Hell, I can show you that in one short video and save you five minutes:

Yes, some cops are dicks. They don’t hand out reason and common sense with guns & badges. However, there are better ways to show your displeasure than setting yourself up for a hassle or getting your ass kicked.

Lego brick? Jenga cube?

Writer Warren Ellis has some good thoughts about what this layout and design is actually saying about US post-9/11 policy, but in looking at the architecture itself, I’m wondering where the engineers pulled their inspiration from.

Could it be:

The banner goes on during the unveiling

Or maybe they’re Star Trek geeks:

You will be democratized!

Either way, it’s definitely a cold, boring structure. They may as well have modeled it after a balled-up porcupine and surrounded it with concertina wire. It’s the sort of place I’d expect to go to die in Soylent Green, or to get waterboarded by Dick Cheney.

And it still amuses me to no end.

Here's a bird for ya, cat!

Today’s Workday:

I’m sure someone makes a pill for this.

In the following video, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu instructor Stephan Kesting of Grapplearts shows us two of his favorite ridiculous techniques:

I get a laugh out of these myself, but at the same time I hate to see them because they make martial arts in general look bad.

My favorite punch buggy incidents occurred in Los Angeles back during the first 4×4 tour. Brian Keene, Mike Huyck and I were all riding in the back of Ann Laymon’s Cherokee on our way out to Dark Delicacies. Geoff Cooper and his girlfriend followed in a car behind us. At one stoplight, we spotted a punch buggy and commenced to beating the shit out of one another, while the guy next to us shouted encouragements.

Next stoplight, we spotted another. Brian and Mikey jumped out of the Jeep and headed back to Coop’s car. He helpfully rolled down the window so they could deliver the punch buggy blows. Brian and Mikey ran back to the Cherokee before the shooting started.

Good times.

What’s your best punch buggy story?

Enjoy.

It’s also been a running joke between myself and some of my fellow karate students that I’d use this song when I have to do ju ju undo (free exercise) to music. The joke being I have to go out and perform some karate with music playing, and chances are there will be kids and their parents around.

I’d bet the instant the first “fuck like a beast” lyric hits, I catch a roundhouse to the head, and thus endeth my review process.

I saw this on a Cracked article and couldn’t believe it really existed, but there are several related videos featuring the same thing on YouTube. I can understand boxing and MMA, but why make such an arbitrary mix as arm wrestling? I suspect this is a product of a brainstorming session involving a handful of thugs and a few bottles of whiskey.

“Hey Bob, I have an idea! Let’s chain ourselves to this table and punch each others’ brains in!”

“Duuuuude! You’re a genius!”

Are knock-outs and submissions in the cage not enough? What makes this so much more exciting to watch? What makes it so much more exciting to compete in? How big do your balls have to be to want to compete in this?

That’s probably the key right there. When you’re dealing with the three Bs of combat sports — brains, brawn, balls — it’s only the balls that matter. They may as well start televising roshambo.

The concept is simple: two pinheads kick each other in the nuts until one gives up.

Yes, kids really are that stupid. Looking at the bright side, though, at least they’re taking their genes out of the pool.

They may even have a career in entertainment ahead of them:

Wind Farm
Originally uploaded by MikeOliveri

I drive past this wind farm when I visit my folks in Indiana, and every time I see it I get just a little jealous.

There are three separate wind farms in the works around here, but every one of them is under fire from locals who don’t want anything to do with them. I’ve ranted about these people several times in the past so I won’t get into all that, but something I wish they would do is drive out to a wind farm and actually take a look.

Are you seeing a ruined view? I’m not seeing much of a view to ruin, to be honest. Seems to me the turbines are creating a view. One local calls them “monuments to stupidity,” but to me they’re a sign of the future, of an effort to increase our energy capacity and cut costs as well as put less garbage into the atmosphere. Not to mention they bring bucks to the local economy.

Indiana can’t put them up fast enough, and counties around us are also putting them in. Ours has been in limbo for about three years. I just don’t get it.

They can’t hold out forever, though. The farmers are willing to sign over the land, the schools want the money, the county needs the money, and if the utility company doesn’t get it installed now, they’ll come back in a few years when there’s a new county board in place. It’s not like the wind’s going anywhere.

Until then I’ll just have to be patient.