Advice to America's Youth

Read books.

Which books? Good ones?

How do you figure out which one's are good? Read enough books and you'll start to get a sense about the whole thing - or maybe you don't figure it out so much, but it doesn't really matter. Just read.

My Reason for Treason This Season and What I Would Like For the Holidays 2010

    I have always had a really hard time dealing with the gift giving and getting part of the December American holiday season. Every year I get these very strange feelings about the whole thing. The gifts we get each other aren’t really gifts more like responsibilities, obligations and debts; I don’t want some materialistic thing; I’m not worthy of this gift when there are so many more needy people in the world; I can’t possibly succeed in getting you the right gift; why do we need to weigh down a holiday’s beauty with needing to get a gift for everyone you know? Those are the kind of things running through my mind.

    The height of my disillusion was sharing a Christmas morning with my ex-girfriend’s family. I was raised in a Jewish home –certainly not the den of materialism you’d expect from a person writing this – my views on the ills of the season were formulated from the outside (a new watch and a puzzle wrapped in newspaper counted as overdoing it for any night of Chanukah.) So when I saw these 2 adult children blazing through box after box, bag after bag,  parents looking on with baited breath waiting for approval, it freaked me out. The 15 foot tree lined with presents turned into a 15 tree and a 4 foot pile of wrapping paper and packaging hour of steady-paced tarring, smiling, and thanking. And yes, it was fun, I do understand the joy of a new toy – studying it, marveling at it, figuring out how to use it. But happened at such an excelerated speed! Junkies getting their fix – shooting up again and again within the hour not so much for pleasure but for the sake of the routine. Oh God what a mountain of wrapping paper!

          (To be fair, that family was nothing but nice to me and I really appreciated being included in their celebration. They are not what I make them out to be – it’s just very easy to write negatively about one’s ex-girlfriend.)  

    I’ve (half-heartedly) done the protest thing before. Don’t buy me anything. I don’t want anything besides world peace. Send a gift to a charity instead. And in the early stages: I don’t want stuff, I just want money. Some years I can’t tell if I honestly don’t want anything or I’ve just forced material desires out of my head… and then I slap myself for getting all self righteous. Boy, airs of superiority complex waft around me like during this season like…well… like… the way this season wafts around me in coffee shops selling eggnog, gingerbread-spice lattes.

     And the thing I keep noticing is that the biggest effect I have is causing a headache for the people determined to get me something. No, I am not changing the big System, just kinda being a pain to the people in my life. So I have decided to compile a list of stuff I would actually want and/or need. Out of my comfort zone, but I guess its normal for lots of people so here goes. If you would like to get me something this holiday season, here are some of my thoughts. I will be sure to be grateful for anything I receive 

 2010 Desire List

Things you probably have to buy:

Size 11 Converse-All Stars Low (color undecided)

Size 36 Black Calvin Kline briefs with white elastic band and black lettering (sold at Costco)

Light Resistence (Purple) Jump-Stretch Band (link)  

New Laptop

Windows 7

Laptop Tune up/ reformat

Sports watch

Skins tights

iPhone 4

External Hard drive

Black, high density foam roller

1.5 or 2 pood (25 or 30 lb) Kettle ball

Money

Weight vest

Things you could find, make or do without spending money:

Fix my car door, window

Fix my battery, remote key, lights, computer,

Milk crates

Lacross balls

Let me train you in the gym

Great books you’ve already read

2009 college nationals disc (Ohio)

Let me stay in your cabin in tahoe sometime this winter (or hook it up with a friend’s)

On the Uselessness of Bankers

This inspired me to think about and come up with a couple very different metaphors for banking:

• Bankers are parasites that latch on and suck to the 2 way flow of goods from producers to consumers. How much of the wealth do we let these parasites consume? Bankers dont produce wealth, they produce money, wealth comes from farmers, builders, artists, scientists
• Bankers trade time for wealth via the lending of money. "Sure we'll give you this money now because there will be plenty of it to go around in the future. We have plenty of money and time and will lend you some in exchange for the your promise to give us your wealth over the long run. We'll, wait. We have time, its you that doesn't have time." Banks have this idea that there will be more money out there in the future because economies have always grown because populations have always grown. I dont understand how no one is bring up the fact that actually yes, every habitat, even Earth, has SOME carrying capacity and the population will stop growing AT SOME POINT.
• Bankers are matchmakers, connecting opportunity with those who want to do something with it. Thing is, maybe this was necessary in the past, but now we have the best opportunity search tool available to us: the Internet. Why do we continue to pay banks to find something I could pull up with a Google search?

What do you think? Are any of these meaningful, thought provoking, or insightful?

The Most Important Excersises

If you call yourself an athlete and are not in the gym lifting heavy things on a consistent basis, you are really doing yourself a disservice. Its not about looks or proformance or speed  (although of coursethose things benifit), its about injury prevention, general health and athleticism.

1. The Squat. The most basic of all human movement. Sit down and then stand up. Congraduations you just did a squat. You just did the thing that will greatest help you get the body you want. A leg press is NOTHING in comparison to a real squat; if you think otherwise, you've been lied to.
2. The Deadlift. Something is on the ground, pick it up. Lift with the knees and then with the back. Wanna get powerful? Deadlift
3. The Overhead Press (really 3 related exercises). A weight is on your shoulders, lift it over head. Overhead push strength is everything in sports. The beauty of real weight lifting in comparison to machines is that you must stabilize your entire body under that weight. Bench press is great, but a standing press is a total body exercise.
4. The Pull Up. It uses every single muscle in the back (especially when you do then correctly. Read: Kipping PUs). If you could not, dangling in the air, pull your way back over the precipice, you should probably start working on that.  Can't do a full pullup yet? Start with jumping PUs instead of a row machine.

I guarantee that if you do circuit training with just these 4 exercises  you will show twice as much gain as you would doing all those stupid machines for three times as long. Don't believe me, come to the gym with me sometime and I'll show you what a real workout is.

3 IOTD for the Price of 1

1. Use white dinner plates so that you can see your food. If it looks pretty because you spent a little extra time to get it right, you will enjoy it that much more. If you don't want to see the details and so you eat on dark blue plates you have a problem. Food can be beautiful if you allow it.


