Wednesday, September 24, 2008

When You Don't Have a Specific Topic Going In, Sometimes You Get Ramblings

Yeah, I'm not pretending that naggard was a decent word. I guess I could be a real stoy sometimes. A stupid boy. ;)

I've gotten used to using emoticons over time. For better or worse. I feel like I could try to use it with some swagger to try to decrease how lame it feels. Really, it just captures the...uh, emotion better in some situations than words do.

I remember reading chicken soup for the soul a long ass time ago, and there was a chaper about a boy who made a 100+ item to-do list in his life. They were things like climb this or that mountain, run a marathon, read the entire bible, on and on. Very neat. I don't know if I'm a fan of lists in general. They can have their place, but I generally find them stifling. At one time in my life I identified with free-spiritedness, or the Meyers-Briggs "P," which made living by clearly defined goals anathema. I therefore rejected it. That's all changing. About time.

I'm also warming up to the concept of a routine. Within reason. I feel like a good routine could be like a wind up clock for your behavior where you can just zone out and get x,y, and z done regularly without putting any thought into it. A friend of mine used to take aikido, and the sensai used to punch a board for hours to keep his knuckles calloused. I imagine that every day trying to tell yourself "all right, motherf***er, you're one tough dude. Let's get PUNCHING!" would not quite fly for most people. Maybe that guy does his morning board punches before his coffee.

So, McCain is taking time off to work on the economy. I take a shuttle between campuses for school and the driver always listens to this pro-obama radio station. They were ranting today about how he's trying to duck out of the debate. Who knows, man? I just know that the knee-jerk suspicion of EVERYTHING the opposition does wearies me. That's the kind of stuff that really turns me off.

I'm feeling a yearning to travel. I haven't done much of it in recent years. I don't want to just go and sit on a beach. I went to Mexico with my family and that was really great, but I didn't have much to do after just a little while. I crave badass adventure. That'll be on my list.

Thursday, September 18, 2008

Naggardly Yours

Dear Hatandcoat,

I have known you to be able to come up with inventive and wonderful words. Remember "BANDITY"?

Why, then, have you insisted upon creating an inelegant and unuseful word like "naggard"? You say it is from "nudging a laggard." Please note that you cannot create a portmanteau word from a phrase.

Also, "nudging" and "laggard" are two different parts of speech. What, then, is "naggard"? A verb? A noun? A state of mind?

Furthermore, "naggard" is impossible to understand without explanation. If I were to read it without your definition, I would think it was "nag" + "laggard". Normally laggards don't nag, usually they are nagged to be less laggardly. The self-confliction does not work.

Finally, you have come very close to another existing word: "niggard". A niggard is a stingy person or a miser. This is where we get the word "niggardly." Unfortunately, many people cannot spell correctly, and thus the words "niggardly" and "niggard" are lumped together with that problematic word, "nigger". Even though "niggard" has nothing to do with race, it is very nearly boycotted just for sounding the same.

(Do you think I'm kidding? It happened right here in DC: An aide to the mayor resigned after he used the word "niggardly" and people complained. Wa-Po story. He got rehired, though.)

So please be careful when you create your portmanteaus, you naggard.

Sincerely,
Aak

Monday, September 15, 2008

Naggard, or Nudging a Laggard

Hatandcoat does not receive as many posts as Districted. Get with the program, boy! Even if it's about some damn word or some boring fighting chatter.

Here's what I'm learning from being a fight fan over time: strategic thinking in practical use. At a recent UFC event there was a fight between lightweights Kenny Florian and Roger Huerta. The former is a very polished, hardwarking, knowledgeable fighter, while the latter is more of an emotional charge-forward type (though probably plenty knowledgeable and hardwarking in his own right). Being perhaps an inferior charge-in brawler, Kenny Florian decided that the technical and elusive route would be smarter. He won. I read about the fight after it happened and pretty much plagiarized the fight analysis here, but I watched on youtube last night and saw what they were talking about. He was aggressive in certain situations, but only when he needed to be and when he wouldn't get caught with a massive punch. Smart game planning from the Greg Jackson camp has led to 2 victories over Chuck Liddell and is probably largely responsible for the welterweight dominance by George St. Pierre. Randy Couture is a heavyweight champ at 45 and a consummate student of the game, as is one of his pupils Forrest Griffin.

When I play games requiring tons of strategy I have a hard time focusing on one unifying game plan. Poker, Chess, Settlers of Cataan, Scrabble, and other such games lead to me making semi-thought out decisions at moments of truth. I think fighting helps me think in those terms because 1) I'm watching it over time and basics are gradually trickling in (plus I've studied Martial Arts a little), and 2) I'm excited at the moment of viewing because of the action and the basics are trickling in. When I've spent a good deal of time watching this stuff and reading about it, I find that it's easier for me to focus when I return to out and out strategy games like the ones I mentioned above.

Over gchat Aak has informed me that turtles can breathe through their butts.

