Having spent the day exploring the wilds of the District of Columbia, I'm rather amused that I was driven off the streets, not so much by the afternoon heat or thirst or the aching feet but by the fact that my cell-phone and MP3 player were both running out of power and I needed to scurry back to recharge them....

On a much more selfish note:

Plane tickets? Check.
Registration? Check.
Hotel? Check.


Now all I need to do is get written approval for my leave and I can start packing.

Wheee!!

So, the news from Virginia hit the front pages of the local papers this morning, and now, the fallout starts.

Duck and cover, people!


I’m also wondering, how long before they start going after computer games as well, seeing as how the boy in question was a fan of ”violent video games, particularly Counterstrike, a hugely popular online game, in which players join terrorism or counterterrorism groups and try to shoot each other using all types of guns”.

Original article here


Though, to play Devil’s Advocate, gotta wonder – might it be better if firearms were MORE available?

Things is, gun control might work if no one has access to firearms (assuming you back it up with other measures), but considering that the genie is already out of the bottle, perhaps education and familiarity might work better.

Simply banning the sale of guns seems criminally irresponsible when there is already a fairly large pool of existing firearms floating around.


For instance, if I start waving a rifle around in an army camp, depending on my body language (and/or the presence/absence of a magazine in the rifle), one of two things will happen –

1) People start jeering, usually accompanied by rude jokes about over-compensating, while a hail of assorted projectiles comes my way. These projectiles will take the form of ring pulls, coins, pebbles, boots and other (relatively) harmless odds and sods.

2) Everyone starts ducking while other rifles get loaded and swung round to face me, while someone shouts at me to put the gun down or else….

Having done the one and seen (and helped clean up) the consequences of the other, I can’t help but wonder if things might have worked out very differently if other students (or teachers or university staff) had been armed as well.

Hot diggety. I got to watch 300 over the weekend, and it was good. Not very good history, and the cinema was packed, but for an action movie, it can’t be beat, even if it got a wee bit preachy about how a few good men can make a difference.

It was also a definite contender for The Manliest Movie. Ever.

Even the women in the audience were starting to have deeper voices towards the end. Watching it made me want to go out and do all sorts of manly things - the Army should have their recruiters stand by after the movie.

The sheer number of buff beefcake was definitely impressive too. Looking at Gerard Butler (Leonidas), who would have thunk that the Phantom of the Opera would be quite that built…. Cayce suspects that at least some of the bodies in question benefited from a little digital wizardry, on account of there being just a little too much chiselled perfection.

I think I need an apple now.


A number of hilarious reviews of 300 have also been brought to my attention. You can find them here and here


Some of the lines that cracked me up?
"High school football coaches who show this to their players before games are guaranteed to win 55-0. Should opposing coaches show the DVD to each of their teams before the matchup, a rupture in the space-time continuum will occur and the game will be declared a tie"

"The Spartans are a super-human elite squad of lumberjack pirates who were trained by the the great-great-grandpa of Chuck Norris' paternal ancestor"

And I think this one takes the cake....

"I can’t spoil the plot because THANK GOD THERE ISN’T ONE. Just ass kicking that kicks ass that, while said ass is getting kicked, is kicking yet more ass that’s hitting someone’s balls with a hammer made of ice but the ice is frozen whiskey"


p.s: I also expect the sale of apples to go up.

Because I'm curious. And just a little bored. And a sucker for memes.

And a tad bit sheepish too...


Crush this person!
Get your own ThisCrush.com CrushTag!

Gotta wonder about the etymology of “crush”, though.

Wonder if has anything to do with what usually happens to your self-confidence when you find out what the subject of your infatuation really thinks about you……*insert smiley emoticon*


P.S: Did I mention sheepish?

Well, no, actually I did’nt.

But by all accounts, I should have, courtesy of random earthquakes in the neighbourhood. Guess the fact that my office is on the first floor might have had something to do with it.

As it was, office buildings were evacuated. The cell phone network was overloaded. Lots of people took early (and extended) lunch breaks. Various coffee places made a killing. Many (obvious) jokes were made.

Can’t help but wonder, though.

If the epicenter had been a hundred miles or so further east and/or the quake had been a notch or two stronger, things might have been very different…

I was just asked a very interesting (and rather disturbing question) in a conversation that came up during the weekend.

“How many books have you read in your life?”

(Picture books and texts in foreign languages count, as do textbooks.)


I was about to shoot my mouth off with a random answer (a couple of hundred) and then realised I don’t really have a clue…

Two days down and I’m still trying to work on the list – and I have’nt quite gotten past freshman year of college…

(caveat - I have’nt been working on this full-time).

And my word but things have been moving incredibly fast since my last update! Where to start...

For starters, tickets have been booked and leave has been tentatively approved. If all goes well, I should be getting into New York sometime during the third week of May! (Sorry, Alex - Beijing is in the works as well, but I generally figure I need less planning, seeing as how its a lot closer and tickets are cheaper!).

On a more personal note, 2007 promises to be an rather interesting year. Apart from holding down my day job, I'm now proud part-owner in a wargaming store, which should be lots of fun even as it consumes more of my copious free time. It should be a challenge, though, when it comes to making sure that I don't become my own best customer!

And as if that was'nt enough, I've since signed up for a local chapter specialising in Historical European Martial Arts (HEMAS). Am rather psyched about it, even if my body is now protesting most vehemently - the longswords we've been using are a darn sight heavier than boffer swords, dammit! Basically been focusing on footwork, with some basic moves with wooden practice blades, though we got to play with (blunted) live blades as well. Lotsa fun, that. I've got to say, though, I don't care how well-balanced a sword is - holding it in an extended thrust for more than 5 minutes is just not very enjoyable...

The advanced classes are rather intimidating as well - I'm really not sure that strapping on full armour (gambeson and chain, mostly - no one has a fully-operational suit of plate just yet) for training sessions is a good idea down here in the tropics, even with the wonder that is climate control.....

Should be fun, though, since we'll also be moving on to daggers, polearms as well as sword-and-shield. There's also talk of setting up an archery section (Old-style bows only, thank you very much! No fancy composites and pulleys and weights here!)

Woohoo! Holiday season and its back to the salt mines, and I cannot possibly contain the sheer overwhelming joy I feel.

No.

Really.

Anyways, its been a wonderfully entertaining couple of months. Got lots of painting done, and lots of work, and lots of eating, and.. and.. you get the idea. More importantly, though, I am now planning my leave for 2007, and here's where I hope y'all can lend a hand.

Don't suppose anyone could bump me the calendar for events for the Phi for this semester? For some strange reason, I can't seem to get through to the Chapter's website... a lingering relic of that annoying earthquake off Taiwan, no doubt.

First thing I saw when I logged onto yahoo this morning, and I just had to share....

The link to the article in question can be found here.

If you're lazy, the full text of the article can be found... ( here )


I had no idea... oops.

Updated article here