Art.

"Every day is a gift. And it's all slipping away"

  I hate to admit it but I discovered this great song from watching "Gossip Girl," specifically this scene from the end of the the episode, "The Princess Dowry." Even though I feel badly for Serena, this scene just makes me smile. =)


 

A Tribute to the Legend — Bruce Lee

I'm in dire need of some inspiration so I decided to do a post on one of my all-time favorite individuals that ever graced this planet with his presence, Bruce Lee.

(*FYI:  I do NOT own the copyright to any of these images or videos, I just appreciated the power of images over words.  I have posted the URL links to the original sources were I procured the images below the photos in a caption.  If you would like for me to remove your image, please e-mail me and I will do so as promptly as possible.)

http://benotdefeatedbytherain.blogspot.com/2011/05/manny-pacquiao-and-bruce-lee.html

Bruce Lee — the icon, the fighter, the lover, the family man, the teacher, the philosopher:

Absorb what is useful, Discard what is not, Add what is uniquely your own. 

Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do. 

Simplicity is the last step of art. 

A teacher is never a giver of truth - he is a guide, a pointer to the truth that each student must find for himself. A good teacher is merely a catalyst. 

When an opportunity in a fight presents itself, "I" don't hit, "it" hits all by itself. 

The key to immortality is first living a life worth remembering. 

A quick temper will make a fool of you soon enough. 

Notice that the stiffest tree is most easily cracked, while the bamboo or willow survives by bending with the wind. 

A goal is not always meant to be reached; it often serves simply as something to aim at. 

There's no challenge in breaking a board. Boards don't hit back. 

Don't think, feel! It is like a finger pointing a way to the moon. Don't concentrate on the finger or you will miss all that heavenly glory. 

To know oneself is to study oneself in action with another person. If you want to understand the truth in martial arts, to see any opponent clearly, you must throw away the notion of styles or schools, prejudices, likes and dislikes, and so forth. Then, your mind will cease all conflict and come to rest. In this silence, you will see totally and freshly.

 (While the credit goes to Bruce Lee, of course, these quotes were compiled by an individual posting on this forum.)

Chuck Norris gets his ass kicked from here to Timbuktu:

 

"Be Water, My Friend:"

 

Question: What are your thoughts when facing an opponent? 

Bruce: There is no opponent. 

Question: Why is that? 

Bruce: Because the word ''l'' does not exist. 

A good fight should be like a small play...but played seriously. When the opponent expands, l contract. When he contracts, l expand. And when there is an opportunity... l do not hit...it hits all by itself (shows his fist). Any technique, however worthy and desirable, becomes a disease when the mind is obsessed with it.

Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way round or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves. Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water my friend.

(The previous B. Lee quotes were transcribed from this site.)


The following were from the Facebook group, Bruce Lee One, specifically the album titled, Bruce Lee Art Martiaux:

With his Wing Chun Master, "Ip Man:"

Vintage

Speed bag work

‎Mistakes are always forgivable, if one has the courage to admit them. 

Love is like a friendship caught on fire. In the beginning a flame, very pretty, often hot and fierce, but still only light and flickering. As love grows older, our hearts mature and our love becomes as coals, deep-burning and unquenchable.  

Never waste energy on worries or negative thoughts, all problems are brought into existence -drop them.

Bruce and his son, Brandon Lee:

http://sok765.tumblr.com/post/3011505733/bruce-lee-and-brandon-lee

http://www.thisisnotporn.net/tag/bruce-lee/

http://fuckyeahbruceleeandbrandonlee.tumblr.com/

Go Outside

Cult Remix

Video by YouTube user, LaurenGoesBeep:

  

World Population

This is a really neat news story about the world's ballooning population and it's shown mostly with interesting photos.

A well in Gujarat, India (photo taken from the Boston.com article, link below).

Read the original article here.

Bangkok, Baby!

Smart Racism — Russell Peters

Briohny Smyth's Amazing Practice

With instructions:

Handstand Padmasana to Scorpion, forearms to chatarunga

Failure = Opportunity

Not many people are willing to give failure a second opportunity. They fail once and it's all over. The bitter pill of failure is often more than most people can handle. if you're willing to accept failure adn learn from it, if you're willing to consider failure as a blessing in disguise and bounce back, you've got the potential of harnessing one of the most powerful success forces.

Each problem has hidden in it an opportunity so powerful that it literally dwarfs the problem. The greatest success stories were created by people who recognized a problem and turned it into an opportunity."

