British Literature 2322 Extra Credit British Literature I English 2322 T TH April 12th 2001 The Reality of Shakespeare s World Extra Credit Paper strong Shakespeare in Love strong I found that Shakespeare in Love was a fantastic interpretation of sixteenth century London as we have studied in class In addition to the movie representing the time period quite well I feel that the script and especially the actors did a wonderful job of telling the story of Mr Shakespeare In order to analyze this movie I think it must be stated that the movie touches on more subjects than just Shakespeare s life and playwriting career It depicts very emotionally the idea that women were not part of the theatre and were certainly not to dress up as men as Viola does played by Gwyneth Paltrow Of course I say that this is emotional because it depicts how a person especially of this time could be so fascinated with the idea of acting that they could risk not only embarrassment to themselves but even punishment As we progress into the movie we learn that Viola is to marry a Lord under the blessing of the Queen of England Queen Elizabeth As we discussed in class regarding Anne of the Thousand Days when you are to be married under consent of the King or Queen you are married It is not necessarily a topic up for discussion It is in this regard that movie strongly depicts how powerful love can be and perhaps should be While Viola is already engaged in breaking the law acting under the name of Thomas Kent she has an affair with Shakespeare which despite a previous ruler Henry VIII was not a pleasantly looked upon event at this time especially regarding the woman They did an exquisite job depicting the severity of these actions in the play and make the thoughts of the consequences between the characters seem very real I reviewed parts of the movie on the DVD and also with some friends of mine who had seen the movie before to try and find errors in it Not so much errors of speech but rather anachronisms something that I always try to look for in movies not set in this time period In a two hour movie I was only able to find two of these with the help of my girlfriend I have studied Shakespeare before in my day both independently to an extent and more so in classes As trivial as it may seem I have been told that Shakespeare did not write his plays with regards to scenes and much less acts yet in the movie this is used I checked up on this and it seems to be a solid fact After doing some research I also discovered that another anachranous part of this movie was the discussion of tobacco plantations which did not get going until the early to mid 1600s Fortunately enough this information coincided with my History class and since the movie takes place in the very late sixteenth century I find it difficult to believe that tobacco plantations in the new land would have been a discussion

World Trade Center Mosque Commentary I m fucking exhausted of listening to all of the bullshit that s being spewed left and right about this whole mosque debate On the right we have a bunch of bigoted assholes with absolutely no respect for legal process or property rights and all of whom appear gravely confused as to what this war is allegedly for that we re fighting But on the left we ve got a bunch of hipsters trying to advocate for the rights of a group that they couldn t disagree more with And I d be all for that if their view was at least consistent But I guarantee next time some other close minded conservative group needs help they re not going to be there This is fashionable protesting in my opinion and is just ludicrous I tried to make my writings on the matter a bit less opinionated iframe width 519 height 264 src http www youtube com embed tkNJqwZ_VcI frameborder 0 allowfullscreen iframe Full text of the video clip below Over the past several weeks I have been quietly enjoying this debate over the World Trade Center Mosque To me personally this is nothing more than a property rights issue and provided the organization legally owns the land and conforms to the local building codes they re completely within their right and there are no certainly complaints from me While I m in no way surprised at the reactions coming from the right I wish I could say that I was surprised at the reactions coming from the left and wanted to explore this confusion I know that the poetic diction of Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow is mentally invigorating but they re both paid to appease an audience and you re not a news commentator In short this mosque is a complete contradiction of the left s own guiding principles Let me very quickly illustrate what I mean Islam is a western religion just like Christianity It uses arbitrary rules to control its congregation and promises a bountiful afterlife if these rules are adhered to Meanwhile it basks in its own wealth and just like other churches has virtually no regulatory oversight and pays absolutely no taxes in our country So let s consider some basic social issues Much like its common Christian counterpart Islam is openly against any freedom of abortion condemns any form of promiscuity and strongly opposes homosexuality in some cases even to the penalty of death in other countries You may have recently read how a Saudi Arabian court under non secular Sunni Islam law sought to medically sever a man s spine in retribution for him paralyzing another man two years earlier with a knife This is the same non secular system of