Post # 572 Top Review
This is how you get top reviews on websites with the kids these days. Use language they understand.
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Post # 571 You fight the guy
I saw this video on reddit a while ago:
I was pretty impressed and had no doubt that I would not mess with that guy. Especially with the crazy asian/uk accent he has going on.That and he says some smart things, disregarding the titty comment.
So someone followed up with this 1 hour compilation of people doing wing-chun and getting beat in mixed martial arts competitions.
Someone out there has a lot of hate for wing chun and way too much time on their hands.
This is a conversation I have had many times in my life, usually with people who have just started a martial art because they want to know which one is "better".
That questions is flawed in so many ways the more you think about it the more elements you will start to introduce into the answer.
My take is that you are not fighting the martial art, only the guy. If you study one thing and you are really good at it, you will have an advantage over an opponent with less schooling. But there are things like innate ability, pain tolerance, the ability to strategize on the fly, physical and mental conditioning and a lot of things I probably haven't even thought of yet.
Most of the losses in the second video have the wing chun guy being taken to the ground. For a lot of them it was clear if they could stay on their feet they would do well, if not win. Knowing where they are lacking they could easily make it up. I have been a Judo puritan for most of my life, I can't hit that hard or well, but if I was going to go a match like the ones in the video, I would put the knowledge of my deficit to work.
All these sports are awesome, all have strong points, weak points. Once you realize that you can work what you want and choose which one is best for you.
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Andrew:Though I broadly agree with you, I might suggest that even wing chin practitioners would have a defense against a takedown, even if it's not their focus. Also, fight prep would demand that they train hard against takedowns at the least. As for striking arts, I'm not sure why Muay Thai especially dominates ATM. A pure MT vs WC fight would be fun to see, but I'd still bet on the former. Probably something to do with conditioning and how well sparring emulates a genuine fight.
Peter:No, you must agree with me completely. Actually your response made me thing of a couple of interesting points. If you watch the whole 1 hour compilation you’ll notice a majority of the videos are quite old. Since MMA has become commonplace every martial art has realized the need for a proper defense against takedowns. If you are going into MMA now you won’t be a puritan of any sport. You’ll be combining the elements of different ones to cover all the bases and round out your abilities. Muay Thai dominates because it spends more time than any other striking sport in the ring with fighters fighting other fighters. Very few forms and time spent punching bags compared to Karate or boxing or that ilk. You are usually hitting people or getting hit by them. This toughens up your body and hones reactions. It also means that most Muay Thai fighters careers are over before 25 because the injuries just pile up.
Like Batman, you can only sustain that kind of lifestyle for a couple of years. I am an anomaly. The oldest guy at pretty much any club I go to excluding the owners who don’t actually practice anymore. I think I am the oldest guy in my circle that actually still practices with the group. The guys who are in their 20’s (which is most of them) are at times astounded that I am still practicing. This comes from Judo being relatively safe compared to striking sports, which was the intent of the founder. (Although my knee now makes a grinding sound when used and my should pops regularly)
As far as defending against takedowns, I have been doing Judo for 20+ years. Not only have I learnt dozens of takedowns, I have learned multiple variations of each to adjust for my opponent. I would be willing to wage the only person who could really stop me taking someone down would be another person with similar experience. That said, as I said in my original post, I can’t hit hard and I probably can’t take a punch very well. So a skilled opponent that could keep me at arms length could pick away at me if they were conscious of my skillset. This goes back to my original point, the sport then becomes somewhat irrelevant, it’s the ability of the person you are fighting that actually determines the outcome.
Post # 570 Tabasco Chocolate
It wasn't really spicy like you would expect, it just had a little kick as an aftertaste. I wouldn't eat this regularly, but mixed with some other foods it might be pretty great. I just have no idea what those foods might be.
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Post # 569 We all do
I know exactly how this guy feels.
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Juan:It's all too common.
Post # 568 GTA V Avatar
Here is the result of the GTA V avatar system where you pick your grandparents. I only adjusted the hair color of the result to get this.
Here is me wearing my usual cool weather clothes. I think it looks basically like a relative, I am just having trouble making the weird lip purse thing.
Also, the GTAV truck came by work today, the game releases here tomorrow.
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Post # 567 Dance of Death
I needed to get back into the Kung-Fu review methodology so I chose what could be considered an excellent starter movie for people who had never seen a kung-fu movie from the 70’s. Maybe the 80’s, since every film is supposed to happen in some “older, but not ancient” time in China the only way to be able to tell would be to check, and I’m not about to go and do that, am I?
No.
So Dance of Death. Sounds pretty awesome. If that seems true to you, this is your first mistake. There is nothing that is going to be awesome about this film. There are only two ways kung-fu movies achieve awesomeness: by having amazing martial arts or way over the top action using chainsaws or something. This film has humor. I don’t know if that translates properly because the Chinese idea of comedy is different enough it’s not even “quirky” fun.
