Maj. Bloodnok

"You've got to find what you love and let it kill you." -Kinky Friedman "If you trust in yourself. . .and believe in your dreams. . .and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy." -Terry Pratchett, "Wee Free Men" "Work as though you lived in the first days of a better nation." -Alastair Gray

You can poach eggs in it to make a quick shakshuka or oeufs a la turque. Or just drink it straight. :-)

I'll 'fess up to having a couple of Bad Livers tracks in my personal playlist: their covers of Iggy Pop's 'Lust for Life' and Agony Column's 'Brave Words and Bloody Knuckles' would make Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs do half-gainers in their graves.

Yer missing out on a wildly fun action comedy then. Basic premise: two superspies from opposing countries fall in love, get married and have kids. Parents get kidnapped by a crazed media mogul, so the kids (aided by various relatives and family friends) have to go rescue them. Hilarity ensues. Gadgets! Rocket packs! Killer robot kids! Fake mustaches! Flooglies! Robert Rodriguez is a great action director, and he obviously had fun with this film. The sequels were a mess, but the first one is well worth watching.

Wow, lots of good stuff here. Here's mine: "Bubba Ho-Tep", which stars Bruce Campbell as an elderly Elvis impersonator who just might be Elvis in disguise, Ossie Davis as JFK, and a zombie. Based off a great story by Joe R. Lansdale. "Leningrad Cowboys Do America" - wonderful, deadpan comedy directed by Aki Kaurismaki, about a Russian polka band who seek fame and fortune in the US. They're lugging around the frozen corpse of their bassist, and being followed by the village idiot. Then they discover rock and roll...

He actually wrote some good satires. My favorite is 'The Spectacles', in which the main character is tricked into proposing marriage to his own great-grandmother. He does not recognize the poor dear because he's extremely myopic and too vain to wear spectacles....

Thanks Machete and Sahaja for your recommendations! My oldest daughter can do Cow Face like it's nothing. I try not to be envious; she's 13, and I'm 46 after all. Then again, I couldn't do Cow Face when I was her age either...

Hi: I've been trying unsuccessfully to do table makers as part of a calisthenics routine. I have plenty of strength and mobility in my legs and back, but I can't seem to get the necessary rotation in my shoulder joints. It feels like someone's trying to tear off my arm every time I push up. I've been working on loosening up the muscles, but it's slow going. Can anyone recommend a series of progressions or a modification to make the exercise easier?

Earplugs for the snoring. My wife snores, especially when she's got a cold. I can sleep through a lot, but not through snoring.

I just finished a fun little mystery: "Chinese Cooking for Diamond Thieves" by Dave Lowry. It's about a lily-white college dropout who, on a whim, gives a lift to a stranded girl in a Vermont rest stop during a snowstorm. Things get weird after that. It turns out that said dropout is a kickass traditional Chinese chef who speaks passable Mandarin and is pretty good at xingyi. The stranded girl has connections to a Triad money laundering operation. There are hijinks, escapades, a couple of fight scenes, and a lot of descriptions of Chinese cooking. Lots of snappy dialogue, some romantic tension between the two main characters, and some good linguistic jokes. Note: I sorta know Dave Lowry. We trained under the same karate sensei for a while, many years ago. He's also a restaurant critic and non-fiction author, mostly about traditional Japanese martial arts. He's been writing "The Karate Way" column in Black Belt Magazine since 1986. So I was sort of predisposed to like the book anyway. Even if I didn't know Dave Lowry, I'd still recommend this.

Yes indeed. Though after the third book he just stays on Mars, and the focus shifts to other characters. Chessmen of Mars is pretty cool, especially the gladiatorial chess game. Mastermind of Mars is a great indictment of mindless faith and intellectual superiority. The last three or four books in the series are just silly.

Hello all: My oldest daughter is 13. She's been treated for ADHD, anxiety and OCD since she was six, all by the same psychiatrist. Last week, she went to see a new psychiatrist, who promptly diagnosed her with Asperger's. He didn't tell my daughter, but he did tell my wife. My wife took the news pretty hard: this means that two of our three kids are officially autistic, instead of just one. My wife doesn't want to tell my daughter about the diagnosis for now, for fear that she'll use it as a crutch. (she already does this with her ADHD sometimes.) I want to tell her, so she has a better handle on how her brain works and how to interact with the world. Both my wife and I have learning disabilities, diagnosed in childhood. My wife's parents told her, and implied that she was stupid and wouldn't accomplish as much as her siblings. My parents did not tell me for several years, which left me to white-knuckle my way through high school math and feel like a complete idiot. Neither one of us wants our daughter to feel stupid, worthless, crazy or broken. We just don't agree on what to do. So, for those with kids on the spectrum, as well as those on the spectrum themselves: what do you think? Should we tell her or not?

