Ahem... Budovideos, we're watching you...

Another well-written plea for ... oh hell, not even PROPORTIONAL coverage, much less EQUAL coverage... let's just try for SOME COVERAGE!

Seriously. WTF.

Grappledunk raises the bullshit flag on her blog, here.

Breasts are no longer a problem on campus....

Fabulous post on Sociological Images. Yes, about breasts.

Italian Tomato Garden

From a blog called Waken.

An old Italian lived alone in New Jersey. He wanted to plant his annual tomato garden, but it was very difficult work, as the ground was hard and his only son, Vincent, who used to help him, was in prison. The old man wrote a letter to his son and described his predicament:

Dear Vincent,

I am feeling pretty sad, because it looks like I won’t be able to plant my tomato garden this year. I’m just getting too old to be digging up a garden plot. I know if you were here my troubles would be over. I know you would be happy to dig the plot for me, like in the old days.

Love,
Papa

A few days later he received a letter from his son.

Dear Pop,

Don’t dig up that garden. That’s where the bodies are buried.

Love,
Vinnie

At 4 a.m. the next morning, FBI agents and local police arrived and dug up the entire area without finding any bodies. They apologized to the old man and left.

That same day the old man received another letter from his son.

Dear Pop,

Go ahead and plant the tomatoes now. That’s the best I could do under the circumstances.

I love you,
Vinnie

Mike Fowler's Unstoppable Sweep...

Pinched from David Penn's blog Side Control.

Our second anniversary...

Celebrated on the frugal side, what with Mitch being laid off last month and all... Enjoyed a pizza from Brick Oven, and a homemade cake. The cake was a dense, lemon pound cake-type thing, with apricot nectar and shredded coconut mixed in. Hot out of the oven, I poured an apricot-lemon glaze all over it which soaked in and made it even more moist. [I hate that word! but it fits!]



Then sprinkled some powdered sugar...



And he dug in, after dinner.



Also made a lemon-pear cake, with cream cheese frosting, which is waiting in the wings.

I've been training and enjoying the non-pre-tournament fun. I can go as hard as I like, I am starting almost every match from standing, and I don't have to worry about getting hurt. Unfortunately I have not been EATING as though I had a tournament coming up. Instead I have pigged out on every type of indulgence possible... nachos, tacos, pizza, baked goods of infinite variety. And batter for said baked goods, pre-baking. Belgian waffles, with sausage, and fresh-squeezed orange juice. Sushi. BBQ potato chips. Much evil was to be had in Georgetteland, and now there is much woe.

Woe like "WHOA!" when I step upon the scale of evilness. So, yesterday was the last day of said indulgence. Well, today, if you want to be technical about it. I am back on the wagon for Mundials. Working my judo tonight in class. Poked myself AGAIN in the eye, the SAME eye, while shooting a takedown. Damn them eyes. And thumbs.

Swiss ball training video-- Abmar Barbosa

One of my coaches, Donald Park, is always doing flippy/balancey things on these stability balls... and Liam (the Part-Time Grappler) encourages me to do the same.

Check out this performance by Abmar Barbosa... found on his blog Disce Pati. You should read the post before watching the video; it has some important comments from Abmar's strength and conditioning coach.

Donate your old gi to a worthy cause...

Found this today, via JiuJitsuMap's blog, from the WestSideAcademy website Tap or Die. Here's what West Side wants....

"Today is the first day of West Side Academy’s High School Jiu-Jitsu Program and I’m going to ask you for a favor. It’s not money. The program is free (twice a week for a year) to 30 High School students, most of the thirty cannot afford gis. Once the program gets going we are going to look for sponsorships from gi companies to help us outfit the group, but today we only have a handful of used gis and we are looking for as many gis as we can get. The kids do not care about holes or blood stains; they just want to train in a gi of their own.

So, if you have a gi you’ve out grown, don’t use, or could stand to part with, we’ll take it.

Basically, this is what we need:
Anyone with a jiu-jitsu or judo gi they are willing to donate to West Side’s High School Jiu-Jitsu Program you can bring it to or send it to:

High School Jiu Jitsu
c/o mark Johnson
1750 Lake St.
Ogden UT 84401

Or bring it by the gym:

West Side Jiu-Jitsu Academy
2238 Washington Blvd
Ogden UT 84401

Thanks for your help.

Good training and a happy life.

Mark Johnson
West Side Jiu-Jitsu Academy
2238 Washington Blvd
Ogden UT 84401
westsidejiujitsu.com
(801) 920-6500"

Do it.

Tiesto show at Austin Music Hall, April 23, 2010

Friday night-Saturday morning, April 23-24, 2010...

