Where Evil Gamers Go When They Die

So, Ed's blog has lately basically just been a place where he shares videos that he finds interesting or funny while scouring the web every day. Most of the time, the videos he finds are pretty cool, but he doesn't really update that often. This particular update, however, can not be missed. Check it out now: Mario-Cide

I(owa) Know(s) Kung Fu

I just got back to Florida last night, after a bit of a delay, surprisingly due to thunderstorms in the Midwest. And here I thought thunderstorms were a Floridian signature! Apparently, rains in Iowa occur for several hours at a time - several locals who had been to Florida before noted that Florida rains tend to come and go in 15-minute stints, often in broad daylight, in contrast to the day-long, dreary showers of the Midwest.

My trip was quite productive - I got to see many familiar faces and meet a few new ones to pair up with familiar telephone voices. I got to hang out with my co-worker who will be retiring soon several times as well, which was nice. Perhaps the most interesting thing that happened on my trip, however, was my visit to the Chinese Kung Fu Academy while I was there!

In what was a somewhat unusual turn of events (these seem to be getting more and more common around here on Grant's Pad!), I stumbled across a comment on Ed's 13 Lunges spear form on YouTube by user "fzeeshan". He mentioned that their school had recently started learning Choy Lay Fut and included a weblink to his school. This weblink pointed to the website of the Chinese Kung Fu Academy. I sent them an e-mail asking to visit, and they were very happy to have me.

I stopped in on Tuesday afternoon and met Travis, the student-teacher of the Chinese Kung Fu Academy. I must say I was a bit surprised when the blonde-haired began speaking to me in Mandarin Chinese! Apparently, he had spent quite a bit of time in the northeast part of China and had actually visited Xi'an in 2001, before my own trip to Xi'an! Furthermore, his middle name is Grant, so between our visits to China, our passion for Chinese Martial Arts, and our names, we found quite a bit in common! That's him on the left in that very tiny picture from their website.

Anyhow, Travis was kind enough to let me borrow his shoes and even supply me with a T-shirt from their school so I could train in some jibengong, or basics, from their Changquan, or Longfist, system. I found Changquan to be quite different from my Choy Lay Fut, with a lot of focus on kicking work and, true to its name, very long arm movements. I also noticed that their Choy Lay Fut lineage is from the same lineage my own Choy Lay Fut is from - the Lee Koon Hung lineage!

I also met user fzeeshan, or Faisal, on that visit to the school. He is in his thirties, but both his Changquan and his Choy Lay Fut are pretty good - he was able to recognize my Siu Mui Fa and Ping Kuen forms. He explained some of the Changquan moves using similar techniques from Choy Lay Fut, which also has many long-armed movements, and that helped me transition quite a bit!

One other point of interest is that Travis and Faisal's Changquan sifu, Master Daniel Pesina, who is based in Chicago, is actually famous for being one of the main character actors in the 2D Mortal Kombat games from the 90s. Specifically, Faisal said that Master Pesina played Johnny Cage - I later found out that he was also most of the ninja characters, such as Sub-Zero and Scorpion! In addition, he was one of Shredder's foot soldiers in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies! It is pretty cool to say that I learned kung fu from one of Johnny Cage's students!

The moral of the today's story, then, is that Chinese Martial Arts in the American Midwest is no myth - there is, in fact, Kung Fu in Iowa!

Eee-arth Day

Wow, I didn't realize it's been so long since my last post! I guess I've been pretty busy with school and work.

I finished my second semester of my Outreach Engineering Management program this past weekend - two down, three to go (plus however long it takes to finish the MBA!) I feel pretty good about my finals - the accounting final took a full three hours, but it was more fatiguing than anything else, not very difficult. I'm going to miss Dr. Asare - his off-kilter accounting examples were always very entertaining, but I'm not going to miss Dr. Romeijn very much at all.

This semester, I will be taking Financial Management and Supply Chain Management. In an interesting turn of fortune, I will be taking Financial Management with Cherrie's Finance teacher from this semester, Dr. Tapley. He seems like a pretty good teacher, but I will never forget that Cherrie did 500 practice problems to prepare for the second exam!! My Supply Chain Management professor is none other than Dr. Geunes, the director of the program. He is a very dry-humor kind of guy, talks extremely slow but is full of jokes. You really have to pay very close attention to be able to differentiate joke from seriousness.

