24 March 2007

And the Record goes to.....


Drum roll please......
From the claim section of the Guinness site:
" Claim ID 125758 (Ocean of fire II)

Congratulations! Your record has been approved and a certificate has been sent to the address provided in your profile. If you you need to order additional certificates, please use the option on the right."

Ladies and Gentlemen, We have a record! As soon as i get the certificate, I'll make a high-res scan of it and post it where it can be downloaded. If you want your own physical, from-Guinness certificate, it'll run about $30.

HOWEVER
There's a group in denmark claiming to have 115. So, we're on again. i'd like to gather 150 people At the Shiva Vista Project, Thursday night again, and re-take this record....

13 March 2007

Street Kendo


Okay, the days are getting longer and it was still daylight at 7pm
today. Thank you Daylight savings time. That means that daylight
will be encroaching on our pastoral little park before burn club.

As promised, I'll start showing up a little earlier, let's say 7:30,
if anyone is interested, and be giving lessons in street kendo.

Street kendo is a very direct martial sword art. There are no
frills, no real kata, and only 4 moves to memorize. There is a lot
of direct sparring, the possibility of bruising or minor injury, and
a lot of intense training in single stick self defense. The focus is
to train you to defend yourself, return attacks and attack creatively
all while maintaining a quiet, focused mentality. This will provide
you with the tools necessary to protect yourself in both re-world
scenarios, and when active stage choreography goes wrong.

All students are expected to have their own Shinai. Boken, kali
sticks, canes and other hard devices are not allowed. It is strongly
suggested that students invest in gloves and other protective gear,
but such things will not be necessary until sparring begins. Each
student rises at his or her own level, and spars when ready.

I can make available $20 shinai to those who request them, if my
supplier is feeling generous. But it's best if you find one on your
own to get the right length and weight. While in a martial arts
supply house, look into gloves: something that does not inhibit your
sword work too much.

Classes begin Wednesday April 4th, 7:30 pm at the Burn Club park:
www.lafc.org/burnclub/
and may commence weekly if enough interest is shown.

11 March 2007

AVP II


Okay, so i have an actual sample of the final. Some of the smaller text had to be dropped. but here we go. $3 each but they've dropped the $75 setup fee. (Wait till they get my website fees :)

anyway, I'm getting a batch of 100 right away...Lemme know if you're in.

10 March 2007

Spring Forward


Just in case you didn't hear it from every news agency.
Just in case, like me, most or all of your clocks were not set to do it automatically today (three weeks earlier than the standard formula).
Set your clocks forward an hour....

09 March 2007

Y'all come back



So, I'm teaching myself basic latin, and I've come across something that I noticed while learning french. the English language does not have a "plural you". You see, in french and latin there are 6 basic conjugations of a verb: (I), (you), (he/she/it), and the plural versions: (we), (plural You), (they).

How this works goes something like this. you have a friend, who's with his family and they're all in line to get in a theater. How would you tell him that he and his family are to go to the front of the line? "you can go to the front of the line" which leaves out the family, or maybe "they can go to the front" which would leave out your friend, but probably, "You and your family can go..."

Not really a serious problem, but at least there's a solution. this one comes from the blue ridge mountains, or more specifically, the Beverly Hillbillies "Y'all". If I read it correctly, y'all is a contraction of you-all and satisfies the needs of a 5th person nicely. so, now, "to Be" can be fully conjugated as
I am
you are
he is
we are
y'all are
they are.

Humbly submitted for direct inclusion to the next Oxford dictionary....

01 March 2007

Another virus

There's another computer virus going around. I can always tell when I get spam to:
1) email addresses that I haven't used in years
2) every email address I've ever sent mail from.

this usually means that there's a big nasty out there, propagating itself and using people's address books as the relay system.

So, please, if you have a PC, check yourself for viruses.