April 2005 Archives

Once in a while, the world is exposed to greatness of another kind of level. For some people, it was Jesus. For others, Ghandi, or maybe George W. Bush (hey, I'm not judging!). For me, it's Ted Nugent. Ted Nugent represents all that is pure in our world. He represents a simpler time, when people could shoot other people whenever they damn well pleased, and the quantity of guns you owned was directly relatable to the length of your glorious gun-toting penis.

What has Ted been up to lately? I'll tell you. He's been helping to make the world a better place. Bay sent me the link to this article, summarized below:

Rocker Ted Nugent spurs on NRA members in Texas, in spite of the fact that no one remembers who he is

Seriously, does anyone know who this guy is?

HOUSTON (AP) - With an assault weapon in each hand, rocker and gun rights advocate Ted Nugent urged National Rifle Association members to be "hardcore, radical extremists demanding the right to self-defence."

As though the only way to defend ourselves is using assault rifles and ICBMs..

Speaking at the NRA's annual convention Saturday, Nugent said each NRA member should try to enroll 10 new members over the next year and associate only with other members.

"Let's next year sit here and say, 'Holy smokes, the NRA has 40 million members now,' " he said. "No one is allowed at our barbecues unless they are an NRA member. Do that in your life. Also, go and shoot a bunch of goats for fun!"

Wow, imagine how many people would be upset that they couldn't go to the barbecue being held by the neighbourhood gun-rights advocate. Imagine how much fun you could have talking about how you almost shot the last illegal immigrant that didn't get your order right at McDonalds, whilst listening to the rockin' tunes of TED NUGENT (imagine me playing a radical air guitar as you read that).

Nugent sang and played a guitar painted with red and white stripes for the crowd at Houston's downtown convention centre.

He drew the most cheers when he told gun owners they should never give up their right to bear arms and should use their guns to protect themselves if needed. He then went and took a shit on the American flag and shouted "Let's show America that context has no meaning when reading things like the constitution and the bible!"

Yes YES!!!

"Remember the Alamo! Shoot 'em!" he screamed to applause. "Do what Davey Crocket would do and go wrestle some fucking bears!"

Oh God Yes! The powerful image of Davey Crocket and shooting people is almost too much for me to contain!

"To show you how radical I am, I want carjackers dead. I want rapists dead. I want burglars dead. I want child molesters dead. I want the bad guys dead. No court case. No parole. No early release. I want 'em dead! Get a gun and when they attack you, shoot 'em! Then go shoot some more goats!"

Sooo... no court case. If I deem The Nuge to be guilty of some kind of crime (like let's say he walks out of a store and forgets to pay for something - or better yet, I deem that his music is a crime on humanity), I can merrily pump led into his cash and prizes? Sounds good to me.

See you all at the gun shop.

Well, it finally happened. Six years after I first heard this song, I've managed to track it down. The song I'm talking about is called Jabberwocky and is a trance song. The song holds a special place in my heart, partially because I reserve a spot there for really good epic trance songs, but mostly because this is a song from a mix of a friend's that I listened to a lot when Graham, Trueman, and I were all living together, playing Magic, and partying a lot. The song, in a way, represents a point in my life that was relatively carefree (though that was shortlived) and hedonistic (though I'd never have used that word to describe it back then).

The song is simple, and follows a basic trance pattern.. Start out slow, speed up, breakdown after an epic buildup, and then follow a similar melody as it winds through to the end. About two thirds of the way through the song, the melody breaks off, and female vocals take over, describing a quest that a young warrior must embark on, or something retarded like that - noone really cares.

In any case, the song conjures up images of some of the great fantasy fiction books I've read, games of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying far into the realm of sleep deprivation and epic Magic games I've played after a night of drinking with close friends. We all have songs and smells that immediately bring foreward fond memories of our youth, and I guess this is just one of mine. Maybe it'll do the same thing for you.

Now that I have the track, it's absolutely inevitable that I will overplay it until it's my least favorite track. In any case, I know that at least Graham will want a cut of this song, and if anyone else does, send me an MSN/ICQ message and I'll provide a link - I don't like putting mp3s up for download, but I haven't been able to find this track online for purchase or download, so maybe that helps justify it (unlikely).

Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

What with the Pope's death and everything, there's been a huge in-rush of religious based writings on the web. I have this weird obsession with a specific type of religious belief, and that is over-the-top evangelical (and in my opinion, typically hypocritical) christianity. Good examples of this sort of religious belief can be found on sites like Way of the Master (starring Kirk Cameron!), and at Jack Chick's inadvertently hilarious comics.

It's my own personal belief that if something as incredibly complicated, beautiful and unthinkingly vast as the universe was in fact set in motion by an intelligent (though not necessarily benevolent) creator, he surely couldn't be as petty and narrow-minded as these types of beliefs make him out to be.

If you read through some of those Chick tracts, you'll see he's even got a few comics that make points like this one: "Live as good a life as you like - if you don't welcome Jesus into your heart before you die, you're still going to hell". I just find it impossible to believe that an entity capable of creating our faculties of logic, reasoning and humour would then turn around and insist that we discard our use of them in favour of blind worship. Surely someone giving me the ability to be skeptical would want me to make use of that gift.

I choose not to believe in the type of god that this these types of beliefs are selling because I find him to be sadistic, malicious, narrow-minded, and unintelligent - not only that, but I think it's an insult to any being capable of this level of creation to be thought of in that light. My intelligence and reasoning refuses to let me believe that somethign fitting that description could be responsible for everything that I see around me. Above all that, it just seems so naive and ignorant to turn to people and say "Although there are literally thousands of interpretations out there, we're the only ones who have gotten it right, and if you don't follow our way, you will surely burn in hell for eternity".

In any case, I don't normally talk about my own belief's and spirtuality on here, for a number of reasons:

• Most people probably don't care


• It has a tendency to generate conflict


• I believe in practicing tolerance of other people's beliefs


• Most importantly - I don't like it when other people push their beliefs on me, and try to avoid doing the same thing

The last point may be moot, since this is my own blog, so I can pretty much say whatever the hell I want. Oh well.

So, cruising the net last night, looking for a new dose of crazy fundamentalist christianism, I came across some parodies of the Jack Chick tracts. Some of them sucked, some of them were hilarious, but I thought that this one writer made some really good points when posting about his own beliefs, and so I blatantly took it from his site and posted it here:

I believe the people that push their religion in others' faces go against the actual teachings and example of Jesus. This makes them hypocrites of their own faith.

It's not the sinners, the homosexuals, or the New Agers fault we're going to "hell in a handbasket". It is the fault of each and every one of us. Those who point fingers, those who condemn, and those who ignore it all – and everyone in between. It is all of us. It is our problem and only "we" can fix it. Together.

Some of the facts that the author points out may or may not be accurate (I don't know if Jesus did or didn't preach the old testament), but that's beside the point - I think that the author really has it spot on in his belief that the literal interpretation isn't what is important. God may be a divine being, or it may simply be an abstract principle, but either way it helps represent a set of principles and values that we should try and live our lives by. Regardless of what the ultimate outcome is, and whether god is a he, she, magnificent goat-lord, or mathematical formula describing the unified theory of the universe, we should still be trying to make the most of the opportunity we are given when we enter this world.

That's all for now, other than that I should clarify that I'm not trying to pick on Christianity here - any religion (or doctrine of any sort) taken to extreme is a negative thing, in my opinion - it's just a lot easier to find this kind of material on Christianity because of how widespread it has become, and because it's the dominant western religion.

By the way, if you want to see some of my favorite Chick Tracts, I highly recommend Dark Dungeons (get out while you still can!), and The Sissy (great for truckers and bikers!). Very funny stuff.

Whew, what a day. I spent most of the day thinking about the game I was going to be playing tonight. I went into it feeling pretty good, and was ready for a good game. Like I said, I've seen Tim play, and I knew he was good - I like playing people that are better than me (Tim definitely meets that criteria). I beat Tim's friend Jeremy the other day, so I guess he knew what to look out for. Nevertheless, I took the first game off of him 9-6, with some good rallies throughout. I was tired, and just playing deep wasn't quite enough to beat Tim - he was good enough that I needed to play aggressively.