So, today is Earth Day. In case you didn't get the title reference, in Lilo and Stitch, when Stitch crashes towards Earth, the alien annunciated that he was on target to land on "eee-arth", a planet primarily composed of water, which Experiment 626 (AKA Stitch) could not survive in. Of course, we know that Stitch luckily landed on Hawaii, and thus one of the greatest animated features of this century was made!

In celebration of Earth Day, my office gave us all Earth Day T-Shirts. I guess Earth Day is supposed to be a nation-wide environmental awareness day. Unfortunately, I'm away on business today, otherwise I could have brought in my unwanted electronic devices to throw away in a green fashion at my office. Plus, I don't get to wear my cool T-Shirt with everyone else at the office - I don't seem to see anyone here wearing that kind of thing.

Speaking of the environment and Earth Day, I saw an interesting piece on the news this morning - apparently, gas prices have jumped up 14 cents! Is this some weird way to tell us to use less gas for Earth Day? Somewhat ironically, for my trip this week, I'm in the biggest passenger vehicle I have ever driven - a GMC Yukon. I have to say, it's pretty plush - full leather and CD player with MP3 capability and everything - too bad I didn't bring my Chinese music CDs! But being so huge, I can't imagine that it gets any fuel efficiency! Good thing the company will pay my gas this week!

Well, got to get back to work. Have a good Earth Day!

Football Again!!!

It's been several months since the last football post, due to the end of football season, so today's post will be the first football post since the Super Bowl!

This weekend was the date of the Orange and Blue spring scrimmage. This year's Orange and Blue game was particularly special, since ESPN Gameday actually came out to televise it! In addition, there were several events throughout the day, such as a barbecue, events where fans get to catch a Tebow pass, a Chas Henry punt, or a Jonathon Phillips kickoff, the addition of Tim Tebow's Number 15 jersey added to the stadium alongside Steve Spurrier and Danny Wuerffel as UF's Heisman Trophy winners, and a race to find UF's Fastest Student, where regular students got the chance to race some of the fastest students on the football team, Chris Rainey, Louis Murphy, and Deonte Thompson for a chance at a scholarship. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately? I'm not sure we should waste a scholarship on a fast guy that isn't proven on the football field...), the fastest student only ran a 4.53, a far cry behind Chris Rainey's blazing (and somewhat dubious) 4.23 40-yard dash. Oh well.

The game was pretty fun, nonetheless. We took Cherrie's Korean roommate to the game, and she had a good time experiencing the Swamp for the first time along with a record 60,000+ other fans who attended the spring scrimmage (breaking a previous record of 58,000+ in Urban Meyer's Orange and Blue debut in 2005). Granted, it's still nowhere near as amazing as a real game experience with over 90,000 spectators, but it's still pretty rowdy. And hot - having not gone to a football game since the 2006 season (or was it the 2005 season?) we forgot the importance of applying sunscreen and paid for it with pretty bad sunburns!

Notes from the game: Tebow is still pretty sharp - he threw two interceptions off of deflected passes (after one of these interceptions he rather arbitrarily blew up free safety Major Wright despite the fact that Wright wasn't the one that made the interception!), threw two touchdowns and was mostly on target. In contrast, backup quarterback Cameron Newton had a less than stellar day, only completing a handful of passes for 53 yards and getting sacked four times by the only defensive lineman that was impressive through the day, number 8, Carlos Dunlap. Other offensive standout performances were turned in by the other number 8, Chris Rainey, who shook Ahmad Black out of his shoes on a 70-yard touchdown run, and USC transfer tailback Emmanuel Moody, who led all rushers with over 110 yards, but had a bad fumble in the end zone.

