I've watched a bit of basketball while home on break (regrettably it's back to the grind winter term and I won't be able to do so after this week) and the funniest thing I've seen in a while happened tonight.

Mavericks center DeSagana Diop, known for being basically the least adept offensive player in the history of the NBA, went to the free throw line and proceeded to airball his first shot. While the ball was in the air, he very audibly yelled "Oh Shit". Sometimes those tv mics pick up the best stuff. There's a similar one on one of my Jordan DVDs where Larry Bird misses a shot and yells the same thing. For some reason these strike me as hilarious.

Break

I would like to speak on how much break sucks.

unfortunately, I have only a few brief moments before I go to attend a psych class at UIC.
here are a few reasons why break sucks:

-no alcohol
-lake zurich sucks for running
-more police at my house
-no alcohol
-two car accidents (my mom backed into my car this morning)
-yard work yesterday from 11 am to 6 pm
-a lack of alcohol

as you can see, there is something in common here.
I need me some Augies.

full story on the first car accident later.

Spring Break Motherfuckers, spring break

Boondock Saints II

http://geeksofdoom.com/2008/10/27/boondock-saints-2-officially-begins-filming/

Cakerolled

This is hilarious.

Bigfoot Dead

Well it looks as though someone beat me to the punch. A couple Georgian men found a dead bigfoot and had a press conference about it today. there is going to be an autopsy and DNA testing. I can't say for certain if it is real but if it is this is a very big day for me and for mankind

Manos?...Hands of Fate?

Barackroll'd

Ultra Nerdy

While I was searching for a video of someone performing my favorite trombone solo, "Blue Bells of Scotland", I came across a video of someone who had put it into Guitar hero. I cried sweet tears of joy.

awesome

ok check this out

http://www.askmen.com/tech_info/2008_jul/jul14.html

4:52 am.

It is 4:52 am, and I cannot sleep.

As I was cruising along cnn.com, I came across this story that shocked, and mildly frightened me.

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/living/2008/07/28/acosta.air.guitar.cnn

Enjoy.

I'm back!

Yes Gentleman, the rumors are true.

I have returned from the Fatherland Germany.

I will write about my trip in a later post, if enough decide that it might be interesting.

Thoughts on sports

I have spent dozens of hours driving across the state of Illinois, between my home in the north suburbs of Chicago and Rock Island. It's not a very exciting drive, but I always enjoy it immensely. You see, it's not often we get to spend some serious, quality time with just ourselves. In the car, there's nobody to talk to or entertain, no TV to watch, no internet to surf, and no guilt about time that could be spent studying. When the radio's off, all the possible distractions or reasons not to have alone time at school or home melt away. And I can only really think in silent solitude. Mostly, I take the time to think about what I'm doing and how the smaller picture - what I'm doing this week, or this summer, or this school year - relates to the big picture - what I'm doing with my life. I think about why I've put myself on this demanding pre-med track, whether I want to apply into M.D./Ph.D. programs, and how those decisions will affect and are affecting my everyday life.

Yesterday specifically, I was thinking aloud through the answer to the obvious question (Why medicine?) and interestingly, my answer kept coming back to sports and track. While my participation in athletics has waxed and waned even over the short course of my life thus far, my interest in the physical limits of the human body has been constant. We love watching professional sports because pro athletes can do things with their bodies that normal people can only dream of. Whether we most admire a tomahawk dunk, a bending corner kick, or a diving catch is largely cultural, but the principle is universal. It also explains why we have no interest in women's sports, but that's another story.

But at some point early in our lives, most of us realize that other people can also do the things we can do with our bodies - i.e. that we're not world-class athletes. Nevertheless, millions of kids worldwide throw themselves into sports with more vigor than they do any other endeavor. And the potential benefits of youth athletics are many. Through sports, we learn how to be part of a team. We learn how to share. We learn how to accept victory, and how to lose with grace. We learn how to get more out of ourselves than we thought possible, or at the very least we learn how crucial attitude and mental determination is for success. The court, and the field, and the track - all are microcosms of the real world. Mastery of the one often foreshadows success in the other.

I think, though, that we've turned the paradigm on its head within the last decade or so. With the rise of hypercompetitive youth athletics in the U.S. (witness the preponderance of club/traveling squads in virtually every sport from increasingly decreasing ages on), kids are being pushed to achieve their "athletic potential" at any costs. We all know the kid(s) who were great at sports but abruptly quit, burned out at 14. And to reach the elite level in any sport, training at this hypercompetitive level of intensity is increasingly necessary. But putting the focus on "achieving athletic potential" sacrifices all the life lessons that sports as a microcosm of the real world have to offer. For most of us, whether or not we achieve our athletic potential is irrelevant: either way, we're not going to the Olympics. But whether or not we learn how to properly interact with people is crucial, and perhaps the single best indicator of future success in life. Once upon a time, participating in youth sports was a means to an end - a set of lessons just as important as those learned in the classroom. Division I football coaches especially still pay lip service to this notion, claiming that their graduates are well-rounded people and that the lessons they've instilled on the football field will transfer to their careers, even if they aren't in pro sports. Unfortunately, in a culture where winning means money from the boosters and job security is nonexistent, character development is low on the priority list. No, nowadays athletics are their own end, to be pursued for their own sake and to be placed at the top of the young athlete's hierarchy of priorities.

