don't quite know what happened on Monday. I blogged late Sunday night, but when I went to upload it early Monday morning I could not access BlackChampagne.com via my FTP client or my browser. It was down all day Monday, from about 6am on, and only started to work again late Monday night, past midnight. It wasn't just the connection from home either, since Malaya couldn't see the site when she checked at work.

The odd part is that email worked sporadically all day, and weirder yet, site traffic was about the same as always, according to the stats. So was it just traffic from our hub in the Bay Area that couldn't access it? Or did the site stats count attempted connections that were refused when the site could not be located? I have no idea, and I suppose it hardly matters, in the larger scheme of things.

So yes, I did blog on Monday, and you can click back to read that one if you gave up on it when you 1) couldn't reach the site, or 2) didn't see a new update on Monday. I talked about our new Ipod, reviewed Sin City, complained about pennies and expensive designer clothing, and more of the usual bullshit.

I will continue that trend today by chatting a bit about Kali class, and then insulting celebrities out of some strange curdled jealousy, before fantasizing about ritualized child abuse. Or something like that.

¤ But first... as I detailed in Monday's blog, we got a 4g Ipod mini over the weekend, largely to listen to it in the car. Tragically, neither Malaya's car nor my car have stereos that allow direct connection from an mp3 player. Since her car has a CD player only, and my car has a tape deck only, we went with the clever miniature radio station technology. It's weird that this is the best way to do it, but you buy a small transmitter that plugs into your car lighter and turns your Ipod's output into a radio signal on a bandwidth you specify. You then tune your car stereo to that wavelength, and listen to the Ipod like it's a radio station.

The first trial of the device came Tuesday evening, when I drove to Kali class. Listening to it at the condo was fine; good sound, no static, and it worked on 88.7 and 107.7, where we didn't get any radio station bleed through. It kept working nicely (sub-CD quality, but not bad) as I drove towards class, until I crested the Oakland hills, and headed down towards the Bay. As you might imagine, there are a lot more radio stations audible on the side of the hills with Oakland and San Francisco in shooting range, and my signal immediately began to show static. It got worse as I got on I-80 East, and by the time I approached Berkeley it was really breaking up on 88.7. I switched it to 107.7, moving quickly and mostly by feel since traffic was bad, but that was even worse; instead of just static I had broken radio reception coming through on top of the music.

The funny part was that 107.5 is apparently a rock station, I was playing Green Day's American Idiot on the Ipod, and when I clicked past the rock station they were playing... Boulevard of Broken Dreams... a song I'd been listening to just a few minutes earlier. It was loud and clear too, just to add to the tragedy. I listened to that for a few minutes, then switched back to the Ipod on 88.7 once that song ended and the car stereo commercials began, and it was listenable again, though pretty staticky. It cleared up almost completely once I got into Berkeley though, and there was almost no static at all on the drive home, 3 hours later, over the same roads. More experimentation is obviously in order, and we'll play with it more on Thursday, when Malaya's going to class with me and can devote her attention to trying alternate radio signals; something I couldn't fiddle around with very much in the 6 lanes or bumper to bumper traffic.

My recommendation for listening to the Ipod in the car is that you just get the tape on a string one. It's $20 and if your tape deck will play with a cord sticking out of it, the sound is supposedly very good and you won't have to fight radio reception issues. If that's not an option, and you're just using one car, you might want to get a radio that allows a direct Ipod feed. I have no idea how much they cost, but if you're upgrading your whole car audio you'll need a new unit along with the speakers, and you might as well get one with current technology. Especially when you consider that the Monster transmitter we got is $80, and that cheaper ones are still $50 or $60, and that all models of that type will get some static in any metropolitan area.

¤ As for Kali class, I'm not going to go into great detail (for once) but it was pretty good. We had a big group again; a dozen students and the teacher plus some skinny white girl who watched without ever saying a word and who we will almost certainly never see again. (People who are curious sit in and watch class all the time, and it seems like 75% of them say they like it and want to start, and are then never heard from again. Since this girl didn't say anything or look enthusiastic, perhaps she'll be back every class for a year, just to be contrary.)

