LMAO!!!!



Benidorm Bastards is a tv program where the elderly take revenge by pulling pranks on random people

For Tattoo Jim...

For Rich and Finn...

Gotta Get Me One of These...

Gotta Get Me One of These...



Created by designer Marijn Van der Poll above, demonstrating in his Eindhoven workshop how to shape it perfectly.

It cost $6,000 when released in 2007. It's now $9,750.


Wrote Tim McKeough in the April 2010 issue of Wired magazine, "The potential perch arrives as a perfect stainless steel box; you bash your own seat into it with the included long-handled hammer.

'I make a cube,' Van der Poll says, 'then you create a chair.'"
It measures 39.3" x 29.5" x 27.5" (unbashed).

Which means it's not a cube but, rather, a parallelepiped.

Too funny!!!

Now China...Again...

A magnitude 6.9 earthquake struck the Qinghai province in China, and the number of injured has risen to more than 10,000 as rescue workers struggle to dig trapped people out.
The epicenter of the first quake was located 235 miles south-southeast of Golmud, a large city in Qinghai, at a depth of six miles, the USGS said.

In 2008 there was a magnitude 8.0 temblor in Sichuan province that killed 68,000 people.

HAITI 7.0
CHILE 8.8
TURKEY 6.0
MEXICO 7.2
INDONESIA 7.8

China 6.2

Uh, damn!!!

Wow, Just Wow.

Exit Through The Gift Shop...



http://www.banksyfilm.com/

Stay Off My Lawn...

Last night I heard on television for the millionth time that our national debt is like borrowing from our children. Millions of viewers from around the country were probably nodding their heads in agreement. That saying has been around so long that we accept it as a simple statement of fact.

But are we borrowing from our children or investing in them? Suppose we decide to stop spending money so our children will have lots of money for themselves. That would be generous of us, right?

I don't think so.

I think future generations might like to have most of the things we're investing in, such as infrastructure, healthcare, schools, a clean environment, energy sources, and freedom, to name just a few. No one wants to inherit a country full of sickly, uneducated hobos, on the verge of being conquered by Cuba.

Obviously there's a middle ground, where we spend our money as wisely as possible in the present for the benefit of all. But stop making me feel guilty about leaving future generations a clean, educated, healthy, well-defended country with a vigorous economy, even if it comes with some debt attached. It still seems like a bargain.

And perhaps we should stop talking about the future debt in absolute dollars, because "trillions" scares the food out of my esophagus, through my large and small intestines, and about four feet into the surface of the earth. I prefer to hear our national debt expressed as percentages of, for example, our next 30 years of projected GDP. That way it doesn't seem so scary.

Future generations should go get a job. And a haircut. And stay off my lawn!

Add Indonesia to The List...

A powerful 7.8 magnitude earthquake hit the island of Sumatra, Indonesia today, "prompting a brief tsunami warning and sending residents rushing for higher ground." On the plus side, there were no reports of serious damage.
The quake struck at 5:15 a.m. and was centered 125 miles northwest of Sibolga in Sumatra at a depth of 28.6 miles, the U.S. Geological Survey said. The Indonesian Meteorology and Geophysics Agency issued a tsunami warning after the quake.

HAITI 7.0
CHILE 8.8
TURKEY 6.0
MEXICO 7.2

INDONESIA 7.8

Fantastic Teacher...

Where? When? How bad?




HAITI 7.0
CHILE 8.8
TURKEY 6.0
MEXICO 7.2

Who is next and how bad will it be?

I live in California so earthquakes are a normal part of life but they are few and far between. The latest temblors have been pretty brutal and I'm getting worried.
Time to check on the garage grub.

I Love A Great Commercial...

Some Teaching Thoughts...

I read this guy's stuff and am continually impressed. I wish I had the resources to take greater advantage of what he does.

Via Chiron

=====================

I've had time to read, re-read and somewhat digest the comments (both here and e-mail) on Toning Down. Time for some philosophy.


I have no evidence that I'm better than any of you. There is nothing to say that I'm stronger or smarter or quicker or tougher or wiser or more sensitive or any of a hundred of the things that people sometimes use to differentiate themselves. Any difference that exists is that I have done things that many people think about. People who firewalk are no different than people who don't... except that they firewalk. I have learned some things in my own personal firewalk, but there is nothing that leads me to believe that each and everyone of you wouldn't have learned even more than I. Would not have discovered more and spoken of it better. Would not have excelled me in every way.


I like to think I am special. I can be downright vain. There is just no evidence to support that.


So when I am faced with a group of students, they aren't students. They are bundles of potential and insight and skill and power. The same as I was, the same as I still am. Each has the capacity to be better than me. They are, each of them, already better than me at many things.


Further, and this is a hard leap for many people who teach martial arts and self-defense, I'm not interesting in teaching them what to do or even what I did that worked. Because even in the hairiest situation, whatever I did wasn't the key to getting out of it. The key was always in what I saw. (Then, of course giving myself permission to do what I saw needed to be done.)


And all of the students, in every class, already know how to sense the world around them. They can drive. They can identify friends and tell when something is wrong. They can feel a cold draft of a window that shouldn't be open or feel the body warmth of someone who shouldn't be there.


They see stuff and they know stuff, if the blinders aren't on.


If the blinders are on they will trample each other at a door to get out of a burning building and not think to throw a chair through a window. They will hide from gunfire behind a gypsum drywall that won't stop a bullet. They will follow their social conditioning even when they know in their gut and their brains that something is wrong.


There's some teaching in here-- few people have enough contact with predators to understand how predators manipulate, but actually it's not that different than the way that car salesmen or even some parents work.


My ideal for teaching is to give the students permission to see, and then teach them how to teach themselves. People can constantly improve. They can get better, smarter and more efficient each day. Especially if they are working on themselves, in their own way, to become the smartest, strongest most efficient version of themselves that they can grow into.


My gut feeling, is that this can only be hampered by a traditional teaching model. If you decide someone is the ideal and your goal is to imitate him, you have set a bar and you will get there through successive approximation. Not only will you never quite achieve your goal (because even a perfect imitation is an imitation) you take the worthier goal, to be better than the best you have ever seen, right out of your mind.


There is nothing stopping you from this worthier goal... and if you glitch on it, that is one of the first things I would look at.


This post has really rambled. Let me try to sum it up:
You have the potential to be extraordinary. You might need help to see how, but it is right in front of you. You might need permission, so here it is: It's okay to be extraordinary. If you are my student, extraordinary is my minimum expectation. You will get there by teaching yourself. Teaching yourself is simply practice at seeing things as they are, doing something to make them better and then putting some thought into whether you could do it a better, more efficient way.