Friday, July 26, 2013

Today's Internets - "There is only getting up and doing it all over again..."

"There is only getting up and doing it all over again, smarter and harder, until something ups and fucking kills you, because that’s the only thing big enough to stop you. This is The Great Work, and all you have to do is choose it, not look back and never fucking stop until you’re in your box, under the dirt and flowers are growing between your teeth. And that is why I’ll never be asked to do motivational speaking.  G’night."







The world's a better place knowing there's an establishment called "Redneck Heaven."  Redneck Heaven naked body-paint waitresses force Texas town to change nudity laws | Mail Online
"A city in Texas has been forced to change its nudity laws after topless waitresses wearing just body paint served customers. Staff at the Red Neck Heaven Bar in Lewisville have been told they are no longer allowed to wear just body paint and strategically placed pasties covering their modesty. Until recently the girls at the restaurant would hold ABC days - anything but clothes."



 "For reasons I feel comfortable chalking up to divine intervention, Dennis Rodman was in the front row for Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week in Miami yesterday where not only was he drinking beer out of a can while wearing a leather vest and jogging pants, but standing up and pointing at the ass of each and every model as they walked by. "


"One of the worst myths Democratic partisans love to tell themselves - and everyone else - is that the GOP refuses to support President Obama no matter what he does. Like its close cousin - the massively deceitful inside-DC grievance that the two parties refuse to cooperate on anything - it's hard to overstate how false this Democratic myth is. When it comes to foreign policy, war, assassinations, drones, surveillance, secrecy, and civil liberties, President Obama's most stalwart, enthusiastic defenders are often found among the most radical precincts of the Republican Party."


"...a dozen years of disastrous occupations in Afghanistan and Iraq, a rough doubling of military expenditures in nominal dollars and ongoing demands for ever-greater spending, disclosures about massive covert government surveillance of U.S. citizens in America, and secret presidential kill lists really puts the hurt on whatever faith and trust folks once had in such institutions. "


"(810): Question: what's the protocol for seeing your mistress walking alongside her clueless boyfriend? If you could answer this ten minutes ago, that'd be great."

"No Doubt singer and wife of that other 90s musician from that band that nobody liked, Gwen Stefani, took her son, Zuma Rossdale, out for a stroll around Beverly Hills yesterday, and hopefully other 43-year old moms around the country took notice and issued DEFCON 1 on their own fitness routines. It’s totally unfair and borderline criminal that a mom of two is out running around looking like this while so many American men are sitting at home with wives who look more like Mama June than they do anything even remotely close to Gwen. Let’s try to get a few more bottles of Xenadrine in stockings this Christmas, fellas."


"If there’s anything Christians in America go gay for, it’s leaving shitty tips, and situations where they can pretend they’re a persecuted minority despite being the most predominant religion in the country that influences virtually every level of state, local and federal government. So imagine Kirk Cameron‘s glee when it looked like Facebook “banned” the trailer for his upcoming movie Unstoppable and not because it doesn’t have Denzel Washington driving a train. (I’ll nail to you a cross, Cameron!) Turns out the domain name Kirk’s production company bought for the movie used to host assloads of spam which naturally flagged it on Facebook’s end until they could clear it up. Which they did and even took the time to let The Christian Post (via FilmDrunk) know what happened because, amazingly, Facebook is in the business of attracting subscribers. Who saw that coming?"


Crocodile goes Crocodile.  People are dumb.  Man gets 30 stitches after being bitten on head by croc: "The crocodile trainer who survived a terrifying croc attack earlier this week spoke out for the first time about the near-death experience that left him with 30 stitches on his head. During a show that went horribly wrong at Samut Prakan Crocodile Farm and Zoo, the world’s biggest and Thailand’s oldest, a tourist filmed Prawit Seabmee, 27, being mauled by a croc. The amateur video, which went viral on social media, showed Prawit placing his head in a croc’s mouth as part of a stunt when, suddenly, the reptile snapped its jaws shut. Prawit told Channel 7 that he managed to pull his head out in time yet still sustained multiple bite wounds around his head. The croc trainer, who has performed with the animal for four months and over one hundred shows, said that this was the first mishap that had ever happened to him. Prawit insisted that he would return to do his beloved job after the recovery."

"Alfonso Cuaron's latest Gravity trailer will knock the wind right out of you. The simple two-minute clip — made entirely in one take — shows what happens when things fall apart for George Clooney and Sandra Bullock in space. It is simply stunning."