2. It is great to go to a gym and be inside it, but that is only a small step. You actually have to know what you are doing to get results unless the results you want are hours logged in a gym. I just dont understand why people would not want to learn about how to use a gym. Its fun! Working on your body is fun if you do it the right ways! If you don't agree and dread the weight room, please, PLEASE let me show you how to actually utilize a gym - I promise I can change your mind.

3. Nervous? In 5 billion years the sun will burn out and nothing you did will matter. Feel better?

Philosophy and Hypocrisy

I am a philosopher, I have lots of ideas about lots of different things. Sometimes I feel so strongly that my idea is correct or at least largely valid that I will stand up and argue the idea's merits in front of a crowd.

But I realize that hypocrisy, not following my own advice, is not necessarily a horrible thing and my ideas are no less right because my actions don't fall perfectly in line. Vegetarianism is obviously (ridiculously obviously!) the right choice for the future for so many reasons but I eat meat and encourage my close friends and family to do so as well. Hypocrisy yes! But I feel strangely ok with this situation.

In this world with a million different ways to screw up, it is ok to have ideas that conflict. To be honest, I have a hard time trusting someone who harshly critisizes the hypocrite because it shows they either lack imagination or are out of touch with reality - they are hypocrites in some way too, I gaurentee it.



I can resist anything...except for temptation.

Please, Please No!

....Sarah Palin may be edging closer to a 2012 presidential run, telling Fox News "I would give it a shot" if the American people think she's "the one"....




Shes not.






I know that there was lots of insincere joking about this if Bush got elected, but let me make it clear that I am very very serious. I swear that if Sarah Palin becomes President of the United States of America, I will leave for some other place.

Be Nice

It really makes sense to be nice.

Yes, I admit that being crude or snobby or cruel or gossipy or snide or irreverent can earn you a cheap laugh and affirming sneer-smiles of your friends who are also in on the joke. But that doesn't mean its the right way to be.

Being nice is hard sometimes (especially in comparison to how easy it is to be mean) but there are two very good reasons for it. The first is that you have your own flaws. By harping on those of others you are inviting attacks on yourself. Perhaps one reason people feel it is OK to make fun of others is that they are not in tune with their own failings; imagine you and your secret inadequacies are the brunt of joke. Secondly, being nice even though crassness would seem to fit builds a culture of trust, openness and respect. You there, the 23 year old! You may not care about those values now, but I've been to the future and you are sorely mistaken.


So the next time a good zinger pops into your head, put down the fastball and throw a complement instead.

Realizing Greatness While It Is Happening

One of the most important perceptual skills is the ability to recognize greatness while it is happening.
Comprehending beauty during its appearance, not after. Appreciating the sublime in the moment.

I notice how this is so important because the lack of this skill is something I dont like about myself when I see it. The standard story of college was I would show up to the first day of class excited, let the quarter pass me by, and then spend finals week cramming but also morning the end of what I realized was a great class. I don't think I forgo talking with professors until the end is near because I am lazy so much as I only realize how much I actually do love learning from them when they are about to be done.

With the realization that you are in the presence of greatness comes responsibility. If you are on a mediocre team, there is no reason to put in extra work outside of practice but you see that you are a part of an amazing group, then it is obvious that you should try extra hard to earn your roster spot.


The qunticential phrasing of this idea is the often heard:

"Youth is wasted on the young."

...You had the uncharted world laid out before you. All you saw was infinite possibility, and yet you took it all for granted because that was all you knew...

Oh how we cherish the idea of our past youth, kicking ourselves for not appreciating it. But if this cliche is true, shouldn't it also be true that:

"Life is wasted on the living?"

 I don't think its necessarily true that we are destined to always fail in appreciating the wonder at hand but I know that it is a constant challenge.

Hi Again, Finally Being in Their Shoes

I'm going to try to pick these up again and HOPEFULLY write about non-Ultimate things; I do enough of that as it is. I'll start with a general one:

I realize that as much as I am "learning about myself", I am constantly learning about other's "selve's". This is not the same as learning about people, but finally experiencing what they might experience and realizing that the thing they did which seemed so weird at the time is actually a very reasonable response to the situation they were in. 

More and more I am seeing all the human conditions which seemed weird before, now appear normal because I have acted them out. Whenever you just can't understand why someone is acting so strange, have some empathy - you may very well do the same if you are in their shoes.

E=MC^2 is a Liberal Conspiracy

Faceplam

Wow, it is scary to think that I share a representative government with people like that. More so that I share highways with people like that! In both, I put my well-being partially in the hands of strangers assuming that they are not totally crazy and will look out for me. People that out of touch with reality freak me out.

Advice

The workout you dread the most is probably the one you need the most. Embrace the pain.




Elite athletes are not defined by their miles times or bench press PRs, but when their mid-workout, glazed over 1,000yd stare fades and sharpens to a 3-inch glare.  A 3-inch glare straight into the eyes of the beast, for now they stand nose-to-nose, toe-to-toe with their limits and are not backing down.

Tragedy

Tragedy is not the conflict between right and wrong, but the conflict between two rights.

Its is a eventually painfully shattered childhood myth that if only all the wrong in the world could be defeated we'd all be fine and dandy. Woe is the man confronted by his enemy Truth when his weapon is the same.

As Soon as the Season Starts...

...The Season Starts to End.*

Are you working every day to make your team better?

See you all at Colorado Cup



*stolen from the Bravo website

Philosophical Determinism

An excellent response to an essay on the Logical Argument For Determinism and Against Free Will on The NYT Philosophy Blog: 

That this argument fails to convince anyone that his choice is absolutely determined feels just like the Anselm argument failing to really convince anyone that God exists. It is always interesting that logic, however strong and well structured, doesn't really have much power to convince. There is pretty good evidence that our physical selves are pretty well deterministic, but we never believe it.

One reason, I think, is that our conscious mind may be just a passenger, watching what happens, but not really in control of anything. This conclusion is verified by scientific studies which show the patterns of mental activity about some action actually come very slightly after the body's action has been taken. Our body's actions are, in fact, pretty much determined. But, if our "mind" is a passenger, then it can't know what will happen and is always both surprised, so to speak, and filled with responsibility ( because it doesn't know that it is just a passenger).   