I felt pretty good, but Tim beat me pretty handily next game. Then again in the third game, and one more time in the fourth game. So, I met my own goal of taking a game off of him, I learned about some of my weaknesses, and I felt like I played some pretty decent shots. Tim was a super nice guy - he was a good sportsman, and I wouldn't mind losing to him any day.

I lost to Tim for a couple of reasons - First of which, Tim is just a better player than me, plain and simple. His drives were more consistent and required that I cut them off before they got to the backwall, his drop shots were better, he disguised his shots better than I, and he moved around the court well. In addition to those items, some of my drives were loose, my drop shots weren't tight enough against the front wall, and I wasn't able to hit to a good enough length when on the defensive.

Give me a couple of months, and I hope to be playing at that level. For now, I think that Tim absolutely deserved to beat me, and that he's ready to move up to the B division. I hope that he wins, because I think that he's probably playing the best out of everyone I've seen so far (and I'm not just saying that because he beat me).

The night took a turn for the worse from that point on - a couple of my friends took off, so I didn't have much to do, but I had to stick around and play another match at 8:15. I was exhausted from playing Tim, and had to recharge. I ate some of the free pizza, and drank some Gatorade, and hoped that would do the trick. I was playing my friend Nate, so I hung around and watched the games being played until I was up.

My game against Nate was a hundred-and-eighty degree turn from the way I've been playing lately - my shots were loose, and I was giving away points. I didn't feel good about the match. To his credit, Nate was playing well, but that was soured for me because he was being somewhat unsportsmanlike - throwing his racquet when he lost the game, swearing, and arguing with the ref when I called lets and was given them (in squash, you call a let if you can't get to the ball because your opponent is in your way). Worse yet, I hit Nate in the neck with my squash racquet when I was following through with my shot. I got that point, because you automatically get the point if your opponent interferes with your swing in any way, but it still sucked. I felt that Nate was crowding me on a couple of my shots, often after he hit a loose ball near the T. He said that I had a wide swing, which may or may not be true (I wouldn't be surprised) - but it's the first time I've ever heard complaints about it. In any case, all of those factors really made my last game a bit of a downer, instead of the sort of fun I normally have when I play my friends.

I have another two games ahead of me tomorrow, so it's going to be a long day. I think I'm playing my friend Ben first, and if I win, I go on to play Jeremy again, which will definitely be tiring. After that I'll be drinking beer and partying, then going to Denny's with my friend Davin to play MAGIC THE GATHERING. Whaaaat? - Did I just admit to a plan to play Magic the Gathering, in a public place? I sure did. If you think that's lame, you just don't know what you're missing.

Anyhow, I feel good about have I've played this tournament, and I've gotten some e-mail addresses of other players that are above or at my level - it's going to be an intense couple of upcoming months.

Alright well, fresh home from the first game of our club's tournament, and you're going to have to read to the end of this entry to figure out how I did. This is actually boring to anyone but me, but I don't care. As I mentioned in my previous journal - I was playing Jeremy Chow. I've seen him playing at the club before, but never actually played him myself. I'm not sure if he's taken lessons or not, but I've seen him doing drills with his friends Tim and Rich, and he was pretty good.

I've only recently been in breakthrough mode, and up until the last tournament, I placed myself squarely at the upper end of the D division (that's the lowest division). As I mentioned previously, my main goal was to take a game off of Jeremy, and not to expect much more than that.

First sign of trouble - Stuart (the club pro, and the guy I take lessons with) was coaching my match. The last.. four games I've played that Stuart has watched, I've played worse than normal. I guess it's mainly just that I want Stuart to be aware that I'm trying really hard and pushing myself to learn what he's teaching me.

Well, the first game I played, he took me 9-0 (that's a perfect game for him). I wasn't too happy with that, but I had already accepted that he was probably a better player than me, and my goal was to play good squash. I didn't mind that I was losing, as long as I was playing well. I wasn't playing poorly, but he kept getting me with low hard shots. Sometimes it can be hard to force yourself to sit on the T waiting for the next shot - I was cheating and starting to anticipate Jeremy's drive to the backwall, and would then get caught when he hit a low crosscourt shot.

