Humpilates

Warm-up:
standing jump
dynamic squat stretching

4x5 bench press (45x5, 65x5, 85x3, 95x2 then 115/3x125)
1x5 deadlift (135x5, 185x5, 225x2 then 275)

2 rounds (45, 65):
10 hang power cleans
10 front squat

Resetting to lift on a more basic starting strength protocol (~deadlift once a week, squat twice a week, bench/press/power cleans). Right shoulder still sore from climbing Sunday, kept it light on the bench. Solid at 125 except for some instability in the shoulder. Deads felt great, can go back up.

Saw quite the odd sight while warming up: a guy stretching on a mat, laying face down and contorting into different positions. Every now and then he would get up on his hands and feet, sort of in a front plank but really arched, butt in the air. Then he would proceed to repeatedly dip his knees ever so slightly and emphatically thrust his pelvis down, letting out a moan with every cycle. I'm quite at a loss for words, really.

Very relevant information here:

My hero

Two thieves on a motor-scooter flew by and snatched a womans purse on a street in Wenzhou, China. Surveillance video shows a man riding a bicycle. As he was passing by the front of a hotel near where the thievery happened, he stopped, calmly got off his bicycle, picked it up, and then threw it at the thieves. The bicycle hit them, they lost control, and crashed to the ground.

Tchau tchau for now

More here.

We have a new leader

Jkoll decided that today was the day to get her lead card. Tested by none other than Obe himself, she passed with flying colors. She handled my whipper very calmly, and I hope I was able to keep myself from screaming. After the test, it was almost all leading for J, although she took a breather to work on that wicked 11 (black). She's got the bottom half dialed now.

In less exciting news, Kenway and I flailed up some 11s. Most notable was a new 11 (yellow) on the left side of the arch; multiple deadpoints with a dyno to the finish hold.

Coke + Nescafé = ???

Guillaume and I made a last-minute decision to skip the carpet-bomber and head up to the Bouldering Showdown at the TRC. Rocked out to the Harlem Shakes (and Fugazi's Waiting Room, ask for G's rendition of the bassline sometime, it's not half-bad!) on the way up as Guillaume tried his best to explain the insanity that is a bouldering competition. I had planned on just watching, as my ass was (and still is) super-sore, but Guillaume objected. What could I say?

We arrived right on time (7PM), and holy crap the gym was packed! We got our wristbands and tick lists, and started climbing shortly after. The gym had all new problems, and they set them everywhere. Problems for all styles; steep, vertical, dynamic, technical, you name it, they set it. I stayed mainly in the V3(?) range, and Guillaume stayed mostly in the range of grades above that. I jumped on a lot of really fun problems (including an awesome problem set by Msss Pssst herself), and nearly broke my neck on a long high traverse where I popped off on a mantle-to-high-foot match. Guillaume managed to finish a really tough problem that went over the tunnel; crazy hug/mantle on giant sloper. I saw many people try this and fail.

Overall, lots of fun, if a bit chaotic. I saw some of the strongest climbers I have ever seen send crazy problems, and we got a to watch BigUp Productions premier of Chris Sharma sending Jumbo Love (5.15b). 300 feet of insanity. I don't even think I could climb a 300 foot ladder.

Plus, I learned this little tidbit from Guillaume on the drive back:

Wow ... Just wow

Can a bunch of insanely bad things combine to produce something good? No, but they can make something insanely funny.

I present the Barbell Dead Clean (click for actual video):

It started with a dildo in a tree

Just to be clear, it wasn't a tree shaped like a penis (e.g., this cactus or this iceberg), nor was it a tree with naturally penis-shaped growths. Nope, some bozo impaled a large, pink, slightly translucent dildo on the branch of a tree next to the onramp to the 95. I mean, who takes the time to climb up into a tree and stick a dildo on the end of a branch? The worst part is that I was rendered speechless by the sight, and therefore couldn't tip anyone else off to this once in a lifetime experience before we had driven well past it.

Well, you can probably guess what that did for my climbing tonight. I sucked. Haha, but seriously, my climbing was terrible (after only two weeks off!). My leads went downhill from 10 > 9- > 8-, and I tried toproping an 11 that I climbed a long time ago. Oh well. The only route I managed to climb clean was a pink 10 with a fun layback section that transitions to some really awkward stemming.

Joana and Guillaume, on the other hand, tore it up! J worked through a slew of 10's, demonstrating that her poleates or whatever she does is making her stronger. Perhaps she was spurred by G's rather awkward compliment of Brasilian women (ask him, I ain't gonna repeat it). She got the bottom part of the pink 10, and had the gall to turn around after what I thought was the crux and tell me, 'Eh, it wasn't that hard.' G alternated some leading (green 9 and a 10 up front) and toproping (black 11 and pink 11 by the tunnel, both of which he climbed easily). He finished off by working on leading a stiff 11 (green/red) under the arch that I think we've seen Meghan climb. Looks hard.

Quote of the night from our driver:

'I wish I had a dildo-shaped lighter.'

Guess what he's getting for Christmas?

What a thematic night! And I'm not even gonna repeat the twisted nursery-school rhyme that Joana kept singing...

Halloween at TRC

Ready for some scary memories? Here are some pics from Halloween. More here

The Challenge of Mountaineering ... for Utility Theory

I suspect that there will be fewer than five people who will appreciate this remarkable confluence of interests. Yeah, that probably includes me.