government that justifies the stoning of raped women in the name of honor And mind you this is not mob rule This is religion affecting government attempting to carry out unspeakable acts against other human beings all in the good name of God Let s consider some financial issues Think about all the poor starving children diseased nations and uneducated African villages that could benefit from a 100 million dollars worth of charity I know you believe they should be helped but I guess it s better that a few thousand people practice religion in comfort than a few hundred thousand get the chance at basic survival Of course this is very consistent with the thinking of western religion for example the Vatican Also do you have any idea what the tax revenue on a 100 million dollar building in the financial district of Manhattan is worth Since this is a Mosque presumably it s nothing Which is unfortunate considering social services such as food banks homeless shelters and public HEAHTLCARE centers are in dire need of funding Let me be clear I have absolutely no prejudice for Muslims at all Rather I have contempt for anyone Christian Jew Muslim or otherwise that would use their faith to interfere with the lives of others while wasting money on divine opulence So my argument is not suggesting you should or should not give your support to this building Rather it is suggesting that the only reason you ARE giving your support is because of the age old proverb that the enemy of your enemy is your friend Basically that just because the political right is opposed to this Mosque you naturally support it Where is your compassion for the Christian right lobbying against gay marriage or condemning abortion or wanting to ban contraceptives or the list goes on The simple reality is that like it or not you do not agree with one SINGLE philosophy that this organization has to offer Imagine the wonderful irony that would exist if Christians and Muslims ever figured out that they opposed the same social ideologies that liberals fight so hard for My guess is that you d be far less willing to support them then That s not to suggest you should be out there denouncing their plight but it sure seems strikingly hypocritical to openly support it To conclude you simply can t have it both ways You can t openly condemn one religion spreading their ideas against social norms but then turn right around and speak in favor of an otherwise identically conservative religious ideology attempting to do the same thing just because it happens to be in the minority Thank you

Bill s Day Bill s Day is a short that I constructed for an RTF class at the University of Texas in Austin I used a number of my friends as the featured actors The story follows the events of how a Dollar Bill is spent over the course of a fictional day The day however is presented in reverse sequential order strong Script strong KEVIN LUDLOW SHORT BILL S DAY SCENE 1 Scene opens near dusk A black SUV is shown screeching off down a road We show the car for a few seconds and then cut to the inside of it We have a shot from the back seat as we see three guys inside of it racing down the road a DRIVER a PASSENGER and DANNY Danny and the passenger are talking frantically to one another It wasn t supposed to be like that etc caption 8 18pm DRIVER Shut the fuck up The keep mumbling I said shut the fuck up already PASSENGER out of breath Dude it wasn t supposed to happen like that DRIVER I know I know Just shut the fuck Danny what did we get DANNY I dunno man here take it Danny hands the wallet to the passenger The passenger opens up the wallet and takes out a dollar bill with some writing on it PASSENGER What the fuck is this We got a fucking dollar bill One fucking dollar We see a close shot of the dollar in the dark and can see writing on it but not read it The driver has a sign of disbelief on his face THE SCENE FADES TO BLACK SCENE 2 It is dark on the same street where first saw the car take off from A GUY is waiting in front of his car Three guys get out of the original car They are see walking up to him caption 8 14pm DRIVER Did you bring our money GUY sighs Look man I just need a few more days The three guys approach him The driver is in the front DRIVER Well I m afraid that s something you just don t have The driver starts running after him The guy turns and runs the other way The driver leaps after the guy and tackles him We cut to the two other guys looking at each other with the driver fighting in the background The quickly run to his aid The guy gets picked up and hit a few times in the face They then throw him over the hood of his car We see the guy laying out cold on the ground with blood all over his face Danny runs up to him and kicks him a few times in the gut He reaches down rolls him over and takes his wallet THE SCENE FADES TO BLACK SCENE 3 AT THE QUIX MART caption 6 29pm The guy is scene driving up to a gas station These are very quick cuts to move the scene along He pulls up and gets out of his car We see him from the inside of the gas station walking inside He goes up to the counter and buys a pack of camel lights He furthermore pays with a five dollar bill He is handed back some change and a one dollar bill We can see that it has some writing on it He throws the change into the tip jar and leaves We see him driving away SCENE 4 caption 3 23pm We see a small child KELLY and her MOTHER walk into the same convienent store that was in scene three She walks up to the counter and speaks