     - mitch diamond

The illusion of responsibility - even if it is indeed only an illusion - does seem to make evolutionary sense. If mental states are factors in future behavior the memory of past guilt is a helpful force in future decisions.  Even if we philosophers are baffled by the circular arguments presented to us by our senses, and surprised by the logical conclusions that result  (the absence of free will), at least we can marvel at our quirky existence  (the illusion of free will and feelings of responsibility)

Haha

I put "haha" at the end of lots of things I write. Emails, facebook comments, tweets. I do this, for the most part, because I am worried people will be offended or put off if I seemed very serious. We all know how hard it is to convey inflection through text; better that the reader think I am joking than they get their feelings hurt because they misconstrue.

Actually, it upsets me that I feel the need to qualify my statements like this. It angers me that I feel people don't know how to not be offend by something they read on the internet because they most likely don't understand what the writer means. It makes me frustrated that I feel ashamed to write with heavy wording.Mostly, it makes me sad that I notice this "Haha" trend so astutely because this fact indicates that I communicate through a screen way more than I should.

Haha

Hidden from the News Feed

The ability to hide certain people or certain types of updates (I'm looking at you FarmVille) from one's Facebook Newsfeed is great - it allows you to customize your FB experience. Yet, there is a big downside.

I feel that it's sort of unfair that once someone is hidden they are never seen again by the hider. Oh how I loath the notion that my wondrous and insightful status updates never reach the multitudes because of my past youthful indiscretions (spamming my status with stupid inside jokes and unauthorized and inadvertent Texas Hold accomplishments). I know better now - my statuses are pure gold but you may never see them because you could so easily block me forever.

I say that 4 times a year, for 2 days at a time, EVERYONE you have ever blocked shows up on your feed - a re-audition of sorts. Then, if you find something really valuable, you can UNBLOCK them. If after the trial period, you take no action then everyone is returned to the blocked list.


The worst part of the whole mess is that I will never know that you blocked me. I might spout untold wisdom with you in particular in mind and never will you see it.

StalkButton

There should be a stalk button on facebook and twitter for people who you want to know about but don't want them to know you are browsing their profile. In true narcissistic, generation ME fashion, facebook would, a month later, come out with the ability to see how many people have stalkbuttoned you without giving away their identity.

Setting Up

It is WAY better to set up on D then to set up on O. Ceteris paribus, fast breaking is WAY better than slowing down to set up your offense. Take a lesson from the best college woman's team of all time: Oregon2010 picked up the disc after a turn as fast as possible EVERY time.

The counter argument says that it takes time for the O to get into their formation. To that I say you have too high an opinion of formations. Better that people set up the offense while the disc is moving between handlers.

Heuristics, not Algorithms.

Reciever Picks

The disc should NEVER stay with the receiver if he is involved with a pick. Never.

Fuck

" did it affect the play?"

Fuck

"did you have a play on the disc?"

Fuck XVI.C.2.B.2


A pick is a pick is a pick is a pick. Even if the defender had been 1 foot closer on the reception, that is more pressure which could have lead to a drop.

Take subjective judgments out of the game as much as possible: a receiver who gets the disc after his defender gets picked should never get the disc.

Lebron

The best possible way this LeBronocalypse could possibly end is with him walking up to the mic, silently sitting down for a a few seconds, leaning over, and nonchalantly saying: "Cleveland, I'm coming back" and then getting up and starting to leave before bending back over and adding: "And I'm gonna take less money so we can sign more players." Walking away behind the curtain to the sound of screaming reporters, he will be become the leader,the legend, the hero, and the superstar that he wants to be.

Anything less, and we will all look back and remember it as the exact moment when sports stars could never again be role models for our children.

The Ultimate Thesis Project

What would yours be about?

Looking for a Personal Trainer?

Hello Loyal Readers,

I am looking for people who would be interested in doing some gym workouts under my training. I have always thought about trying to be a personal trainer and I guess this would be like a first trial run. Ideally, I would have 3-5 people in a group and the session would last between 30 minutes to an hour.

My philosophy on physical conditioning is that the best results in power, strength, and overall athleticism come from constantly varied functional movements, executed at high intensity. Functional movements are defined as those that can move large loads, long distances, quickly; examples of these are pull-ups, cleans, jerks and squats. I also see it as critically important that results are measurable quantitatively.

A sample workout of mine might consist of:

4 rounds for time:

-9 20inch Box Jumps

-7 75lb Clean and Jerks

-5 Pull Ups

-3 165lb Deadlifts

You can see that if you first complete the workout in 12 minutes, and then complete the same workout 3 weeks later in 9 minutes you are obviously in better shape, you are more powerful. Quantitatively Measurable Results.



I am in town all summer and am generally flexible time-wise, so I’ll certainly try to work out a schedule when a couple people are able to get together. I would hope to have 2 sessions a week but I don’t want to scare anyone away with requests for commitment. These sessions would be free. The only payment I ask for is for you to be honest with me about how I can improve as a trainer.

One last thing: You should know that I believe strongly that people need to LEARN how to work out – they actually need coaching on how to do the movements that will help them become a better athlete. I am not looking to coach so can I sit next to you and encourage you to finish those last leg curls, I see coaching in the gym as the teaching of the movements. If you have ever entered the gym without knowledge of what to do, and so you settled on seated calf presses, you especially should take me up on my offer.

I guarantee you will see results during the first session in that my teaching will show you a new side of the weight room and my workouts will put you on your ass like nothing you have ever done in the gym before.

If you are interested, even a little bit, please email me back (StephenGHubbard@gmail.com) or respond here and we'll work something out.

Just a Little Trust

If you don't think your offense can throw 25 open passes in a row, you have big problems. If the thought:

I hope someone hucks it soon, because I don't trust our team to work the disc up the field with in-cuts.

enters your head, you've got big problems. If you don't trust your teammates with the disc, no matter the defense, you've got big problems. If you are equally worried about the defense earning a turnover as you are about your offense giving away the disc, you've got big problems.

The drill that can easily build trust in the ability to string together 50 short passes: small-field keep-away with 1 or 2 players playing all-time offense. Soccer teams do it all the time, I really don't understand why more Ultimate teams don't.


Vid of the Day: What I'm talking about.

Song-Your-Sure-You've-Heard-A-Million-Times-but-Never-Knew-What-it-Was of the Day: Justice: Genesis

Microbiology fact of the Day: You body is composed of 10 times as many bacterial cells as human cells.

Regret #1

If I regret anything about my college career, it is not getting a job at RIMAC, the university's gym/weights/racquetball complex. The jobs look super easy and, to quote an anonymous source, " the work is super chill. (Brah)" . I would have gotten to hang around the gym which I do anyway, and I could ogle all the good looking athletes while on the clock.