Thank God this is not true everywhere. It's my experience in track at Augustana that kept coming to my head when I was thinking about why I want to be a doctor, and it's not because of all the minor (luckily) injuries I've sustained in the sport. It's because the lessons we learn in Augustana track, the ones that fill Ols' speeches, the ones on our T-shirts, aren't "Increase your stride frequency" or "Knee drive" or "Attack the hurdle". They're mantras like "A celebration of life," "The journey is the goal," and "Reckless, aggressive, & enthusiastic." Ols' never loses sight of the big picture. He knows why we run: because we want to be part of something bigger than ourselves. We want to be the best we can be, and we want to see where the journey to become the best takes us. If I can spend all summer deadlifting and drop my time in the 100 meters lower than I ever thought possible, who can say what I can do in the lives of countless patients as a doctor? What's the limit to what my biochemistry research can accomplish? It seems like a stretch, but sports aren't anything else than a simplified, clarified microcosm of real life.

Thanks, Ols, for keeping athletics a means to an end.

MCP 7/28/08

Swanson

What room is everyone in?
I'm in F

This is How I Make Bread

Suffer through the intro, or skip it, its worth it

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMBXJ9I3pJM

July 5th

I'm having a party on July 5th up here in Lake Zurich. Sleeping over will be an option if you so choose.

I'll send out an email to remind everyone, but ya'll are invited.

Maxifesto

Common-sense Training for Young, Athletic Men

Let’s face it. We live in a society where every problem is assumed to have a quick-fix solution. If a given common problem doesn’t have a commercially available quick-fix, a niche opens up for an entrepreneur to fill. And in a short period of time, that niche will inevitably be filled (often, to saturation). Currently, one of the most pressing problems in the lives of otherwise healthy, Maslov-satisfied young men is that of dissatisfaction with their bodies. Maybe dissatisfaction isn’t even the proper term, but the fact is that many visible males, from actors to athletes to magazine advertisement models, appear more athletic and stronger than the average young man is.

And behold, a niche appeared. It has long since been filled, and decidedly so, but the exercise market will always have room for a new machine that promises quick results and minimal effort. Currently, conventional wisdom in that market seems to hold that a giant, complicated machine of pulleys and chains on which the prospective athlete sits down and pushes every which way against resistance is an effective way to whip one’s body into fightin’ shape. Or maybe a folding hammock-lookalike will produce the six-pack abdominals every guy craves. Perhaps all it takes is a couple of handles and the willingness to do a few pushups!

Unfortunately, none of those quick-fixes will take a prospective athlete from Point A (potential athlete) to Point C (efficient, maximal-realization-of-potential athlete). They will, however, definitely take an athlete to Point B (slightly stronger than Point A, but desperately confused about why their athletic performance hasn’t changed much [and maybe has even declined from sitting down so much]).

Fortunately, there is a simpler solution to the problem of the athlete who wants to look good and perform at maximum capacity.

Unfortunately, it’s easier said than done.

The key to all training for young male athletes, whether it be in terms of strength, speed, or skill, is total mental engagement (TME) with the task at hand.

I won’t touch skill in this essay; that topic is best left to coaches who know more about the specific skills and techniques necessary for sports than I ever will. But the principles of TME that I will expound upon herein should nevertheless be entirely applicable to skill training.

Let’s start with strength. Strength training is beneficial for athletes in all sports, because, among other things, a strong body is a coordinated body. The most important thing to remember in strength training, though, is to always keep one’s sport-specific needs in mind. Football players need explosive strength all over. Wrestlers need total control of their bodies, maximizing the output that the limited mass of their body can produce. Track athletes need explosive strength, especially in their legs and posterior chain. Golfers and tennis players need strength, but not at the expense of flexibility. The ultimate sport-specific goal should direct all actions taken in strength training.

What about the young man who is out of competitive athletics and now only wishes to achieve their athletic potential in the context of general fitness? Well, as a 100m sprinter I may be a bit biased, but I believe such an athlete should weight train much like a track athlete, specifically a sprinter, would. Such an athlete is weight training explosively, which requires TME and will consequently produce great gains in the strength department. With the right diet, the weight training program of a 100-400m runner will produce significant gains in body mass in the form of increased muscle mass and decreased fat mass. Also, such a program could undergo slight or even no modification and evenly, efficiently train a whole body without producing a disproportionate figure. Want to look like a magazine model? Start weight training like a sprinter.