Since there are still a bunch of relatively new students, we did kicks of all types. Most Kali kicks are low ones from nasty angles, kicks meant to break ankles or dislocate knees. Since we practiced on each other, as always, control was required as we practiced kicking at the instep and the outside of the ankle, from all different directions and in combinations with other kicks, punches, using them on defense and offense, etc. It's always interesting how class gets balanced between beginner stuff and expert stuff, with the same things teaching the noobs while the intermediate students work on perfecting them or using them more quickly, or in trickier combos, etc. I was working with a very new guy most of the time, and while he was doing all the kicking for the first time, I'm pretty good at them (soccer habits from my childhood help) but we both had to work to keep up and push each other.

Of course there are impacts during such work, and while we try to keep them minor, no one is perfect. I had a few bruises by the end of class, and I'm sure I gave the guy I was working with some bruises as well. The real bruise fest came during the last ten minutes though, when Gura had us all circle up in one corner, and picked me to lead everyone through a quick sparring session.

We do this often after class, and she always picks one of the older students to be the tackle dummy. In this case I simply punched at everyone else, one at a time, and they worked through the various moves we'd learned in class, doing them as well or as poorly as they could, depending on their level of expertise. I wasn't tutoring them, I was just doing what their partners had done all night, but as usual at the end of class, I was ordered to throw faster and harder than we had been doing in practice. This pushes people to work harder and be more creative, since they're up in front of everyone and the person throwing punches at them is going faster than they're used to. The downside, for the person throwing at least, is that the control everyone has at half speed tends to slip a bit when they pick up the tempo. So yes, my shins are pretty much purple and swollen right now.

It was fun though; that was the first time I've ever been the one picked to lead the demo at the end of class, and it's a sign of respect or confidence from the Gura. It's also a sign that she knows you can take a bunch of hits without too much complaint, but more on that in a bit. I enjoyed it, with a few regrets. Mainly that I didn't lead very well -- well, I wasn't horrible, but I could have been better.

As always when I teach in Kali I think of all the stuff I should have done afterwards. Now I realize that I should have varied the speed more, alternated left and right punches more, and especially should have thrown faster, without throwing harder. Gura kept telling me to go faster, to make them work more, and I was doing so, but I knew that a lot of the people there weren't good enough yet to deal with my throwing hard punches at them, and I didn't want to smack anyone in the mouth, even with a loose fist. So I wasn't going anywhere near as quickly as I could have, since even though I was aiming to the side of most of their heads, some of them were trying to block and go inside at times, and I was afraid they'd lean right into my fist.

What I should have done, I realized on the drive home, was to throw faster, and right at their chins, but to pull the punches short. I was concentrating on getting extension and going from the hips and shoulder in good form, and that's fine (Gura was yelling at me to do it anyway) but I didn't need to extend my arm all the way out as I punched. I could have done it all with good form, but just not reached all the way to their faces. And I could have done that as fast as I wanted to, making them really scramble, while still not hitting anyone in the mouth. I would have gotten kicked even more than I did, but what the hell, that's what I was up there for.

I also regret that I didn't get to kick myself.  I threw for everyone else, including Gura when she went last and did tons of advanced kicks that no one else had even seen before, but she didn't pick anyone else to throw for me. I was hella ready to go too, after watching everyone else go and seeing a lot of different things and wanting to try them out. Plus I'm good at kicking, at least with my right foot, and I wanted to show off. *pout*

Perhaps I'll get another chance Thursday, but we'll almost certainly do something other than kicking, and it's very unlikely that I'll get to lead again anytime soon. I'm good enough, but so are several other people in class, most of whom are a lot better than me. It was something of a surprise that she picked me, when there were 4 or 5 more senior students there on Tuesday.  They'll all get a turn or two at it before I'm picked again, I suspect, which is fine; I enjoyed being in the center of the circle, but I enjoy hitting and doing moves out there as well, and I learn a lot by watching others do their thing, and it's hard to watch much when you're the punching kicking bag.