The basic plot is that a girl finds two dope smoking kung-fu masters who have been fighting for years to see who is better. Despite the fact I think I could take them both at the same time they are supposed to be masters so I’m going to have to accept that. She says if they both teach her she will go around fighting people and see which style she uses more, thus demonstrating which is superior.
Sound dumb? It is.
There is also a flashback about her school being attacked and everyone being killed but her but they don’t tell you it’s a flashback so it’s really confusing in there around the 20 minute mark.
Since this movie is essentially about special moves, there are a lot of them, and they are shitty. Like the horse kick where the guy has to make a horse sound every time he does it.
The titular Dance of Death is a completely original style created by one of the guys after they visit a whorehouse and he watches a whore dancer avoid a guy trying to grab her boobies and trips him etc.
This style of kung-fu comes complete with extraneous gestures, dance steps, coy looks and similar facial ticks. It makes me wonder how kung-fu ever got a foothold because one look at someone doing something as dumb as this and it denigrates any martial art associated with it.
Of course she uses this to defeat the bad guy, the competition between the two old guys is never resolved and as the bad guy takes the final blow they cut to a shitty joke and then throw a “End” card up on the screen.
This is a very set ending for many martial arts movies at the time, they didn’t do any story after the bad guy dies, because there is no character development and no one cares about anything on screen once the action is finished.
Everything about this movie is lazy. The comedians doing kung-fu (the first ˝ of the movie seems to lack any actual martial artists, they probably saw this as a career killer), the lame characters and the fight direction.
If you want to watch one film that summarizes every bad kung-fu movie you should drink up and watch this.
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Post # 566 Fiber 8000
I seem to buy a fiber drink every now and then. Mainly because the number on the label just keeps going up and up. I'm waiting for the day it blows by butt out.
Let's face facts, after all those chips I don't even think 8000 is enough.
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Post # 565 Fancy Chips
These are Pepper and Salami. They are also apparently gourmet, for the fancy chip eater. The more I think about labeling chips as gourmet the weirder it gets.
These were pretty good, so it's hard to make fun.
Below are also gourmet chips, but they are pepper steak. Maybe it's hard to fuck up meat flavored chips with pepper, because if it tastes vaguely of pepper it's going to be okay.
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Post # 564 Real Spark
I buy pretty much anything with royal jelly in it, because it is like caffeine, but many people say it's good for you.
If you like the actual taste of royal jelly, this would be a pretty good, because that's what it tastes like, that and some citrus carbonation, otherwise, you might think it's pretty gross.
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Post # 563 Grappler Chips
I have been a grappler for a very long time and I rarely find things directly marketed to my demographic so I was ecstatic to see some grappler chips.
Not only will they feed my grappling abilities, they will fill my stomach with essential fats and oils.
That and there is some definite “come hitherness” on that grapplers face. I think he wants to grapple with me and I think I want to submit.
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Post # 562 Star Wars Big Pocky
Do you like Star Wars? Do you like Pocky? Do you like both?
No one cares what you like, here is some Star Wars Pocky for absolutely no reason that I can figure.
The back of the box gives you some details of Luke’s lightsaber. I really wish it had an annotation that said “Don’t touch this bit.”
There were three flavors in the box. Green tea (green), Strawberry (pink) and Purple (purple).
Since it’s a bit of sugar and stale bread, you can’t really go wrong.
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Post # 561 The Special Strong
The special strong is quite strong. I felt tipsy after only a portion of the can.
That sounds good until you take into account that the next day I felt little bit of a hangover despite having only one can.
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Post # 560 Suntory Highball in a can
A traditional highball is ginger ale and whiskey, as far as I know. I have been told a highball is pretty much any bubbly drink plus whiskey, but who cares, it can't be that hard to fuck up.
But you can, people can fuck up anything. This was one of the most metallic drinks ever. The T-1000 would have gone "Wow, a tad tinny, don't you think?"
I couldn't drink more than a couple of sips and I poured the rest out. If you have seen some of the shit I have ingested you know that is a pretty harsh statement.
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Post # 559 Men's Cider
I'm a man. I like cider. Why shouldn't I combine these two things into a grand event that is manly cider drinking. Have you ever seen a woman drink cider like this? I think not.
After drinking it, I don't know what was particularly manly about it. It just tasted like every other cider in Japan, BUT WITH A FIST.
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Post # 558 Pepsi Chips
Everyone loves Pepsi in it's liquid form, so of course everyone would love the same flavor in a solid. Then you could drive and enjoy the fresh taste of Pepsi Cola anytime.