Basic Principles of Effective Weight Training

• Mix it up. Obviously, you want to be training your whole body, upper and lower. That means not benching every day. Typically, splitting the body in two is effective for non-advanced lifters. An upper-body focused lift MWF and a lower-body focused lift TTh is a good plan to start out with. Core training should be done daily.
• Set aside a scheduled time to lift. Don’t just go in when you feel like it. You’re only going to see real, significant results in a typical 12-week cycle if you go in 4-5 days per week. If that means waking up early to go lift, wake up early and go lift. The key, though, is to find a time at which you can achieve TME. If you’re not a morning person, you’re not going to be able to focus with the intensity necessary to lift effectively. If you can’t achieve TME, don’t bother picking up a weight. You’re just wasting time.
• Diet, diet, diet. 3 meals a day, 5 meals a day, whatever. The important thing is to eat foods that provide efficient fuel. This means saying no to soda, white bread, fried anything, added sugar, anything with high-fructose corn syrup, or anything processed. How far you’re willing to go with your diet dictates how successful your training will be and how good your body will look. For more information, read any of Michael Pollan’s recent books.
• Allow yourself to cheat. If you can eat three good meals a day according to the above rules, have a candy bar at night. Eat some cookies. People fail at diets because it’s unrealistic to ask people to succeed at abstinence-only programs. If everyone in the world knew this, the world would be a much-better run place. The policy implications are staggering. But I digress. Treat yourself, unless you have a very poor metabolism. You’ll work it off the next day.
• Supplements and protein shakes. A corollary of the quick-fix exercise program, much misunderstood. Protein powder is the king of them all. Pricey and tasty if mixed with milk, protein shakes allow a lifter to enjoy something delicious while claiming to be attempting “post-workout recovery.” Well, know what else has a ton of protein? Chicken, eggs, milk, cottage cheese, beef, and nuts, to name a few. If you’re eating right, and you’re not a competitive bodybuilder, you’ll get plenty of protein, and it’s unnecessary to waste money on a tub of isolate. On the topic of supplements, there are some good ones out there, and some snake oil capsules. I’ve tried a lot of them, and the most important thing to remember is that no one supplement is worth a side effect. If you notice a side effect from a given supplement, and it’s significant enough that you notice it, stop taking it. The benefits usually aren’t worth the negative aspects. That said, some good things for a training athlete to take include a multivitamin, fish oil, and vitamin C. That’s about it, except for the most important weapon in your arsenal:
• Creatine. It is the much-maligned wonder supplement that every serious athlete knows about (and takes, if they know what’s good for them). Creatine phosphate is the molecule used to transfer oxygen from the bloodstream to your muscles, and creatine supplementation serves to augment that process, just as eating protein powder purports to augment your body’s supply of amino acids with which to make proteins. Unlike protein supplementation, though, creatine supplementation combined with training has shown to be vastly more effective than training alone in strength, speed, and even mental acuity. Moreover, no study chronicling harmful effects of creatine has ever been published. Surprised? Show me one, I dare you. There are simply none to be found. Oh, and don’t waste money on creatine shakes or flavored creatine powders. Buy pure creatine monohydrate (it’s dirt cheap), dissolve 5 grams in a high sugar beverage (like grape drink), and gulp. This can be done any time of the day, since you’re just augmenting your body’s already sufficient stores of the stuff. The sugar in the beverage will spike your body’s insulin levels, which provides a more efficient delivery system for the creatine in your bloodstream.
• Fix your posture. I’m guilty of still struggling with this one quite a bit, but it’s scary what our cubicle culture of people slouching over a computer desk has done to our postures. The most important feature of a correct, neutral posture is a spine curving naturally. The head should be back, above the shoulders. The natural curvature of the lower back should always be maintained. The shoulders should be kept back, which is not easy to do if you’ve been slouching your whole life like me. But slouched shoulders lead to busted shoulder joints, a weak upper back, and prevent your spine from maintaining its natural curvature. Your core should be tight – your abdominals are there to protect your vital organs, put them to work! Feet should face forward and each step should minimize sideways movement. Amazing how focusing on this has alerted me to the surprising presence of my hip flexors. Finally, sit up straight in chairs. We spend so much time sitting, and every minute you slouch is a minute towards eventually slipping a disk in your back (not something you want to have happen come middle age). Tilt your rearview mirror up a bit. Your posture will adjust for the better.
• Sleep seven or eight hours a night. It’s not just “one of the spokes on the wheel.” It’s a spoke on one of those BMX wheels with three wide plastic spokes.

The other two are diet and actually lifting the weights.

In the Weight Room

If you hadn’t guessed by now, effective weight training doesn’t happen sitting down on a machine. It doesn’t happen by doing isolation exercises with twenty-pound dumbbells. It does happen by doing compound lifts with heavy weights on barbells and dumbbells. This is common sense. The compound lifts allow you to use more weight than a tricep extension because they use just about every muscle in your body. Effectively using your whole body while at the same time utilizing proper form to stress specific muscle groups is taxing both physically and mentally. It requires TME. These kinds of lifts need to be focused on unceasingly throughout the set. They will exhaust you and humiliate you. They will also make you stronger, faster, more explosive, and more mentally acute. They should form the bulk of your work in the weight room. They are:

• Bench press
• Weighted wide-grip pullup
• Power clean
• Push press
• Deadlift
• Straight Leg Deadlift
• Back Squat
• Jump Squat

Take some time with each of these exercises. Learn the proper form (tnation.com is a great resource) and I suggest picking two of them to do in a given workout, and spending a good half hour doing them. Pick a weight at which you can barely complete 5 sets of 5 reps (2-3 minutes rest between sets), and work your way up.

When you do these lifts, you must be totally aware of every muscle in your body. Consciously control your form and the stressed muscles during the eccentric portion of the lift, and explode up during the concentric portion. Take a second to recover, and do it again. Never rush through an exercise. Control it and attack it with full focus.

But few athletes can do heavy compound lifting for an entire workout. At some point, there comes a point where there’s still something in the tank, but not enough to give a compound lift the TME required to get anything out of it. This is where isolation exercises come in. Dips, bicep curls, good mornings, glute-ham raises, military press, and rows are your best friends here.

Like the compound lifts, TME is necessary here. But the focus, more than anything, should be on using ONLY the muscle you want to use. Doing a bicep curl? Stop using your back to rock back and forth. Doing dips? Stop swinging your legs. Better yet, force them to stay in place by holding a dumbbell between your ankles.

An example. In high school, I made a run at the school record for situps in a minute. We’ve all done the test – a partner holds down your feet, you cross your arms across your chest and touch your forearms to your knees as many times as possible in sixty seconds. Well, I had little to no abdominal development back then, but I could kick the asses of every gymnast in my senior athletes’ PE class because I took advantage of conservation of momentum. I turned the system of me and my foot-holder into a swingset and found a rhythm that allowed me to recruit my abs as little as possible and my legs as much as possible. My best score was in the mid-eighties, I think.