Friday, September 12, 2008

I Love It When We Mamislap

Those of you who follow my Twitter account know that I post words, definitions, and etymologies on it more often than I talk about what I'm actually doing. Usually they are English words, but sometimes I find a foreign word that is just too amazing not to note. This was my most recent finding*:

MAMIHLAPINATAPAIS: a look shared by two people each wishing that the other will initiate something that both desire but that neither will start

What an awesome word, right? It's a look that we've all shared with someone or other in the past. There's a kind of delicious helplessness in it.

A Facebook friend commented on the word, saying she was sure I was making it up. I'm not, but I know, it sounds made up. And it might be.

Mamihlapinatapais is from the Yaghan language of Tierra del Fuego. Currently it is spoken by ONE PERSON. So I guess it's pretty hard to verify. She could be making it up. If I were the last speaker of a language, you can bet your bottom dollar I would insert a few of my own coinages into the dictionaries that linguists would be franctically writing.

Which brings me to my purpose here. I propose that we adopt this word, "mamihlapinatapais." But we could never remember all of those syllables. Let's shorten it, and let's make the spelling more English-like while keeping the original sound.**

Mamislap. (pronounced MAH-mee-shlap)

We could use it as a noun or a verb. Examples:
  • In the season finale, Brenda and Kevin shared a wistful mamislap, but the writers have yet again delayed the beginning of their relationship. Oh the angst!
  • It only took us an hour of mamislapping, but we finally kissed each other good night.
  • There's no contest; in a choice between a ten-second mamislap with Charlize Theron or a night with Britney Spears? Mamislap with Charlize, hands down.
Remember my post on how to create words? This is how you do it. Now, to post several entries on UrbanDictionary.com and hope that somebody notices.

*(I learned it from Futility Closet)

**From Reference.com:
The word consists of prefix ma(m)- reflexive/passive (second m before roots beginning with a vowel), root ihlapi (hl pronounced as /ɬ/, though in Yahgan it has also been described as similar to sl) which means to be at a loss as to what to do next, followed by stative suffix -n- and achievement suffix -at(a), and finally dual -apai, which in composition with ma(m)- has a reciprocal sense.

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Speed Check

Had to bike home in the dark tonight. Wasn't too scary. Except.

I was stopped at a red light, facing a steep hill. I hate that; why do all the lights have to be at the troughs and not the peaks? Anyway, I could see ahead that there was a car double-parked in the bike lane. (That's totally illegal, and very uncool for bikers, who have to go into traffic to go around the obstruction. The bike lane's existence proves that the traffic on that road cannot handle bikers going in and out of it.)

There was a car on my left, so my choice was to wait for him to go by so I can go around the double-parker or to go ahead of him, take up the lane, and go around. The light turned green. The car on my left apparently saw my situation. It didn't move. I biked like a madman. I churned my legs. I hit the hill (the steepest of the night) at 20 mph and ACCELERATED up. I passed the double-parker. I quickly shifted to the bike lane, and I stopped biking so hard.

I thought, I've never gone that fast up that hill before; cool. Then I thought, what's the car behind me doing? The car that had waited for me to go around the double-parker. It was still behind me. I was in my lane, and it wasn't zooming by. I felt weird. What was the driver doing, waiting for a good opportunity to enact vehicular homicide? What was he doing? Other cars at that point had started to honk at the stalker car, who was going slowly to stay behind me. Then the other cars went around him.

I started preparing to put on a burst of speed if need be, but then I realized all the cars had passed me. The stalker car was gone.

So I thought about it, and my only explanation is a bit egotistical: he was trying to measure my speed. I mean, I had booked it up that hill. I surprised myself. Maybe the stalker car had wondered how fast I was going, and that's why he had matched my speed. I hope that was the reason.

Tuesday, September 9, 2008

About Face

With as much fun as I had writing my last post, it's tempting to turn this thing into a full on MMA blog, or at least go through a phase. I won't, of course. I just enjoyed writing it a lot.

I think I might try to become interested in politics over time. I've blogged about its lameness before, but I suppose it could be a good thing. If nothing else it will be blog fodder. I could either do it systematically by doing readings, learning the issues one by one, take assessments about what I believe in and see what candidate they match, and so on. I got some advice once that I liked. I was told to pick one issue that I give a s*** about, follow that, and eventually it could snowball. My issue would be energy. I don't know anything about it, but if there's one thing that I could see myself reading voraciously about, that's it.

Realistically, I think I'll just generally try to be more in-tune. It's vague. I was watching Bill Maher this weekend and I got a real kick out of it. Girlfriend pointed out that we learned nothing new from it, and I must admit that that's true, but I thought it perhaps a turning point that I could watch a show about politics and not have a cynical attitude.

I also invite Aak to bring the politics back into Districted if he's so inclined. Keep that s*** out of here, but it's ok on the other side of the road.

Since I'm waiting tables these days, I have to be on my feet for hours. The tips of both of my big toes have gone numb. It's concerning me a little bit. They feel like permanent frostbite. I think maybe I'm wearing shoes that are crushing a nerve in my feet or something. But I've worn 2 different pairs during my brief tenure with the same result for both. Maybe simply standing that much is crushing something. I will say that, except for this issue, my feet don't hurt all that much at the end of a double shift. I'm a little older now, and I wonder if I'm getting an old man hardness. That would be cool.