I would have no further comment, other than to wonder at the 50s suits they squeezed them into; not exactly Maxim, is it? I guess it's sorta classy, plus these ladies aren't exactly 19 anymore, so string bikinis might have been a bit of a stretch. Literally. But accompanying this photo on Yahoo is an equally ridiculous article about the constant cat fighting on the photo set, and I can't resist quoting from it.

Despite the rep's plea, Hatcher was the first "housewife" to visit wardrobe, and she had consulted with the stylist days in advance. At one point, the rep proclaimed: "This is a problem. I'm getting text messages from Eva (Longoria). Everything is not fine."

The struggles continued once the photographer started snapping. Redhead Marcia Cross turned red-hot when she saw Hatcher standing next to her in the center of the shot, according to the article. Cross grabbed her bathrobe and stormed off, spewing expletives at the ABC rep.

Hatcher later walked to the other end of the set, where "she got into a tearful, heated conversation on her cell phone."

The article goes on and on, and I suppose it's conceivable that some living human somewhere on earth might actually care about this bullshit. It concludes with the point I was sarcastically making up above the picture.

Also in the article, the women discuss the media blitz surrounding the show and its stars. Huffman believes a "Desperate" backlash is imminent while Cross just ignores it all.

"Honestly, I don't read it," Cross told Vanity Fair of the media coverage. "And I don't even watch the show right now. It's too much. It's just too much..."

I like fact that in this unnecessary and derivative article about an over-publicized show, even the stars of the show admit that they're sick of hearing or reading about it. I love the fact that all of the women on the show are vain, aging, and totally convinced they are the reason the show is successful.

That happens with one TV star after another, and it's always fun to watch them get a big head, quit their hit TV show, and strike out for Hollywood... only to see their careers crash and burn as they discover that there's a big difference between what people will watch for free on TV and what they'll pay $9.50 to watch in a movie theater. It's the show you're on, kids. Not you. No one cares about you, and if they do it's only because you're great for the role you're playing in that show.

I have no idea if the women on Desperate Housewives are going to quit and head for the silver screen, but they might have more sense than that. None of them are young women, and several have been in the movies before. You'd think Terri Hatcher at least would be begging to fellate the casting director and writers every morning when she gets to work, given that she was on a slight hit TV show, barely appeared in several movies, and was rescued from career oblivion by Desperate Housewives, but judging from the Vanity Faire photo shoot report, she's as big a prima donna as the rest of them. Go ahead girls, believe your agent's lies and go make some movies. That ensemble hit TV show is just holding your career back.

So many TV stars think they can beat the odds, and think they'll be the next George Clooney, while willfully ignoring the lessons they should learn from David Caruso, David Duchovny, Shelley Long, and so many others. It's no fun to face the truth, but be honest kids; that hit TV is as good as it's ever going to get. Milk it for all its worth and make bad movies in the summer if you must. Say what you will about the inexplicably-popular mediocrity that was Friends; at least the actors on it didn't lose their minds and give up that free fame and pay check to make bad movies full time. Oh they made more than their fair share of films, most of which sunk without a trace, but they made them during the summer hiatus, while they gearing up for their annual autumnal contract hold out.

I've never seen a second of it, but I rather suspect Dangerous Housewives will have a pretty limited run as a big hit. It seems like the fad of the year, like The Apprentice, or The OC, or other shows that were big before the novelty wore off and their ratings faded in season two or three. So actually, in light of that, maybe the women on Desperate Housewives would be smart to try and parlay their fame into film. Better now while they're hot than in three years when their show is cancelled and no one remembers their names. Besides, they're all on the wrong side of 30, and to youth-worshipping Hollywood, that's a very big point against them.

The question: How many 5 year-olds could you take on at once?