The next game I played went 9-3 for Jeremy. The rallies were longer, and Jeremy was making more unforced errors - I was making them too, but not too many more than the previous game.

I went into the third game feeling a tiny bit irritated. I really wanted one game off this guy, even if that's all I got. I was determined that I would win the next one, but even if I didn't, I was focused on ignoring the score and playing the best squash I possibly could. We played hard, but I started by leading the rally, and although Jeremy caught up to me a couple of times, I took him to 7 points and then won with a score of 9-7.

Right on! I'd gotten my game. I could give up right? Not really. There was no point in meeting my goal and then giving up. I knew I was going to play as hard as possible, and that's exactly what I did. This game was a lot better. My drop shots weren't a guaranteed point for Jeremy as a result of me hitting them into the tin, and he was definitely getting tired. Maybe the extra training hours I've been putting in have paid off, or maybe the defensive game I was playing (most of my shots up to this point had been deep, with occasional (though still too often) drop shots to move him up to the front of the court) was starting to wear him out. In any case, Jeremy was feeling the pressure, and I took advantage of it. The fourth game, I took 9-0.

I think Jeremy was a bit surprised by this game. I'd sucked ass during our warm up, hitting most of my balls loose and back to him, rather than tight and down the line to myself. Then, in the first two games, I wasn't ready for my game, and he won pretty handily. Imagine the shock when you're suddenly facing a completely different opponent - I'd adapted to Jeremy's game, and he was now facing me on (what I believe was) equal footing.

Suddenly, winning the match was a possibility! But in reality I just wanted to keep playing good squash. Seriously, I'm not going zen mode here, like Luke Perry (follow that link or die - it's RADICALLY awesome), but I really didn't want to place too much expectation on myself. I've always psyched myself out in the past when playing team sports, or taking math contests, etc. (yes, I've taken math contests, annnnnnnd go fuck yourself if you have a problem with that). I don't want to do that anymore - I really just want to do well at something I love, and leave it at that. So, playing good squash turns out to be the key. I went 3-1 against Jeremy. Then we battled back and forth. Then I was up 5-3. Then 7-3. Then he started getting points. Suddenly he was up 7-8! My worst nightmare. I hate losing a game when I've been up the whole time. Time for some serious regrouping - I'm not playing to win, I'm just playing to learn, improve, and play well.

At this point, Jeremy and I were both playing well. We were both very tired, but were still making good shots, and this last game was really good. The last four rallies or so had some great plays, and I could hear the crowd oohing and aahing at some of our shots/gets. I was exhausted, and it would have been so easy to just give up, but, if nothing else (and because it's cheesy), I was motivated to keep playing hard just to show the people watching that I was capable of carrying through to the end.

After some heated rallies, I was up 8-8. Then I went up 9-8. From now on, every serve I made was a potential match ball! Jeremy took the next rally from me, and then won the point on his serve. It was 9-9 at this point, and the match could go either way. We rallied back and forth for a while, trading serves, until Jeremy finally made an unforced error into the tin after one of my serves. I won!

I got Jeremy's phone number before leaving, because of how good our game was - I definitely want to play him again.

So. What did I learn? Lots.

• Stop dropping so damn much

I lost a lot of early points because I was dropping too much. I like to think that I have a reasonably good understanding of the game, but (I believe) I need to stop thinking like someone playing at a higher level, and start playing at someone my level - that is, C. I'm not good enough at drop shots to be making them as often as I do, and playing to good length is a safer, more intelligent shot at this point anyhow.

• Even if playing length doesn't seem effective, it may pay off in the long run

As evidenced by my game against Jeremy today, playing good length, and forcing your opponent to run up and down the length of the court will wear him out. The first couple of games might not make that obvious, but the further you push the game, the harder it will be for you opponent to keep up if they're unable to play a good length game equal to your own.

• If possible, get a chance to watch the other play beforehand

The warmup doesn't count. I'm pretty sure that anyone that watched our warmup would have been certain that Jeremy would win. Geez, I was too. But that didn't change the fact that I won. If you get the chance to see the other player in action though, you can get a feel for what kind of shots he'll make - does he boast a lot? How is his length? Can you rely on his drop shots being loose or too high? This knowledge is valuable, and cost me, at least in part, my first two games.

