It’s hard to know exactly how angry or non-angry you were when you were younger. People tend to remember events rather than emotions, and most of them don’t have reliable graphs of their angritude that go back for decades.

Nonetheless, I’m pretty sure I’m less angry now than I was between the ages of 13 and 24. I know I got angry somewhat regularly during that era because anger often registered at the conscious level, and I remember enjoying the experience of becoming angry. For quite a while, I’ve felt rather relaxed, perhaps more relaxed than average, and maybe a bit more relaxed than is beneficial.

A couple hours ago at the bus stop, however, I was not relaxed at all. I had this intense spike of anger. I don’t think I’ve felt that enraged in years. Why? Because the bus drove right past the bus stop at which I was waiting. So, I ran and caught up to it at the next stoplight, and the driver would not let me on.

Now, that is certainly bullshit, but in that moment, the thought that exploded in my head as I was, “YOU FUCKS! I’LL DESTROY YOUR ENTIRE SYSTEM WITH HATRED!” And I didn’t even know what I meant.

I walked back to the bus stop, incensed, called the MBTA to report the bus, and smoldered some more. Two things cooled me down:

1. I overheard a guy with dreadlocks use the line “I feel like you’re a magnetic person…” on some girl.
2. I thought of Piplup.

(For a while, I had some time on my hands and browsed through quite a bit of Bulbapedia. It can be engrossing!) Piplup’s color text reads:

A poor walker, it often falls down. However, its strong pride makes it puff up its chest without a care.

Piplup may eventually “evolve” into Prinplup, who is described as such:

It lives alone, away from others. Apparently, every one of them believes it is the most important.

After reading this, Katt and I have speculated about him. We imagine he’s impatient, selfish, and easy to anger. He’s probably indignant about having to wait in lines. He often yells at waitstaff. He explodes when roommates use his peanut butter that he, Piplup, bought with his money. Piplup, Piplup, Piplup!

Anyway, my thoughts drifted to how this Piplup would react to such an event: Most likely with an indignant explosion of rage. This realization was quite diffusing. I was forced to let it go.

I most certainly believe in the value of righteous anger and the importance of sticking up for one’s self. When the bus skips your stop, though, it’s useful to think: Are you reacting like an inconvenienced traveler or a self-important magic penguin?

My cousin asked me to clarify the difference between the various MMA terms and organizations, and I ended up writing a small primer. I figure I might as well drop it here, too. Enjoy it if you need it!
 

So, mixed martial arts is the name of sport. It’s analogous to football or soccer. Players in mixed martial arts are called mixed martial artists.

There’s various fighting promotions, which correspond to sports leagues. The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) is the biggest and generally most prestigious one. They’re serious about building a reputation for providing the best pure mixed martial arts competition. It’s like the NFL of mixed martial arts.

The UFC used to have a big rival in Japan called Pride Fighting Championships, but they were bought out and dissolved by the UFC. They also bought the WEC (World Extreme Cagefighting) but have kept it around to focus on the lighter weight classes that the UFC doesn’t has, like featherweight and bantamweight. People think of fights between the largest guys as being the most exciting, but lighter guys are faster and more agile, and there’s generally way more action in the lighter weight class fights.

So, there’s also promotions independent of the UFC in the US, like Strikeforce, King of the Cage, and Affliction. They tend to either be more “minor league,” featuring fighters that don’t have enough experience to be signed by the UFC, or “masters league” and have guys that are past their prime but are still a big draw.

However, they also have the occasional fighter that could beat a lot of guys in the UFC, especially among the heavyweights. These guys usually have a problem with the UFC’s really stringent exclusive contracts, which are the what they use to build up their brand. Among other things, this has resulted in Fedor Emelianenko, widely considered the best heavyweight in the world, not being able to fight the UFC’s big heavyweights.

And then there’s the Japanese promotions like DREAM and Sengoku. They (naturally) cater to Japanese sensibilities. The Japanese are usually as interested in seeing “what would happen if this guy fought this freakish guy?” than “who is the best fighter?” They end up with kind of stunty fights involving not very skilled giants like Hong Man Choi and Bob Sapp or celebrities like Jose Canseco but also a lot of legitimately competitive fights in the lighter weight classes.

