life

So, one of the disadvantages of staying up late and using the television as background noise when working is that you have to find quality, non-distracting shows in the "vast wasteland."

Woe is the second night in a row when looking for said "quality" television and find not one, but two bad movies you worked on in a previous life, showing at 1:15.

In the morning.

While you're wrastling cross browser CSS.

Tonight's bad movie is Turbulence. Also known as my first screen credit.

Or was it my second?

Third?

Ah, hell if I remember. It was one of those better off forgotten. It was a bad movie with crappy acting. But very very good special effects. You can trust me on that one.

You think I'm kidding.

Mike says I'm the only person he knows on IMDB. He's wrong, there are a lot of us. We just normally don't announce it.

Last night's movie was Broken Arrow. Oh, joy on that one, too.

Why can't they just show Shrek? At least that one I can cry out, "Layers!"

"Ogres have layers! Onions have layers!"

"Parfait! Everybody loves parfait! Parfaits have layers."

Phew!

That was close!

I almost took myself seriously tonight. Like major seriously. Like disappointment seriously.

And that would have sucked.

Monday morning, blah blah blah, up, do work for an hour, take a shower, start packing up everything, Kris rolls out of bed, starts his oatmeal, plops his butt down on the couch with ESPN playing on the television.

I'm gathering all my stuff to head to the office, when Kris comments, "Wait. You're going to work."

"Uh, yeah, I am."

"No, no, no. You're going to work."

"Yeah."

"You haven't done that in like, years. I mean, sure you'd work at Greg's, or head over to Mike's to work at his place, or maybe head into Krush. But you're usually at the dining room table right there.

But you're heading into work.

Into. Work."

I burst into tears.

Later, three people, two nominally independent of each other, called me a Flock groupie. Now, if I didn't enjoy hanging out with the Flock people a lot, I think I'd be upset at the potential derogatory implications of the term "groupie." But I was too distracted by Mike's comment, "What? Are you trying for a second childhood?"

Follow that with an afternoon of there's-no-way I-can-get-all of-this-work-done in-this-lifetime amounts of work, and the end of the day could not come soon enough.

Considering last night was a wonderfully productive slice of time working at Flock, being overwhelmed today was a serious downer.

But then I realized that, eh, nah.

No need to take myself so seriously. No need for the drop into a molasses world. No need to lose sight of the fact that there's a lot of fun happening, and being blue only distracts my view of it.

So raspberries to Mike for the groupie/second childhood comment. And "pbth!" to the huge work load (it'll still get done, just not Right. Now).

I'm off to throw the disc, run with the dogs, and eat a piece of chocolate cake.

Oh, and watch tonight's episode of Ultimate Fighter 2, the revenge of the wimps.

Last year, at an ultimate tournament I didn't go to, there was an incident wherein a woman was body slammed by an opponent and flipped out when the opponent landed on her. According to eye witnesses, the rugby tackling player had been playing the whole day aggressively and the squished, soon to be freaking out woman had been the recipient of the unsportsmanlike conduct for a while.

None-the-less, when the squishee was squished by the squishor, the squishee freaked out, stood up by pushing the squishor off of her and started flailing.

Most flailing involves throwing arms around wildly and kicking.

Ah, the kicking.

The squishee did indeed start kicking the squishor, and had started kicking her in the face. The squishor, according to the reports, curled into a fetal position and attempted to ward off the kicks and the blows, covering her face as best as possible.

While relating this story to my teammates at Sectionals yesterday, I heard Mark mutter, "Fetal position?"

I finished my story, and asked him what was up. We started talking about how, if you're caught unawares, you might not have the presense of mind to move away from the blows, and would instinctively cover your face for protection. But why not just spin away? Or grab the leg? Do something to stop the barrage of blows, instead of trying to absorb them.

"How bad could it be?" Mark wondered out loud.

Somehow, I have no idea how, Mark arranged to have Heidi, while wearing cleats, attempt to kick him in the face after Sectionals were over. Had the team heckled him into it? Had he decided that empirical evidence was necessary and Heidi was of similar size to the kicking squishee?

Unclear, but the experiment was going to happen.

Well, push comes to shove, and at the end of the last game of the day, when we're all getting ready to leave, packing up and such, Wes calls Mark out, "Hey, Mark, aren't you supposed to be kicked by Heidi? Heidi, do you still have your cleats on?"

Heidi had no desire to kick Mark in the face. What a scandal! Deliberately kick someone in the face? That's awful! No, can't do it.

I could.

I immediately volunteered to help Mark in his fetal position, how hard could it be to defend the blows and spin away experiment. I had enough rough-housing with my brothers to swing a good kick without feeling (too) bad about it, and I had heard enough stories of Mark and his brothers (I could get a good kick in for Kyle and Kevin!) to have exactly zero bad feelings about landing one kick.

So, after the reasonable, "I take no responsibility for any damage I may cause you in this attempt. You agree not to hold me liable for any permanent injuries you may sustain." agreements with witnesses, Mark assumed the fetal position. I stood over him, and on the 3, 2, 1 countdown, kicked.

My first swing was with my right foot, which Mark blocked somewhat easily, and I missed his chin. So, I immediately stepped down with that foot, and swung forward with the left foot.

And clocked him right on the nose.

Full squish. Big cheer from the crowd! Contact!

He spun away faster than I could swing again with my right foot.

Upon standing and verifying he was okay, he explained he could defend the blows, but he had mis-estimated the amount of effort needed to stop the kicks. The first one was low on his elbows, the second one higher on his forearms, which is why it connected.

Spinning away as quickly as possible seems the best option.

But I can still say I kicked a Smith in the face.

Good lord, people! I'm a girl! I am not a boy!

When referring to a woman or an individual within a group of women, the proper pronouns to use are "she," "her," and "hers" (not "they," "their," and "theirs," as so many people like to use).

That means, if you're talking about me specifically, use "she," not "he."

Just because I like web technologies, make a living programming, and enjoy the tech world, doesn't mean I'm automatically a boy.

Grrrr....

Maybe I should drop the nickname.

Or give up and let Boris' nickname for me stick.

Sheesh.