"I don't want to spend any more than a few minutes on this because wives of politically powerful men are not worth it so far as I'm seeing and I'll tell you why. I've spent almost 20 years and have heard the very, very rare woman condemn Hillary Clinton for what wasn't, after all, a vast, long, hard right wing conspiracy. It was your husband's cock in Monica Lewinski's mouth in the oval office—which is totally fine, private, between all y'all. And hey, all I want Anthony to do is to be honest: "Hey, I like getting a hard on, tweeting a pic of it to some random woman of opportunity...and I want to be your Mayor, New York.""




"Hanners blew the whistle on the department’s tactics and was eventually fired for refusing to comply and keep quiet. He says that each officer was required to make 100 contacts each month, which included tickets, arrests, field interviews, and warnings. This equates to 72,000 contacts a year in a 50,000 person town. His claims are backed up by audio recordings of his superiors he made. The Auburn police department declined requests to be interviewed for this story. “There are not that many speeders, there are not that many people running red lights to get those numbers, so what [the police] do is they lower their standards,” says Hanners. That led to the department encouraging officers to arrest people that Hanners “didn’t feel like had broken the law.”"
"Former Reason staffer Radley Balko, now an investigative reporter for the Huffington Post and author of the new book, Rise of the Warrior Cop, says that this isn’t just a nuisance, it infringes on public safety. “You have a policy that encourages police to create petty crimes and ignore serious crimes, and that’s clearly the opposite of what we want our police to be doing,” says Balko. Hanners repeatedly voiced his concerns through his chain of command, and the department responded that these requirements are necessary for increasing productivity. Yet Hanners firmly believes that the quotas are entirely revenue driven."


Robert Anton Wilson Explains Quantum Physics | TDG - Science, Magick, Myth and History: "Remember, we invented the lines on the map. But quantum physics seems confusing because a lot of people think we didn't invent the lines, so it seems hard to understand how a particle can be in three places at the same time without being anywhere at all. But when you remember that we invented all the boundaries, borders and lines just like the Berlin Wall, then quantum mechanics is no more mysterious than the fact that I live in three places at the same time. ...Any model we make does not describe the Universe, it describes what our brains are capable of saying at this time.
We think this is reality. In philosophy that's called naive realism: 'what I perceive is reality'. And philosophers have refuted naive realism every century for the last 2500 years, starting with Buddha and Plato, and yet most people still act on the basis of naive realism. Now the argument is 'well maybe my perceptions are inaccurate, but somewhere there is accuracy - the scientists have it with their instruments; that's how we can find out what's really real'. But relativity and quantum mechanics have demonstrated clearly that what you find out with instruments is true relative only to the instrument you're using, and where that instrument is located in space-time. So there is no vantage point from which real reality can be seen; we're all looking from the point of view of our own reality tunnels. 

And when we begin to realise that we're all looking from the point of view of our own reality tunnels, we find that it's much easier to understand where other people are coming from, or the ones who don't have the same reality tunnel as us do not seem ignorant or deliberately perverse or lying or hypnotised by some mad ideology. They just have a different reality tunnel, and every reality tunnel might tell us something interesting about our world, if we're willing to listen."


Training.

7/26 - pushups, pullups/chins -- 25 chins/50 pushups for time 2:19 -- hanging knee ups, crunches -- gtg chins/pulls

7/25 - bench & dips


I'm glad I've started doing deadlifts again.

Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Training.

7/24 - squats, hyperxtensions, pushups -- pullups, chinups

7/23 - hyperextensions, press, shrug, upright row, neck nods/rotations/dt


Today's Internets - "You'd be surprised how far that gets you."

It could be true.  You don't know.  FML: my dad's conspiracy theory …
"Today, my dad's conspiracy theory obsession hit a new level of stupidity when he blurted "false flag" because our toaster stopped working. FML"


If we surround ourselves with people who are successful, who are forward-moving, who are positive, who are focused on producing results, who support us, it will challenge us to be more and do more and share more. If you can surround yourself with people who will never let you settle for less than you can be, you have the greatest gift that anyone can hope for." - Anthony Robbins, Unlimited Power


"The Royal Family is an antiquated, in-bred, and corrupt institution—a money-suck that steals up to $50 million each year from British taxpayers and repays them only with photos of a prematurely balding William doing shit like this. " 

"The first rule of Fight Club? Well, Chuck Palahniuk broke that rule at San Diego Comic Con this year. He announced he is in the early stages of making a Fight Club sequel. The interesting part? It’s going to be a graphic novel...  It will likely be a series of books that update the story ten years after the seeming end of Tyler Durden.   Nowadays, Tyler is telling the story, lurking inside Jack, and ready to launch a come-back.  Jack is oblivious.  Marla is bored.  Their marriage has run aground on the rocky coastline of middle-aged suburban boredom.  It’s only when their little boy disappears, kidnapped by Tyler, that Jack is dragged back into the world of Mayhem. "

“Hello, old man! I was just playing my bass at a volume that’s unreasonable! Can you give me some money to buy record with clear warning labels?” 
“You ain’t never going to stop me from overly sexualized dancing and dressing like an indigent! LOUD ROCK MUSIC!”
“Showtunes? If I play them backwards, will they make me want to try reefer cigarette marijaunas?” 








