Phrase of the Moment:
¤ Phrase: "Go little pengu!"
¤ Usage: "Run little pengu! Go! Go faster!"
¤ Origin: Verbal urging I apply liberally when playing Yeti Sports game #5 (Flamingo Drive), and whacking the little pengu across the desert.!
¤ Notes: Since this originated logically, as something to say to a pengu (penguin) that was going (as part of a video game) we've broadened the usage until it can now be used to apply to virtually anything in motion. It's most often said when someone or something small is moving quickly, such as a kick returner in a football game, a Mini Cooper trying to make a speedy pass in the fast lane, or Jinx streaking through the living room with Dusty in hot pursuit. The real fun of it is just in saying "pengu" and it's frequently misused to the point of nonsense. For instance, I might describe Malaya's new black and red running shoes by saying, "What a cute little pair of pengu shoes you have there." -- December 3, 2004

o pretty much every Monday, I open up the blog by bitching about the low quality of the NFL football I had to choose from on Sunday. It's like the weather; I complain about it while never doing anything to improve upon it. Like say; paying for the NFL Sunday Ticket that would give me every game on digital cable at the same time.  This week I'm going to do the same thing I always do, while providing an object lesson in "bitching" vs. "doing something about it."

First, the object lesson. Bitching is 1) easier, and 2) cheaper.

As for the NFL, I'll start off with a special nomination for the first football-less Saturday of the year, and no, the Division 2 and 3 playoffs don't count. All the Division 1 NCAA games ended last week, and there aren't any NFL games on Saturday until next week. Oddly, there weren't even any pro basketball games on Saturday, and when I saw that I was curious enough to look at the local TV listings to see what the hell was on. Golf? Bowling? Wide World of Sports?

None of the above. Saturday was College Basketball day, with games on two networks, ESPN, ESPN2, and so on. It's just that college b-ball is so far off my radar that I had no idea the season had even started, much less that it was popular enough to televise.

As for Sunday, I wasn't up horribly late, and I had planned on getting up by 11 or so to watch some of the NFL games, since there were two early games that had a chance of being good, and a late game that was going to serve as nothing but motivation to do some housework. I slept a bit late, and didn't get up until noon, but that allowed me to catch the last hour of both early games, and trust me, that was plenty with the mediocrity on display.

The two early games on in the Bay Area: Oakland at Atlanta in the awful regional action, and Seattle @ Minnesota in the other game. I have no idea why that game was on here though; Seattle is in the same division as SF, but there's no regional tie in to Minnesota at all. I guess it was about the best game in an NFC host city, featuring two teams that had near-winning records, and since they both have good offenses and horrible defenses, it stood a good chance of being entertaining. And it was, in an "Are they scoring because they're good, or because the other team sucks even worse?" sort of way.

When I turned it on around noon Minnesota was winning 23-21 or something like that, and they took turns dropping passes and playing bad defense while trading field goals, until Minnesota's defense proved they were even worse than Seattle's. And given that Seattle has lost three amazingly awful games this year; twice to Saint Louis and last Monday night's debacle to Dallas, that's saying something.  Seriously, could we just cancel the NFC playoffs? Have Carolina play Atlanta, and the winner of that plays Philly, and then Philly goes to the Super Bowl. Why subject us to over-hyped first round games between teams boasting 8-8 records?

Tragically, the other early game was even worse, with the Raiders mailing it in on the road, and trailing 28-3 when I turned it on, in the early 3rd quarter.  It only got worse from there, and with the score 35-3 with 5 minutes to play, I really couldn't imagine why they still had that game on, rather than switching to a competitive game. I guess the local broadcast rules say they have to show every excruciating moment of this week's Oakland and SF failure, but why? I could understand staying with the game if the local team was winning, since it's fun to gloat and celebrate. I bet ratings were very high in Atlanta. But what Raider fan is going to sit there and suffer, down 5 touchdowns near the end of an already-lost season? The final score was 35-10, so Oakland did apparently muster a mercy touchdown near the end, but unless that affected the over/under line, I can't imagine anyone gave a shit.

