Then I remembered the video featuring Christopher Walken and had to look it up. It makes me grin every time.

Having a shitty morning? Relax, turn on your speakers, and enjoy.

Yeah. This is almost better than if he spent the whole video in a wild gunfight.

Almost.

The first prank is bad enough, but the second version of the prank near the end is even meaner.

Not that it stopped me from laughing at these poor bastards…

There are a several more pranks here, some funny and some just plain stupid.

Get the rebound!

I’ve never been a big basketball fan, but it’s fun watching the little guys run around and do their thing. The Midget is having a blast, and even though he’s never played before, he’s learning quite a bit and has improved with every game. There have been several mornings we woke to the “thump thump thump” of his dribbling practice, and he’ll often dribble some more while he watches TV.

There hasn’t been much I’ve been able to offer him in terms of advice. The Wife played basketball in high school, but I wrestled and we weren’t big fans of the pumpkin bouncers. I more or less tuned out during basketball rules lessons in PE, and I constantly got called for fouls that I didn’t even realize were fouls. For example, if I stand firm and the guy with the ball crashes into me and falls on his ass, why is that a foul on me? Why should I have to give up ground for my opponent? I’m not going to give him a free shot at the basket!

I digress. Point is, I tried to give the little dude advice from the sideline once, but the Wife told me that was the opposite of what he needed to be doing at the moment. So I keep it simple now: “Go go go!” and “Nice shot!” That way the coaches don’t look at me like I’m crazy. It doesn’t matter much this year, but he says he wants to play throughout his school career. If that’s the case, I guess I better start learning how this shit works so we can practice in the driveway.

Yeah, we have a hoop. Inherited it when we bought the house. Only time I’ve ever paid attention to it is when I’ve had to mow around it.

Photography-wise, the lesson this week is a lot like last week’s: spot focus is tough at a distance with a low aperture setting. I need a fast zoom lens, but they’re way out of my financial reach. On the plus side, I got up and moved around the gym a bit, exercising a little more sneaker zoom than usual. The habit of staying in the bleachers with friends is one I need to break if I want to take better pics.

And it still amuses me to no end.

Here's a bird for ya, cat!

"Gimme your lunch money!" "No, you give me yours!"

We thought it was a joke at first, but when the bell rang, these little dudes went to town on one another. They punched, they kicked, they threw knees to the ribs.

And the crowd went nuts.

I felt almost guilty encouraging two little kids to beat the snot out of one another. This wasn’t a simple point sparring match, it was a full-on fight between a couple of what, first graders? Second?

"Eat leather!"

I got to wondering, though: should I really have felt guilty about it? A short time after the fight, these kids came walking through the crowd right in front of our table. Together, like buddies. And despite all that punching and kicking, neither had a mark on him. I’m guessing they’re still too small to do any real damage to one another, especially with protective gear in place.

Then I got to thinking, why not have the kids in a match? Most of the students at the Academy of Okinawan Karate are children, and they spar at least once a week (after reaching a higher rank). When we hit Judo in the curriculum cycle, the kids have full Judo matches. If we encourage throws and joint locks, why not (padded) punches and kicks?

Finally, it’s a controlled environment. There’s a ref and paramedics at hand for starters. One would also presume the kids have gone through quite a bit of training before being put out in front of a crowd. If they hadn’t, it wouldn’t be much use as a martial arts exhibition, and the kids would probably have just circled one another in fear (or one would have dominated the other).

I don’t know that it’s something I’d encourage my kids to do, but at the same time, the few minutes of fighting in this match probably amounted to the same amount of contact we’d see in junior hockey, soccer, or football games. I’ve seen kids go home bloodied from soccer cleats before, and again, these two guys didn’t have a mark on ‘em. Heck, when I was a kid we played keepaway games out in our school’s field that were rougher than this fight.

So what’s the big deal, then? Why feel guilty when they started throwing punches?

I think it’s all a matter of perspective. Violence between children is frowned upon, especially for those of us working for schools. But now that I’ve been involved with the martial arts, I have a much better idea of what’s happening in the ring and how training works than I did three years ago. It looks violent from the outside, but there really is more sport and competition involved than actual violence.

In short, these two kids had the guts to get out in front of a huge crowd and put on a show, and that’s not an experience most kids are going to have. If they had fun and they learned something, then more power to ‘em.

King of this cage

This is the third Throwdown event I’ve attended at the East Peoria Event Center, and the event gets a little better every time. For example, they went from a hexagon to a full octagon between their second and third events, and this time they added a projector and video screen to give fans a better look at the action. Our only beef with the logistics was the parking lot was an absolute mess of mud and gravel, and they filled it up before the event started.