So ill say again, if you want my advice for your college years: work at the gym swiping student ID cards.



Quote of the Month:
"When people ask me now if I miss coaching UCLA basketball games, the national championships, the attention, the trophies, and everything that goes with them, I tell them this: I miss the practices."
- John Wooden

Awesome-Gallery-of-Awesome-Photos-of-an-Awesome-Nationals-Shot-by-the-Awesome-Meeko of the Day

Love

I hope you all can one day love something as much as I have loved playing for the UCSD Air Squids for the past 5 years.


That's it for today.

SW All-Region

My votes:

Justin "Bobble" Elliot- UCSD
Josh "Forge" Nickerson- UCSD
Jacob Baumer - CSULB
Max "Nero" Sheitr-Dunn- UCSB
Matty Zemel - Colorado

Evan Padget - Colorado

Mark "Arbiter"Elbogen -UCLA

Joke of the Day: BPGlobalPR

Vid of the Day: How LongBeach Won Sectionals

Changes to the Women's Game

Women's Ultimate should be played on a shorter field (maybe 50x35yard +25 yard endzones) with smaller discs (155-160g). You would see less turnovers per point and a greater ability for throwers to use creative touch throws, blades, hammers, and scoobers. I contend that this would make Women's Ultimate more fun to play and more fun to watch. Lastly, a smaller disc and a smaller field make the game much more accessible to newcomers - to a large percentage of women, it is very hard to learn the game when the disc is just too heavy and the field too long.


Joke of the Day: Why did the walrus go to the Tupperware party? Because he was looking for a good seal.

Vid of the Day: Fugue's Callahan Nominee Julia Sherwood (sorry to be a downer - but 1:14 is the worst travel I have ever seen on a huck. I understand who she gets it from though: Janin :20, :33, :52, 1:17, 5:37, 7:18, 10:33)

Teenagers Who Are Better Than Most of Us Will Ever Be of the Day: 2008 Worlds Highlights

A Whole Lot of Turnover in One Half for Two Teams That Do Know How to Play Possession Ultimate of the Day: Wisco v Texas Nationals 2009

Helpful Things to Say to Players on the Field

There is a short list of words and phrases that can be said by a sideline teammate that are actually helpful to the player on the field.

While on O

• Toe (as in Toe the line)
• Go to (Because your defender is going to make a bid on the disc)
• Milk (Milk the disc for a little bit before catching it (in the endzone)
• Greatest ( you must perform a Greatest to keep the disc alive)
• Man on (You thought you were poached and now you are not)
• You've got time (on a high disc, you don't need to jump just yet - wait to make a play)
• See**Someone's name** (when someone is ridiculously poached )
• See **Some throw** (when some option is obviously the right one but the thrower is not seeing it - examples: Hammer, Swing) (This mostly goes for DOffense players with the disc. If you need to tell your O-line players how to move the disc and what options to see, you need to reconsider the composition of your O-line.)

While on D

• Inside (shift your mark inside)
• Around (shift around)
• No huck (no huck mark)
• No Dump (shift all the way around to prevent all throws to the backfield)
• Strike (Jump over to the open side for a count)
  
• Team D or No foul (Back your mark up so the thrower can't draw a foul or an And-1 throw)
• Drop (you need to book it deep to prevent a huck score)
• Now you are in (your guy is only viable to cut in)
• Aggressive/conservative (for in zones that shift between aggressive cups/containment cups)
• You're last back (you should be aware to help deep)
• Bid (make a play on the disc)
• Up (a throw has gone up, often used for hucks)
  
• Right Shoulder (a huck/dump pass has gone up and you should turn right to find it/ D it)
• Left Shoulder (a huck/dump pass has gone up and you should turn left to find it/ D it)
• Guy on your right/left/behind (telling defenders in zone were the threats are)
• You've got two (telling defenders in a zone that 2 threats are in his zone)
• Looking, Looking (telling face-guarding defenders that the thrower wants to hit your guy)
• *Describing noticed tendencies of someone's defensive assignment: "He likes the lefty backhand"
• Edit: Thanks to Sam Swink for the suggestion. Peel (leave your guy to defend the open guy in the endzone. Often happens after your guy catches a huck just outside the endzone)
  

Am I missing any?


Conclusions: if you are saying anything else from the sideline like "Nice cut Mike!", your on-field players are tuning you out at best, but probably distracted from the task at hand. Celebrate after the point is over, not before.


Joke of the Day:
The early bird might get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.

Highlight Vid of the Day: Wisco Women Whomping at PresDay Weekend

Game of Last Week: Cal vs Oregon NW Regional Finals 2010. Damn Ego looks good. Its all solid fundamentals... give-go, high speed of play, touch on every throw... 8:16 isn't fundamentals though, that's just straight-up Jedi.

Nail-Bitter/Barnburner Game of the Day: CUT vs Pitt, Qrts, Nationals 09

The Rule of Thirds

Quality hucks follow the Rule of Thirds.

The Rule of Thirds:
Hucks involve 2 players, the thrower and the receiver. Quality hucks satisfy 1 or both of these characteristics:

• The receiver catches the huck in a different vertical third of the field than the thrower threw from.
• The receiver catches the huck in a different vertical third of the field than he started his cut in
  

The consequences of this rule: bad hucks are to receivers that start and end their cut in the same lane as the thrower. Hucks that go straight overhead are bad.





Joke of the Day: Why don't blind people go skydiving? It scares the shit out of the dog.


Copycat Highlight-Vid-Musical-Selection of the Day: Club2009 and BrodieForCallahan. Further proof that there are only so many viable songs to put over your highlight video.

Best-Posting-of-the-2010-UPA-College-Nationals-Seeding-and-Format of the Day

Best-First-Round-Opponent-at-Nationals-for-the-UCSD-Air-Squids of the Day: Jojah

Sorry For the Hiatus

I apologize for the long unannounced break. Regionals were in Colorado, then I had jury duty on Monday and Tuesday, then we had 6am practice on Wednesday and I had to grade lab reports continuing until I had to teach on Thursday and then the SunGod Festival was Friday. The weekend was booked with Ultimate and yesterday the sickness I have been putting out of my mind for the last 5 days caught up to me. But you don't want to hear excuses.... So I'll just say that I hope to be getting back to a more regular posting schedule.


