We all got problems

There are days I call "Squid days".  Days where I walk into a room to do one task, and find myself thinking:  

"Before I can do this, I need to that, but I can't do that until after I've finished the other thing... and while I'm thinking of it I should really get this fourth thing out of the way or it's going to be a problem later... oh, but I needed to do this before I could finish that... and I should do this other thing instead because it's a quick job and I can get it out of the way..."

And, before I know it, I've wasted the last 10 minutes reading a piece of paper I was going to throw out, and I can't remember what I had come into the room to do...

These are days when I think of the Wondermark comic above, and wonder how long it's going to be before the whole building is just rubble.

Don't Eat the Crab in Shanghai

I saw the most horrifying thing on TV the other night.  I was so disturbed I actually lept off the chair and lunged for the off-switch on the TV itself, because I knew changing the channel on that particular TV set would take too long and I wanted it gone.  I couldn't bear to see one more image and I wanted it gone.

It was a cooking show.

I came into it part way through, so I'm a bit hazy on the details.  It was, I think, Singaporean, and involved a TV chef from Singapore doing the whole "chef on tour" thing in Shanghai.  When I came into the show he was buying crabs in a local market and talking about one of his favourite crab dishes, which is made with lots of chili.

We then went to the restaurant kitchen of a local chef and watched him (the local chef) prepare the meal.  He prized the top shell off the crab and started scrubbing the exposed muscles with a stiff brush under running water to clean it.  So far, not too horrific, right?

Then the TV chef asked him why it was so important that the crab should be alive while he was cleaning it...

And suddenly I realised what they were doing.  They had ripped the shell (skin and backbone combined) off a live crab and were in the process of brutally torturing it - quite without care or remorse - all because they think it has better texture if it is "cleaned" this way.

I couldn't stand to watch it for one more second.

Every day of the week, we do a hundred thousand horrible, painful things to the creatures with whom we share this planet.  We do it because we are big and clumsy and not paying attention.  You can't walk through this earth without causing death and pain.

However, we should never - NEVER - cause avoidable pain and suffering to another living being just because it tastes better.

It is reprehensible and wrong, and whatever gods you believe in will surely punish you for that.  The more extreme the pain, and the more avoidable it is, the more you deserve a slow and painful retribution.

When I visited Hong Kong I thought the way the Chinese kept live animals in their markets (the cramped, dirty cages with chickens that were clearly freaking out; the shallow Styrofoam boxes containing a few inches of water that didn't quite cover the gasping fish...) was an absolute disgrace . This was just...  Unspeakably wrong.

You don't flay something alive.  You don't rake stiff brushes over living, exposed muscles.  Surely anyone could see that was cruel and wrong?  What is wrong with these people that they think this is okay?

If you want to eat something, you catch it and then you kill it as quickly and humanely as you can.  Otherwise every second of torture that animal experiences is one that makes you more of a monster.

I have a feeling I'll be going vegetarian if I ever go back to Asia.


For the record, I'm not a big fan of a lot of Australian practices when it comes to food production, either.  Live exports are not good for the animals, or for your soul.  Battery farming is very bad.

I think every culture in the world would greatly benefit from a decision to cause less pain.

Things that must exist

I have a theory that some things must exist.  The universe will keep shopping the idea around until it finds someone who actually follows through.

I base this theory on the fact that I'll often have an idea for something that I think would be pretty neat, and then about five years later someone goes and produces it.

Take this, for example:  http://zike.net/products.html

For years I've been thinking about combining a scooter with an old treadle-powered velocipede.

No, seriously.

Years ago I read about the treadle bicycles - a stage between the foot-pushing-against-the-ground draisine and the direct drive pedals of the boneshaker, and I thought it had potential as something to come back. Not as a bicycle, obviously, because it's kind of daft - but perhaps as a variation of a scooter...

It was, after all, not far removed from some popular exercise contraptions I'd seen in gyms.

If you look at my note books from a few years ago you'll probably find drawings and scribblings of something based around the idea of a pair of 20inch wheels propelled by something like a sewing machine treadle.

My idea was less chunky than the execution the zike people have come up with, and involved something more akin to the articulated arm thing of 19th Century treadles than the stair-master thing they have going, but the basic concept is more or less the same.  My treadles probably wouldn't have supported much weight, anyway.

When I saw one in the toy shop this morning part of me said "Oh, darn, someone's beaten me to it..."  but then I realised it was a bit daft for the universe to give me this idea in the first place.  I'm not an engineer - I don't know anyone who is, and I have absolutely zero back-yard inventor skills.