I just noticed what I thought was “Scientific Surpass” in the shout-outs at the start of Clan in da Front.

Then, I realized it was “Scientific Shabazz” and was disappointed. But after that, I realized that was awesome, too. Scientific Shabazz!

I thought of a bunch of stuff to post to Twitter this afternoon. Each time I came up with something, I thought of something else. Or, I’d be forced to interact with the real world. So, here’s some of them:

- Maple ice cream is impressive.

- I never noticed before that the garbage cans in Davis Square are actually solar-powered compactors. I think they should also beep and bloop expressively.

- The radio had some story on about reaching kids by rapping Shakespeare. They played audio of the kids saying, “Whoa, was that a freestyle?” Then, the teacher said, “No, it’s a Shakespeare sonnet!” I find that incredulous.

- Katt then started rapping Shakespeare. She quoted MacBeth, interjecting “peace!” every four lines or so.

- If my bumper sticker inference is correct, Brazilian Top Team shops at Target. They do have a lot of Underarmour there.

- Or perhaps they went there because Ricardo Arona wanted some “Throwback” Pepsi or Mountain Dew. I got one of each. I found it kind of sad that I was excited by carbonated beverages whose major claim was that they were made with sugar.

Me: Yeah!
Me: It’s why Jesus had a six pack.
Katt: uhhhhh no he didn’t
Me: Oh, dag. That makes Christianity less appealing than I thought.
Katt: don’t even think about buddhism. that guy ain’t in shape at all
Katt: but at least he’s cool with it
Me: For a guy who’s all “life is suffering” he doesn’t look like he’s suffering too badly at all!

Later:

Me: http://www.boingboing.net/2005/05/04/boris-vallejos-total.html
Katt: whoa!

'The bubbles collapse, and generate heat, light, and sound. The shell shatters with a flash too-fast-to-see, and a bang. Watch the flash (called shrimpoluminescence for another species) in the video, slowed by a factor of 900.'

Cory Doctorow overrates this kind of mantis shrimp!

I started writing a multi-service status updating app a while ago, in large part just to learn Flex. I haven’t worked on it since January, but I’m officially putting attneveryone (and 13 tasks on my to do list) to bed today.

It’s at the point at which it suits my needs, and further development is unlikely to help out anyone else. (They can just use ping.fm, which covers every possible service, although it requires you to give up a lot of credentials, and I have a personal aversion to that.) This last version is also pretty solid. I’ve been using it for three months without any problems. (On Windows, though, there’s an issue with ugly scroll bars showing up the first time you add an account.)

It feels good to free up just a bit of “mental obligation real estate.” Now I can build some other crap on it!

In lieu of actually writing something, here’s some conversations I had earlier in the day, with accompanying cheap Photoshoppery.
 

Conversation #1:

Me: Maybe we should go to the Public Garden this weekend! I hear there’s ducks.

Katt: like the one what got stolen?

Me: Yes! It was found, though.

Katt: whoa! high five!

Me: I didn’t find it, but yeah! I’ll take a five!

Katt: ooh, that’d be extra great if you did find it

Me: I’d hold it up over my head! Doo-doo-do-dooo!

Me: “You found a lost duck!”

Katt: link, coming to save the duck!

Me: Zelda: Lost Ducks.

Katt: The Legend of Duck

Me: I’d play it.

Katt: me too

 
Actually, I think that’s enough for today. I need to go to bed.

Katt was saying the other day how Craigslist buyers with bad grammar seemed scary. (She and I are selling off a bunch of our stuff in preparation for our move.) She forwarded me an email from a guy that wanted to buy a futon, and I agreed that there was a chance that something was up with this guy. So, I went to her apartment that night to provide some robbery deterrent.

This buyer turned out to be a cheerful hipster wearing some kind of beret, with absolutely no sign of criminal intent. He was pretty far from being a scammy troglodyte.
 

I just sold a desk to a guy that sent me this email:

Hello, I’m layed off and am hoping to get a desk like this for my niece’s birthday. Would you accept $10 bucks. Please forgive if an intrusion.

This guy didn’t seem threatening (possibly a liar, though). Read the rest of this entry »