Without further ado, The Idea of the Day:
THE UCSD AIR SQUIDS ARE GOING TO NATIONALS!!! See you in Madison!



Joke of the Day:
"Why did you quit your job at the Noble Gas factory?"
"Because I just will NOT be talked to in that tone!"

Highlight Vid of the Day: Oregon Fugue tearing it up at Pres Day (Shout outs to my friends #2 Christina and #8 Shannon who housed my entire club team when we played at NW Regionals.)

Quote of the Day: From the Radiologist who took X-rays of my right foot today: "Wow, I have never seen that many pockets of calcification in an ankle before!"

Further Reason for Having a Massive Crush on Cree Howard of the Day

Advice

This morning I got up at 7 and went for a run to loosen my legs. Standard stuff for me... jog...rest...stretch... I did some plyos... nothing too hard.

Then I found myself at an elementary school playground. No one was there as it was before school so I sat on a bench to think and stretch a bit. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a small piece of sidewalk chalk. What a great thing it would be for me to write something really interesting, to write some piece of advice for the kids to ponder during recess! But what to write?

I couldn't think of anything that I was sure would be good advice. I could talk about doing well in school, or respecting one's elders, or eating healthy, or enjoying one's youth but nothing sounded right in my head.

And then it hit me. The thing that I can recommend without reservation, the single piece of advice I wish I had had when I was younger, the one thing I would like to say to today's children:

PLAY ULTIMATE.

Ultimate has been one of the best things to ever happen to my life. Most of my friends and most of my fun comes from Ultimate. Most of my perspectives on the world are shaped in some way by the things I have learned from Ultimate and the people that play it. I love Ultimate.

Many times over the last 5 years, Ultimate has been THE most important thing in my life - that has been the case these last few weeks before Regionals. And I am happy with that fact. May you all want something in your life as badly as I want to win this weekend.


Clip of the Day: The Next Generation and The Best Endzone Celebration Ever

Joke of the Day: If you are not part of the solution, you are part of the precipitate.

Excited.

For this Weekend.

Nothing else to think about.

Game of the Day: UCSD vs Georgia Nationals 2009

Just Chill.

Prechill your glasses in the freezer, heat your dinner plates in the oven. Everyone likes a warm plate when eating a hot meal, everyone loves a frosted glass when drinking water/milk/beer ect.

Its not really much extra work but people notice and appreciate it.



Joke of the Day: What did the leper say to the prostitute? Keep the tip.

Game of the Day: An Oldy But a Goody. Sockeye vs Buzz Bullets 2005

No-Look of the Day

You Make the Call of the Day: In or Out?

Big Weekend In Colorado

"The great secret of success in life is for a man to be ready when his opportunity comes."
- Benjamin Disraeli

I like to think about the first point, of the first game, of a tournament. The whole week, if not the whole month prior to a big tourney like this upcoming one, I rehearse in my head. I actually don't really think past the pull - I just visualize standing on the line, putting my hand up and watching the disc sail toward me. I don't know anything else about the weekend besides who I am going to be standing on the line with and that I am going to catch that pull.

Over and over again in my head. Over and over again because those will be the most important moments of my Ultimate career up until that point. Let bids to nationals be distributed later, that first pull must be caught right now.

See you all in Fort Collins.


You Make the Call of the Day: Cornell v Pitt at 09 Nationals 12:05 Travel or No Travel? I agree with Observer Jason.

Copycat Musical Accompaniment to a Highlight Video of the Day

Joke of the Day: What do you call a cow with no feet? Ground beef.

Kiwi

It turns out that you can eat the skin of the kiwi. Instead of pealing it before eating the flesh, just dig right in. This seemed really weird to me at first, but now it is normal... a testiment to how our brains adapt to new information.

Recently I bought 10 kiwis and have been taking one on the bus each morning. Halfway into the ride I pull out my kiwi, twirl it around a bit to ensure that everyone sees it and is paying attention, and then I take a huge bite out of it like it's nothing special. Knowing that this was REALLY weird the first time I saw it, I am sure that I am blowing strangers' minds every morning. I'd like to think that I single handedly make their day more interesting and inspire them to try something out of the ordinary.

Changing lives 1 kiwi at a time.



Jock of the day: 25 Pullups, pushups, situps, and squats before a shower make me feel really good.

Point of the Day: Dropped Pull in on the last point of the '07 Club Finals

SW Regionals 2010

Fire in your eyes...


Game of the Day: Wisco vs Cut 2006 Central Regional Final. 1 bid to nationals. Both teams ranked in the top 10. 30 mph winds.

LGBT

Lets Get Beyond Titles.




Joke of the Day: Knock Knock... Who's there? "I Eat Mop". I Eat Mop Who? HAHAHAHAHA

Game of the Day: 2008 Regional Final Arizona v Colorado.
By the way, there were only 2 bids to natties that year and Zona could have taken their foot off the gas when they realized Colorado was gonna win. They could have rested their studs. But they didn't; they went hard the whole time, lost, and then beat Santa Barbara in the back-door game to go. That's ballsy. That's respect for the opponent. That's confidence in yourself. That 08 Arizona team had more class than any I have ever seen.

P.S. - Even if you don't watch the whole clip, at least watch 13:20 for a perfectly run trick D.

My Contribution

Its OK to stand up and say: "Yeah, that was me. I deserve the credit." People don't like a snob or an egoist, but a healthy appreciation for your own work is attractive.


Joke of the Day: Did you hear the joke about hydration? OF COURSE YOU DIDN'T, BECAUSE HYDRATION IS NOT A JOKE!!!

Clip of the Day
Game of the Day !!!

"Business" World

In the business world, if you are sleeping more than 5 hours per night, you are falling behind.

- Donald Trump


Screw you Donald Trump. Screw you, "Business World". 5 hours of sleep and then back to the rat race? Is that really want? I'll pass.


Joke of the Day: I bought a box of animal crackers and it said to not eat it if the seal is broken. I opened it up and sure enough...

Not Persuasive

"Well, what if everyone did that?" is not a really good reason for me to change what I'm doing: I aim to evaluate my actions in light of the real situation at hand. If EVERYONE was doing what I was doing, the situation would be radically different.


Joke of the Day: I doubt many people got the joke from 2 days ago, so let me make it clearer.
How do you turn a duck into a popular Soul and R&B singer/songwriter? Put it in the microwave until it's Bill Withers

I've Learned

If you are absolutely certain that you are right, you have probably overlooked something. If you think something is definitely one way or the other, then its probably both.