I can think things out, but I can't commit to buying stuff that I can use for tinkering or building up the skills necessary to make things stick together in a useful manner.  I've tried it in the past and I end up with a collection of useless things.  I spend about a fifty bucks on a project that probably needs about three hundred bucks worth of bits and bobs (and better quality bits and bobs than I'm willing to pay for), then spot the error of my ways and distract myself with something more cerebral - like learning German.

So, it's not surprising at all that someone else gets the same idea and then does something much more useful with it.

Mind you, now that I've seen these things in action, I'm convinced the execution would be much better if there was more of a skiing motion than a stepping one - which would bring back the treadles as a viable option...

Out of the Box

This is random advice aimed at no one in particular.  If you think it is aimed directly at you, then a) you're wrong, and b) you're so vain you probably think this song is about you, too.  On the other hand, if you think it sounds like I'm talking about you, then you should consider taking this advice on board.  And, heck, let's face it - I probably am writing about you, I'm just cleverly disguising it as generic advice.

You have written yourself into a box.  You have wrapped yourself up and locked yourself down with patterns that you have established for yourself and rules that no-one is holding you to except you - and your life is not going to get any better and you are not going to be any happier until you give yourself permission to change.

You have established a character and worked hard on confirming and re-affirming it, but you don't have to doom yourself to playing that character for the rest of your life.  You've said things in the past - things about yourself and the way you see the world - but they weren't the words of God.  They aren't written in stone, and you don't have to hold yourself to them.

You might have been mistaken - that's okay, you don't have to be right all the time.  You might well have been right at the time, but now things can be different now.  Truth has a use-by date, and life moves on (if you let it).  Maybe the person you thought you were could be something you were trying out for a while, and now you can try something else.

Let yourself be wrong, mistaken, a work in progress - and don't think for a moment that it's a sign of weakness.  The strongest people are the ones who let themselves be imperfect so they can improve.

Change.  Grow.  Move on.  Dump entire parts of yourself and replace them with something new if you need to - whatever gets you out of that damn box.

You'd be surprised by how many things you've been holding onto as important parts of yourself are not really that important at all - and how much lighter you will be for letting yourself put them down and leave them behind.

It's time you stopped making yourself be the person you thought you were ten years ago, and let yourself work on the You Mk II.

Trust me on this, I'm starting to work on the Me Mk III.

Negrini 350 fencing uniform review

Well, I thought I was being clever by looking outside the box.  Everyone in my club was wearing either Leon Paul or Uhlmann (or Absolute, but they were all in agreement that Absolute was fairly crappy), but I thought there must be other options.

Surely there were more "good" brands of fencing gear out there?  The market can't be totally dominated by two manufacturers?

Let's be honest, though, I just like making things more challenging.  Sure, I could follow the advice of other people who have been in the game for years and know what they're talking about, but why do what everyone else knows will work when you might be able to find something new that's just as good?

So I found an Italian brand - Negrini.  Their website was pretty average, but they had some good reviews (no bad ones) on fencing.net and were priced between Uhlmann and Leon Paul, so they had to be in the same league.  They also supplied the uniforms for the Italian national team, so either they were half decent or the Italians were just keeping their money in their own country.  Plus, I liked the look of their cut - particularly the mask, which pleased me more than the design of Uhlmann's or Leon Paul's.

So, I ordered a 1600N mask and and 800N plastron and a 350N uniform.

The German in the club thought I was nuts - she suspected the Italians wouldn't have the same eye for quality and detail as the Germans*.  I thought I'd be pretty safe, though, as I read a lot of bicycle magazines and I know the Italians have a good reputation for their high-end products...

And therein lies the problem:  "high end."

I have no problems with the mask and plastron - both of which are well made and very comfortable. I think the mask is much more comfortable than the Uhlmann one I had been borrowing.  The 350 uniform, on the other hand...

It's too thin.  I know one of the reasons I went with Negrini was because other reviews said the clothing was light, but this is a bit too light.  I'm sure it's suitably resistant to piercings, but it gives little buffer to protect against bruising.  Even the Absolute jackets had heavier material.  Additionally, the finishing leaves a bit to be desired.  They didn't bother tidying up all the loose edges or cleaning up the pencil marks - as though they figured anything on the inside didn't really matter.  Things just seem... cheaper than I'd hoped.  The Uhlmann 350N uniforms seem better made with more attention to detail - and they don't cost as much.