The irony of the day was the late game, which matched the 49ers @ Arizona; a clash of a gaudy 1-11 vs. 4-8 teams. That one figured to be a train wreck, and I only had the TV on for the start since I was working on my computer and waiting for my lunch to settle enough that I could head over the to gym. Amazingly, SF leaped out to a 21-0 lead, and even though they were doing it against the perennially-horrible Cardinals, it was a shocker, when you consider that SF is the worst team in the league, and they're the worst by far.

I did some housework and moved plants around on the back patio and repaired a broken leg on our footrest, and the last I saw of the game the 49ers were up 28-3 early in the second half. At that point I headed off to the gym, and when I returned around 4:40 and turned on ESPN to see highlights while my sweat dried and I prepared for a shower, I was shocked to see that the 49ers game was still going at 28-28 in overtime. I laughed, not entirely surprised to see that they'd blown that huge lead, and clicked right back to ESPN to see highlights of the real games.

Amazingly, SF actually won in OT, 31-28. Of course even in victory they hurt themselves, since their season was ruined in advance by past salary cap maneuvers. They knew they'd suck this year, and they were just hoping to survive, try out future back ups, and take their salary-related lumps while stocking up on top draft picks. Even with the unfortunately win they're still in the driver's seat for the #1 pick, since while they're tied with Miami at 2 wins now, Miami beat them head to head. SF still needs to be careful though, since they host Washington next week, and with Joe Gibbs' embarrassingly-bad offense, any team one has a good chance of victory against the Redskins.  After that the 49ers host Buffalo, who will destroy them, and they close out the year with a miserable road trip to New England, where they have about as much hope of winning as the roads do of being unfrozen.

Miami's outside road isn't entirely clear either, since while they'll be immolated by New England next week, they host Cleveland the week after that, and if there's any team in the league with what it takes to challenge Miami and SF for the top draft pick, it's Cleveland with their 3-10 record and a streak of 7 straight increasingly-pathetic losses. In fact, Cleveland isn't a bad bet for the top pick, given that they'll be favored to lose at Miami, and SF isn't a horrible bet to beat Washington. That would put all 3 teams at 3 wins, and when it came to tie-breakers Miami would be crippled by having beaten both the other two cellar dwellers. I have no idea how the tie-breaker between Cleveland and SF would go though, and I'm not even sure if head to head matters in a three-way tie; they might go right to divisional record or margin of defeat or something like that.  Hell, I don't even know who the top draft picks are going to be, or if there's anyone the experts think is a stand out top guy; I must talk about it to insult the teams involved.

As for my default favorite team, if only because they're winning, San Diego won again, scraping out a tight one at home against the desperate Buccaneers. SD is now 10-3 and they need just one more win to guarantee themselves of a division win and a playoff spot, though I'm not making any playoff predictions at this point. There are 4 or 5 really good teams in the AFC, with three or four more as good as anyone in the NFC save Philly, so surviving the AFC playoffs and reaching the Superbowl is going to be quite a grueling struggle, with home field advantage very important and still very much up for grabs. It makes for an interesting last three weeks of the season anyway, with the top teams needing to win to get their first round byes and home field, lots of teams scratching for the wildcard playoff spots, and far more games still of importance than most years.

And to think, I thought I'd keep the NFL babble short this week.

In other news, I was going to run another of my never-ending supply of reviews below, but I think I'll save them for Wednesday and/or Friday, and spend some more blog time talking about the weekend activities. We attended Malaya's work Xmas party on Friday night, and then a much less-formal Kali BBQ on Saturday afternoon.  More on those below, after a couple of news items.

A 31-year-old high school teacher was having sex with one of her students and plying the 16-year-old boy with porn for nearly a year before she was caught, according to Dudley police.

Amber S. Jennings, who was a teacher at Shepherd Hill Regional High School in Dudley, is charged with engaging a chaste minor in sexual intercourse and distribution of pornographic material to a minor, said police Chief Steven Wojnar.

¤ So some lady doesn't control her rottweiler and it races down the street and attacks some other lady's rat dog. Chaos ensues and there's a death involved... but the dead person/animal is not the one you would have expected.

PORT ST. LUCIE -- Police are investigating a woman who strangled a neighbor's Rottweiler after it attacked her Yorkshire terrier.