There’s a couple points to glean from that example. First and foremost, I want to point out that what I did wasn’t “cheating” per say. I followed all the given rules of the situp test, which luckily for me did not include the phrase “using only your abdominals.” Likewise, doing a bicep curl while rocking your whole body back and forth isn’t cheating because there’s no rule saying you can’t. You’re not competing against anyone or anything. So if you want to do bicep curls with your back because the increased weight you find yourself able to do makes you feel better, go ahead. This brings me to my second point from the situp test example. By using my legs (much stronger than my abdominals) to do the situps, I didn’t tax either muscle especially hard, permitting me to do more situps than those who chose to recruit primarily their abdominals to do the test. Likewise, by rocking back and forth during a biceps curl you’re cheating your biceps out of a good workout and wasting your back’s strength by recruiting it for movements that don’t begin to tap its potential for moving weight and thus are entirely unproductive. Instead, maintain perfectly neutral posture and focus on contracting your biceps and your biceps only throughout the movement. You’ll have to use less weight, but you’ll reap the benefits. The principles of this biceps curl example are easily transferable to all other isolation exercises and even most compound ones.

Newton’s second law is that force equals mass times acceleration. Speed is directly related to force generation, and weight training allows you to increase your ability to produce force. So if improving your speed, whether it be foot speed, arm speed, or even jumping ability, is a goal of yours, it is imperative to keep the simple, elegant equation F = ma in mind. What does it mean in practice? That moving heavy weights as fast as possible allows you to generate the most force. Of course, the variables of mass and acceleration are inversely related in lifting (the more mass you use, the less acceleration you’ll be able to achieve) but the relationship isn’t as balanced as you might think. Remember, acceleration and velocity are not the same thing. And the acceleration we’re interested in isn’t really the change in velocity of the weight you’re moving, but the acceleration of the muscle you’re taking from relaxation to contraction. For example, flex your bicep slowly and then quickly. That’s the difference we’re talking about. At a certain point, a load will become too heavy for that rapid-fire recruitment of motor units to occur and you won’t be able to achieve that muscular acceleration. But you can achieve that acceleration with a pretty damn heavy load, maybe 85% of your one rep max.

This is another aspect of lifting where TME comes in. It takes a certain level of mental focus and concentration to contract any muscle in your body as fast as possible, and to lift efficiently it is necessary to be able to call up that TME every single rep. I can’t stress enough how important this is. If you lift a weight slowly, you’re wasting an opportunity to produce maximal force and thus improve your body’s capacity to do so. If you can do a lift quickly while still doing it with the correct muscle groups, do so. Work equals force times distance, so as long as you do the same lift it doesn’t matter how long it takes you to get there.

The last item I want to talk about is ab training. Oh, abs. The holy grail of the Fight Club, magazine advertisement culture of male body image. There are a million different exercises that work abs, and everyone likes different ones, but if you want visible abs, you need to be doing exercises in all three classes of ab work. However, the most important factor in getting six-pack abs is diet. If your body fat isn’t low enough, you could have the strongest stomach in the world and nobody would know it at the pool (unless you started doing flagpole holds on the lifeguard’s stand). But assuming you’re eating a diet conducive to abdominal visibility, here are the three types of exercises to implement:

• Concentric: Everyone knows and loves these. Anything resembling a crunch falls into this category of exercises in which the goal is to contract your abdominals against a force (most often, gravity) and accomplish a movement (generally upward). The key here, as you might have guessed, is to employ TME and make sure the only muscles involved are in your core. Almost any abdominal exercise is far more easily performed by another muscle group, so intense focus is required to get the most out of concentric ab lifting. Consciously contract your abdominals on every rep, and consciously use them to lift your torso off the floor (or the analogous motion if you’re doing some other variation). It’s harder than it sounds.
• Eccentric: The goal of eccentric abdominal work is to hold a position of tension for as long as possible. Examples include planks and the “Rocky hold” of your legs high in the air while using your arms to hold your torso on a bench. Here the effort is almost totally mental. Especially after a little abdominal training, your will will give out before your abs. Focus on keeping perfect form and posture (if applicable) and your abs tight, and set an intentionally long time goal. If you tell yourself you can hold a position for 30 seconds, you’ll be exhausted after those 30 seconds and think there’s no way you could have held it ten seconds longer. If you tell yourself you’re going to hold it for a minute, you’ll hold it for a minute. Too often, people ignore eccentric work, but the action of just holding a flex mimics the abs’ real-life function of bracing your torso, so the effects are tangible.
• Other core: The abs are not the only muscle group holding your core together. Don’t ignore the obliques, lower back, or even the inner abdominals. You can train them by holding your breath and sucking your stomach in for 30 seconds or so, repeatedly.

Well, I’ve been writing nonstop for about two hours and I think I’ve covered the important bits of what I know about lifting for performance. The principles, especially that of TME, carry over to other parts of life, and I’ve utilized them with success on the track and off of it. Hope you enjoyed it and/or learned something. Writing this was something I dreamt up in the gym today, and my goal was mostly to clarify and organize my thoughts on the topic. You can be sure I’ll be continually revising and supplementing this document as my learning process continues.

Max Petersen

June 11, 2008

Best of Parkour

The last 1/4 is incredible:

Summer thus Far.

Today is June 4th, 2008.

First item to discuss, Happy Birthday (yesterday) Nate! Hopefully you had a glorious celebration filled with....whatever it is that you enjoy.


So far this summer, I have managed to unpack, donate a ridiculous amount of clothing to Goodwill/Vietnam Vets/American Cancer Society, Workout, and Volunteer at my church.