A choice quote:

To illustrate the importance of motives that are unconnected to consumption, I will focus on personal accounts of a specinc activity: mountaineering. Why mountaineering? Admittedly, I examine mountaineering in part because it so obviously is not about pleasure from consumption. Serious mountaineering which I define broadly to include polar exploration - tends to be one unrelenting misery from beginning to end. The reason why mountaineers are so often asked why they climb mountains, and the reason why their explicit answers are so often unilluminating (e.g., Mallory's 'because it is there') is precisely that their reasons don't fit neatly into materialistic notions of human motivation. Dentists, investment bankers, and real estate brokers are rarely asked why they are engaged in these activities (though I suspect that the extent to which they are motivated by material considerations is exaggerated).

Although mountaineering is ideal for illustrating these non-consumption-related motives, it could be argued that, as a pathological activity engaged in by a small number of unusual people, it has little relevance to economics. The descriptions of mountaineering included in this essay will do nothing to dispel such opinions. But, as I argue in the conclusion, the motives that drive mountaineers are also pervasive in the general population in diverse domains of behavior.

If mountaineers aren't very good at answering the 'why' question when it is posed directly, a close reading of the mountaineering literature reveals myriad clues about their motives. In this essay I draw on works by and about mountaineers to illustrate the importance for human behavior of motives that don't directly involve pleasure from consumption.

Grab the full text here. You can also find the last strange intersection of interests here.

Very Scary!

Some shit-talking, but not the kind you think

Although our afternoon started as a pleasant cruise up the west side, it took just a teensy a bit of traffic to turn our uncharacteristically mellow driver (like, pill-popping mellow) back into his good-ol speeding, horn-honking, brights-flashing, tire-squealing self. We managed to find parking in the bushes at the TRC, but only after Guillaume made some poor soccer mom in an SUV think we were tailing her.

With just three of us (Kenways was decorating his apartment?), the climbing was well planned, with plenty of rest between ascents. Joana worked on her lead game, alternating top-roping a stemmy 10 (blue) and trailing a rope and practicing clipping on 9s. Apparently, something Guillaume said compelled Joana to sheepishly refer to him as "master"; I don't know what that was all about, but whatever it was, her clipping was textbook.

G and I warmed up by leading a new 9 (brown/pink), after which he made another attempt at top-roping the hearts (12) up front. He got pretty close to sticking the crazy right-hand slap for the prow. Wednesday perhaps? He followed the hearts up by leading 12 (green, James), 11 (yellow) and 10b (GJV). Took a nice whipper on the 12 after clearing the three big moves up the arch and clipping the last chain, somehow managing to avoid disaster by pulling his leg clear of the rope at the last second!

I rounded out the day on a pumpy 10- up the right side of the arch (entirely negative), a new 10 (white) up the left side with a funky crux out from under the roof, and another go at leading the crimpy 11 (blue) clean (only one take 2 moves from the end this time). I gambled with my life by letting Joana belay me ;-), and I'm still alive, so I guess she was paying attention to Pierre!

As usual, some stupid car talk on the drive home; serial monogamy, Cheetos, the fact that one of J's ex-boyfriends dressed up dolls and how to make fun of your children (for their own good, of course). I even tried a behavioral economics experiment to determine what one would have to pay people to eat shit. That didn't work like all the economists keep telling me (claims that even 1 million bucks wouldn't do it!?), but for the record, I would like to state that J was the first to bring this up.

Thrust the Force, Luke

Quick addendum to Brian's climbing post to note that Guillaume also climbed the crimpy, awkward, throw your leg around the arete hearts 12 that Ms. Pssst totally rocked. She had some useful advice, though, involving Guillaume hip thrusting into the wall for, um, balance...

From the archives of Science magazine

A remarkable confluence of interests:The second article is a classic by D. MacKay.

And you thought climbing shoes were uncomfortable...

Need help filling out that climbing wardrobe?

Jip Jones

Thought it was funny that I've been mishearing the following lyrics for a long time now. I kept thinking they're so hardcore for referencing Gym Jones. I think it still works though ...

Now, Who the hell is Jip Jones?

I Against I Feat. Planet

"Raw poems, bury your body in catacombs
Rip your soul from your limbs
Like brims from Jip Jones
In the Twilight Zone we disperse cowards
Vampires that stalk earth on reversed hours
Nite cause we talk a different song
My latitude is God darts out my jaw
Leave eternal scars
You left breathing out of tube straws by the marksmen
harnessing science for the marvelous and the charlatan
Raps will make you parallax
My domain has power to block synapses I daze
War shots fired off by the army type warlocks
Devil's Plan is to have you drip in the Clorox
Beast deceiving us, ways devious, possessing
My peeps to walk streets with stolen heat like Prometheus
Elements rushin you back to hell again
Illadelphians crush your skeleton to fuckin gelatin"

Fat states

From this article courtesy of the CalorieLab.

Maybe it has something to do with this:CNN coverage of this recent article. Go figure, kids prefer food wrapped in a McDonald's wrapper... Well, it's not quite the right experiment, but you get the idea.

Interestingly, the National Broadcasting Commission of Thailand is about to finalize restrictions on junk food ads for children. The proposed measures include a ban on junk food ads during children's programmes; prohibiting the use of children, cartoon characters, entertainers or celebrities as ad presenters; prohibiting marketing promotions using giveaways and lucky draws; and requiring ads to warn against consuming the products more than twice a day. Source

Edited (082207) to add a link:
What is the Right Way to Think About the Obesity ‘Epidemic’?
and the World Fatness Chart:
Check out other awesome illustrations by Wellington Grey.

Interesting news

Covers research on stab wounds:
Study: Multiple Stab Wounds May Be Harmful To Monkeys

I'm loving it ...