I expect their 800N uniforms are perfectly nice, but if they aren't going to put the effort into their lower-end products, I'm not going to take a chance on their high-end gear.  I don't think enough companies realise that their "entry level" products are their first and best advertisements.  After wearing the Negrini 350N uniforms for a few months, I can't say I'm going to stick with them for my next purchases.


*Having recently been to both Germany and Italy, I can completely understand why she would think that.


UPDATE:  2015

Having said that, my club has since started buying really cheap fencing gear from a company in China (Wuxi), which is producing 800N uniforms that are thinner than my Negrini 350 uniform.  Alarmingly so.  As in "I can see your underwear" kind of thin.  My Negrini clothes may have been thinner and less well finished than Uhlmann and Leon Paul, but they beat the pants off the Chinese stuff.

And they hold up really well.  I've never had any trouble with them from a durability perspective. I have to admit that I've been rethinking revisiting Negrini.  Whether I do or not remains to be seen.

Dentists

I've managed to go most of my life without major dental work.

When I was in primary school I fell over and snapped off my front tooth, which was repaired once the swelling went down (I managed to completely bust open my whole mouth.  About twenty years later, I would fall over in almost the exact same spot and completely bust open my forehead - what can I say?  I have talent.)  I've had to have the repair work repaired a few times over the years, but that was about it...

...until now.

Now, suddenly, I've had a tooth practically explode (turns out I didn't have something stuck between my teeth - it was a tooth disintegrating and getting jammed into my gums) and my dentist has identified other teeth that could do with filling.  I made it to 32 without having a single filling, but I'll have three of them before I hit 33.

Dentists surgeries are not comfortable places to be, and dentists do things to your mouth that seem rather unnatural, really.  All those devices doing abrasive things to your gum lines...  It just feels like something that shouldn't really happen.  I have to fight the urge to ask "are you sure you should be doing this?"  Mind you, seeing as there are several things in my mouth at the time, I would have difficulty saying it anyway.

I wonder about dentists.  I wonder if the people assisting them (assistants? technicians? nurses?) are career spit-suctioners or if they go on to become dentists themselves (or avoid doing anything with teeth for the rest of their lives).  I wonder if dentists do the dental work on their own staff, or if that would be weird.  I wonder if dentists can kiss without mentally noting the condition of the other person's oral health.  I wonder what dentists think about when they go to the dentist - and how they pick which dentist to go to.  I wonder if they do all the things they know they should do to take care of their teeth.

Mostly, though, I wonder if I can avoid getting any more dental work for a few years...

Gut wrenching

I have an exam tomorrow morning, and my gall bladder is playing up.  Or maybe it's my functional dyspepsia.   I don't know.  I have two diagnoses and I can't work out which symptoms belong to which one.  I suspect there's a certain amount of cross-over.

Meanwhile, whatever it is has been playing up since last Wednesday, so I'm kind of hoping it isn't my gall bladder or it might be an indication that I should be getting it removed.  I'm not a big fan of having internal organs removed if such things can be avoided.

The discomfort seems to be in the wrong place, anyway, so I'm assuming it's the dyspepsia - although attacks for both usually clear up after a couple of days, so it's a bit distracting either way.

The most annoying thing about both is the fact that I'm really bad at working out what triggers an attack.  It's the whole cumulative thing that's throwing me out.  Any given item of food could be perfectly fine or the thing that's going to give me hours of grief - it depends on what else I've eaten lately.

Take sausages, for example.  I can eat a sausage from a street vendor one day and have absolutely no problems.  I can even eat two such sausages in a week without issues.  Then, one day, I will eat a sausage from a street vendor and it will trigger an attack - not because there was something particularly bad about that sausage, but because something I'd eaten the day before (or, in some cases, two days earlier) had primed my innards for an issue, and the sausage was just the catalyst.

Maybe my gut is giving me signals that I've been "primed", but I'm not very good at recognising them, or maybe it really is a case of Russian Roulette with what I stick in my mouth.  I seem to go from "I feel fine" to "dang, my stomach is rather upset" without any middle ground.

Obviously, I should be adjusting my diet to exclude things like sausages, and maybe if I started eating like a 70s hippy I'd be able to avoid the primers and catalysts altogether.  It's just surprisingly hard to pull that off when you a) eat with other people and don't want to inconvenience them, b) get food from cafes and c) travel.

Stupid faulty internal bits.  Why can't I just eat stupid things that are no good for me like normal people?

Decorating

This photo is one in a series I like to call "Decorating house-hold objects with various things":