-Joseph Sugarman

Behind Closed Doors in Rich, White Suburbia (Day in the Life of a Lifeguard in TX)

(FYI:  This is all true but since I still work here, the location and all names have been changed.)

 So I thought being surrounded by rednecks was fun until tonight...

I realized this when I jokingly told someone I knew from before that just like in the new movie, "Iron Sky," it would be cool if Palin were actually president! He said, "Really?!" (Redneck influence?)

It gets worse...I found myself laughing at a drawing of a guy in a truck pulling a black man in chains behind him! Oh and for some reason the black victim had his hands chopped off...The artist later added the caption to the drawing "I EAT HANDS!" and kindly wrote in MY name below the caption.

Later, these lifeguards took turns asking each other how they would react in this hypothetical scenario: 

There's a blind girl, a girl w/ no arm, and a black girl...which one do you murder, fuck, and marry? Oh and Tobey made sure to add that all the disabled people are white, of course. (Replace girl with guy, depending on who was being asked.)

EVERYONE said they would kill the black man/girl except for the head guard, who asked if the black guy was hot or not... 0_0

When they asked me I said I would NOT kill the black girl...they were like everyone would kill the black one! Don't lie!

Tobey's exact answer was:  "Kill the black girl, fuck the one-armed chick, and marry the blind one.  I can lock the blind one in a closet or cellar and she won't know the difference because she's blind!"

Then they decided to make this scenario a little more challenging and changed it up and said OK the black girl/guy is only half black, now what? One of the lifeguards said, "Boil her, skin her, and eat her!" 0_o Keep in mind this lifeguard is from a small Texan town, where he customarily sets traps and hunts critters (skins them and eats them).

One of the college-educated white female lifeguards was creative. She said, "KILL THEM ALLL!"

Another was even more so and said she would rather shoot herself than marry a black guy.

(FYI:  there is ONE black lifeguard that works at this pool.  I told them all but they said it's not true, that they have never seen a black person working there.  Perhaps, he quit from all the racism...can't blame him.)


No race was spared though.

Sam told me that he went to an Indian restaurant and they suggested the lamb dish and told him that they slaughter live goats out back. Sam thought they were joking but when he was leaving and drove around back he saw a pile of lamb carcasses! (Sam also though Indian and Israeli were the same thing before...)

Even my friend, Jeremy, who I don't think is racist, told me that Indians are covered in a "sweaty, sticky slime" and that he touched an Indian child once by accident and his hand was covered in the slime. He said he can smell them whenever they come to the pool.

Jeremy shared an anecdote once with all the other lifeguards: he blew his whistle at an Asian lady and that she was squinting at him and "pretending that she couldn't see him through her Asian eyes." Uhhh... and then he imitated her saying ,"I can't see you..." (This was all done in a really poor attempt at a Asian accent). He said he shouted back at her, "I know you can see me!"

WTF?

Oh yeah and Gavin told me that the solution to America's problems is to "nuke China."

Errrr....

Funny but also disturbing.

Oh Texas.

Why Linsanity is Sweeping the Nation

"America's conversation about race has been mostly black and white. An amazing Knicks point guard changed that."

"My first thought on seeing Jeremy Lin was that he reminded me of my cousins. Like many, I felt like I knew him. He’s a kind of kid I’ve seen my whole life — funny, smart, quick and brave. And Asian American. When I heard he was a Harvard grad, I thought: Of course, the first Asian American NBA superstar also had to go to Harvard and get better than a 3.0. And then: Way to raise the stakes on the Asian American overachiever. It’s still true that whatever color you are in America, if you’re not white you have to be twice as good to get half as far. But the Jeremy Lin paradox is that this champion — this skinny kid just out of college, this overlooked smiling Taiwanese American kid with, as we say, ‘the good Asian hair’ that is thick and stands straight up — he is making room for the rest of us. Part of the Jeremy Lin moment is America looking at an Asian American and realizing he’s just an American, too.

The great irony to his moment is that Jeremy Lin as a national figure is so much better than anyone I might have dreamed up as a possible solution to a problem with a body count: Asian Americans are currently the No. 1 most bullied demographic in America. The same invisibility that kept Jeremy Lin outside the “frame of reference” of coaches also kept the two different units who hounded Cpl. Harry Lew and Pvt. Danny Chen to suicide last year with constant racist taunts and physical abuse from realizing they were well outside the limits of respectful internal military discipline."

Salon article by Alexander Chee.