Shortly after 5 p.m. Wednesday, the 130-pound Rottweiler, named Rox, bolted past owner Rebecca Hartley and grabbed Candy, a Yorkie owned by Robin Bush, in her mouth in the 2900 block of Southwest Ventura Street.

Bush said she was in the kitchen talking on the phone while her son, Jacob, 10, took Candy, who weighs about eight pounds, and her Chihuahua outside. "I heard my son screaming and heard a cry from my Yorkie," she said. "It was a God-awful screech."

..."Bush then allegedly grabbed the Rottweiler's collar and began choking the animal, screaming she 'would have it killed,' " the report states. "Bush continued to choke the animal, then began slamming the dog's head against the side of her house."

Hartley, 20, said she was trying to calm 1-year-old Rox, but Bush twisted the dog's collar with one hand and had her other on Rox's snout, repeatedly striking the dog.

eekend real life activities! Yes, they suck up free time and we'd rather sit at home and write and poke at the cats, but sometimes actual external social happenings are unavoidable. And I only went out Friday night and Saturday afternoon; Malaya was gone Sunday from 8am until 8:30pm, what with Kali and then some financial doings, over in the city.  She returned home in time to fix herself dinner, since I'd eaten the last of the refried beans on two huge burritos a couple of hours earlier, and was still too full to eat with her. After dinner she got to catch up on some work for about two hours, and then stumble off to bed. At least she's got tomorrow off, save for a doctor's appointment, so she can sleep in some then.

As for the weekend, it all began on Friday night.

The event was Malaya's office Xmas party. I wrote about it last year, and since the location and food was almost identical this year, you should go read the description from last year, since I'm not about to type it all out again.

The biggest difference this year was our attire, since rather than stressing over obtaining and modeling semi-formal wear, we just went in our matching barongs. "Barong" is the common term for a Filipino shirt that is traditionally made from woven pineapple fibers. It's basically a stiff, somewhat plastic-feeling sort of blouse. Partially transparent, very thin and light, expensive, and worn over another shirt, usually a white one, and is not tucked in. Malaya got me one in light purple, and got herself a matching female styled one. The main difference is that the women's model has puffy shoulders and fits closer to the body. We'd worn them a couple of months ago to a large Filipino party for an organization her parents belong to, and since they were expensive and we wanted to get two uses in a year out of them and don't like dressing up in uncomfortable clothing, we wore them again to the Xmas party. It was semi-formal, but after seeing tons of people there last year in sweaters, button-up shirts without ties, and other not very formal outfits, we weren't worried about our clothing at all. And no, my masculinity is not threatened by wearing a shiny, partially transparent, lilac-colored long-sleeved blouse.

We did receive a fair number of glances, but no one questioned or commented on our clothing except for one of Malaya's colleagues, who knew enough of world cultures to know they were barongs. She even knew that Malaya's was of a modern style with less-puffy shoulders than the traditional model. Malaya wore hers over a long black gown and accessorized with a black pearl necklace, while I had on black slacks and a black t-shirt. I wouldn't wear the barong out somewhere other than a semi-formal party with Malaya in matching gear at my side, but I certainly prefer it to a western-style suit. Not that I own one, but hypothetically... Anything beats a coat and tie.

The party was much the same as last year; big room with band, dance floor, and tons of hors d'oeuvres, smaller side room with desert tables, multiple open bars, and absolutely nowhere to sit down, ever, since every table and chair was immediately occupied by old people, or being saved for the return of other old people.  It seemed slightly less crowded than last year, which was a relief since we were able to move around the food tables and get drinks without bumping or brushing past more than half a dozen people every ten steps. The band wasn't even completely deafening, unlike the DJ music at every other party I've suffered through over the past year.

