-jitsu." The reason for her relief: "It was so hard washing the blood from his gi every night."

same shitty voiceactors all the goddamn time

it's been a few years since i've had to really blow up about this. the average dubbing's gotten better in the past 10 years. somehow irritating unrealistic voices like foxxy brown's on that unfunny 'drawn together' will appear on 6 series at a time (she's EVERYwhere).

but OH GOD do i want to go bludgeon some people over evangelion's dubbing. i ain't watched it in a hundred years, but passed by on CN tonight and at first i watched just to be amused at the bad voiceacting, but i'm just fuckin PISSED. the straw that broke the camel's back was the voice on the blond glasses friend of shinji's. the one that looks like fuckin pidge from voltron. they must have gone out and FOUND the guy who dubbed pidge's voice because it's the same goddamn "i'm the background nerdy character" voice from 20 years ago. 'Bad American Dubbing' made fun of that voice 10 years ago!

i could probably bitch for paragraphs EASY..