Ya know, you can leave out the honey... and the lemon juice... and even the tea... you may not feel any better, but you'll care a lot less! :-)

My 6-year-old daughter has been taking dance and gymnastics lessons for a couple of years now. She's good at some things, but struggles with others. The other day she was lamenting her inabiility to do a gymnastics bridge. There was much crying involved. The word 'never' was spoken many times. So I did what any father would do: calm her down, give her a good snuggle, and talk about how long it took me to learn bridging. I told her about all the pushups I did, all the times I had to bend back over an ottoman because I couldn't get up off the floor... no good. I still had a puddle of crying six-year old, wailing about how she'd never be able to do a bridge. Then I had a thunk. (Nota bene: a 'thunk' is a thought that makes an audible sound as it slaps you upside the head with its obviousness.) "Duh... form check!" I had her try to do a bridge. Sure enough, her hands and feet were too far out from her body. She could get her hips and back up, but couldn't raise her shoulders. A couple of slight adjustments and... Boom. Full bridge. She couldn't hold it for more than a few seconds, but it was a bridge. Instant happy kid. All the next day she kept flopping down on the floor and busting out another bridge. There's been noticeable improvement. I just wish I could see her teacher's face when she does that in class...

Just finished: "Sick Puppy" by Carl Hiaasen and "The World of The End" by Ofir Touche Gafla (had some good bits, but overall it was a real mess.) Starting: "Dark Carnival" by Ray Bradbury. It's his very first short story collection, way back when he was writing more horror than SF.

Well, I live in St. Louis and I haven't seen many informal training groups like what you're describing. Most of what's on Meetup.com are either affiliated with bootcamp trainers or are more low-key. As far as good places to train, any public park with a play structure is good, as long as you're not actively keeping the little ones away. It all depends on where you land when you get here. There are a number of us nerds here in the St. Louis area, but coordinating our various and conflicting schedules for a meetup/ workout session is a daunting task. I myself do mostly bodyweight stuff, but I'm pretty sure I'm nowhere near your league. (As Woody Allen said: "Selective Service rated me 4Q. In the event of war, I'm a hostage.") Drop us a line when you get to town, let us know where you are, and we'll work something out. Welcome to the Rebellion!

This whole thread has me singing Tom Lehrer songs. Specifically "Lobachevsky" and "New Math". :-)

Ooo! Ooo! Me me me!!! Loves me some history, I does. Ancient, modern, doesn't matter. I have a particular fondness for Spain's medieval and Renaissance periods, though I can geek out just as much over American religious utopian communities. I'm a big one for culinary history, too.

"Megitsune" is about the only song of theirs I can stand. Anything else is just WAAAY too cutesy. Katy Perry I can take or leave. Of course, for truly ridiculous metal (and good workout music), it's hard to go wrong with Cookie Mongoloid. Thrash versions of Sesame Street songs, sung by a guy in black leather and a Cookie Monster mask. Then there's the flame throwers, cookie cannons, and motorcycles. http://www.wearemongoloid.com/cookie/

I used to, many years ago. I studied under Sensei Randall Hassell for twelve years (1979-1991), and earned shodan ranking under his guidance. I also studied briefly under Sensei Goran Glucina in Auckland, NZ in 1988. Shotokan was instrumental in guiding my development as a human being. I wouldn't be nearly as strong or as focused as I am now without their teaching.

A couple of tunes by Shel Siverstein (yes, THAT Shel Siverstein): "I Got Stoned and I Missed It" and "Freakin' At The Freaker's Ball". Also "Megitsune" by Babymetal.

Amen to that! There's a lot of Lovecraft pastiches out there. A particular favorite is "The Great Old Pumpkin" by John Aegard. http://www.strangehorizons.com/2004/20041025/pumpkin-f.shtml

Charles Stross' "Atrocity Archives" is the first book in his Laundry Files series. It's a hat-tip to (and occasional piss-take on) Cold War espionage novels and H. P. Lovecraft. Computers, magic, eldritch horrors, snappy one-liners, and a couple of techs nicknamed Pinky and Brains. Later books get even funnier (and weirder). Also hard to go wrong with Joe R. Lansdale: His Hap and Leonard series is a bromance between a former Green Beret and a conscientious objector. They do odd jobs to pay the bills, and fix problems when needed. The fixes usually involve sawed-off shotguns, explosives, and kempo. Lansdale is very funny, philosophical without being boring, and manages to disrupt every expectation you might have of any given character. "Savage Season" is the first novel in the series. The narrator does a great job with East Texas accents and giving distinctive voices for each character.

Well, seeing as how nobody's answered, let me put in my 2 credits: If you're into cyberpunk, it's hard to go wrong with William Gibson. He pretty much defined the genre in the 1980s. Neuromancer, Count Zero, and Mona Lisa Overdrive are the most cyberpunk of his books, though his latest "The Peripheral" is something of a return to form. His short story collection "Burning Chrome" is also worth reading. Definitely read Charles Stross' "Halting State" and "Rule 34". It's "ten minutes into the future" stuff; lots of computer hacking, obscure financial crimes, and snappy one-liners. Straddling the line between cyberpunk and wizard fiction (and often stomping all over it) is his Laundry Files series. Very funny, highly dramatic, and full of hat tips to Cold War spy novels and, H. P. Lovecraft. For wizard/mage/sorcerer stuff, check out Richard Kadrey's "Sandman Slim" novels. Imagine John Constantine as a pit-fighting biker, and you'll get a general sense of the books.

DON'T FEED THE PLANTS!!!!!!11!!!! Epic soundtrack choice, BTW. Levi Stubbs singing "Mean Grean Mutha From Outer Space" is a great workout song.