I was a little disappointed in the food though, since it was just the same as last year. I mean exactly; huge cold shrimp, huge cooked salmon on platters, portobello puff quiche things (by far the tastiest options), roast beef with a guy to carve it, lukewarm oily pasta, and so on. It wasn't bad food, and I guess they were fine to reuse the same caterer, but couldn't they have picked a few different menu items? The complete lack of seating was the biggest annoyance though, and like last year it could have been largely resolved by renting 50 wooden stools and arranging them around the outer walls, just to give people something to lean against or sit their plates on while they tried to eat.  Larger plates would have helped a great deal as well, since once again there were small plates on 90% of the tables, and slightly larger ones over by the hot food row. As crowded as the place was and as difficult as it was to push through the crowd to get to the food in the first place, allowing us to carry more of it away per visit would have helped a lot. And just like last year, they were clearly going to throw away huge quantities of everything that remained uneaten. More annoying was the fact that the exact same food ran out early; I'd like to think that someone paid attention to what was popular and what wasn't, and adjusted the preparation accordingly. But apparently not.

Hell, they might have been doing the exact same food for ten years and never yet have made any changes, for all I know. I've only known Malaya since last year, and she only started working there around the time I moved in here, so she's been to as many of those parties as I have.

To bitch a bit more about the glorious free food and drinks; they had the exact same problem with the bars this year as last year. Every sort of booze you can think of, but all served in too small glasses, and almost nothing non-alcoholic at all. Last year we had to settle for soda water, the unflavored kind they put into mixed drinks, and if you wanted a soda you got warm soda over the rocks, and all they had was Sprite and Pepsi, since that's what they mix into drinks. Free wine and champagne and mixed drinks is fine, but for the substantial minority of the general public who don't drink, how about some other options? Especially since non-alcoholic stuff costs about 1/10th as much? Would a few trashcans full of ice and bottles of water and cans of soda have been so hard to throw together?

As it was I had a glass of Chardonnay, a Jack and Coke, and about four glasses of water of every kind. Calistoga was the best, but of course that was in short supply, so we had to settle for various seltzers afterwards, none of which were very good.  Malaya had a screwdriver that was about 80% vodka, of which she drank about 20% before growing sick of the bitter taste and tossing it, and as much water as me.

I suppose the bartenders think they are being tremendously-generous by going heavy on the alcohol, but for those of us who hardly drink... bleh. Plus they didn't have any girl drinks; none of the fizzy fruit punch-tasting things that get you stealth drunk, and since those are the only type of drinks Malaya really likes, I didn't get to see her all silly and giggly and red-cheeked, as she gets rapidly from alcohol.

Still, minor complaints aside, we enjoyed the party and the food, even if we both filled up too quickly on everything. Especially dessert, which was varied and quite tasty. The little cubes of various flavors of cheesecake were my favorite, mostly since the pecan pie rectangles had soggy crusts and insufficient caramel for the proper tangy taste, and I'm not a big fan of chocolate, which figured very heavily in all of the other treats.

They even gave us more cookies as our parting gift, a tin of butter cookies from Harry and David. Malaya likes them, but I don't; they're too buttery for me, ironically enough. The present was kind of a let down though, since we received a the custom-made Xmas tree ornament last year. Business wasn't too great in 2004, I guess. We're looking forward to next year already, though.

The Kali BBQ was just an informal gathering of most of the regular students of the Kali class Malaya and I attend weekly. It was hosted by another student at his new house in Oakland, and while the home is small and simple, he and his wife and 3 y/o son seem happy enough there. He BBQed and everyone else brought various pot luck type stuff, and we all ended up taking some food home with us, since there was far more than the 14 or so people who were there (not all at once, since some came early and some late) could eat.

In addition to the Kali class people I knew, there were half a dozen guests of his wife, from some liberal political organization she belongs to. Not that we knew that going in, but they were all talking nothing but politics the entire time. If you thought everyone was pretty much sick of election news by now, and pretty much resigned to 4 more years of Dubya and ever-shrinking social rights... you would have kept it to yourself at the BBQ, unless you wanted to face off against half a dozen extremely-impassioned liberals, who seemed as charged up for politics as if the election were tomorrow.

The contrast between groups was amusing though, since while most everyone in the Kali class is well to the political left of Bush, none of us are all that political at social events. So we were all in the living room, talking about various Kali class stuff and other issues, and there was a knot of political guys in the kitchen, carrying on passionately about what a total piece of shit idiot Bush is. And while I basically agreed with them on that issue, I didn't see any point in talking about it, since there wasn't any conversation going on. They were all just taking turns saying what they most disliked about his policies, or his person, or how vote fraud screwed Kerry all across the country, or how dumb people must be to believe Bush's lies, etc. Again, all basically true, but old news at this point, and anyway, what's the fun in talking about an issue when everyone agrees about it and is just waiting their turn to try and top the last person's rant?

