My Wushu Blog

It’s long overdue, but Mark, Shahaub and I finally got together for a movie. All three of us are movie geeks. Mark was part of the industry with Jet Li and Rotten Tomatoes, Shahaub is in film school right now (and posted a few demo reels, like this one, on vimeo.com), and I like to watch them and then write about what I watch. Our conversations immediately started off with George Lucas movies, Arrested Development, and then oddly to my fear of Bees and Black Widows.



I’ve gone from using Movable Type -> Roller Weblog -> Wordpress over the past 3 years. I’ve missed converting a few entries so today I went through my old MT blog (which is buried on m87-blackhole.org that I even forgot about it). So below are links to my china trip in 2006, which I still reminisce about. China Trip - Arrival and Settling In China Trip - Day one and two



todo HK AVR 254 It is no secret that I love watching movies in the comfort of my own living room. I get to eat what I want, drink and not have to worry about driving, and most of the time I’m by myself so I don’t have to worry about shushing people. What can I say, its a great way for me to recharge and get lost for a few hours.



todo Let The Right One In Let the Right One In is a very memorable horror movie. It’s in the vein (HA!) of a vampire movie, yet it never really addresses the question and creatively dodges it. The two characters are a boy and a girl. Oskar and Eli. The young boy lives in an apartment complex with his single (and very absent) mother. Like most boys, he has a bully problem.



These noise-aholics, these quiet-ophobics I liked that statement, it is mentioned many times throughout the book with some variation. There is a great part where the protagonist, Carl Streaton, talks about his apartment tenets “sound wars”. Where its not about the music anymore, but the volume. As much as I dislike loud noises and chaos, I was able to relate very well to the main character. The book isn’t about noise-aholics, peace-ophobics, but about a childrens lullaby that kills anyone who hears it.



I didn’t know, but this class marked Mark’s 14th year wushu anniversary. Thats awesome, he remembers the exact day, time and the fact that it was partially cloudy outside. Sheesh, I remember mine was around October 2001, around the time The One was released in theatres, not the exact time and day though. With that, congrats Mark! The rule for showing up late is that you have to do 20 burpee’s.



I didn’t want to forget to blog about this, it is a little late. Over a month ago (Jan 31st), Jenny invited me to hike Mount Diablo with the Stanford Outing Group, lead by “V”. I’ve posted her photos to the gallery here, and you should read her post on our trip. Its more entertaining than mine :) http://jettagirl.wordpress.com/2009/02/01/mount-diablo-hike-to-the-summit/ This was a 14 mile hike, took about 6-7 hours (I think) and made my legs feel like jelly.



Group photo todo My Dad and I are very similar, one of those similar traits is that we procrastinate and push things like Christmas off until ALMOST March :) This get together worked out last year, so we did it again. The traditional holiday schedule is so crazy and overwhelming (especially for an introvert) that it is miserable to try and cram everything in within a few days. With us getting together two months after settling down from the real event, its nice and relaxing and we get to have Pizza without worrying that the place will close due to a holiday.



Another awesome class of basics with Mark. I like the basic wushu movements now more than ever, for two reasons. I’m so out of it now, I can’t remember an entire form, so its all I can do. If you can do basics well, then all of the rest comes a lot easier. Its something we should always work on. What I also like are little combination, you know, not a full section, but just a short string of punches, kicks, and stances.



I’ve configured this blog to use my OpenID accounts. I have two (which totally goes against the single identity mindset of OpenID :) ) http://mcarlson.myopenid.com/ http://openid.evil-genius-network.com/mike The second one I just stood up today. I’m always concerned with who has my information, and if I can, I try to keep it all within the realm of my control. Also, the evil genius domain has absolutely no purpose besides a testing ground that I have no problems destroying :)