with the CLERK MOTHER Go ahead The clerk smiles at her KELLY I want one lottery ticket CLERK What kind KELLY That one She points to the rack of them The clerk takes one off of the shelf and gives it to her CLERK That will be one dollar The girl hands him a one dollar bill We close up on the transaction The daughter and the mother walk off The scene fades to black SCENE 5 Mother is seen walking into the kitchen where the girl is sitting coloring a picture caption 1 42pm MOTHER Kelly you got some mail The girl has a very excited look on her face The mother hands the girl the card The girl tears it open with great haste She pulls out the card The camera shows that it is a birthday card It reads the following to be added The girl pulls out the dollar bill from the money slot within it She has an joyous look on her face She puts the corner of it in her mouth MOTHER Kelly take that out of your mouth you don t know where it s been THE SCENE FADES TO BLACK

RTF 316 Lucky Me Kevin Ludlow Paper II Lucky Me RTF 316 History of Radio and Television Amanda Lotz November 24 1998 As television moved into American homes in the early 50 s racism certainly came with it Although racism was something that was clearly evident in America around that time television had a unique way of presenting it to look like it was not a problem of the time From shows with white stars like The Rifleman to shows that had African American stars such as Amos n Andy racism was always evident in the script When looking at a particular text such as The Rifleman it is generally easy to pick out bits of racism throughout the show The reason it is so easy for us to pick it out is simply because we live in a period where racism although it exists is generally seen as wrong Although many civil rights movements occurred within the 50 s and 60 s African Americans were still segregated and viewed as an inferior race to many In the show The Rifleman Chuck Connors stars the show as the character Lucas McCain He lives with his boy Mark on a ranch somewhere in New Mexico Within the five years that it was on the air there were many shows that dealt with issues of racism towards not only African Americans but also Native Indians African Americans were commonly shown to be thieves and cheap laborers They were not stars of the show by any means and if they were to appear chances are they would be rebels of the town and Lucas would have to hunt them down Many shows also had Indian characters that were generally threats to the community Uniquely enough if they honestly were non hostile Indians who meant no harm to the community Lucas would side with them On the flip side the town would turn against them no matter what the situation was Native Indians were viewed as the lowest class of people in the area They were disrespected mocked and distrusted even when they did nothing wrong The townspeople in New Mexico often wanted to gun them down clean their town even though the Indians caused little havoc Chuck Connors was the dominant white male character that the society of that time viewed to be in control of everything He was on the side of the sheriff and of the townspeople and wanted justice to always be served He was a single father and did an excellent job raising Mark which made him the type of character that people wanted to be Perhaps it was because of this heroic character that the show became so popular Of course with so many people watching shows that constantly portrayed minorities as having unacceptable qualities it is no wonder racism was so out of hand Maybe if networks had shows that stared African Americans people would have viewed them differently on the other hand maybe it would make it worse Although a predecessor of The Rifleman Amos n Andy was a show that not only stared African Americans was centered on them as well Staring Alan Childress as Amos and Spencer Williams as Andy their show was a relatively popular sitcom derived from the even more popular radio show The shows were often focused on Kingfish played by Tim Moore He usually had some sort of idea or scheme to make his lifestyle better or more particularly to become wealthy Although the show was focused on the African American community it portrayed blacks in a terrible sort of way The general character on the show was a poor porch sitter who barely made enough money to get by on a regular basis The characters did not stand up for things that they believed in especially to white folk They were uneducated loud obnoxious and worst of all were portrayed to have the worst English grammar in society The women of the show were portrayed to be just as loud and obnoxious but also very demanding and general nuisances to their husbands In the episode of The Happy Stevens we are able to see exactly how a typical wife acted on the show Sapphire Ernestine Wade is constantly nagging at the Kingfish to act more like their favorite radio show The Happy Couple We see how Kingfish miserably tried to mimic the show the best that he can by using cheap imitations of The Happy Couple s ideas Such disregard for the Kingfish s taste would never have been shown had he been white The show was watched by millions of people across America from children to elderly people More importantly African Americans watched it too Although blacks were being represented on the television they would have probably been better off without being so Not only did people of the time get to see white folk make fun of African Americans they got to see