The other funny thing about it was that everyone in the Kali class (who was at the BBQ, at least) is in pretty good physical condition. We were the jocks, basically, even though lots of "us" are pretty small. Two of the guys who go regularly are maybe 5'2", shorter than Malaya, but of course they move like lightning and could totally kick your ass. And mine, at this point, as much more experience at Kali as they have.

There wasn't any room indoors for any Kali, but the lot next door is narrow, vacant, lumpy, and covered in very thick green grass. Grass that we had trampled down quite a bit an hour after we finished eating, when everyone trooped over next door and got out Kali sticks and started fooling around/sparring. Several people had brought long staves, 7 or 8 feet long and made from bamboo, and I enjoyed playing with those since I haven't gotten to use them yet in class. We don't really have a large enough space for such long weapons anyway, at least not with more than one person using it at once, but outdoors in the lot it was on.

No one was in too serious a sparring mood, but with eight or nine people standing around with various sticks, double sticks, and staves, there was a fair amount of hitting and swinging, especially since Gura was there to give some advice and encouragement. The comic relief/danger was provided by the host's 3 y/o son, who loves Kali, or at least the "hitting with sticks" part of it, and spent 45 minutes racing around the grassy lot, swinging his stick at anyone else who held a stick. It was amusing when he had a short stick, and somewhat hazardous when he had a staff twice as long as him. Not so dangerous to the person he was swinging at, since he was mostly aiming for your stick and just having fun. No, the danger was to the people standing behind him, since he had no concept of where the end of the stick was when he wasn't hitting someone in front of him with it, and he'd hit your stick twice, shout in glee, and whirl around to go after someone else, sending the bamboo tip slicing through the air at your head as he ran off.  No one lost an eye, but there were some shoulder strikes and lots of blocks from behind.

Oddly enough, it was useful practice for taking on a staff wielded by an actual student, since as I found out with some sparring, those are goddamned hard to judge.  Forget that Robin Hood style "hold the stick and hit with alternating ends" bullshit you see in movies. Real stick technique is downright scary, as the wielder spins it around, slides his hands up and down the length, and can attack with any sort of swing, poke, stab, or overhead smash at any time and any range from two feet to eight feet.

I've tried and failed to describe technique in the past, but take a broomstick, and hold it like a pool cue. You then use your hands, spacing or clustering them to control the length of the stick that you're poking out to hit with. So you can poke it in any direction, very quickly, while guiding it with your left hand. Or you can hold the end and swing. Or you can spin it around and hit behind you, or to the side, and it's very difficult to tell if it's coming in high or low. Much harder to judge than a short stick, or even double stick.

If you don't have a staff of your own, you can go against a staff with one stick, but that's not recommended since you're just giving up way too much range and versatility in style. What you can do pretty well is to use two sticks, but you've got to be quick and good. I tried, and while I was neither quick enough nor good enough, I had some fun and learned a lot; mostly about my own inadequacies. The key with double stick against a staff is to block or sweep their attack aside, and get in close. The staff has the range, but you've got two things to hit with and yours are quicker in close. The problem is that the staff can hit with both ends, and it moves very quickly and with more force than you can easily turn aside with just a stick in your hand. Plus it's so quick to hit with one and of the staff and then switch to hit with the other than you have to move very quickly to get in close after dodging or parrying a blow. I couldn't do it properly, but I could get a hint of how I needed to be moving, and I had some fun trying. And I really want my own long stick now, since they were a lot of fun to play around with, and the advanced students who had been practicing with them on their own looked awesome using them.

The BBQ might become an annual event as well, and I can only hope that Malaya's work's Xmas party and the Kali BBQ can merge at some point in the future, since I think some double stick technique would really help clear a path across the dance floor, and a nice staff vs. staff sparring session would certainly be more fun to watch than old people trying to dance to anything faster than Frank Sinatra.

<-- Previous  --  Next -->
Archives Index Page