Meanwhile, on the internet. 



It's true.  Adrianne Curry always brings it at Comic Con.
"...here she is as Mileena from Mortal Kombat continuing her trend of portraying sexy fighting game characters presumably because Disney will sue her tits off for going as Slave Leia now."
"Former Top Model winner Adrianne Curry returned to Comic Con 2013 in San Diego this year to defend her title as the Best Girl Who Walks Around In Really Tight Outfits With Her Tits Partially Hanging Out To Tease Those Poor Nerds So They Can’t Stand Up For The Next 20 Minutes, and judging by the photos she posted to her Twitter account, she was successful. Adrianne had several costumes this year, including Mileena from Mortal Kombat and Psylocke from the X-Men, but like all good parties, Comic-Con eventually ended and Adrianne was forced to go back to her day job of nothing."



Classic Slave Leia.

"One film, two characters, four actors. These first designs for X-Men: Days of Future Past go one step beyond typical character posters."


Monday, July 22, 2013

Training.

7/22 - hyperextension, deadlift, barbbell row, dumbbell curl, pushups -- pullups/chins -- foam rolling/stretching

7/20 & 7/21 - weekend off.

"In other news, Klokov continues to post videos at a reckless pace, including this gem with commentary: “Today, on 18th of July, I woke up and asked myself: what part of my body doesn’t hurt yet? It turned out that shoulders didn’t. So now we’re going to destroy them. EVERYTHING must hurt.”"

Today's Internets - "I don't disbelieve, either." +SDCC.

Fantastic interview with Joe Rogan over at io9 about his new SyFy - Joe Rogan tells io9 why you should question the !@#$ out of everything
"I think most conspiracy theories are bullshit. Most of these “mysteries” can be solved fairly easily. And most of this shit really starts to depress me, particularly when you get into things like government schemes and efforts to control the population — that shit kind of freaks me out and I’m really not interested in that. But I am interested in the really stupid shit — like UFOs, Bigfoot, ghosts, and psychics. And I’m also fascinated with the psychology of the believer — and that’s what this show has really turned into being a lot about...

Terence McKenna had a really beautiful thing to say about UFOs. He said that when someone tells you about UFOs, don’t ask them about UFOs. Instead, ask them about how they feel about psychics. Ask them what their opinion is on ghosts. Ask them if they believe in Bigfoot. You’ll find a pattern. And this is one of the things that I’m finding on this show...



You see, they’re not just looking to find out if UFOs are real. What they’re looking for is something magical and something mysterious that hasn’t been discovered yet. They’re looking for some excitement in their boring lives. One of the ways that I describe these people — and it’s really quite unfortunate — is that they’re a bunch of unfuckable white dudes. I haven’t found a single black guy looking for Bigfoot. I’ve look high and large, and it’s all white dudes in their late forties and fifties. It’s all midlife crisis people. They’re not the happiest people in the world — and no disrespect — but they’re looking for things to be real that aren’t necessarily real.

You must be a fan of Penn and Teller’s Bullshit. 
Yeah, I love that show. But the problem with that show was that they were always trying to call bullshit, and that is in my opinion is just as bad as trying to prove that all things are a conspiracy.

For example, one of the things that Penn and Teller tried to disprove was yoga. And they tried to make it out as being nothing more than stretching — and that’s ridiculous. As a longtime practitioner of yoga and a person who’s been involved in physical fitness my whole life, I can tell you, yoga helps you achieve altered states of consciousness. It is not just stretching. The only way you can say that it’s stretching is if you haven’t done it, or that you haven’t done it rigorously for a long period of time. You can achieve a state of calmness and of euphoria when you do yoga — and it’s not unlike a drug. I mean, it’s not like taking an incredibly potent psychedelic. But unquestioningly — without a doubt — yoga can do that to you. And this is based on my personal experience and the personal experience of many people who have done it. So when I saw this episode, I was like, ‘Ah, c’mon, guys.’ I love Penn and Teller, but they missed out on something in that episode.

...what I choose to focus on is how interesting it is. It’s not my job to try to prevent people from becoming dumb. There’s nothing you can do to spark someone’s curiosity or a joy of learning other than to express your own. You’re dealing with a very complex issue in anti-intellectualism. You have to consider the environment these people grew up in, what kind of despair they may have in their community, who their role models are — there are so many different variables when you’re trying to figure out why someone would embrace anti-intellectualism. But in my own experience it’s becoming less and less of a factor than it ever has before. We are experiencing, through all these incredible new channels and tools of exchanging information, an age of enlightenment that has never existed before.

