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AussieAri's weblog
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last modified Dec 22, 2001 at 22:31
New Mexican GIN. I can not wait to try this local brew with juniper berries, pinon nuts, rose hips and chamisa. Well...ok, maybe not the chamisa.
They stopped the Gina Carano/Kaitlin Young fight. No, Young had not broken anything in her face- it just looked like hamburger. Fucking pussies. I'm only saying this because if it were men fighting they wouldn't have stopped it.
The people who run the martial arts section of the Gay Games are the IAGLMA (International Association of Gay and Lesbian Martial Artists). The organization's roots and thus their rules are totally dominated by the practices of asian martial arts point scoring sparing and kata routines. Even their rules for the 'self defense' portion of competition would not give a grappler or say, an aikidoist any inclusion.
For example: say i do a takedown and they land a light strike in my doing so (which usually happens) and i choke them out/tap them out. They would be the one with points (for the glancing blow) and though i submitted them and executed my movements with control, i would still lose the bought.
I think i'll shoot them off an email about this exclusion. God knows they'll probably be agog at including some portion of their already minority population so things might change.
the folks at LuckyJew.com sure are funny!
20 ACERS ½ meadow, ½ forest. All utilities; borders national forest, at the end of the road, gated entrance, catch pond. 45 mins. from Santa Fe. NO RELATORS. $165,000 will finance w/$10,000 down.
It’s perfect. It’s perfect as what I’ve wanted for years now and I have nothing else to say about it but that I can’t convince myself I should do something about this. Well, other than trying to convince my dad to buy it but he’s not interested in land with no house on it (even though I’d bloody well build one!).
Jeannette Winterson has a new book out! This is her reading from it! It's about exactly what I've been wanting someone to write on...and here's my favorite living fiction writer doing so!
*faints from excitement and dies*
Last night I watched Battlestar Galactica season 4 with Jamie and walked home (we live literally a block from each other). It was a night like I have only experienced once before in Dallas in Summer in the Evening. The air was still and the temperature and humidity are just so that if you weren’t moving you wouldn’t know there WAS air about you at all. It feels like you’re in some strange vacuum. There is no difference between the temperature and moisture of your skin and the air.
The writing on Battlestar has gotten back to being very good on season 4. Are there any other series that have seriously questioned what it is to be human and the fallouts of this mass questioning in times of utter crisis? Wow. No easy answers, just an excellent portrayal.
I wrote a love poem for the first time in oh…years. Not only that but it’s pretty good. It is certainly not of the crappy variety I had been writing most gleefully lately. How wonderful.
Has anyone ever seen or heard of a wedding (in reality of course) that’s been interrupted, crashed, or had a bride/groom not show and in the end NOT happen? Does this EVER occur outside of entertainment?
The leavings of St. John’s students at the end of the year is affectionately referred to as ‘the Johnny pile’ was good this year but not superb. I got lots of nice cloths but no quirky rare things or appliances…and certainly nothing I could really use like say a CNC milling machine…
Artichokes and Asparagus are sexually compatible.
While a genetically modified version of E. coli converting organic matter into carbon less diesel sounds awesome…if only their ‘feedstock’ is actually waste matter and the introduction of this GMO into the world doesn’t screw up natural balance even more.
Thank god Cheryl is done watching all of The Next Generation Season 1 on Netflix. Man that was painful. The only good thing about season 1 was Tasha Yar (yaaaarrr!) and she doesn’t even survive the season! I refuse to watch it till Reiker grows a beard. Reiker’s beard holds the show together.
My wednesdays this month suck. Suckity suck suck.
I’d forgotten how much it hurts to split the skin over your tailbone open. It STINGS!
I’m not sure I like weighing 123 lbs. I haven't been this light since before i started really working out in college. I feel so…light. And looking ripped aside, feeling light is not really helpful when you’re trying to work on your top game against bigger opponents. I just don't have the weight i used to use for that.
I was talking about Gina Carano getting her arse beat in an MMA fight. Well. Cris Cyborg or Shayna Baszler are signed with Elite XC and either of them just might do it (Shayna at least since Cris has some sort of visa issue). Either way- it will happen and I will be watching.
I didn’t watch the recent Elite XC fights but honestly I’m not too impressed with the whole company after surfing around and watching some Youtube videos of some of the fights.
I’d like to talk about the Gina Carano/Tanya Evinger fight. Would someone please beat Gina Carano sometime soon (I would but she’s out of my weight class)? I don’t say this because I have beef against her or I want to belittle her skills and hard work but because she is not, as Elite XC or herself would have you believe, the universe’s gift to female MMA. Honey- there are women that have been doing MMA shit elsewhere since before either she or I were beginning to form fetal fighter bodies and those women are still kicking more arse and doing it harder. 4-0 is not that impressive a record. It’s a good start though!
OK, back to Elite XC and then we’ll talk about Tanya Evinger.
Go watch the fight and you’ll hear the following remarks from the announcers.
“I think Evinger had the quote of the pre-fight press conference when she said she would rather make out with Carano but instead she would just have to knock her out.”
“I’m not going to touch that one with a 25 foot pole"
“I’d like to touch it with a 25 centimeter pole”
Then later the announcers mention ‘dirty jiu jitsu’ frequently when the fight goes to the ground and ends there. I didn’t see any dirty jiu jitsu but I did see plenty of sloppy jiu jitsu because neither of these women are trained in jiu jitsu!
With the majority of their ranks being packed by second rate and new fighters, I suppose we can’t expect more from the announcers who must only be second rate or completely new to the job of announcing and therefore unaware of what-not-to-bloody-say you bastard. Start taking lessons from Howard Cosell.