I love trance music- I roll to it, I drive to it, I work out to it. I was really excited to hear that Tiesto, a Dutch DJ and arguably the best in the world, was coming to play a show at the Austin Music Hall. I got my ticket for $30 a couple months ago, but they were selling on TicketMaster for nearly $400 last week :)



I arrived with my friend John around 8pm. I left my cell in the car, afraid I'd lose it (I surely would have) and so these videos are from youtube, not me. We luckily ran into Zade shortly after, when the place was still half empty and only a local DJ, Exceed, was warming up the crowd.



The upstairs seating was pleasantly cool and uncrowded. The second DJ came on, but I was content to chill and save my energy; Tiesto was scheduled to finish at 2am but he's played a 12 hour set in the past so I wanted to be ready. I was surprised to see so many older people, 40s and up, enjoying the scene. I thought everyone would be under 25.

One young kid named Corbin asked me if it was my first rave.
"Uh, no."
First Tiesto show?
"Yeah."
Was I rolling?
"Nope."
Did I know what rolling was?
"Can I ask how old you are?"
Yeah, I'm 20.
"I was dancing at raves when you were in diapers." [resisting urge to call him 'sonny.']

Finally around 10pm Tiesto took over the decks. John, Zade and I were on the floor of the hall by then, and I predictably got separated within the first 10 minutes. Here's his opening...







I finagled my way up to the front barriers keeping people back from the stage (reminding me of the Pan!), looking for my friends for the first couple minutes without success-- then I gave up and let myself be carried along on the wave.



Guys were nice about letting me through (I'm so short, I wasn't impairing their view!) but the girls were snotty little wenches even if you were working your way through the crowd on a parallel track to the stage. I endured stupidity beyond belief from little teenybopper girls acting like they wanted a fight (trust me, I did find myself thinking "You really don't know who you're threatening.")

These were taken from upstairs, most likely in the VIP section. Not a bad view, but for $100 a ticket, IF you bought tickets months ago?!







I spent about 3 hours on the floor -- the third row of people back from the barrier, dead center in front of Tiesto --- feeling some of the most amazing, intense beats reverberating through my chest... This video here gives a decent idea of how well I could see Tiesto and how close I was. At the end, around 8:37, you see a Hispanic guy, short hair, with a brown polo shirt w/ light horizontal stripes-- I was standing right behind him!!! I was probably two rows of people in front of this person doing the filming. I could see the sweat on Tiesto's brow, the level of water in the cup he drank from, the hairs on his freaking MAGIC hands.



I would have been about 3-5 people to the right of whoever filmed this. Unfortunate that the chicks were trying to sing along.



Um, did I mention he's freakin' HOT? Can't tell you how many people I overheard saying they'd jump him right then and there, given the opportunity...





Sociologically interesting- tons of people were filming this show with their phones! If they were behind someone tall, they'd watch the screens around them instead of trying to see the actual show. I noticed LOTS of people doing this.



The best way I can describe the physical sensation of being on the floor, where everyone is packed SO TIGHTLY against each other, is that there is no separation between you. Everyone together is one amazing organism, and the clothing you're wearing is only a cell wall.



There is no dancing, really. The melody line creates synchronous undulation with all the bodies, from pelvis to shoulder, because it can't be helped; everyone is a similar groove, like a hive of bees all doing the same figure-8 dance to describe where the good nectar is... When the music shifts (as it does over, and over, and over all night long) from the melody line to the more intense bass bridge, the crowd begins jumping up and down. When the beat pounds you into motion, the millimeter separating your skeleton from your neighbor's goes out the window and you simply MUST jump.

You jump as if you are connected to the ceiling with a bungee, as if you and your neighbors are all shrimp impaled on the same kabob.





After three hours of that, I was a little tired. My feet and legs were fine-- I was still loving the music and the intensity of the experience (which was a lot like being caught up in a religious ecstasy, I suppose)-- but I was hurting in other ways.



You're jammed in so tightly, and people are more interested in filming than in just absorbing, so on both sides of me and behind me there's arms upraised, holding phones. I'm just the right height to be a tricep rest or an elbow rest. Men's nasty armpits are eye level. (Do I not get enough of that in jits?) People are resting their sweaty arms on my shoulders and my head-- then the weight of their arm, sticking to my hair with sweat, is pulling my head back and down. My hair is getting stuck to the people around me and one clown asks me to put my hair in a ponytail for her convenience. Sorry, babe, I can't move my arms- suck it up. The crowd is organic and sentient, slowly swaying and moving like the sea, and it was a potentially crappy undertow. Hooray, there was a short, rotund, solidly-planted man right in front of me so, with my fingers inside his belt loops on either side of his hips, I clung to him like a limpet on a piling when the tide's going out.