The specifics:

• You are in an enclosed area, roughly the size of a basketball court. There are no foreign objects.
• You are not allowed to touch a wall.
• When you are knocked unconscious, you lose. When they are all knocked unconscious, they lose. Once a kid is knocked unconscious, that kid is "out."
• I (or someone else intent on seeing to it you fail) get to choose the kids from a pool that is twice the size of your magic number. The pool will be 50/50 in terms of gender and will have no discernable abnormalities in terms of demographics, other than they are all healthy Americans.
• The kids receive one day of training from hand-to-hand combat experts who will train them specifically to team up to take down one adult. You will receive one hour of "counter-tactics" training.
• There is no protective padding for any combatant other than the standard-issue cup.
• The kids are motivated enough to not get scared, regardless of the bloodshed. Even the very last one will give it his/her best to take you down.

Of course this is ridiculous, and we're throwing all questions of ethics and reality away, and pretending it's perfectly okay to beat to death dozens of small children, and pretending they'd keep coming at you mercilessly, etc. Pretend they're Flayers from Diablo II if you wish. But within the framework of the hypothetical... how many could you handle?

My first thought was "infinite" since I couldn't see a weak little five year old having enough strength to actually injure me in any way. With more thought though, I had to consider the simple issues of weight and mass and numbers. One at a time I could take them out forever; they're too small and weak to block anything, and they're not fast enough or coordinated enough to dodge or fight back. I couldn't actually do it forever, since I'd eventually be too tired to keep moving or would actually fall asleep. But assuming I only had to do it for 6 or 8 hours a day, and then got to rest and ice my knuckles down...

However when you get to the group dynamics, and especially if you consider the "can't touch a wall" part of the question, it's trickier. First of all, how large a kid are we talking about? Here's some info on the size of a five year old American child.

• weight: 31-57 pounds
• height: 39-48 inches

I suspect these figures were from a decade or two ago before everyone got so fat, but let's overlook that for now. Going with these figures, we'll average and say the kids weight 44 pounds (20kg) and are 44 inches tall (1.2 meters). That's like a good-sized dog in weight, and they're as tall as your lower chest, if you're an average-sized adult male. I regularly work out punching a 60 pound weight bag, and it's damn heavy. Hitting it hard enough to make it swing a few feet per punch gets very tiring very quickly, and I'm in pretty good shape, relatively speaking. I wouldn't have to hit our hypothetical attack children nearly that hard to knock them out, but it would still take at least 20 or 30 pounds of force to be sure they stayed down, and I'm tired in five minutes on the weight bag, even if I'm working on speed punching and movement, rather than sheer force. Of course I could kick the kids too, and use my knees and elbows and hips and such to knock them around, but it would still be quite a workout.

Also consider their tactics; if they worked well together and came in a mob from all sides, you'd be swarmed almost immediately. Sure you could crush all the kids in the front, but if they weigh 44 pounds, ten of them in a bunch can easily hold up 2 or 3 unconscious ones as shields, and if the other 7 grab you, that's nearly 300 pounds dragging you down. You could break arms and knock out the ones holding you, but if there were 10 or 20 or 50 more coming from every direction and throwing themselves on you like the multiple Agent Smiths did to Neo in The Matrix 2, you'd simply be buried under too much weight to budge, and from there they could bite you to death or just smother you over time.

So while the initial question seems to revolve around how strong you are, how much stamina you've got, and how efficient your killing technique is, I think the issue would really be resolved by how the kids behaved. If they worked together, if they kept you surrounded and didn't spread out into single file lines that you could easily deal with, and if their dead/unconscious bodies piled up and limited your maneuverability, they'd be able to take anyone down in fairly short order.

And that's just assuming they're of average size. If you had a bunch of kids like those xiao pangzi types you see on The Maury Povich Show, and they weighed 150 pounds each and had horrible mothers who fed them nothing but KFC, you'd really be screwed. They'd be slower and less maneuverable than normal children, but they'd take far more damage to knock out, just three or four of them getting a hold of you would slow you to a crawl, and half a dozen could bury you beneath a mountain of flab you'd never crawl out from under.