Many people say that Tanya Evinger brings female fighting low with what seems to be a singular opinion about her opponents and her desires for them. Personally, I have no idea what fucking and fighting have to do with each other. Once I made the mistake of admiring an advanced jiu jitsu student physically when I should have been paying attention to rolling with her. It ended with her choking the shit out of me. I never made that mistake again and that’s the closest I’ve come to mixing those two activities. Far be it for me to demean anyone who has the guts to be openly gay in pro sports. It’s easier for women than it is for men but that doesn’t mean it’s easy in general. In one way I applaud her for speaking her mind so openly. In another, I just find myself shaking my head. In non-fight videos she reminds me of some sort of dyke version of a frat boy.
When you compare what Tanya said about Gina to what the announcers said about them, the announcers outside the cage look worse for their objectification of female fighters. Why? Because Tanya IS a female fighter and she IS actually in that ring fighting which is more than most people ever do.
Pro sports are about victory (rather, winning) and also image (read: money). Here we have one upstart league trying to jump on the exploding MMA bandwagon and there’s room to toss female fighting a bone. Even if that bone is predicated more on the idea of female fights as having sexual subtext and overall context and female fighters as sex objects. Sure, let’s throw a chick fight on the ticket. And the female fighters? Well one is cashing in on her looks and the other is cashing in on the press attention she draws from her antics and vocalization. Looks fade and shocking comments from the same mouth end up sounding dry. At least we’re getting some more fights on the boob tube in the end.
Several months ago I was talking with Cheryl about IQ. She brought to my attention the fact that the average IQ is 100. I had a hard time believing this. Why? Well if I’m as smart as the IQ test says I am and I still make the mistakes I do in life well then humanity at large with its 100 average is just screwed. Definitely just screwed!
Cucumber water in summer is the most refreshing thing ever.
My classes so far rock. They will be keeping me very busy this month and fairly busy the next. No one knows what quite to make of me as usual. 'I'm a bladesmith...' and i see a sea of saucer eyeballs blinking before me.
I have a request though, gentle reader:
If'in you have or know of nifty/exotic/cool/bizarre trinkets, statues, carvings, tokens, seals, or textures, could i please borrow them for my contemporary bronze casting class? I will be focusing on making fixtures and adornments for blades so think things that would do well as pommels, ends of guards, or set into a scabbards and handles. All items will of course be returned to you in one piece and you will have influenced the design of one of my blades! Sweet eh?
I visited Santa Fe Jewelers Supply today. I'm surprised i had never heard of them before. Anyway- pretty bloody good for Santa Fe. I also found a better supply company for my trade than Woodtek and they're in Albuquerque! Rio Grande Supply rocks.
Does anyone remember the guy they pulled out of a cave on LANL land about 5 years ago? Well here’s a case of a homeless Japanese woman living in someone’s closet.
I remember being in NYC and several times having the problem of finding a toilet to go in with a door to close. Well skip to the loo with trepidation no more! MizPee is here to help you! (if you live in a major city that is.)
Happy Gay Pride month everybody! This year I’m gonna ride my motorcycle in the Albuquerque pride and the smallest gay pride parade known to man- the Santa Fe Gay Pride! Wooo!
We have no air conditioning at the house. There was never air conditioning at the house. We have heat but no air con. I didn’t really appreciate air conditioning till I was working in an open air forge in Texas for a year and after being basically ‘outside’ all day in the evenings it was nice to have some sort of temperature control. Ah well, I’ve lived in Santa Fe with no air con before. I’m just afraid Cheryl will not suffer it well (she hates the heat, I love it).
I had the worst customer service/shopping day on Wednesday. Never shop at Santa Fe MotorSports. What a waste of time and energy for nothing. Gad!
Later that same day i discover that Woodtek in Albuquerque may be a great source for machines and wood working stuff but it had surprising holes in its stock that were almost comical. What do you mean you don’t have muslin buffer wheels, rouge, or abrasive belt grease?!
I got to see Sandeep though and we had a gut and taste bud bustingly wonderful meal at Flying Star on Menaul. WOW. The Triple Berry cheesecake rendered us incapable of speech!
I went to no gi take down class at the ABQ BJJ school. Most of the guys seemed nice. On duty ABQPD came by to serve two people who go to the school. They weren’t there. Yikes. Why don’t we do takedown classes in Santa Fe? The only time I’ve seen a takedown taught there was in a seminar and then a simple hip toss in beginners class. Needless to say- I was totally out of my element rolling no gi…from stand up. I just can not find any of the grips I’m looking for! The fact that I roll a too defensive and not controlling enough game is becoming more and more apparent and frustrating to me. That approach is not the way to win tournaments. My game is usually much better than that when I roll with other women (they’re my size) and i don't fall into that trap but that’s only about 10% of the time! I think this is one of those ‘growing pain’ periods where it’s mostly frustration but this is when you’re actually learning.
Afterwards I picked up Cheryl from her roller derby practice and we went to the Flying Star on Paseo Del Norte. If you order one of their special drinks like ‘red stuff’ make sure they don’t fill that cup up with ice because they will NOT give you a refill on it and you just shelled out what you would for a gourmet coffee.
I woke up on Thursday to a call from the Community College. The Artistic Welding I class was canceled two days before classes begin due to low enrollment numbers. Bloody buggery bum fuck. I was really looking forward to it too! I signed up for Jewelery/Metal Arts just in time to find that because I was away last year I am now an ‘out of area’ student which means I get to pay over twice as much per credit. ARRRRRGGGG!
At least it looks like i've regained my old modeling contact. (Wooot! easy money!)
I have my first day of class tomorrow, contemporary bronze casting, all day long. It's going to be hard adjusting to going to classes again. I mean CLASSES...with credits! I haven't done this stuff in over 3 years! I will be good for me i'm sure.
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