My neck got really, really sore, so I decided to take a break, get a drink, and maybe go upstairs for a change of pace. I wormed my way out and upstairs, where I immediately spotted Zade. He was also separated from John early on, so we decided to have a soda and catch our breath. As we chilled out, we got more tired, and eventually decided we'd had our fill of people watching and hive-behavior. We left the building at 1:30am, enjoyed a refreshing walk to Zade's car in the (cold) rain, and I was asleep in bed before 3am.

I'm bummed I can't get more nights like that :)









So amazing.... not from Austin, it's a few years old, but amazing nonetheless...



And, backstage in Austin, 4 years ago...



I gotta wonder: is there any good jits in Ibiza?

Smaller, weaker-- Tips for Female Grapplers

Smaller and weaker... that's me, usually. So I really loved this article on Stephan Kesting's site, Tips for Female Grapplers, by Krista Scott-Dixon who blogs about fitness for women at Stumptuous.com.

A Guide to Dyeing Your Own Gi

Are you tired of white or cobalt gis? Are the bright yellow or scarlet options too shocking for your taste? Pepto-Pink makes you puke? You can dye your gi yourself-- how about hunter green, chocolate brown, dark red? I've dyed several of my own and others, with varying results, so here's what I have learned. Of course double check the process and times with the Dharma website instructions and go with what they tell you! This is just from my memory!

First-- if you want a tie-dyed gi, DO NOT ATTEMPT AT HOME. Go straight to a professional like Chris at Happy Kimonos, who did one for me that you can see here.

OVERVIEW OF MATERIALS NEEDED:

Procion MX is a fiber-reactive dye far superior to grocery-store Rit dye (because you don't have to do it in 140 degree hot water-- warm works just fine-- and because they have a million more colors.) I bought it from Dharma Trading Company online. Generally speaking, it will not dye other items in your wash, or bleed, because there is a chemical reaction during the dye process which locks the dye to the cotton fiber in the fabric. When the reaction finishes, the dye is no longer "fiber reactive" so it won't color other stuff. NOTE: I still think it's a good idea to wash your newly-dyed gi by itself a couple times to be on the safe side. I have never tested the fiber-reactivity by washing something white in there on the first go. If you do, let us know what you discover! :)

Dyeing a gi is a somewhat involved process but if you can read and tell time, you will be fine. Allow about 3-4 hours from start (with a clean gi) to finish (either hanging it up to dry or putting it in the dryer.) Depending on how heavy your gi is (therefore the quantity of chemicals you will order) it will cost you about $25-30 to dye a gi and you will have enough of some chemicals left over to do another several gis. Or, if you prefer someone else dealing with all this, you can also get Happy Kimonos to dye yours a solid color.

The Dharma Trading website is great, it walks you through all this, but consider this a preview so you know what to expect. The dye comes in a little plastic jar and is a white powder till it hits water.



It doesn't always dissolve smoothly into water, so you will "paste" it with a smaller amount (like 2-3 cups) of warm water first, then stir that into the big tub of water before you put in the gi. To make the dye paste up better, you'll dissolve some urea (nitrogen) into the 2-3 cups of water first. Also, you'll add a couple teaspoons of calsolene oil to lower the surface tension of the water- this reduces streaking. Another chemical you'll buy is soda ash which works as a fixative to stop the dye process. And, you should have at least 12 cups of table salt on hand per gi-- cheapest thing to do if you will maybe dye more than one is buy a sack of salt at Sam's (they have it for water softeners and saltwater swimming pools, maybe $5/20 lb bag.)



Dharma also sells textile detergent that you'll use to pre-wash the gi and wash after the dyeing process. If you're going to dye a brand new gi, the pre-wash is really important because the gi may have a fabric treatment or starch in the cloth from the factory. For us paranoid types, the detergent also theoretically keeps the dye from resettling on other colored areas -which is really only relevant in tie-dyes; you don't have to worry about patches, stitching etc because the dye only colors cotton, not nylon. Dharma Trading has one version, Synthrapol, which smells like crap!!! and their house brand which is cheaper, smells infinitely better, and works just as well. They also sell an industrial-strength fabric softener since the dyeing process stiffens the fabric a bit. I highly recommend this fabric softener, it turned my Gameness gi into silk :) If you're really paranoid about fixing the dye, you can also get some additional fixative, which I used once. Didn't notice much of a difference.

DYEING:

The dyeing process is fairly easy as long as you are methodical about it. Here's my process as I have tweaked it over time. Read all the instructions on the Dharma website at least twice all the way through before you begin.

You actually dye the gi in saltwater. First, I mixed 12 cups of non-iodized salt in a big rectangular rubbermaid storage tub about 2/3 full of tap water as hot as I could stand it with my hand (it cools but you still want the water warm at least so start with it hot.) I stirred with a long-handled wooden spoon to dissolve the salt, then added the calsolene oil. I also kept yellow rubber gloves (like for household chores) handy, and wore an apron.