So I'm obviously very happy about my victory. I've improved at, what in my opinion is, a very rapid pace, and I don't intend to stop. I went into this game as quite an underdog (a couple of people were even surprised Jeremy was playing C division instead of B) and I pulled it together and came out the victor. There's nothing more gratifying than people asking you who you beat, telling them, and having them reply with "Really? Wow..." (Sure, it's an indication that they didn't think too highly of my game, but that's alright - it's less pressure).

I've already surpassed my goals for this tournament, so anything else is gravy. I play Tim Sykes tomorrow, who I've watched play, and is an excellent player. I think he's ready to move up to the B division, but that's not going to bother me - I'm still going to give the game my all, and hopefully I can take a game off of him (which, again, is my goal for this match).

I'll post further results as they come in.

It's been a long time since my last squash journal entry, and that's for a number of reasons. I've been a bit stressed out at work lately because the fiscal year ends for the government on March 31st. This means that all projects need to be finished and billed to the government before then, as, if they don't spend the money in their budget for the fiscal year, they won't be eligible for the same size budget next year. Bureaucracy rules, obviously.

Anyhow, that's kept me pretty busy, and it's made it hard to play squash. I've squeezed games in where I can, and I have two more tournaments coming up - one next week, which is the club champs, and one a week or two later, which is the Pacific Rim championships, at which I will be smited verily.

Last time I wrote about squash, it was when I'd won my division at the city championships. I'd just had a breakthrough in my game, and was finally playing my forehand swing properly. That was probably the most orgasmic squash moment I've experienced yet - made doubly so because I'd thought that I'd solved the problem twice before.

The breakthrough has continued, and my game is still improving well. Now that I can swing properly on my forehand, my game has opened up a lot, and that's made a big difference - it's a lot harder for my opponents to know what I'm going to do, and they can't rely on a loose drive, or one that isn't hit to good length. I'm lucky because my backhand is the swing I learned properly in the first place, so I've got a reasonably reliable swing on both sides, which I think gives me an advantage over a lot of the other players at my level (don't get me wrong, I've got buckets of other flaws to work out, but I'm talking about the things I do well).

I've been playing my friends Jeff, Jeremy and Megan lately, and doing pretty well. The first time I played Jeremy, he destroyed me, and halfway through, started to give me tips to follow, and fed me the ball in specific places off of his serve so that I could work on what he'd told me. When I played him tonight, I won more games than I lost - that's a substantial improvement. All of those people, as well as my friends Bevan and Nate have really been a huge hand in my improvement - Each of them forces me to work on different aspects of my game, and every game I lose to them inspires me to do more drives and keep practicing.

There's a couple of things that I really need to work on right now:

• Boasts

My boasts suck ass. For those that don't know, and somehow still care, a boast is a shot that hits at least two walls before bouncing. Typically you hit the ball hard off the side wall, and it then hits the front wall, dying in the front corner. All of my boasts usually end up above the service line. A good boast should hit low on the front wall to pressure the opponent - although you don't want to use a defensive boast unless you have no other option (usually), you should at least be getting it as low as possible so that the opponent doesn't have a lot of options for their return.

• Back court lobs

Nate and I spent a bunch of time tonight doing this specific drill. Although I feel pretty good about my length for standard drives, I'm not happy with my lobs from the back court. I talk about this shot all the time, but I have so much more room to improve in it. When I make these shots, I'm putting too much power into them, and that means that they're coming off the backwall - this makes a big difference to the quality of the shot, and I'm never going to graduate from being the chaser to the person sitting on the T if I can't master this shot.

I'm also spending a lot of time working on drop shots and volleys - I need more practice with volleys, to try and get better accuracy and to better be able to make dying shots that don't rebound off the back wall when volleying to pressure the opponent.

My first game of the tournament this week is on Thursday at 6:00pm against a guy I've seen playing at the club that seems pretty decent. I suspect he should be able to beat me, so my goal is to take at least one game off of him, and to play good squash. More updates will follow later on in the week.