African Americans make fun of themselves Although we are now able to look back at how racism was portrayed on television we must ask ourselves has it gotten any better I think that the answer is no Directors and producers have simply done a much better job of incorporating racism into shows without us realizing it Even in much more recent shows African Americans are still portrayed to be more deviant characters in society Take for example the popular seven year show of Designing Women One of the main characters of the show is Anthony Bouvier played by Meshach Taylor Anthony is portrayed to be a hard working and educated friend and employee of the Sugarbaker firm He was on the show from the beginning until the end and even though he was such a hard worker his past always seemed to come up He had served time in prison for a crime he had committed some time ago and many episodes incorporate racist humor on him Suzanne Sugarbaker played by Delta Burke often makes comments about Anthony that are shots against the African American community Of course she does them in a way that seems so natural and innocent that we can not help but realize that she is joking Although she is his friend and she means no harm upon him her views towards African Americans are openly expressed in a humorous way to him throughout her five years on the show Racism will most likely be a problem that occurs long past our lifetimes but is it really necessary for television shows to take advantage of it Most everyone is guilty of finding a great deal of humor in the racist jokes that we hear on television Many of us do not even view it as racism because it seems so naturalized on television It will be hard for the world to be completely non racist as long as television is part of our lives and racism is part of television I would like to think that I know how it feels to have an entire viewing audience laughing at me but unfortunately I will never know I am a white male who is supposed to find humor in it lucky me

NYU SNL Script 2 Comedy Writing Workshop D B Gilles The Tale of a Lonely Preacher FADE IN BLACK SCREEN ANNOUNCER There s a man out there that devoted his entire life to God Even during his youth he didn t participate in all of the things that his friends did He missed the late night drinking parties He missed smoking anything that could possibly be rolled in paper And he even missed all of the trips to the Stay Hard Big Boy strip club He certainly was a devoted man Unfortunately this loveable preacher Father JACK WHACKER was recently stripped of his robe after performing a sermon on tweaking females nipples with ice cold holy water As he was sitting at home a few days later drinking what was left of the communion wine he realized how miserable his life was In 47 years he had never once been with a woman INT JACK WHACKERS APARTMENT DAY JACK WHACKER God what ever should I do to relieve this burning desire GOD Ussssssse Yourrrrrrrr Handddddddd Confused Jack picks up the remote to his television and turns it on The news is on JACK WHACKER I don t understand how the news will help me GOD Beattttttt Ittttttttt JACK WHACKER somewhat annoyed Beat what God GOD God dammit Jack just turn the damn television to channel 74 Jack changes the channel The Spice channel comes on Jack is stunned at such filth JACK WHACKER But God this is Jack sits patiently in his chair An porno infomercial flickers onto the screen GOD Learnnnnnnnn from itttttttttttttt CUT TO TELEVISION SCREEN TV BOB Have you recently been kicked out of your church for a high level of sexual tension Well sir we ve got just the thing for you JACK WHACKER What can you possible have for me TV BOB Well for beginners we offer the do it yourself lesson You could probably figure this out your own bedroom but we d love to have your dumb ass pay us for a lesson CUT TO JACK WHACKERS FACE JACK WHACKER I don t understand this show one bit CUT TO TELEVISION SCREEN TV BOB Of course say you re at an intermediate level In such a case I would recommend the pop it in the ass kit We ll ship you the finest single hole mechanical bull straight from Texas No instructions necessary You just mount up behind it give it a good kick in the ass and let it do all of the work for you JACK WHACKER I ve always wanted to ride a bull TV BOB Finally for our most advanced sex machines out there we now offer the Baah Baah Bucking Sheep This is for all of you guys out there that really want a ride on the wild edge Complete with three holes and real sheep s fur for all of your sexual needs Order now and we ll throw in a free Sheep Sounds cassette tape CUT TO JACK WHACKERS FACE JACK WHACKER somewhat excited If God brought me to this channel then gosh darnit this channel will bring me closer to God I m sold I ll bet I ll be rewarded with the fruits of heaven when I order something from TV Bob I might even get to be a preacher again Jack Whacker picks up the phone and dials the number for TV Bob FADE OUT FADE IN EXT JACK WHACKERS FRONT PORCH DAY CAPTION Three Weeks Later A large wooden crate is dropped off on the front porch The delivery man rings the doorbell and walks away FADE OUT FADE IN EXT SOMEWHERE IN A CEMETARY DAY CAPTION The Next Day ANNOUNCER Jack Whacker died earlier this while engaging in sexual intercourse with an inflatable sheep The doctors have confirmed that 17 different veins popped in the abdominal and penile area while Jack was coming to a climax with the sheep An explosion equivalent to a half stick of dynamite was reported to have killed the helpless inflatable doll There are rumors that 3 rubber chickens were also injured in the explosion Although it might sound like a good idea to let yourself tense up for 47 years please learn from the late Jack Whacker and masturbate once and awhile if not daily And for god sakes be gentle on the sheep FADE OUT END 7 6 1999