All in all....I feel like I have accomplished nothing. Which in truth...is probably correct. My room is still a clusterfuck, there is clothing all over my house, still a TV sitting on my couch, and there is about 500 lbs of Mulch left to be spread out at my church. However, one thing I have done, is work.

Oh yes, work. That glorious past time that we all know and love so well. Those of you who talked to me at the end of the year know that I was going to be working for my father as a painter. So far, I have managed to avoid doing that. (tomorrow I start that however). Thus far, I have been working in the warehouse here at AAT Sales (we distribute cooking type stuff, ie. freezers, deep fryers, etc...) I take a little time now to discuss all my duties.

1- Answer phones (yes, I have to be polite and talk to people.)
2- UPS (I recieve all UPS packages, and ship out stuff too. like yesterday...18 packages totalling somewhere around 350 lbs.)
3- Forklift (Of course! How could I work in a warehouse without driving the forklift?)

The company I work for is incredibly small, so for the past three days, including me, there have been 4 people in the building. Its fairly entertaining, what with me playing monkey man in the warehouse, paging people who don't work here on the intercom, and driving the forklift outside and around the building. "I'm not fucking around, I'm qualifying".

However I will bring up the one thing that has managed to bring down this whole little trip. I've reorganized this WHOLE WAREHOUSE, 3TIMES NOW. It is Wednesday. Yes, I have moved the ENTIRE contents of the warehouse, EVERYDAY this week.



I kinda want it to be time for school. is that bad?

Sweden

From now until the 16th I'll be in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. I'll probably have internet access, though, so I'm not totally out of touch. What a relief! (For you guys, of course)

http://www.youtube.com/augustanachoir

We'll have videos of our performances all across Scandinavia posted up there, courtesy of Sam Schlouch... Or however you spell his last name.

I'm psyched. This is going to be awesome, and I'm going to come back broke. What a deal.

new weezer video

a) The video for Weezer's latest single "Pork and Beans" features a bunch of internet phenomenons including the chipmunk, tay zonday, etc. Quite a production

b) The song is awesome.

c) This is not a rickroll!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muP9eH2p2PI

Wow.

http://www.passiveaggressivenotes.com/2008/05/18/the-pepsi-challenge/

Monkey doing a handstand, on a goat, on a cup, on a tight rope.
Seriously, no rickroll. Fucking incredible.

Finals

I just wanted to take a minute out of writing this paper to say that finals suck.

The amount of stress that it places on our minds and bodies drains all that is good from them.

The time is now 1:28 AM on Tuesday. I am 3/4 the way done with my American history paper, and my brain is fried out.



But, the year is almost over. We shall have a whole summer to relax and re-energize, and come back next year
huzah.

Inexplicable

I am absolutely stunned at the picture on Klaudia's facebook of a dog pulling a wagon holding a 3 year old Klaudia with a man in a bear suit standing menacingly nearby.

I also tonight enjoyed this commercial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-OqKWXirsU

Life

So this weekend has proven that life is good. We won on Friday/Saturday, which is a really big deal to me at least. We grilled tonight and had the second installment of the traditional Carlsson Sunday in May barbecue. I wrote my face off for a beautiful twelve pager that I could have easily made 25 pages. And in all life is good.

Where are they now?

The 2 main arrested development writers, Mitchel Hurwitz(57 episodes) and James Vallely(15 episodes) have teamed up before on Golden Girls. Weird.
Also, Mitchell wrote for "The Ellen Show."
I can't decide if I should lose some respect for Arrested Development, or if I should go out and buy all 7 seasons of "Golden Girls."

saweet!

Here is a fairly good trombone quartet playing Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor.

Originally composed for Organ.

Amazing?

yes.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=sv1TnkD8DCo

High five

Bucks center Andrew Bogut made a free throw, and stepped forward to high-five his teammates as is customary in the NBA, but no one stepped up. So he high fives himself. Classic, 17 second vid.

World's longest Dunk

Awesome

Hedgehog

Man Uses Headgehog As Weapon

Short Must-watch videos

Seriously, take a couple minutes and watch these videos.

1) Dikembe Mutombo, 7'2" NBA player. Off the charts on the Unintentional Comedy Scale.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POkyWhh3Ihw&feature=related


2) His team imitates him. Hilarious.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3MA9m9_FJQ&feature=related


3) Long jumper gets impaled from 80 meters with javelin throw. Crazy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzl7QhtUblo&NR=1


4) Highlights of Cuban volleyball player Leonel Marshall, 6'5" with a 50 inch vertical. Stunning.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoKhEiAHfYs


5) Great parkour / urban jumping vid.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lEe8-c8h3oM&feature=related


6) Man vs. Cougar clip from National Geographic Channel

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eBGIQ7ZuuiU

7) Best Dinosaur Comic EVAR

http://www.qwantz.com/archive/001022.html

This, We Need

Provides a convenient excuse to take an extraordinarily long time opening the door. Could come in handy if any unwanted visitors wanted to see what we were up to...
http://www.artlebedev.com/everything/defendius/

Frustrating

I normally try to attend at least one or two concerts a year, but i try to make sure that they are stacked up with just great bands that will leave me feeling like my money was well spent.

I found one such concert today, scheduled for May 6th.

This is apart of the Gigantour, which will feature Megadeth, Job for a Cowboy, In Flames, Children of Bodom, and High on Fire.

I know that means nothing to you gentlemen, however it leaves me in great bewilderment.

In Flames is my favorite live band ever, for many reasons, the #1 of which being that they actually interact with the crowd.  Megadeth is...well, Megadeth.  JFAC, is incredible. They are incredibly talented young musicians who are great composers (i know, you all disagree), and aggressive musicians as well.

