Fight Club....

You aren't alive anywhere like you're alive at fight club.... Fight club isn't about winning or losing fights. Fight club isn't about words. You see a guy come to fight club for the first time, and his ass is a loaf of white bread. You see this same guy here six months later, and he looks carved out of wood. This guy trusts himself to handle anything. There's grunting and noise at fight club like at the gym, but fight club isn't about looking good. There's hysterical shouting in tongues like at church, and when you wake up Sunday afternoon you feel saved. ~Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club, Chapter 6

I've been doing an exra training session of Arnis every week, which is dedicated to sparring. It is essentially an hour of conditioning (doing situps and pushups) followed by a three round fight (soon to be two fights). I was looking around for a quote from Fight Club (book or movie) which I remember. This was the closes I could find to it.... Essentially Ed Norton is at work, reflecting on fight club and observes 'at some point it starts taking over your life, your at work, and you're thinking about fight club, you're thinking about your next fight'.

I'm getting to this point now, the day after sparring I seem to spend a lot of my day wandering down the corridors thinking about things I'd do differently, moves I'd try next time. I also find myself swinging my arms and imagining I'm holding a stick.... Don't worry, I'm perfectly safe, just a bit absorbed... Another consequence of this is that I'm usually wearing three weeks worth of bruises of different colours and shapes... all part of the fun.

Other peoples thoughts on pacifism

"Good men can sleep well in their beds because rough men stand ready to commit violence in their name."

I read this on the back of someone's t-shirt today, it's a variation of this quote by George Orwell.

"We sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm."

Although, having dug around a bit more on Google, it isn't clear that he did say this... Winston Churchill might have said it... Anyhow, Orwell did say this about pacifism.

"Those who ‘abjure’ violence can only do so because others are committing violence on their behalf."


Just made me think a bit about various pacifist arguments.... not think decisively mind you, just think.

"Just because something has happened to you, doesn't mean that it matters."

Ernest Hemmingway

Currently Reading....

Borrowed 'Plan B' by Jonathan Tropper from mum while she was visiting. Its quite a light, entertaining book about disfunctional thirty year olds (aren't they all). A group of friends decide to help their famous Hollywood friend kick his cocaine habit by kidnapping him.... Great fun, very easy reading, and quite entertaining... Quote of the day:



"Sex is like air, it isn't important unless you aren't getting any."

"There is nothing more desperate than an Englishman frantically trying to scrape enough Marmite out of an empty jar to cover the other half of his slice of toast."

Me, just now

Just thought I'd share that

"I'd rather be a failure at something I enjoy than a success at something I hate"

George Burns

Quote of the day...

"Here's to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes... the ones who see things differently -- they're not fond of rules... You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can't do is ignore them because they change things... they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do."

The quote is from Steve Jobs and was used in a bunch of old Apple adverts. I still like it.

"Walking is for Europeans"
Pernille Rørth

No one walks here... ever. I asked Nachen how to get to the university library and got the simple answer of: 'Just take shuttlebus A2'. Then went and looked on the campus map and discovered it was a few hundred meters away... So set out on foot with a typical display of 'crazy white guy'.
Took less than 5 minutes, didn't die, didn't collapse. Still slightly confused as to why no one else has worked this out....