9 11 Part XI photo 298962 740 200 right The paper from 11 years ago photo It was a year ago today that I posted on my Facebook wall a href https www facebook com kevinludlow posts 10150285040793683 I fucking hate 9 11 and everything about it a It was an honest feeling about the 10th anniversary of the American tragedy Perhaps not surprising I was met with some pretty strong views from both sides A few in agreement appreciated the bluntness but a few in disagreement were furious at my callousness Contrary to what the latter group may have assumed at the time my position was not intended as one of rudeness It was not intended as a lack of sympathy for mourners And it was certainly not intended as a childish outburst of disrespect for the deceased Instead it was an introspective position questioning very sincerely what 9 11 actually does mean to America Not what we d like it to mean but rather the meaning it takes on given our actions as a nation Why can t I fucking hate 9 11 Why is that so wrong In the 11 years since the towers were brought down I would like to think that the United States has progressed in wisdom and maturity I would like to think that the majority of people have become more knowledgeable and less ethnocentric in their ways But I am also very aware that this is far from reality People are becoming more and more divided on a daily basis The United States military is involved in numerous conflicts with sovereign nations around the Middle East and despite what the President claims withdrawing from the region seems very unlikely any time soon The rich continue getting richer and the poor continue getting poorer And worst of all is that with the exception of fringed political dissenters both left and right nobody really seems to care enough to change anything Hell most people probably don t even notice In my eyes the United States is the antiquated representation of a former greatness Where innovation once stood now stands blind corporatism in its place Where soldiers and police once honorably defended philosophical values now stands blind militarism used for defending only value itself Where liberty once stood now stands an army of lobbyists increasingly proficient at penetrating our three branches of government And atop the entire chain is the media always there to remind us that it s the fault of someone else we are every bit as good to the world as we think we are We now live in a country where it s borderline treason to question anything that lead to the events of 9 11 Never mind questioning the conspiracy theories but even the underlying motives of the hijackers remains a socially condemned topic in most discussions The population remains willfully oblivious to the fact that we ve been dropping bombs on the Middle East for decades without consequence And of course to most people it s impossible to believe that we are directly responsible for arming and using the Taliban to stifle the Russians now one of the very groups we re allegedly seeking to destroy Still my personal favorite is that while we continue to wage wars and conflicts with Iraq Afghanistan Pakistan Libya Egypt Syria and soon to be Iran we still enjoy relative peace with Saudi Arabia ignoring the fact that 15 of the 19 hijackers actually em were em citizens of the country My effort is not to denigrate the lives of 2 977 innocent Americans killed by such evil intentions but to force the issue of why we should ignore the more than 120 000 equally innocent that we have killed in reckless retaliation since The United States is a land of opportunity and there is no tragedy too great for this mantra We sell t shirts stickers cigarette lighters pins coffee mugs patches plates and truckloads of other petty memorabilia embroidered with this notorious day We can buy 9 11 in a dozen different colors we just can t talk about it quite as colorfully This is how we choose to honor the memories of those who died because this truly em is em the character of the United States We re materialistic in every way imaginable and it couldn t be illustrated any better than on a day such as this People were literally blown to pieces in the sky Rescue workers were literally crushed to death by falling steel concrete and debris Innocent men and women literally jumped to their untimely deaths to escape the horrors of being burned alive by jet fuel And so to memorialize these people we find it in good taste to purchase tiny plastic replicas of the buildings bearing the words Never Forget across the front and Made in China underneath We are truly surreal So when I wrote a href https www facebook com kevinludlow posts 10150285040793683 I fucking hate 9 11 and everything about it a on the 10 year anniversary of the tragedy I genuinely meant it And one year later I still do If we truly honored the deceased as we pretend to do we would ALL fucking hate 9 11 This is the natural human response towards any tragedy especially one of such magnitude Instead we re taught to embrace the moment as some kind of half time pep rally while we continue to sign the rights of the country away to the highest bidder I suspect very sincerely that before this chapter in history is all over we ll learn to fucking hate 9 11