Joke of the Day: Airbrushing in women's magazines. No one looks like that! (The really funny thing is how its tragically Not A Joke.)


Jock of the Day: Me! I finished a metcon workout of 30 90lb Clean and Jerks for time in 2 minutes and 43 seconds with only one 10 second break in between rep 20 and 21 (after I hit myself in the chin with a Jerk haha) !

Nerd of the Day: Me! If I am 75 inchs tall and weigh 200lbs, then 30 reps of a 90lb Clean constitute 17413.92 joules of Work done on the bar and 18078.56 joules of Work on the mass of my body. 30 shoulder presses (same Work as a Jerk) make up 7205.76 joules of work. If I did all this Work (42698.24 joules) in 163 seconds, then I produced an average of 261.95 Watts of Power (.36 horsepower) over that 2.75 minutes.

Losing

The positive side to misplacing something is the joy you get when you find it. You didn't need something new to cheer you up, you just needed to be reminded of how important the stuff you have now is to you. I am thinking of this because I just located the laptop charger I was without for the last 3 days.

I realize that I lose and find things intentionally in 2 ways. I hide $20 bills in strange places around my room and car so that when I find them I will be shocked and feel richer.

I will also set my clocks forward 10 minutes; of course I know that I'm 10 minutes ahead for the first few days, but a month later I will have forgoten and will be plesantly early to my appointments.



Joke of the Day: How do you turn a duck into a popular Soul and R&B singer/songwriter? Put it in the microwave until it's bill withers.

Doo doo doo, do da doot du

The four right chords can make me cry.


Joke of the Day: How many surrealists does it take to change a light bulb? Seventeen.

Real Pain

One great thing about sports is that it allows you to experience different types of pain. The pain response is a deep seated evolutionary mechanism that tells you to PAY ATTENTION, SOMETHING IS WRONG HERE!! Pain has been tuned somewhat by evolution - there are different types of neural pathways, yes. But there is little frontal cortex application to the pain sensation unless we train it. Pain does not get intillectualized, rationalized.... Even if you knowingly do something painful, it feels the same as if the pain had been caused out of the blue.... unless you train yourself! That is a big part of sports... to train yourself to realize when the pain you are feeling is not a helpful indicator to let you know that something has gone wrong.... a marathon runner knows EXACTLY what is going on inside his body. "Painful" track practices or weight-lifting sessions let you figure out what is real pain and what is simply a counterproductive relic of evolution. At the hardest part of a workout, I'll often ask myself, "Is this real pain, or just fatigue?" and ill realize that the intense sensation I am feeling is just that: a sensation in my head. And I'll push through.

I would like to end with 2 of my favorite quotes.

It's not a secret, but it bears remembering: If you do not flirt with pain and exhaustion in your workouts you won't know what to do when they start a conversation with you on the field.

-HH

To be a good athlete, you must get comfortable with Uncomfortable.

-James "OPT" Fitzgarald


Jokes of the Day:
Why did the surrealist cross the road? Seventeen.

Disc Golf

is really great. If you haven't played the course at UCSD, you are missing out.





Joke of the Day:
Two chemists walk into a bar and decide to have a drinking contest.
Chemist #2 says to the other, "you choose the drink and we'll go 1 for 1."
So chemist #1 walks up to the bartender and says " Ill have a H20", gets it, and drinks it down.
Chemist #2 then walks to the bar and says "Ill have a H20 too" , gets it and drinks it down.

Earth Day

There have certainly been many campaigns imploring individuals to "go green". I like Fox's new "Green it, Mean It!" slogan because, well, it rhymes. But has that worked? Really? after all those campaigns, is the crisis averted? No. Despite all these, we still have a BIG problem. Hm. Maybe, contrary to what Walmart says, the "small steps you take to help the Earth" don't make a lick of difference in the face of the monumental problem our planet faces. I am so sick of the "if each person turned off the lights when they left the room, we could save enough energy to power a neighborhood for a week." Its not that this is wrong, but making the emphasis individual change distracts us. Change must be societal and top-down!


Worldwide, an estimated 15 billion coffee trees are grown on 100,000 km² (39,000 sq mi) of some of the most fertile land that exists anywhere on earth. They are labor and resource intensive and they produce NO edible calories while motivating people to cut down rain forest to make way for more. So what should we do? Have an ad campaign imploring us to drink less coffee? Fuck no! We should rip out all the world's coffee trees and plant real FOOD. That's how to actually deal with the problem, that's how to feed the billions of people in the world that live on less than 700 calories a day! Sounds like too big of a project? Sound unreasonable? Well there just isn't going to be a convent solution to the huge fucking problems we face! Global crises don't get fixed by actions that are convenient.


Joke of the Day: Our obsession and fascination with "Celebrity culture" when there are so many more important things in life.

Jessica Alba's Secret to Beauty

...is that she drinks a glass of water as soon as she gets up each morning. Try it - couldn't hurt


Joke of the Day: Why didn't the lobster share his food? Because he's shellfish.

Enjoy Your Cooking

The keys to enjoying cooking are as following:

• Buy quality ingredients.
  
• Avoid firm commitments for a specific time later: sometimes a sandwich turns into a 3 hour stock-making project.
  
• Start with a clean kitchen and an empty sink.
• You need 1 good, sharp chefs knife. You can make do without every other kitchen gadget, but don't use a shitty knife. If you have never heard the phrase "Forged, full-tang", there is a good chance you are using a shitty knife.
  
• Mise en place - even if that place is in the back of the fridge.
• Never be a slave to a recipe book. Think about your professors' lecture on plagiarism: the way to write the 5-page paper is to read all your sources, put them away, and then start writing.
• Taste early and often. Seasoning is a tricky thing.
  
• Do not skimp on butter. It is the secret behind 75% of all the things you have ever eaten and said: "Wow, that is delicious"!
• Clean while you cook. You will enjoy the whole experience more if you don't have a lot to clean afterwords. Thanks to my Dad for teaching me this one at an early age.
• Often, making a dish extraordinary is not that much more work but people skip because, its some extra work. Yes, the dish would be fine with regular onions, but its not that hard to use shallots - why not go the extra mile? Thanks to my friend Markus for teaching me this one.
  