I mixed the urea (which looks like styrofoam pellets and smells like pee, 'cause that's what it comes from) into about 3 cups of hot water in a glass bowl and dissolved it; then added the dye powder to the water and mashed it against the wall of the bowl with a fork 'till it was as dissolved and smooth as I could make it. Then I poured this solution through a sieve, lined with cheesecloth or a cheap throwaway thin piece of cloth (like a handkerchief or old linen dishtowel), into the saltwater dye bath. This is important to avoid speckles of undissolved dye which can add a confetti appearance of red, blue and yellow to your whatever-color gi. Not good :)

Once the dye solution is in the tub of water, I added the gi and stirred well, continuing to stir the fabric every minute or so for about 20 minutes dyeing time. I made sure I turned the fabric over from top to bottom, switching relative position of the pants and gi top, for even color. I even tugged on the drawstring a little bit to make sure the dye was well into all the crevices. I would imagine you can't stir too much. When the dyeing time is up, you next need to fix the dye.

You do this with the soda ash, but you can't just chuck it into the tub. You have to dissolve it in hot water too. And, if you pour the fixative onto the gi itself, you will have major permanent dark patches, so you have to keep the gi at one end and pour the fixer into the water at the other end. It helps to have another pair of hands for this, just to keep the gi pinned at the far end of the tub for a few minutes.

It's also a good idea to start making the fixative solution while the gi is still dyeing. If you just dump the ash into the hot water, it will become a lump of concrete, no kidding, plus the chemical reaction the soda ash has with the water produces a fair amount of heat, as I discovered the first time (my spoon wouldn't penetrate the lump in the bowl, so I put my gloved hand in to scrabble at it with my fingers... dadgum thing was RED HOT.) So you have to have the glass bowl half full of hot water and then gradually sift the soda ash into the water while stirring constantly. When you get as much of the ash dissolved as you can, you or a friend slowly pour that solution into the dye bath while they/you hold the gi bunched up at the far end of the tub, using your long spoon, tongs or whatever. Stir the ash solution into the dye bath and begin again if you need to dissolve more ash-- I think I had about 2 cups of ash and maybe only 1 cup fit into the bowl of water.

Once the fixative is in, stir the gi around well, top to bottom, and stir every couple minutes for about another 30 minutes of fixing.

Then a trip through the washer, and you're done. The hardest part of the whole process is getting the wet gi out of the tub without splashing anywhere, then dumping the dye solution into the sink, then getting the gi over to your washing machine. The Dharma website actually has instructions for doing this inside your washer, which would have been great for me except I have a front loader and I don't think that would've worked so well. I never had any accidents, spills, or major splashing, so it is totally a do-able job.

My first two dye jobs ("baby blue" and "citrus yellow") came out stronger and brighter than I hoped/expected, at first, but they have mellowed out very acceptably and then stayed at that nice color for over a year now. Actually, I followed the instructions on the blue to the letter, except put 4 ounces of dye powder in instead of 3.2 oz... when I did the yellow gi, I saw in the first couple minutes that it was waaaaay brighter/darker than I wanted, so I immediately mixed up some fixative to stop the process. Instead of dyeing the yellow for 20 minutes it was only 4... but the fixative made it appear even darker for a minute (think high school chemistry titration reaction) so I only put in about 1/5 the amount of fixative and basically stopped fixing it after about 5 minutes. I was hoping it would "relax" the intensity of the color, but it didn't much. Surprisingly, the yellow gi has not had bleeding or fading problems.







However, with time, the blue and yellow have both lightened up a little, the blue more than the yellow. The blue is a perfect baby blue color now, and is only a little uneven, which I attribute to my insufficient stirring and agitation.

None of the patches were cotton, so they didn't take the color. The yellow gi had cotton thread for the embroidery so the white embroidery became yellow. The red trim still looks good though.

One Gameness gi that I dyed ended up looking pretty uneven-- my friend's charcoal grey. (That's how I learned to strain the dye paste, because his got confetti'd... and for unknown reasons, it became blotchy a week later to the point of calling it "postApocalyptic camouflage".) I am not sure why-- I suspect he bleached it just to torture me. The good side effect though is that next time I dye a gi I will be anal retentive about stirring, timing, and chemistry. Mrs. Kolz (my sophomore year chem teacher) would be somewhat proud.

I still have sage green and emerald to try out. I also want to try dip-dyeing a gi... dangle the ends of the legs in a dark blue and let the color creep up... then fix it, wash it. Then, dip the shoulders only in a green, and let the color creep... with white in the middle... maybe I'm carrying this too far??