Children of Bodom is one of those weird bands...progressive/death/crack whorish type metal.  they're not bad though.

High on fire...whatever.

But still, IN FLAMES IS  PLAYING.

THEY ARE AMAZING!  I would give one if not both of my kidneys to see them again.

But alas, the concert is in the middle of the week, and I cannot attend.

damn school

in other news, GO AMERICA

Housing Problem....

Gentlemen, I have found the solution to our housing problem.

Tuesday the 25 of March, 2008

Today was the 25th day of March in the year 2008 and it was shitty. During the day I was overcome by an extremely severe case of apathy I refused to answer my phone, I did not pick songs from my mp3 but rather put it on shuffle, and I half assed my obscenely easy homework. However at 10:05 pm I was sitting here thinking to myself "wow this day has been nothing to write home about" when I discovered that indeed today is something to write home about. I would like to bring to your attention the one thought that has been kicking me in the face all day. Today is 3/25/2008, no big deal right? Wrong! I can Honestly say that I am one of the very few people that have ever existed that lived long enough to see this day. Of this I am proud. I am a survivor and so are you. Let us celebrate and bask in the knowledge that the saber tooth cat aka Smilodon Fatalis did not live long enough to see 3-25-2008...More like Smilodon Lamelis in fact I propose actually I demand to be referred to as Nate Fatalis Maass or maybe Nate Dangerous Maass Fatalis either way on Tuesday the 25th of March, 2008 I can say that without a doubt I am very much more dangerous than a sabertooth tiger.

Campaigning

I have hand written 72 83-word letters this afternoon. My hand is going to fall off momentarily. And I am about halfway done.

In other news, Happy Easter! I'm going to build a cake with my sister.

The Waldo Ultimatum

Best joke ever.

My sister's writing a paper on Gandhi. I convinced her to use this as a topic sentence, since her teacher is really into "attention getters."

Gandhi walked from place to place. He traveled quite a lot and had no shoes. Thus, his feet were very calloused. Due to his poor diet (if he decided to eat at all) he was often cursed with bad breath. The poor food he ate and the countless hunger strikes also made him very fragile.

Thus, Gandhi was a super-calloused fragile mystic hexed by halitosis.

Dear Nate and Joe

Y'all are lucky that I was at school until the very last moments on Friday. When Aaron and the CAs came into your room to check it, I was in the bathroom, and when I came back there were several road signs and a chair outside your room. I wasn't aware that you had road signs, but I knew that chair was rightfully ours and damned if I was going to let them take it. So I took that chair back to the triple and closed the door. A couple minutes later I heard a very confused Aaron freaking out about how there "was JUST a chair here".

Aaron Schroeder, you got Punk'd.

Sort of. But at least now we still have all our chairs.

Hardcordially,
Max

New Theme

So what do you think of the new theme?
We need a cool banner.
I really just wanted to make it so the posts didn't run together as much

-Jordan

The mood of this post is not at all consistent.

Seems like ages since I last posted on this thing.

Anyway. Spring break has been boring so far. It's been a whole lot of nothing, and since I wasn't a very big fan of my job last summer (and won't get to live in Rock Island) I've been doing the job-search thing. Which sucks.

But I did take home Nick's collection of MST3K. Incidentally, Invasion of the Neptune Men is the best one so far, second only to Manos, Hands of Fate. Aside from Mystery Science Theatre, though, tonight I've been sitting here and going through my huge iTunes library. I don't know 70% of my own music (since really it's my ex's music anyway).

I've found some really, really good stuff, and I'm currently attempting to put together the world's best sleep mix, which I intend to use wiiiiiiith----

MY NEW GIRLFRIEND!!! (Didn't that just remind you of The Price is Right? Replace "girlfriend" with "car" and we've got ourselves a quality game show geared toward the retired community.)

Beth Scherrman. How awesome is that? (Hint: It is very awesome)

Anyway, I've been smiling for like a year (Or since Feb. 27th, which wasn't quite a year ago). My face hurts.

Happiness! This term is going to rock. Volleyball is getting into the most fun part of the year, my classes are easy, Sweden is coming up, pledging is starting, and I have a new girlfriend.

My life kicks ass.

Your Gunna Crash

Rare Pictures of Nathan Maass in the Wild

This is quite possibly the most comprehensive photo collection of Nathan Maass I've ever seen. Including some never-before-seen baby pictures!

http://www.ejphoto.com/cougar_page.htm

Remember, you saw them here first.

Sense!

Nothing is real

Here it is ladies and gentlemen, Proof that the entire world is subjective, and that nothing is as discrete as it seems.

Now, Joe's and Kevin's arguments will surely be something along the lines of,
"You have no proof that nothing can be proven"
"what about the number six thats pretty well defined is it not"

Well, since i am lazy, and can only think of those two arguments, i shall counter.

For reference please suck my nuts

you will notice that i have two individual "nuts" but you will also notice that i have only one pair of "balls" quite a paradox. To begin with is it a single unit or is it plural? how can nuts be measured? what is the standardized unit for balls? An interesting question to ponder.

Just look at the quality of those balls...and you all wonder why i hate powermetal?
Because they aren't actually balls...well technically they are; however, while smoking reefer i prefer to refer to them as my boys and or my gang. Basically i just want to tell you that i think there can only be one answer to any given question...oh wait thats the exact opposite of what i wanted

DragonForce actually Sucks!

Here it is ladies and gentlemen,  Proof that Power Metal is a shitty overproduced genre, and that DragonForce is leading this decimation of music by playing such awful music.