...at the very root of it, when you’re reading the bible or any religious text, you’re reading the work of people who lived thousands of years ago who were simply trying to piece together the universe and life. Some of their ideas are unfounded, some are ridiculous, or require total belief — they reek of human insecurity.

As for those involved in fundamentalist religions, many of them are simply not being exposed to enough alternative information or interesting science. They need to learn and accept that there’s still a lot of mystery to this world. Faith itself is a horrible mechanism that stunts the growth of ideas. It also stunts the act of questioning, and it does this by pushing the idea that you have to have faith — and that nothing has to be proven...

One of the most beautiful things about science is that it doesn’t require faith. What it requires is huge attention to the work that’s been done and to understand all the various aspects to that work. And in that, you can see the very building blocks of matter. You can see the very mechanism in which cells become a person, the very mechanism with which a seed absorbs water and becomes a plant, and how it uses photosynthesis to grow. All this is beautiful and magical. 

And it's scientific."






Baboons know what's up. 




"Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman couldn't attend the Sherlock panel at Comic-Con, but they were able to send a video message in their place. Freeman just gives a pleasant hello, but Cumberbatch decides to reveal the secret of how Sherlock survived his seemingly deadly fall in the season 2 finale... kind of."





"...out came Zack Snyder to take the chairman’s lectern. “Some shit is gonna happen up here,” he said. And then it did. Snyder started by telling us that it’s official that there’s going to be another Superman movie… and then bringing out Harry Lennix, the actor from Man of Steel, to tell us that Batman is in it. Lennix read from The Dark Knight Returns and that sealed it. And there it was, a logo on screen mixing the S shield and Batman logo. And Hall H  lost their minds. People were on their feet and screaming – literally screaming – and the girl next to me was in floods of tears."
"The biggest deal was, Snyder brought out Man of Steel actor Harry Lennix (General Swanwick) to use his cool voice to read the following piece of dialogue:

'I want you to remember, Clark… in all the years to come… in your most private moments… I want you to remember… my hand… at your throat… I want… you to remember… the one man who beat you.'

 Yup. Batman's speech from The Dark Knight Returns. Snyder said the movie won't be an adaptation of this film... but it will be inspired by it. The crowd lost their shit. The rumors that WB would be announcing a Flash movie in 2016 and a Justice League film in 2017 were seemingly unfounded; this was the only DC superhero film mentioned. But a Batman/Superman movie based even slightly on The Dark Knight Returns? That's more than enough to have us excited."



"Several months ago I sat in front of a nurse at my place of work after she received my report on my cholesterol, triglyceride levels and blood pressure. I work at a Bank, and it’s pretty cool that they offer free cholesterol screening and all kinds of other nice benefits. Anyways, she looked very puzzled. She was comparing my results from 2 years prior, to my most recent results. She finally blurted out “what did you do to improve this profile so much.” My answer nearly floored her.

Well Nancy, I started: Cooking in virgin coconut oil, and grass-fed butter I also switched out all the store bought grain fed beef I was consuming with grass fed beef I procure from a local farmer. I eat 8 ounces every single day. I switched out my 99-cent a dozen eggs with true organic free range eggs, and eat 6 of these whole every single day. Lastly (and probably most importantly), I reduced refined sugars in my diet and foods that contain excessive levels of Omega 6 Polyunsaturated fats (bye bye Tostitos – dang corn oil), as I believe those things create arterial inflammation resulting in increased cholesterol levels. Cholesterol is an anti-oxidant and repair agent in your body.

 "I knew what her next question would be, “but isn’t all that saturated fat bad?” I said well you tell me, my cholesterol went from 212 down to 167. My HDL went up 11 points (something I struggled with for years), and my LDL and Triglyceride levels were at the bottom end of the range. Even my blood pressure was a startling 104/70. She finally asked if I had any reading material I recommended, as these concepts were not taught to her in her days of studying health and nutrition."





"...when asked about his thoughts on modern super-hero comics, Morrison had a long, thoughtful answer. He pointed out that modern super-hero comics – and pop culture in general – are overwhelmingly dark and preoccupied with death and decay. He believes this reflects Westerners’ feelings that their countries are falling apart, with enemies they can’t deal with, corrupt governments, and bulimic madwomen for stars. (That is almost an exact quote.)  “There’s so much hate and meanness, and misunderstandings, and we’re already having a bit of a mental breakdown,” Morrison said."