"i got this" - Kenny Wyland
This isn't where I thought I was going to be when I looked forward into my life, but here I am....
Yes We Can
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A Clean Slate and TV
It's December 1st and my list of journal entries will disappear into the archives when I post this message. It's also another kind of clean slate for me, I have a lot fewer things to do in my life. I've been wrestling with so many projects for so long, I'm sort of not sure what to do with myself.
My Black Sash test is done and out of the way. That's been a significant drain on my personal time as of late and I am going to relax for awhile. Don't get me wrong, I'm still attending twice a week for 2+ hours, but for 6 months before the test I was going twice a week for 4 hours a night.. and for the last month and a half before the test I was going 3 nights a week for 4+ hours a night. Phew! So, I'm going to enjoy dropping back down to my normal level of training.
Next we have the JournalScape migration. I am going to leave the old server around for a couple of days to make backups of it (just in case) and cancel it later this week... but really, the migration is done. All the websites and email have been transferred off of the 2 other servers and conlidated on our new happy server. I finished it last night and then kind of sat there unsure what to do now. I got really restless and nervous almost because I was sitting there doing nothing when I should have been working on something. It's that feeling you get after finishing a big paper for school or a big project in your life when you have a chance to relax, you get this uneasy feeling. I haven't had that nothing to do feeling in so long, I didn't know what to do with it.
I tried just relaxing for awhile, but that must made me bored and sent me searching for food to eat. That's not the solution I want, so I decided to sit down and do some light work on a fun/goofy project I've wanted to work on for a year or more, but it's just a frivilous thing that I've never worked on it due to more important projects. I figured that would give me the feeling of chillin because it was something so frivolous. :)
Before, during and after the final migration yesterday, Jenn and I vegged in front of the TV (and our iBooks). We watched lots of TV and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. My biggest observation of the day is that Temple of Doom is just a huge homage to Star Wars/Han Solo. I was REALLY surprised at the number of things that crossed over.
The movie starts in a club in south east Asia... Club Obi Wan. Ok, when I saw this I thought it was really funny, but also figured that Obi Wan might be the words for something you could legitimately name a club and that Star Wars just used the same words. Ok, no problem.
From the club, there is a huge chase scene and they get on a plane and fly away. The pilots dump the fuel and jump out to leave Indy to crash into a mountain. Indy turns to look out the window as the engine breaks down and the _sound effect_ they used for the engine breaking down is the SAME ONE they use for the Millenium Falcon. Then I thought... maybe it's just a stock sound effect?
Fast forward to the mine car chase scene. The Thugees start shooting at Indy in his car and he says, "We've got company!" exactly the same words and intonation as Han when the Tie Fighters attack. Well... it's a pretty simple phrase and certain not an original one...
After they escape the mines, they are fighting up on the cliff, the two guys with swords attack Indy. He goes for his gun as an homage to Raiders of the Lost Ark, his gun isn't there, he has to fight them. He dives in, grabs the sword from one of them, kills him and turns toward the other guy. He yells and starts chasing that guy down the path. He turns a corner and runs into 30 more Thugees running towards him, he turns and flees... just like Han ran down the corridor after the Storm Trooper only to run into a room full of Storm Troopers...
There was two other things I noticed last night, but I can't seem to remember them this morning. Freaky.
XMA - Xtreme Martial Arts was on Discovery Channel last night. Jenn and I have been looking forward to watching this for weeks. They did a lot of cool stuff, like putting the martial artists in those suits with reflectors so that a computer can digitally map the person's movement. So they cut back and forth between the real people and skeletal mock-ups of them. They also put sensors on the weapons so it was really fun to see the path of the staff or the Chinese broadsword, etc.
The problem was they connected the show to a product. The LAST commercial we saw before the show actually started connected it to Tom Cruise and The Last Samurai. I was very disheartened by this... I was looking to watch some cool martial arts and now they have turned it into a product. They would cut back and forth between the XMA special and Tom Cruise/The Last Samurai, it wasn't really that bad. They didn't seem to be trying to sell the movie TOO much... until the end.
One of the Masters they used in the XMA special was a woman who was a Master of some Chinese style. She was beautiful and graceful and quick and flexible and just damn amazing. They would do mock fight scenes so they could show the differences in a fighting style or a weapon. They showed her doing Chinese staff work, board sword, tai chi sword, dart and chain... all sorts of good stuff. An interesting observation that Jenn made was that when she was in one of the choreographed fight scenes, she _always_ won. This didn't really surprise us because she was FREAKING amazing... I think she deserved to win each of the mock fights.
Then we come to the katana portion of the "documentary." Where we get this long speech about how the katana (the sword used by the Samuari) is the ULTIMATE SWORD IN THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE. Now, don't get me wrong, katanas are bad ass pieces of engineering. Something to be highly respected. Then however, we move onto the next fight scene... some guy with a katana vs. our Chinese master with a straight-bladed Tai Chi sword. She's won every other battle showing her superiority right.... but against the awesome power of the samuari sword... it's a draw! *sigh* I wouldn't have cared, but the freakin show was sponsored by The Last Samurai for goodness sake. I feel so dirty, like they used me. *sigh* What's even worse is that I still enjoyed the show and actually want to see The Last Samurai movie now. *sigh* Bastards.