Now, Kevin's and Maxtodon's arguments will surely be something along the lines of,

"their lyrics are so much better than slayer"

"they write actual music and can really play their instruments"

well, since i'm lazy, and can only think of those two arguments, I shall counter.

For reference, please watch the video for "through the fire and flames live"

  

You will notice that they cannot actually play their parts for the song.  They're absolutely awful.  The drummer and possibly the bassist are the only ones who can actually do ANYTHING in that band.  The guitarists are too busy drinking on stage to actually give  a decent performance...but oh wait, even if they hadn't been drinking, I'm sure they would still suck.

Just listen to the quality of that song...and you all wonder why I hate powermetal?

because it isn't actually metal.  Its just someone sitting in a studio recording one single idea, and then using a computer and several specialists to play with the idea, computerize it, and sell it to the world, claiming to be some of the fastest guitarists alive.

LIES I SAY

I seek balance

Last week was too busy.
Saturday I was bored.

This week is too busy.
Spring break I will be bored.

Mono

Just when this term was getting interesting, with more things to do than the days have hours, the gods have laid upon me an additional burden: mononucleosis.

If my life fall term was like Halo on Normal mode, my life winter term has been like Halo on Legendary mode, except co-op. No matter where my mind wants to go, my body has cooperated. Through grueling gauntlets of class, work, track, jazz, SGA, and hours of nightly homework, my body has agreed by staying sane despite not sleeping nearly enough and eating on the run entirely too much.

But this. This is like Legendary mode, single player. My body has given up the fight and consigned itself to total lethargy. My ability to focus is gone. My mind is constantly telling my body to do actions, but all my body is concerned with is sleeping.

Now, I should really stop procrastinating and crank out a couple more pages of paper so I can appease my body and go to sweet, sweet bed.

Do not drink from my cups, or make out with me in my sleep or anything under any circumstances. For all our benefit.

Exoskeletons

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2007/11/building-the-ne.html

just take a look at this...do you know what i would give for an exoskeleton

this is horrible...but funny

I found this to be entertaining.

Apparently Wal-Greens hasn't forgotten America's past...

Carrying on the Tradition

We seem to have a weapons theme going, so I thought this worthy of posting
http://blog.riflegear.com/archive/2007/12/26/hello-kitty-ar-15---evil-black-rifle-meets-cute-and.aspx

Response to AK47

This is in response to Joe's picture talking about the lethality of the AK47 which fires 7.62x39 rounds. In one picture we have a comparison between the 7.62x39 and the .308 winchester and then in another a comparison of the .308 winchester and the 30-06 springfield. As you probably don't know all of these rounds are technically 7.62mm or .308 caliber rounds however the 7.62x39 has a much shorter case and lower bullet weights which give it less power compared to the larger .308 winchester or the even more powerful 30-06 round thus when you absolutely need to kill every motherfucker in the room you should choose the BAR (browning automatic rifle in 30-06 springfield). In the top photo we have the .308 winchester on the left the 7.62x39 in the middle and the .223 from the M-16 on the right.

addition to previous post

tr
i realized that in my laziness i didnt put up the right picture of the vetruvian man

Presidency

well i guess bell should be in the pic
heres my first (rough) draft of what max and lindseys campaign poster should be

The incredible machine

So I was thinking about the human body today and I find it sad that most of the population will never come even close to using the full potential of the human body. Think about it, the body is so complex and so well designed that it absolutely amazing. My new goal is to use as much of the potential in my body as possible or at least find the limits of what I can do so I don't waste mine like everyone else in America.

Super Smash Brothers Brawl '300'

http://news.filefront.com/super-smash-brothers-brawl-300/

awesome mash-up

Modern Oregon Trail

http://www.thuleroadtrip.com/thule_trail/thuleTrail.html

Stuff

I have concluded, that trying to stuff all of my calories into one meal, absolutely sucks.

but it leads to a fantastic poop.

that is all.

Heath Ledger

max has a monosyllabic name

hey there max, I see you looking down.
Don't want to see my little buddy there with a frown.
Just because I get more women than you, well that's only because they don't know you like I do.
Sure, you're weedy and kind of shy.
But some girlie out there must be needy for a weedy, shy guy.
They want you as the needle when they're rolling in the hay.
Just hear me out when I say...

max, you got it going on.
The ladies will get to know your sexuality when they get to know your personality.
I said, max, you got it going on.
Not in a gay way, just in a "hey mate, I wanted to say that you're looking okay, mate."
Why can't a heterosexual guy,
Tell a heterosexual guy that he thinks his booty is fly.
Not all the time, obviously, just when he's got a problem with his self esteem.
Don't let anybody tell you you're not humpable.
Because you're bumpable.
Well, I hope this doesn't make you feel uncomfortable.
If I say you've got a boom ow-ow.
Come on max, help me out now.

max, you got it going on.
(You got it going on!)
That's the conclusion that I've come to.
But that doesn't mean that I want to bum you.
max, you got it going on.
(Got it going on...)
No doubt about it, we'd be gettin crazy.
If one of us was lucky enough to be born a lady.

If one of us was a lady, and I was your man, if I was your man.
Well, sometimes it gets lonely, and I need a woman.
And then I imagine you with some bosoms.
In fact, one time when we were touring and I was really lonely.
And we were sharing that twin room in the hotel.
I put a wig on you, when you were sleeping, I put a wig on you.
Oh, ohhh, oooooh, oh, and I just laid there and spooned you.

max, you got it going on.