All in all it was a great evening. Most of the fighters came from the Central Illinois Combat Club and the Peoria Athletic Club, and they were determined to put on a good show. Most of the MMA fights ended in submissions and ref stoppage, and the other fights included a mix of grappling and Muay Thai matches. Next time my friends and I intend to show up a little earlier so we can sit closer to the cage and get a better look at the ground work, as some of the fighters looked like they put a lot of work into their grappling training.

I shot over 300 pics of the event (not counting the couple dozen I erased between bouts), and I dropped 26 in a Flickr set. I stuck with my 50mm prime lens so I could work without a flash, but I still had to crank up my camera’s ISO rating to get an acceptable shutter speed at the distance I shot from. As a result there’s a lot more noise in the pics than I’d otherwise want to deal with.

The other problem I ran into was the cage itself. The camera picked it up as often as it did the fighters, so I boosted the aperture to get a larger depth of field. I also played with manual focus some, but the distance still made it tough to see the finer details I wanted to focus on (and the focus ring was right near its limit anyway). I probably could have gotten away with using my 55-200mm zoom lens for tighter shots and better control of focus, a trade-off for sacrificing another stop or so of aperture. Instead most of what you’ll see is tightly cropped from the originals, making the noise and focus issues even more obvious.

Next time I may suck it up and haul in a camera bag so I can have all my lenses available. I may be less polite and stand up to take some shots so I don’t get so many backs of other fans’ heads, too. Heck, if I wanted to really go nuts, I could borrow another camera body from work or a friend and have both lenses ready to go without having to mount and unmount them between bouts or rounds.

I’m sure my friends would love it. Heh.

The movie itself is good. It’s feel is very faithful to the original, and there’s a great gothic horror flavor to it, yet enough action and violence to satisfy modern horror fans. The plot seems a bit rushed at points, but overall, I enjoyed it. It’s tough to say, though, that it’s going to excite anyone but existing werewolf fans. There’s nothing there for broader appeal: no love story, no catchy music, no hot young actors or actresses for folks to latch on to. (Emily Blunt is no certainly no slouch, but she spends all but a few frames in a stuffy Victorian dress.) It also doesn’t help that reviews seem to go either way, with critics either loving or hating it.

It’s too bad, as I’d love to capitalize on a werewolf craze. With it’s crime/thriller edge, my book The Pack: Winter Kill has a very different feel from The Wolfman (as well as just about any other werewolf flick), but I think that can help it appeal to a broader audience than just the werewolf fans. After all, let’s be honest: werewolf fans are my bread & butter and I love ‘em, but it’s going to take a lot more than that to make the book a hit.

How about turning readers into werewolves? That do anything for ya?

The Pack: Winter Kill -- It'll put hair on your chest!

Evileye wanted to institute a recall, but I talked them out of it. I have no money to give you if you sue me, so I say get out there and tear shit up! Fight the power! Stick it to The Man! Arrrooooo!!

Meanwhile, the folks over at Comics Bulletin have interviewed the man behind Evileye Books, Mr Aaron Ommus. Shoot on over and check out his thoughts on the comics market, digital comics, Evileye’s new releases, and the upcoming Evileye Reader for webcomics. I truly believe Ommus and Evileye are going to surprise a lot of people this year, whether or not my little wedge of dead paper (or collection of bits) does anything for them.

That wedge of dead paper has been jumping up and down in the Amazon sales ranks the last few days. I haven’t decoded how the sales rank works, but I’m guessing the jumps mean at least a few more people have picked up copies. If that includes any of you reading this, thanks! I hope you dug it.

If you want to pick up the book but aren’t a fan of Amazon, we’ll have you covered soon. We’re working on getting the book into the main distribution channels so it can be ordered through Borders, Barnes & Noble, and hopefully your favorite indie shop as well. Or, if you do have a favorite indie shop, have them contact Evileye Books directly. Ommus and his team will be happy to help any independents get copies.

Now I best get back to work on Book 2.

Part of this awesomeness is she knows I love her and doesn’t require me to buy bullshit flowers, chocolates, cards, and so on today. (Another part of this awesomeness means I don’t have to wait until today to guarantee I get laid, either.)

Some of you aren’t so lucky. You get guilt trips and snide remarks. You need to make with the Hallmark, and after your lady has strung you along for a significant portion of the day, you may get a glimpse of a titty.

Which brings me to this year’s Valentine’s Day song. My song of the day goes something like this. For the rest of you poor bastards, it goes a little more like this:

By the way, it helps that I’m man enough to express my love on a regular basis. If you can’t handle that, then these bullshit holidays are all your fault.

Had the Midget shootin’ out the other end once, too. Painted the wall. I wrote “warning: contents under pressure” on his diaper to give the Wife a heads up for the next change.