Day in the Life of J. Lin (before he made it big):



This video makes me crave Denny's breakfast food so much! "Breakfast of Champions," indeed!

Ricky Martin Spices Up Glee (Brings the Duende!)

Naya Rivera is a beautiful and talented singer and actress. I'm glad that they are finally giving her more solo and air time on the show.

 


OK at some parts (not the Espanol parts of course) he sounds uncannily like Enrique Iglesias!

 


This is just awesome. This song is so ridiculous but so addicting. (I didn't realize it until I read some YT comments but Ricky Martin really DOES look like Johnny Bravo here haha!  It's the bouffant.)

 

The Secret to Happiness

Happiness, that grand mistress of the ceremonies in the dance of life, impels us through all its mazes and meandering, but leads none of us by the same route. 

-Charles Caleb Colton

"Therefore, since there is no One Way to find happiness, why not find it the way that appeals most to you? Why not follow your passion --- even if others tell you that you are crazy for trying it?

 Is someone telling you that now? Don't listen. Don't listen to that! The voice of caution knows nothing of real joy. What joy is there is doing what there was no doubt you could do? Where's the excitement in that? Hey, try something that you could fail at. Now that's living."

-Neale Donald Walsch


Hari Om Tat Sat.

Imogen Heap — Hangzhou

Filmed in Hangzhou, China.

Sweet Illustration

"The Unexamined Life is Not Worth Living"

I just finished reading The Four Purposes of Life:  Finding Meaning and Direction in a Changing World.  I'm continually impressed by his literature as it comes from insight gleaned from hard lessons in his own life.


"Life itself is a near-death experience — ephemeral and brief.  One among billions, you go on, loving, serving, grieving, and celebrating, seeking meaning and fulfillment.  Every life represents a hero's journey. Every moment counts."
-Dan Millman

MJ (Glee)

Dianna Agron is simply beautiful.

The cellos stole this performance.

Time to Take Charge!

I think that putting this out in the blogosphere will hold me more accountable (crossposted in FB).

This week has been a wake-up call. Time to cut the B.S. and stop the whining!

My vows for a better 2012 (in random order):

1) Stop being a lazy fuckwit! (Have less & shorter naps; go to bed earlier.)

2) Limit procrastination on online media (FB, YT, Gchat).

3) Ctrl my road rage (work on being Zen, leave the house earlier).

4) Be more patient (ctrl the RAGE).

5) Read the ORGO textbook (not just my notes).

6) Do the OWL hmk (pref. the day before or earlier).

7) Eat like a beast (pref. clean).

8) Relax about my cf stats. (It is what it is.)

9) Take more rest days (don't overtrain).

10) Work on flexibility and ROM (more yoga).

11) Practice the guitar daily (chords & notes).

12) Stop being my own worst critic. (Stop being a type A perfectionist.)

Campaign Ad Leaves a Nasty Asian Taste in the Mouth

I think Rick Perry started a Republican trend in basing campaign ads on FEAR & HATRED...

The music, the fake pidgin Engrish...this would be hilarious if it weren't a serious campaign ad for some Republican politician. Here's the transcript and more background information.

Here's what you can do about it.

From the ad, you would think this is supposed to be a Chinese woman in rural China but all the stereotypical cues (Viet Cong cone hat, rice paddy) all point towards Vietnam...odd.

Oh and I guess this actress has no shame.

Oh to be a [Wo]man or Ode to Manhood

Game of Thrones' (Book II) take on womenfolk (and their plight):

Catelyn Stark: "Is there any creature on earth as unfortunate as an ugly woman?"

Tryion: "A whore learns to see the man, not his garb, or she turns up dead in an alley."

Cersei: "Tears. The woman's weapon, my lady mother used to call them. The man's weapon is a sword. And that tell us all you need to know, doesn't it?"
"Jaime told me once that he only feels truly alive in battle and in bed."

Cersei: "You little fool. Tears are not a woman's only weapon. You've got another one between your legs, and you'd best learn to use it. You'll find men use their swords freely enough. Both kinds of swords."

Cersei: "We were so much alike, I could never understand why they treated us so differently. Jaime learned to fight with sword and lance and mace, while I was taught to smile and sing and please. He was heir to Casterly Rock, while I was to be sold to some stranger like a horse, to be ridden whenever my new owner liked, beaten whenever he liked, and cast aside in time for a younger filly. Jaime's lot was to be glory and power, while mine was birth and moonblood."