This weekend was not just about the Spring game for me, however. When I arrived in Gainesville on Friday, I stopped by the stadium where the Meihua Student Association of Martial Arts was having a seminar with Sifu Des, whom I've spoken of several times on Grant's Pad. Essentially, Sifu Des is the most incredible kung fu practitioner I have ever met. I've never really been able to track down his lineage of Choy Lay Fut, although I know it is very similar to our own Lee Koon Hung lineage, but in his 28 years of kung fu experience, he has found killer applications to just about every move in every form and then some. More importantly, he has the power and internal strength to pull off all of those moves. I've become fairly proficient at what I've come to call the "one inch palm" (which, interestingly, was taught to me by Sifu Des), where I can hit an opponent with piercing power from a very short distance and send him several feet back. However, Sifu Des can perform this technique from no distance at all, with his arm seemingly fully extended from the start, using "Chan Si Jing", or "silk reeling power", which he introduced to us at the seminar. Very cool stuff. At the end of the seminar, I verified several applications of techniques in the forms that I've learned since last speaking with him - to my pleasant surprise, most of my applications were consistent with what he had come up with as well!

Speaking of the kung fu club, I went to the picnic sponsored by the club (these days, the school actually funds the kung fu club somewhat!) held at Lake Wauberg South. Ray commented that this was same location as the first kung fu club picnic we held four years ago. Interestingly, I remember that day pretty clearly - we played football and they sacked me when I was trying to run a Power I play! Anyhow, the burgers were pretty good, but whatever Arun made was... not that good =P. It was nice to meet up with some of the old timers like Jason, Ray, Melinda, and Arun, and nice to hang out with some of the newer kids like president Taran as well.

To wrap up, no weekend in Gainesville is complete without Gator Nights! This Gator Nights was only okay, however. Ed and I climbed the rock wall in a matter of seconds and we watched yet another shockingly bloody movie - Rambo IV - at around midnight. The midnight breakfast was surprisingly good though - must have been because they replaced the grits with potatoes!

Keep an eye out for a photo or two from the game!

Choy Lay Fut Hero Video

Yay! YouTube Cop-out returns!

This is a pretty cool video tribute to Choy Lay Fut that seems to have aired in China about a year ago. Enjoy!

Olympics Protest Rant

So, yesterday, a great tradition - the one that takes the Olympic Torch to several cities around the world before finishing in the host city, was screwed up by protesters in San Francisco. San Francisco was chosen to represent the USA during the Torch's tour due to its large Asian population. It should have been a great honor for the city, but Pro-Tibet and Pro-China protesters took advantage of the international coverage of the event to cause a stir. In addition, due to the activity of the Pro-Tibet protests around the world, many world leaders, including those in the US, are planning at least a partial boycott of the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.

It really is a huge shame for the world - kind of tells us a lot about how messed up people can be. The Olympic Games is supposed to be an event where all the countries of the world can have a good time together and compete fairly (despite all the doping!) in athletic events. Instead, at nearly every Olympics in recent memory, there have been some hippie extremists there to try to mess it up for everyone. The Olympics shouldn't be used as a platform for any kind of political disputes. You have the rest of four years to raise your voice about issues that you "care" about, why pick the days when everyone is supposed to get along?

What were these issues that the protesters cared so much about? Let's take a look at them. The Tibet issue, this one really aggravates me. Maybe I'm biased because I'm ethnic Chinese, but I still try to look at all sides of the issue when I can. However, I can't really find myself supporting the Pro-Tibet side very much. What people can't seem to understand is that Tibet has been a part of China for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years, and the Chinese people actually hold the region in quite high regard. Rallying for a free tibet is in a sense like rallying for, say, a free North Carolina! Even the USA was against this kind of secession, as evident in one of the bloodiest wars of all time, the American Civil War, so why should it be so strange that the Chinese government doesn't want to let it go?

Independence and democracy aside, there are other issues I have with the pro-Tibet movement as well. We keep on hearing about how poorly the Tibetans are treated. I fail to see where they are really treated all that much more poorly than anyone else in China. Chinese protestors are usually jailed, despite some movements towards free speech. There has always been a fine line between peaceful protesting and rioting - anywhere you gather hundreds or thousands of people, it is likely that some ruckus will break out! Most importantly, however, is people seem to fail to remember that it was the Tibetans that attacked non-Tibetan ethnic groups that started the Tibetan unrest this year. In fact, Tibet has always been a region rife with terrorism. I won't outright state it as a fact, but I strongly believe that without the Communist government cracking down, there would be more terrorism than there is today. The counter-argument is that the terrorism is an effect of Tibet not being free, but that simply isn't the end-all case. Just as with the terrorism in the Middle East, much of Tibetan terrorism is likely due to just differences in beliefs, or even ethnic differences, and not that much to do with politics at all!