OS X 10 8 Terminal VIM xterm color It s not often that I make pure technology posts on my blog but I thought this problem demanded some attention after I couldn t find the cause much less the solution online I recently upgraded my MacBook Pro as I do every two years and ran into an extremely frustrating issue with the new version of Terminal I will stop and say that this is probably an extremely niche problem It is also almost certainly limited to software developers not end users That all prefaced this is pretty much limited to people who happen to use the Terminal program in OS X happen to run VI VIM as their text editor and happen to prefer syntax highlighting to be enabled This may even be limited to certain color schemes I prefer the evening scheme If these conditions are met then you ve probably noticed that your color scheme has more or less been destroyed as of recent at least destroyed in the sense that your eyes are trained to see certain programatic statements in a certain color and now that no longer applies I ve been using the evening scheme for over a decade now and can barely read it now on my new Apple But why photo 298975 740 0 center A basic PHP in VIM with the em evening em color scheme enabled using xterm 16color OS X 10 8 or just xterm color on previous OS X versions photo photo 298974 740 0 center A basic PHP in VIM with the em evening em color scheme enabled using xterm 256color OS X 10 8 the new default photo br style clear both The new version of Terminal has extended the Terminal TTY settings The previous version allowed the user to switch between em xterm em and em xterm color em amongst others The new version allows the user to switch between em xterm em em xterm 16color em and em xterm 256color em It just so happens that the old version of em xterm color em ran with 16 colors and the new version defaults to em xterm 256color em This is all fine and good but it doesn t fly very well with most of the VIM syntax schemes If you use standard Linux BSD color highlighting you may have also noticed that some of those colors are slightly different now This is also due to the change To fix the problem open up the Preferences in Terminal Select the Advanced tab and where it says Declare terminal as change that to em xterm 16color em You ll need to restart Terminal or at least open a brand new window for the change to take effect photo 298973 740 0 center The two different terminal declaration types in the new OS X 10 8 photo strong Updated Sunday June 24th 2018 strong After moving forward with yet another Apple OS X version and having to reconfigure my terminal settings I discovered that this newer version has the same problem whether the xterm color is set to em xterm 16color em OR em xterm 256color em I changed the setting to the oldest one em xterm em restarted Terminal and the problem seemed to be fixed Ideally you would be able to use the full color palette while using Terminal but if you are just using the older standard ANSI colors like I am it seems to work exactly the same as you would want it to This new change is specifically for OS X 10 13 5 High Sierra

A New Experiment photo 300755 740 300 right Some random yoga art to make the post more interesting photo This is definitely not the type of post that I am accustomed to writing but after neglecting my blog for many weeks now I wanted to start off with something entirely out of the ordinary After years of fighting it I finally gave yoga an honest go Of course wouldn t you know I really enjoy it I ve had many people over the years ask me to try it with them and I ve never even considered it I even dated a yoga instructor once and still wasn t convinced I thought it was time for a new physical experiment A number of friends actually suggested that I try the hot yoga bikram I believe it s called as a way to clear my head and gain a little peace with the world While it didn t really work for that purpose I did very quickly discover that the endurance balance strength and flexibility training was well worth my time I really do enjoy being in shape I just need to be motivated I showed up for a 90 minute hot yoga class a few weeks ago Ten minutes into it I was positive I was going to throw up briefly pass out and definitely not complete the next 80 minutes Ten minutes after that I caught my breath and figured if the other 30 people could do it I could too I worked it as hard as I could When the instructor later found out after class that it was my first class ever she was visibly impressed that I was able to perform all of the postures and was pretty surprised I d started with their hardest class Since I like to be good at things that was motivation enough I ve only missed class when traveling and it s been working wonders on my body I started 2013 off about 14 pounds lighter than usual thanks to a spectacular Christmas diet I think the first few yoga classes probably sweat off another pound or two but I ve been steadily increasing my weight since then my muscles are already coming back in full force The 90 minute class really does work every muscle group of one s body As someone who suffers from really bad back and neck pains I ll be curious to see if it s able to mend those areas a little bit I can already see my leg muscles toning can feel all of my abs and my lower back and shoulders are developing all sorts of new muscles I m not sure are supposed to be part of the human anatomy at least not mine So overall I d like to give hot yoga a glowing endorsement In hindsight I do wish I had tried it many years earlier and regret not doing so with people who asked me to join them over the years But at least now I know it s something to be taken seriously Admittedly I could do without some of the hippie verbiage and ridiculous breathing noises that come along with it but it s a small price to endure for the payoff Also I would estimate about an 8 to 1 female to male ratio per class And of that one male at least a quarter of them are gay So that s always an additional point of consideration for people