Or, you could get a cheeto, have a homeless man suck the cheese powder off and dip it in a corn syrup of some sort. You could do that.
No sane human would, but there you have how this product came about.
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Post # 557 Mass Effect 3
I have basically played the whole of the Mass Effect trilogy drunk. My first experience with the game was a good while after it had been released and I had heard that it was a great time, but the failing was the long load times, usually with your characters standing in an elevator.
Knowing this I figured I could turn this negative into a positive and use that time for snacking and, more importantly, drinking. It was during my summer vacation so I prepped some rum and coke and sat down to play.
The instances of loading were just enough to keep me mildly buzzed, but not drunk, basically the whole time I played. I found my slightly inebriated state allowed my more immersion as I was forgiving of plotholes or anything that might take me out of the experience. were there plotholes? I wouldn’t know.
I found I had such a positive experience I actually planned to play the second one the same way when it came out. The drawback was I didn’t realize the cannon fired on the Mako until I was more than 75% finished with the game. Imagine someone getting out of a tank and using their sniper rifle to take out opponents. Subordinate soldiers would start to get a sense that their leader was crazy / fearless / drunk. When the enemy was too tough, I would would try and run them over.
So that added a whole new level of gameplay few others would experience. When I discovered the cannon by accidentally hitting the wrong button I felt dumb and went on a rampage.
This brings me to my most recent vacation where I played Mass Effect 3. If you have read this far you know that there was an outcry about the ending of the game.
I loved the ending of the game, the first time, the first ending I chose. It fit with my character and my story and was a pretty sensible wrap up to the series.
The problem I think people actually had came with the structure of how the ending was presented. You had 3 choices, which gave you three endings. Some people hated the fact that all your choices up to this point meant little or nothing as in the end no matter what you did you had the same 3 choices. I didn’t have this problem since the choices throughout the game structure your story, the end can only be completed one way wasn’t a problem for me. Since in this case they were saying there was only one solution to the problem, so yeah, all your decisions won’t impact that.
My problem was when I went back and played an alternate ending. This is when it was clear that they hadn’t written an actual alternate ending, they used the same ending cinematic with a slightly different description. This cheapened the experience. Considering how much work had gone into the elaborate elements of the story and that this was the end of a truly epic franchise (knowing there will be some kind of Mass Effect 4) I expected the three endings to be really unique from each other.
So if you are going to play the game play one ending, the one you think fits best and don’t do what I did and probably what you won’t be able to resist, play a different ending after that. This is what killed the ending for me.
By the way, this is my Shepard:
And when I walked onto the bridge and met Specialist Traynor I realized that someone at Bioware has the same preferences I had:
This made me immediately drop any idea of creating and consummating a relationship with any other character and my singular goal was to bed my slightly darker doppelganger.
Mission complete.
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Peter:When I say "mission complete" it's really creepy and obviously implying something sexual.
Post # 556 I actually sort of knew the answer
This popped up in my feed today. I figured it would be easy enough to figure out if I were a geek or a nerd, so I simply went in and highlighted every one that I thought applied to me.
Here is the original from the above site:
Here is the same thing with my highlights:
I clearly land on the 'geek' side, but since I don't like being labelled, shut up.
Actually, for some reason I found it funny that cellist was sitting so far on it's own, which is how I imagine most cellists to be most of the time.
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Post # 555 New Stag Beetle
A new summer means a new summer pet. The Stag Beetle is a very common pet for kids in Japan. They generally live until about October. This is Kyo, which is short for Kyorujya (Dinosaur Ranger, or the newest incarnation of what most people would know as the Power Rangers)
We actually have two beetles right now, the other one spend most of its time under the sawdust because when it comes up to eat Kyo just beats the crap out of it. I am guessing that's the reason, the mostly are active at night, so sometimes I just hear weird noises and go out to check what it is and they are wrestling.
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Post # 554 In case you hadn't figured it out for yourself
A few people have asked me about my thoughts since the Xbox PS4 reveals, knowing that I am probably going to purchase one, and possibly attempting to feel out if I am some kind of rabid fanboy.
I’m not. I don’t have a lot of loyalty to companies since I figure they would empty my bank account and leave me homeless given the means and opportunity. If a product does what I expect I will tell people as much, if it exceeds my expectations I will actively recommend it.
I had a Toshiba laptop that I messed up. I need a driver for the screen and Toshiba wouldn’t send me one. They told me to use the utility on the desktop to reset the system. I had deleted the desktop along with everything else when I erased the hard drive. This didn’t matter. They had given me an answer, I will never buy another toshiba product on purpose.
I bought a Sony Xperia smartphone. Two months later they announced a new model and would no longer offer updates to my phone meaning that about 6 months later I was already having trouble using new applications. I will never buy another Sony phone.