Then there's Darfur. China has recently come under a lot of criticism for their lack of involvement in Darfur. I really can't understand this one. One of the biggest criticisms of the United States that you will hear if you ever spend any time overseas is that the Americans can't seem to mind their own business. Yes, it's unfortunate what is going on in Darfur. But it really has nothing to do with you, me, or China. While the United States claims to be able to afford sending troops and support to war-torn nations, China probably isn't - I'm sure they have a lot of problems of their own that they are more pressed to address at this time, such as their dangerously booming economy and the vast disparity between economic classes. We also should not forget that American citizens were not always so interested in helping foreign peoples. During the Vietnam War, the media kept a count of the number of Americans vs. the number of VCs killed on a daily basis, in an attempt to maintain support of the war. The effect was quite opposite - once the people knew how many people, especially Americans (many of whom they knew) were getting killed, support for the war effort took a sharp turn for the worse, and the United States was thus defeated (yes, we lost that war, I don't care what anyone else says!). The bottom line is, war kills, even if you're just sending help.

So, because of these two issues, many people, some powerful ones at that, want the Olympic Games in Beijing to be a failure, or worse, want the Chinese athletes to perform poorly! Americans tend to think that we are so much better informed than anyone else because of our Headline News and other media outlets, and because of this, they think they know what's best for everyone in the world. But don't think that the U.S. is that much different from any other country - propaganda is still rampant and news reporters are still biased. We might get a few more opinions than other countries do, but U.S. media is anything but objective. And because a few hippie extremists read the headlines about the "treatment" of Tibet and Darfur, the great spirit of the Olympic Games was tainted again - before the games even started. That's not what it should be about. Look at the Friendlies below - aren't they so cute? Together (using a homophonic word twist), their names say "Welcome to Beijing", and they represent the five color Olympic Rings and the various sporting events that the countries participate in. That's what the Olympics should be about. Let's try to keep that in mind!

Awesomeness in Streaming Video Form

Wow, long time no write! No posts for the month of April, in fact! It seems as though my visitation has taken a slight hit as well... but on the other hand, I've just been informed that readers in China can once again visit Grants Pad and other Blogger powered blogs!

I'm still quite busy, but I figured that I at least owed you guys a post after over a week of non-posting. Fear not! This is not a typical cop-out - rather, it is a plug in for some new favorite websites of mine! For years, we have relied on YouTube for our streaming video entertainment. We were able to watch football highlights, MMA highlights, highlights from TV shows... are we starting to see a pattern? It turns out that, due to YouTube's approximate maximum length of ten minutes per video, we can really only watch highlight videos and/or home videos of people (or animals) doing silly/cute things on YouTube. You can't actually watch any full episodes of TV shows or full movies on it!

That's where websites like CrunchyRoll and Tudou come into play. If you clicked on those two links, you'll note that Tudou is completely in Chinese, so it probably won't do too much good for most of my readers. However, CrunchyRoll is in English, so it should do the trick for you! Now, at first glance, both sites look like places where film and television piracy are rampant, and the fact is, they probably are. Even so, these are probably among the only places where you can watch some of the awesome Asian films and television shows that are usually inaccessible here in the Good Ol' USA. Like anime, but you've already seen all of the uncut versions of the shows on Adult Swim on Cartoon Network? CrunchyRoll can help. Like crying your eyes out watching Korean Melodramas? CrunchyRoll got your back! And, for guys like me who like watching serialized Wuxia novels like the Legend of the Condor Heroes, CrunchyRoll aims to please.

For those of you who do in fact read and/or speak Chinese, Tudou tends to have a better selection of Asian dramas, and less so for anime. However, for the non-Chinese speaker, CrunchyRoll is by far the better option, because not only can you find the videos you want to watch without knowledge of how to search for them in Chinese, but most of the videos are subtitled in English as well, which makes most films and shows that much more entertaining. Really.