• Don't overlook presentation, even if you are going to devour it by yourself while standing at the kitchen counter. A little garnish can do a whole lot for your own personal happiness.
• Eat without expectation. Taste your creation for what it really is, not what you thought it would/should be.
• Share.

Joke of the Day: A guy goes to the doctor with some serious problems. After a few minutes of the doctor examining the man, the doctor says, "Sir, you are going to have to stop engaging in...um...self love." The patient replies, "Why doctor?" to which the doctor says, "Well sir, because im examining you right now."

Throw on One Leg

--Ultimate related

Next time you go out to practice throwing, try throwing while only standing on your pivot foot for a couple minutes. This drill accomplishes a few things. First and foremost, it quickly shows you how utterly reliant you are on your non-pivot foot step; most people train themselves to throw incorporating that step but it is very limiting to only be able to do things a certain way. It is just intuitional fact that your body will be put in varying complex situations during a game and if you have trained yourself to have very specific, interrelated mechanics, you will not be able to perform when the game situation does not allow you to operate exactly how you trained.

Next, it teaches you balance - a balance very different than you are used to. While throwing 1 legged, I experience a very interesting proprioceptive phenomenon: I can feel the hip torque and its connection to arm movement a lot more. I don't really know how to describe this better; you just gotta try it for yourself and pay attention to the sensations that are different than "regular" throwing.

Lastly, give-and-goes are thrown with the non-pivot foot off the ground and this is a good way to work on the fundamentals that rarely get addressed in traditional Ultimate pedagogy.



Joke of the Day: Why didn't the Buddhist vacuum in the corners? Because he doesn't have any attachments.

Fuck You, Advertisers! Part 2!

Advertisers know that the population is so over-saturated with propaganda (of all kinds). They realize the only way to be effective is to make their commercials funny or ridiculous. They don't even make them funny regarding the product most of the time. In large part, the gimmick is stupid and unrelated. What happened to marketing the merits of your product?

Oh, I know: if advertisers talked about the real, actual benefits of their product, the population would realize how this product, like most everything else sold to the general public these days, is unnecessary, vain, and frivolous. Consumers don't buy products anymore, they buy marketing campaigns.




Joke of the Day: So this guy goes to the store and buys a jug of milk, a loaf of bread and some baloney. He gets up to the cashier and the girl behind the counter says, "you must be single." To which the guy replies, "how do you know that?" The girl answers, "because you're ugly."

Turn Break-Side

In fairness to the people who read this but don't play Ultimate, I will be labeling ideas that only an Ultimate player would understand:

--Ultimate Related


When you catch a straight in cut and decide to turn up field, there are two ways to do this: turn to the open side and turn to the break side. Most people turn open side and I just don't know why. Turning to the break side causes your defender to respect the around break a lot more in addition to allowing you to look at that around throw before the mark is on. I find that when I turn break side to start, I have a much easier time breaking the mark throughout the count.

Josh "Forge" Nickerson on the Air Squids is particularly good at catching a force-forehand in cut and turning right so that he can throw a break backhand. Upon further inspection of his cutting, it appears that if he knows he is open on an in cut he will make his last 2 steps such that his body is at a 15° facing the break side to facilitate this break-side turning. He is really good at it and it is hugely advantageous to our offense.

Just to clarify this advice is not hard fast when you are catching in cuts that are not straight up and down the fiend. On these cuts that swing the disc side to side, it can be good to turn to complement the direction of the flow of the disc. But I should also point out that sometimes its good to pivot against the momentum of a swing to get a easy break off: the D assumes you are gonna pivot with the swing and will run past you.



Joke of the Day: A magician is going down the road, cruising at a decent speed, and then he turns into a driveway.

Interesting

If individuals would try to make out world just a little bit more interesting , we would all have a much better day to day existence. A much funner existence surely.

What am I talking about? Random acts of... interesting-ness.

Do something different.

Wear neon pink sun glasses. Complement your roommate. Make a abstract sketch or doodle and then leave it under the windshield wiper of a stranger's car. Meditate on the grass in the quad. Play the devils advocate in an argument in which you would normally argue the other way. Recommend the great Updike short story you just stumbled across. Yell. Write something crazy on the chalk board 20 minutes before the class and watch people's reactions as they come in. Humor a telemarketer. Actually smell the roses.


I can't put a precise description on my prescription besides this: Do something different, for yourself and for everyone else, just for the sake of pushing the world an inch away from it's droning normalcy.

Joke of the Day: An Irishman walks into a bar with a steering wheel in the front of his pants. The bartender says, "Whats up with that steering wheel?" and the Irishman replies, "It's driving me' nuts!"

Tax Day and a Bonus!

The American tax system is pretty messed up. I don't have any income and its still pretty confusing. The forms.... oh God the forms! Its a system that is cobbled together instead of concise. I understand that the government wants to use the Tax Code to incentivise certain behavior, but this practice (as opposed to using the Tax Code just to fund the operation of the government) leads to a very confusing system.There are people who's only job is to try to understand what the tax law really says!

I honestly think that the fact that people make money on helping people file their returns is messed up.

I'm just upset with the fact that I can't figure it out in the 5 minutes I have between class.


Joke of the day:
A guy walks into a butcher's shop and points to some beef hanging from the rafters. He says to the butcher " I bet you $100 that you can't jump up and touch that meat". The butcher declines saying " No thanks, the steaks are too high."

Fuck You, Advertisers!

Speedstick Stainguard and Axe Dry Antiperspirant commercials which show people being offended by a guy's armpits make me understand what it is like to being "shamed" into buying a product. They make me partially understand the plight of a women when advertising makes her feel like her body is inadequate without a certain product (makeup, shampoo,cloths...). It is a horrible thing to be self-conscious of your own body. The $19-billion /year cosmetics industry sits jauntily on the advertiser's ability to make women feel that they need a product (many products, that is. Have you looked at the myriad of tiny creams and colors and tools in your girlfriend's bathroom drawer?) to be normal.


To those in the world of business that cultivate and then prey on this fear of one's own body - to those who turn a profit by making the masses think they cannot fit in without buying something first - I say FUCK YOU!!! You are as much the reason for the problems in our country as anything else.

What to Say to the Overdog?

There are plenty of good underdog speeches. There are plenty of inspirational halftime speeches for Hoosiers. Just check Youtube. But what should be said to the clear favorite? What should a coach say to the "better" team to make sure they play better - it's actually a very hard question. At least when facing insurmountable odds we know what to say... "this could be the 1 time in 100...".