I had a PS2, the thing was a powerhouse that provided me with innumerable hours of entertainment. I got it a few years before the reveal of the PS3 and Xbox and have very fond memories of playing GTA on it for hours at a time.
I have been pleased with the Xbox360 overall. I have had games with people on other continents without suffering significant lag. I have put it through it’s gaming paces as revealed by my gaming charts. I didn’t really like the $50 yearly gold fee because I didn’t feel like I got anything for it, but I justified it by having good connectivity with my friends. I also own the PS3, although I bought it much later and primarily as a media hub for my living room. I probably actually like it better than the Xbox in many ways which brings me to how I made my initial decision.
Basically I looked at which system had more games. At the time, xbox had a few more. I was holding out for a while because I wasn’t sure if GTA4 was going to be exclusive to the PS3, which was a rumor for a while.
On release the Xbox was about $400 and the PS3 was $600 in Japan. That pretty much made the decision for me. A cheaper system with more games, because really it was all about the games. A lot of people touted the slightly better graphics of the PS3, but I didn’t really care because I doubted I would notice. Since I wasn’t going to play any games side by side, I didn’t.
Applying this logic to the next generation, both system seem to be pretty equal on games. The big ones I might want will probably come out on both systems. The exclusives, I don’t think there are any I actually care about so deeply I would die if I didn’t have access to them.
So the price point is the first thing to consider. This time round the two consoles have reversed their pricing, probably because Xbox is insisting you have a kinect. Xbox is $500 and PS4 is $400.
Then there are all the extra things that Xbox seems to have done to add value, but to a group of people who aren’t really interested in the xbox in the first place. The voice commands and gestures, I honestly want none of it. I often wonder if I have gotten old and don’t appreciate advances in technology, but I am pretty sure I don’t want to be swinging my arms when I am playing a game at night. PS4 has added a $50 annual fee for multiplayer, but Xbox already had that, but they give you a lot of games with that membership, so I am actually positive on it.
The final, and easily the biggest nail, is that it seems very reasonable that the xbox won’t be released in Japan at all. They are doing a “rolling release” and Japan isn’t even on the list. I learned this morning that the region locking is such that should I import a game (which I have done with almost all my games since I want them in English) I won’t be able to unlock it and play.
So really, the library of games for the xbox was just greatly reduced for me.
I am still waiting, maybe something else happens and I jump on steam, but I left PC gaming for a reason and like having a dedicated console and right now the PS4 is a clear and simple choice.
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Peter:Xbox recently changed all their policies. It is fun to watch companies collapse under their own hubris.
I read somewhere what they were trying to enact was a console version of steam, which makes a lot of their policies make sense. They just made the single worst presentation of it ever.
Oh, and there is still no word on releasing it in Japan, so I don't have a choice anyway.
In addition to that, my xbox gold membership elapsed a little while ago and I found out I can't watch youtube on it anymore. I don't know why, but losing the ability to watch a free service made me really angry, like, "Fuck you Microsoft" angry. Which is funny, because I am not like that at all.
Post # 553 Other things that went near my mouth
I had not had "Powerade" before. I thought it held to promise of "powers", but I was sadly mistaken. It was easily the worst of any sports / energy drinks I have ever had. Although, should you ever make a movie where someone has to drink windex or a similar industrial cleaner, I think you have found your substitute:
Here are some of the things it employs to keep you going:
The first one is some kind of water support. The second one, if I sound it out, is Maltodekisutorin, which will be the name of the drug I use if I ever need a drug that creates mutants. The final one is caffeine, which I didn't need at the time, so that actually sort of sucked.
I didn't actually drink this, I just found it, then found it sad. It's a drink-bag of wine. Sort of like those Capris Sun bags, but for alcoholics.
I did like that they added the instructions of "open" then "pour into a glass" because otherwise you'd be drinking wine out of a bag and we all know that's not classy when compared to bag wine drunk out of a cup.
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Post # 552 Drinking problem
So pretty much every one of these pictures is slightly out of focus because each time I forgot to turn on the macro lens for my camera. You do get some lovely details of the wall and the shift key on my keyboard.
This first drink was bought because it encapsulates the pure nerdom that is public in Japan that is not elsewhere. This is some anime, I haven't seen it, but I had heard the name. Apparently they are making a movie and have a couple of different characters on the cans.
I chose pouty with black hair. I always do.
Trotta is a replica of Pepsi White from a few years back. It tastes like carbonated yogurt. Not the way I want my cola or my yogurt.
This is Bodyguard 24. I have no idea what it is going for. It's too bubbly to be a sports drink, but has all the crap they put in healthy things here. It tastes okay when it's in your mouth but has a freakishly horrible after taste.
I also thought you would be interested in the amazingly unnatural color.
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