My Black Sash test is done and out of the way. That's been a significant drain on my personal time as of late and I am going to relax for awhile. Don't get me wrong, I'm still attending twice a week for 2+ hours, but for 6 months before the test I was going twice a week for 4 hours a night.. and for the last month and a half before the test I was going 3 nights a week for 4+ hours a night. Phew! So, I'm going to enjoy dropping back down to my normal level of training.
Next we have the JournalScape migration. I am going to leave the old server around for a couple of days to make backups of it (just in case) and cancel it later this week... but really, the migration is done. All the websites and email have been transferred off of the 2 other servers and conlidated on our new happy server. I finished it last night and then kind of sat there unsure what to do now. I got really restless and nervous almost because I was sitting there doing nothing when I should have been working on something. It's that feeling you get after finishing a big paper for school or a big project in your life when you have a chance to relax, you get this uneasy feeling. I haven't had that nothing to do feeling in so long, I didn't know what to do with it.
I tried just relaxing for awhile, but that must made me bored and sent me searching for food to eat. That's not the solution I want, so I decided to sit down and do some light work on a fun/goofy project I've wanted to work on for a year or more, but it's just a frivilous thing that I've never worked on it due to more important projects. I figured that would give me the feeling of chillin because it was something so frivolous. :)
Before, during and after the final migration yesterday, Jenn and I vegged in front of the TV (and our iBooks). We watched lots of TV and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. My biggest observation of the day is that Temple of Doom is just a huge homage to Star Wars/Han Solo. I was REALLY surprised at the number of things that crossed over.
The movie starts in a club in south east Asia... Club Obi Wan. Ok, when I saw this I thought it was really funny, but also figured that Obi Wan might be the words for something you could legitimately name a club and that Star Wars just used the same words. Ok, no problem.
From the club, there is a huge chase scene and they get on a plane and fly away. The pilots dump the fuel and jump out to leave Indy to crash into a mountain. Indy turns to look out the window as the engine breaks down and the _sound effect_ they used for the engine breaking down is the SAME ONE they use for the Millenium Falcon. Then I thought... maybe it's just a stock sound effect?
Fast forward to the mine car chase scene. The Thugees start shooting at Indy in his car and he says, "We've got company!" exactly the same words and intonation as Han when the Tie Fighters attack. Well... it's a pretty simple phrase and certain not an original one...
After they escape the mines, they are fighting up on the cliff, the two guys with swords attack Indy. He goes for his gun as an homage to Raiders of the Lost Ark, his gun isn't there, he has to fight them. He dives in, grabs the sword from one of them, kills him and turns toward the other guy. He yells and starts chasing that guy down the path. He turns a corner and runs into 30 more Thugees running towards him, he turns and flees... just like Han ran down the corridor after the Storm Trooper only to run into a room full of Storm Troopers...
There was two other things I noticed last night, but I can't seem to remember them this morning. Freaky.
XMA - Xtreme Martial Arts was on Discovery Channel last night. Jenn and I have been looking forward to watching this for weeks. They did a lot of cool stuff, like putting the martial artists in those suits with reflectors so that a computer can digitally map the person's movement. So they cut back and forth between the real people and skeletal mock-ups of them. They also put sensors on the weapons so it was really fun to see the path of the staff or the Chinese broadsword, etc.
The problem was they connected the show to a product. The LAST commercial we saw before the show actually started connected it to Tom Cruise and The Last Samurai. I was very disheartened by this... I was looking to watch some cool martial arts and now they have turned it into a product. They would cut back and forth between the XMA special and Tom Cruise/The Last Samurai, it wasn't really that bad. They didn't seem to be trying to sell the movie TOO much... until the end.
One of the Masters they used in the XMA special was a woman who was a Master of some Chinese style. She was beautiful and graceful and quick and flexible and just damn amazing. They would do mock fight scenes so they could show the differences in a fighting style or a weapon. They showed her doing Chinese staff work, board sword, tai chi sword, dart and chain... all sorts of good stuff. An interesting observation that Jenn made was that when she was in one of the choreographed fight scenes, she _always_ won. This didn't really surprise us because she was FREAKING amazing... I think she deserved to win each of the mock fights.
Then we come to the katana portion of the "documentary." Where we get this long speech about how the katana (the sword used by the Samuari) is the ULTIMATE SWORD IN THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE. Now, don't get me wrong, katanas are bad ass pieces of engineering. Something to be highly respected. Then however, we move onto the next fight scene... some guy with a katana vs. our Chinese master with a straight-bladed Tai Chi sword. She's won every other battle showing her superiority right.... but against the awesome power of the samuari sword... it's a draw! *sigh* I wouldn't have cared, but the freakin show was sponsored by The Last Samurai for goodness sake. I feel so dirty, like they used me. *sigh* What's even worse is that I still enjoyed the show and actually want to see The Last Samurai movie now. *sigh* Bastards.
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