Saturday, August 29, 2009

The Writer's Task

The writer's job is a hard one. He is charged with making generalizations and identifying zeitgeists but he knows that that every individual (because he is one) has their own multifaceted and wondrous experience that defy description- every generalization is gross. She is expected to find clever double meanings, half-puns, witticism, in-the-know allusions, and mirth in words but she knows that such things are false pretenses and distracting from what really needs to be communicated. Asked to write a report or a synopsis, we know we can only hopelessly fail as 99% of the story will necessarily remain untold. We all wanna be Vonnegut. If we write not enough, we will fall into the great trap of history - remembering only what we thought we should remember. But if we write too much, none gets reread at all. Any bold proclamation is willful hypocrisy and any silent enlightenment would make for a great blog post.

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Chico gets Blown Up


Disco Calientes was this weekend in Chico and I went with End Phase which is an open club team from the Bay area which looks to be nipping at the heals of Jam and Revolver and is 3rd-6th in the Northwest Region. I had a really good time, played really well, bonded with lots of new teammates, heckled some mixed, and WON the tourney.

I am feeling great about our team, we have a lot of individual talent and the potential to do really well. I am also very happy because I feel that I can learn a lot from each other player but also make a large contribution (I played 95% of O points a handler).

In addition to playing sweet O*, I played the best D of my life (not an overstatement). I was laying out everywhere with my first real good chest high bids and seemed to be in the zone in terms of dictating where my man could go. I definitly think the last 4 weeks of pretty consitent Crossfit training has paid off: I felt like I was fast and strong enough to put myself in situations where I could make a good play on the disc and then took enough of those oppertunities.

Condors looked real sloppy, real young. Jeff Silverman continues to be really really good and really really polite. Even with a rough road ahead for the Condors, the experience will be really good for the Tide guys next year - especially that guy who the Squids called "Nero" all year (apparently his name is acctually Max). I cant wait to see Tide again for college.

Strike Slip: We show up at 7:40 on Sunday expecting the easy warm up game vs Davis but apparently the schedule was changed the night before so we go straight to the semis against Slip Strike who has been a the field site for a while warming up. Fuck. We go down early but we show real grit as we battle back and win by 2.
Notes:
-I can't believe I am gonna say this, but it was refreshing to see vert stack. Seeing them run it makes me think about actually endorsing it for the Squids after 2 years of bad mouthing it.
- BOFA, of Squid fame is still money. Ripping 70 yard backhands like he was tossing in the park. He had a sweet poach layout D on my cross field cut. I could tell I was about to get lit up when I saw everyone on the side lines look away from me and to 4 yards behind me and drop their jaws.
-Threatening our lives because of a call you disagree with seems over the top.
- I am reminded why I prefer being a thrower over recieving - I got into a irresolvable discussion with 3 other people about who fouled me. Fuck that - there is no way to be objective about it - I wasn't looking at anything but the disc.
- Robot is sick nasty.

SCUM - did not get to play them, they are cool guys. Shy is a freegan rolemodel badass


Lastly, I regret to inform you that Ernst broke his collar bone on a Greatest bid in the latter part of the final. I've broken mine before and it really sucks. If you see him, be nice.

All thats left to say is that free beer for the champs tasted really really good.


* many break throws, many "And 1 throws , no drops, only 2 TOs on poor hucks (they would have been great floaty throws to the average Squid receiver - aka 6'4", stupid fast with go-go gadget spring boots). )

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Sometimes

Sometimes you are good at online poker. Sometime you finish 1 spot out of the money 5 times in a row.

Saturday, August 8, 2009

Primalistic Philosophy

Warning: the cart is before the horse.


If every I was to be a member of a philosophical "school", I would be apart of the Primal School. This philosophy addresses a wide range of issues; most of them can be filed under lifestyle management.

Primal Philosophy is essentially this:
Figuring out how to appropriately treat our bodies and minds is a difficult and complex problem. We may be able to find solutions that work well if we make choices to put ourselves in situations that mimic the physical and mental states of our primal ancestors (200k to 10k years ago). The rational is this: our bodies and minds evolved in order to produce good results in response to such conditions; these good results are akin to a machine running well when used for its designed purpose under planned and scheduled maintenance.

This is NOT to say that we were Designed, in the big D sense, for Primalism. This is NOT about a creator making us a certain way. It is about Evolution having shaped us a certain way.

I must clarify a important point: Primal living may well NOT be the objectively optimal lifestyle but it is a great one with proven validity and more importantly: solid logic behind its prescriptions. There may be better lifestyles out there but they don't come backed up with logic.