Jordan: So, hopefully that made you feel better...
max: Can I please have a look at the lyrics?

cortex strikes back

crash bandicoot is play good pianist

people suck

hey so can i just say that i have noticed that people suck in general...like every once in a while a few good men like you guys come along but then everyone else just sucks...like the girl in my debate she sucks bad...

Sweet Electronic Drumness

http://www.engadget.com
max, buy me this, and i will drum in your band

antiques roadshow

Jordan: That's what we need to do. We need to drink and watch Antiques Roadshow. We can sit and guess how much everything costs, and the loser has to take a shot.

Kevin: Isn't that show on, like, Saturday mornings.

Jordan: Oh.

Andrew, however, has TiVO. Potential is definitely here...

One final addition

Today I read the first of the nine stories in "Nine Stories" by J.D. Salinger and so far I highly recommend this book as it is very interesting (i wish i could divulge more but i can't without giving away the story".
Other good books i highly recommend
Life Of Pi (just finished it was good)
The Message in the bottle (if you like essays and philosophy)
The Moviegoer (again with philosophy but at least its embedded in a story)
Any short stories by anyone like Hemmingway because they usual say more in ten pages than a regular novel does in five-hundred
Good poetry, not shit like Billy Shakespeare or Emily Dickinson (i think i will make a post about how crazy she was at some point because its ridiculous) but good stuff from e.e. Cummings, Dylan Thomas, Bob Dylan etc.

on a side note i saw a commercial for true life i have panic attacks...what are your opinions on this topic? in my mind i see them as weak pleas for attention created by people exaggerating the insignificant problems of their lives. Any response to this would be welcome.

On another side note i must tell you about last week. last week i ate healthy all week until the weekend as an experiment to see if the difference in physical well being was worth the difference in enjoyment. Through my research i found great benefits from eating healthy and working out hard as i feel great. Por otro lado, me encanta los reeces y las comidas frijoles. which leaves me with a dilemma...do i eat healthy look and feel in great shape or do i continue to eat poorly and possibly hamper my performance in exchange for the diet of kings?

The shot heard round the world

This may not be the most recent news but anyway I feel the need to post this story as its impact has been felt around the world. Sometime in the year two-thousand and seven Andrew Harrison won one hundred units of money playing bango. In this venture he was accompanied by a very drunk Dangerous Nate and the ever imposing Jordan. This picture explains it all. I will conclude my first day of blogging and this very important story with two quotes from the ever relevant and eloquent Curtis Ferrari F-50 Fifty-Cent Jackson "I get money" "Fifty Cent its a metaphor for change". inspiring words from the mouth of an inspiring man, perhaps the most inspiring man of our time you be the judge.

Big Fish

Apparently you can only post one picture at a time so here is max and his lady friend after fishing

Max's Big day

Today while we were all at classes or track or volleyball Max ditched school...got in a fight with his novelty band...and had time to catch a fish and exaggerate the fish's size

Hello friends this is nathan maass i am excited to announce that i have joined the blogging team. i will do my best to blog only the most pertinent information as it becomes available to me. expect lots of spy paraphernalia.

links

Hilarious, a side guest on Conan rips apart the other guest by interrupting multiple times. Fast forward to 4 minutes.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GoLm-vD89SQ

Rocky and Apollo Creed get a little lovey dovey at the end of this Rocky III montage
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmW0oCtnpBQ&feature=PlayList&p=8DD44BE2D740B650&index=8

James Brown is interviewed on live TV about his divorce, wasted out of his mind and completely oblivious. Hilarious.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tfNhL_R_rI&feature=PlayList&p=8DD44BE2D740B650&index=14

The worst TV sports announcer of ALL TIME
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W45DRy7M1no&feature=PlayList&p=8DD44BE2D740B650&index=16

Anyone who cares about athletic ability has seen this vid of NFL star Adrian Wilson jumping over a 66 inch hurdle, but it's still amazing...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vL19q8yL54

And a white guy with sick ups. My favorite part about all the street dunk contests is the judges dancing around holding up their laminated number grades. Hilarious. But this dude is amazing.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZARdK1Y3vE&feature=related

Thanks ESPN's Bill Simmons for his youtube collections.

oh hai

Welcome to the jungle, we've got fun and games.

As I traverse my world of injuries and homework, I realize that I really am thankful for all the friends I have. You guys are the best.

Also, omg Hellashes.

good morning.

no one has posted in a while, so I thought I would.
It is 6:07 am...and I'm going to workout, so that I can go to my music lessons later...but i only have one class today, no labs. zing?

and yay...life has finally turned around.

I was actually excited yesterday to come back to augie...and go to class.











odd isn't it?

Natalie Portman and Offspring know Voodoo

Clicky

Alien vs. Predator...Requiem

So this evening I went and saw AVPR with some friends.

I was blown away by the good use of special effects, but also that they actually ATTEMPTED to weasel a story line in there.

WELL.
I don't want a story line. I just want to see soem aliens reproduce, and AT LEAST 2 or 3 predators come down, and start kicking the shit out of said aliens. None of this, fair fight shit.
so, all 11 of the people in the theatre had my occasional commentary, which apparently was good at some parts.

I won't give away the entire film....but I must say, the predator...took being badass to a new height. At one point, he was dual wielding the shoulder cannons. one...is crazy. two...fuck it, movie over.

OH
and they killed the hot chick.
and she was like, gorgeous. it was decided, if no one hit that, I was going to hit that. and then she got pinned to the fucking wall, because she was running from shadows...

in conclusion.

Keep your doors and windows closed, and if you hear weird ass noises outside, DONT LOOK!
Simply grab your guns, and your children, and hide in your house.