The most important thing is probably to remind the players of all the times when they have confidently played well - that they've been here before and nothing can take the place of experience. But honestly, I don't know; I've never had a good halftime speech when I was the clear favorite. If you have some good ideas, let me know.

Be a Man, Stand Up for Yourself

The most manly thing I have ever done to stand up for myself was at the annual UCSD Sungod Festival my sophomore year. The line-up included Third Eye Blind, my favorite band of all time. My then girlfriend and I were having some stupid fight, probably about how I wasn't paying enough attention to her, outside the gates to the concert while the day was getting late and the big names were starting to go on. I finally got so mad that I blurted out: "Third Eye Blind is my favorite band of all time; if you make me miss a second of their show because of this stupid fight I might never talk to you ever again".

She shutup and we went inside. The rest of my life, I have been (and am still) shy about asking for what I want but in that movement I was a man: I stood up for myself.




I am not advocating one-sided, pushy machismo... But Third Eye Blind only comes out of retirement to play a free show at your school once.

Caffeine is Fun

I try to limit my caffeine intake; I don't drink coffee daily. I do this not because I think coffee is bad for me, but because when I want coffee to give me a buzz, I REALLY want it to give me a buzz. By not building my caffeine tolerance with daily intake, I guarantee that I can get an amazing buzz off just a small bit. It is for the same reason I do not drink a beer with every dinner - when I drink, I want the alcohol to really hit me. Screw tolerances, I want my drugs to really work!

Humans

If you ever are feeling down about the human race, go hiking by yourself in a place where you can't see any man-made effects. There are still plenty of wide-open spaces left despite human's destructive abuses of our natural resources.

If you ever want a reality check on how fucked we are as a species, go read through the comments on any popular YouTube video. The grammar and sentence structure is terrible.

Play Smart

There is no amount of offensive strategy, cutting schemes, set plays, or audibles that can substitute for the developed skill of cutting and throwing with your eyes open. You must always be looking around the field trying to work with your teammates. The intuition that comes from having played with them enough to sense what they want to do on the field is invaluable.

There is no amount of defensive strategy that can substitute for thinking a step ahead: predicting what the O wants to do and try to take that away.


Its all pattern recognition.

The Most Important Thing Boont Ever Taught Me

Stretching is the quickest, surest, and easiest way to maximize athletic abilities

-Macklyn "Boont" Eick (Former captain. I don't normally cite my sources, but it's his birthday).

There is nothing you can do in the weight room or at the track in 2 weeks (or 2 days) that will prepare you for athletic competition better than working hard for 30 minutes/day with a foam roller and yoga strap.

Specifically related to Men's ultimate, I guarantee, I GUARANTEE!!!, that if you have tight hips and groan (as most men do), stretching for half an hour each night will make your throws (you'll get much lower) and your cutting (you'll have better acceleration and turning) MUCH better.

You See the Old Way Wasn't Working, So It's On Us

Those who cannot forget the past are condemned to repeat it. The problem with some methods of remembering history - history of very large events and very minor day-to-day procedure, is that it turns into a sort of worship for the way things were done in the past. Yes, there are valuable things history can teach us, but we should be aware of falling into the trap of thinking there is one best way to do something - the way it was done before. There are new possibilities all around us if we would just stop and think without the blinders of (likely embellished) collective nostalgia.

The Fosbury Flop didn't come from reading a book about high jump legends.

Why I Drive So Fast

When i think about it, it really scares me that I entrust my life and safety to all the strangers around me on the freeway. I have NO idea if they are sane, crazy, homicidal, drunk, tired, crying, putting on make up, sleepy, or plain clumsy. It is partially for this reason that I drive so fast - to get away from other drivers! I have this urge to pass, to avoid going the same pace as other cars. I figure the less time I'm on the road, the less time I am in danger! I know that when I am driving aggressively, I am focused, tuned in, and hyper-aware. When I am just cruising I am more likely to be spaced out, on the phone, or fiddling with the radio. I've got to assume the same about you: if you are doing a leisurely 65mph, Ill do my best to put you in my dust - for my own safety.



It's that, and driving fast is fun.

The Thrower's Responsibility In Dealing with Poachers April 5 2010

In Ultimate, sometimes a D player will move off his guy and try to poach - looking to get a D on a throw to someone else besides his man.

When this happens, I think it is, in large part, the responsibility of the thrower to deal with the poachers. The poached cutter must get to a space where the thrower can throw the disc - perhaps he yells "Poach!" or waves his hands over his head to notify the thrower, but ultimately, the responsibility lies with the thrower to see the situation and figure out what to do. Yes, sometimes this is a hard throw but getting the disc to a completely open guy is a huge advantage - this is the gambit the defense takes.

I like when defenders poach when I have the disc - I see it as a puzzle. Can I recognize the situation quick enough and come up with a solution before 10 seconds?

If you cannot recognize and solve these "poach-puzzles", you are a big liability to the offense and the D knows it. A good poacher will not let his man run right next to the thrower for an easy reset. That's the point! Getting the disc to a poached guy is necessarily hard for the thrower (if the defender is a smart one). Poach situations are not the time to freak out, but the time for using those Sudoku-solving skills.

Welcome and Introduction

At the urging of some of my friends, I am starting an Idea of the Day blog. It was their suggestion that I have a Twitter account for this purpose but I doubt I will be able to meet the character limit, though I will try to keep these ideas under 140 words. These will not be long discussions or lengthy philosophical projects, though I reserve the right to link to such things.

The topics of these will be an eclectic mix about the world, academics, culture, food, exercise, and of course, Ultimate. If the topic doesn't interest you, fine; i'll see you tomorrow. If you like the idea, leave a comment, and then take it - steal it - and use it in your next dinner party conversation. But please don't cite your source unless you feel like it - I'm not a big fan of intellectual property rights.

The only real model I have is the NY Time's IOTD blog but im sure mine will be different. I have but a rough concept of what this will look like, bare with me - I'm going to refine the format as I go.

You may follow me Twitter (which will link to this blog website unless I have something to say shorter that 140 characters) or on Google Buzz, or through Google Dashboard, or on a RSS feed.

Well, enough with the prologue. By the way, you can thank Justin "FireFace" Elliot and Brooks "Shields" Taylor for the motivation to begin this project.