Monday, September 8, 2008

The Bad Things about Biking Are Easier To Blog About

There are bad things about biking. The rudeness, the difficulty, the mortal peril, the sweat. For some people, it is too stressful or dangerous to do. For that reason, I refrain from urging anyone who isn't comfortable on a bike to take to the streets on two wheels. (I pushed Hatandcoat to become a biker, but I knew he could take it.)

And the bad things are very frustrating (provided they don't kill you before you can get frustrated). They stick in your biker craw. Thus, I vent them on the blog.

But there's so much to love about biking. The freedom from Metro delays. The ability to slide down M street during rush hour. The bike trails where you bike under tall, green trees. Hardly noticing your stamina and speed increasing incrementally until suddenly realizing that you went up that killer hill on New Hampshire like it was nothing. Being outside in the sun in the summer, like a kid on vacation. Being brave enough to go out in the cold as well, and shrugging it off like it's no big deal. Building the confidence to venture out onto new roads. Feeling free to eat the cheesecake, because you've got a long ride in the morning. The looks on people's faces when you tell them how far you ride each day. The joy of discovering a new, more efficient route through neighborhood streets, or of finding a gorgeous part of the countryside that you make your new favorite ride. The chicks.

Oh yeah, chicks dig bikers.

Do you want me to blog about every ride I have where the traffic was bearable and the weather was amazing? I'd bore my shorts off writing that schlock. No no, far better to entertain you with stories of Metro insanity and short-tempered motorists. Did I tell you about the time I was riding on Georgia above the beltway and a car behind me honked for five seconds, and the driver yelled out her window, "This ain't no f---ing BIKE TRAIL!"

Good times.

I Want to Ride My Bi-Cycle, I want to Ride My Biiiiike...and Fighting

I used to think that it would be a good idea to be a regular biker, but based on Aak's experiences alone I'm pretty well convinced it's a terrible one. So far, he's been called rude, yelled at by the good people of the metro, gotten horrendous road rash, and another bad experience that I can't remember now. I think he blogs about bad bike experiences more often than I blog.

I bought my bike from craigslist needing some fixes. Apparently it needs to be scrapped altogether. That's what the guys at the store told me. Bummer. I want to take up off road mountain biking. Also, despite my opening paragraph, I do still think that biking would be a good way to get around the city. It just carries so much s*** with it.

The rest of my post will be about fighting, specifically the UFC, so the uninterested can just skip.

My interest in Mixed Martial Arts, MMA, reminds me of how susceptible I am to marketing. I subscribe to some of the MMA discussion forums and they talk about the other promotions, but I only care about the UFC, with a couple of exceptions (I'm a big fan of Fedor). That is, of course, because they're the best marketers out there. I do get extremely irritated at their hustler tactics, but they work. For instance, I repeatedly hear "this is the MOST ______ fight in UFC history!" Well, no s***. The sport's like 15 years old, and less than half that in its current format. But, like I said, that crap works. I'm in. I'll take all the crap they give me. When I turn on the TV I immediately check spike on the off chance that they're rerunning something, or channel 20 on the off chance that UFC Wired will be on. I feel like moldable putty, but I do wish there were a 24 hour UFC channel.

The UFC's light heavyweight division gets me all giddy when I think about it. At the top of the heap at the moment is Forrest Griffin who is an obsessive workaholic with probably above average natural talent. Well, he probably has heaps of natural talent compared to me for instance, but I'm talking in comparison to his peers. I gotta respect the hell out of that guy. But when I look through the list of competitors...Man! Here are the official top ten rankings for the Light Heavyweights on sherdog.com (yet to be updated after Evans knocked out Liddell this weekend): Forrest Griffin, Quinton Jackson, Lyoto Machida, Chuck Liddell, Mauricio Rua, Dan Henderson, Wanderlei Silva, Keith Jardine, Rashad Evans, and Sukodjou. The UFC matchmaker, Joel Silva must have the most fun job in the world. I can't imagine it would be that hard, but it would be SO much fun. Oh, what I wouldn't give to be able to pit these guys against each other for a living.

On a topic aside from the Light Heavyweights, the UFC seems to have shown Matt Serra less than his fair share of respect. Yes, he is nowhere near as good as MMA God GSP, but he was the champ. And while the champ he pulled out of one fight due to injury, so they gave GSP the interim title. One fight. The only fight he has had since winning the title was the GSP rematch. That's it. The UFC teases us with a showdown btw him and Matt Hughes, and that would be great, but c'mon. I don't know if he belongs in the Welterweight upper tier, but face him off against Koscheck or Sanchez or Fitch to find out. Yes, a fight with Hughes would do sort of do that, but please at least make that happen. I just feel like that guy has been hosed. Give the former champ a fair shake.

I'm also very curious how well Carlos Condit would do in the UFC.