Bell OH 58 Militarized Helicopter and APD photo 310423 740 0 right A Bell OH 58 Military helicopter owned by the City of Austin photo At about 6 30 last night July 22nd 2013 a military helicopter was circling my neighborhood for about 30 45 minutes It was low and very loud prompting me to investigate When I went outside a militarized police officer in full tactical gear with a German Shepard started yelling at me from my neighbor s property He was wandering around with a regular a police officer in the standard APD uniform I later looked it up and the helicopter turned out to be a a href http en wikipedia org wiki Bell_OH 58_Kiowa Bell OH 58 Military helicopter a it was very loud With the helicopter hovering as low as it was I couldn t hear anything that the tactically dressed officer was yelling at me I calmly pointed to my ears and the sky at the same time indicating I could not hear a word of what he was saying So he approached me closer He finally said Is this your house To which I responded It is He then yelled at me to go inside of my house I did not go inside and so the officer which I was only assuming was his profession at this point continued yelling at me to do so He eventually told me that an armed assailant was on the loose and they were looking for him While I appreciated his concern for the situation I remained outside It wasn t so much an act of defiance but rather consideration that I had nothing to be defiant about since I was standing on my own front porch and was otherwise curious about the situation A number of my neighbors were outside trying to understand the commotion in the sky When I peered down the block I noticed there were several APD vehicles around the neighborhood with their lights on presumably blocking off strategic exit points The same cop who had yelled at me asked my neighbor permission to search her yard Both the tactical officer and APD had their guns fully drawn as they searched through the yard We have a lot of tall bamboo separating our yards from the creek and I think they were primarily interested in searching through there To my knowledge they didn t find anyone About an hour later the cops apparently found what they deemed to be evidence in another neighbor s backyard It was brought out front in a sealed evidence bag I don t know what it was A crime scene van hung around the area for awhile and then all was clear After posting the story to Reddit I was informed that a man robbed three people of their electronics at gunpoint and then apparently fled into the creek behind my house I ve still not seen any additional details posted about the situation in local media or the like and so I m not sure if they got him or not I m all for people catching the bad guys And in this case anyone who commits an act of aggression against another especially with a firearm is a bad guy undoubtedly However I am NOT okay with the flippant attitude that most people have towards the City of Austin owning such toys I think it s especially sad that for such a liberal city like Austin that same liberal leadership can sign off on things like this

Backstage with Snoop and MIA photo 314658 740 0 right MIA half way through her set on Saturday night One of her dancers looked to be about 12 years old photo A lovely friend of mine was able to get me a pair of backstage passes playfully known as Homie passes to this year s Fun Fun Fun Fest Having never actually gone before I thought this would be the year to check it out My good friend from S o Paulo Brazil also happened to be in town and so naturally he and I took advantage of the access I m undoubtedly the furthest one can be from caring about celebrities and all of that but it s still kind of amusing to see the artists hanging out before major performances Day one was especially amusing I really only went backstage because there were private bathrooms available but was directed over to the trailers with Snoop Dog and company or Snoop Lion whatever four legged creature he may be these days If I d come prepared with the proper organic ingredients I d have walked right over to him just to say it happened But alas I am not that cool We left the show early enough to walk to the State Theater and saw Kyle Dunnigan Doug Benson and Sarah Silverman I think Doug was actually my favorite of the three Day two was pretty cool only because we got there early enough to see a number of bands backstage from the Orange Stage We also accidentally ran into Craig Robinson from the office but didn t actually get to see him at the Mohawk later that night it was absurdly to capacity with a line wrapping the block namely due to Tenacious D We stuck around for most of MIA s show having bribed the backstage attendee with beer thus ensuring we kept a great viewing spot Outside of playing with the band I don t think we could have gotten any better seats