Anotherblog

Archery & Golf

It turns out that archery is not at all affected by rainy weather, but golf is. Surprise! I started recording my scores in archery, and managed some fairly good scores: a best round of 53/60 (10, 9, 9, 9, 8, 8 though not in that order), and a score set of 287 from the total of six rounds, which is an average of just under 48. I also did a score set of 265 and 247, which means that I shot rather a lot of arrows. The lowest score was last, when my arms were getting tired and when I changed bows from a 20lb bow to a 30lb one.

The heavier bow seemed a bit *too* heavy for me - I was wobbling a bit - but the instructor assured me I’d get used to it, and that it would be better in the long run and prevent bad habits from forming. Apparently, when you use a bow that is too light for you, it’s easy to release the bow in different ways (eg. pulling it further back at the last second, twisting it, etc.) When you have a heavier bow, it pretty much forces you to release correctly, ’cause it’s all you can do to hold onto the string for more than a few seconds anyway. Also, you have to be more efficient in your aiming technique.

Thus began a new phase in my archery: learning to aim much more quickly, ’cause otherwise the wobbles get too bad to shoot straight!

So, that was Saturday morning: shooting from undercover, and walking out into the rain to get the arrows out of the target (and having to put the umbrella down for arrow extraction, since they were too wet and slippery to do one-handed).

I almost forgot: one of the kids accidentally shot a bird, which hopped away indignantly with an arrow in its wing as the instructors chased it. Eventually, they caught it and drove it away to the RSPCA. The hit really was a fluke - the bird flew down just as the kid loosed his arrow (which was a wildly off-target shot anyway). Apparently, this is a very rare event, something that only happens once every couple of years. I found it rather encouraging that the instructors didn’t find it funny at all, and were quite outspoken about shooting animals for sport (they’re very much against it).

Then, the next day, golf. Woke up at 5:00am, found that it had stopped raining overnight and that I would probably have to actually get up and play. Got to the golf course at 6:00am, and discovered that there was a tournament on, and that we wouldn’t be able to play. Swore eternal revenge on Owen, who was supposed to be organising, but was mollified by his suggestion of an alternate course nearby, which turned out to be open, and quite nice. Until the rain started again. We played six holes in mild on-again off-again drizzle, but then the lightning started and we decided to pack it in. We were playing rather poorly anyway.

Weekend of music & rain

It was a rain-filled weekend, which meant that it felt particularly good to lie in bed and read. Or, as it turned out, write a new Film Forensics for “The Island”, so hooray for me. I also did some mucking around with anotherblog, so you’ll probably notice the new “Favorite Films: 2005″ bit under Pages in the sidebar, as well as a page for “The Girlfriends”, which currently shows Jon playing some improvised drums.

Video blogs are getting easier and easier. Jon was showing us the drumming on Sunday night, so I went upstairs, got the video camera, recorded a bit, edited it for size, and uploaded it onto otherleg. The whole process took less than half an hour. And it’s just going to get quicker as I work out macros to streamline the process.

Randomness and superstition

Every so often, I claim that I am a minor weather god. This is because whenever I go on holidays, the weather is good. There have been several notable occasions that prompted this initial observation - in particular, a holiday in France in which the weather was perfect and lovely but in which there was major flooding several weeks after I left; and a kayaking trip on Doubtful Sound, in which it did not rain until a minor drizzle in the last hour or two of the four day trip. In Doubtful Sound, it rains for about 300 days a year. Subsequently, I paid more attention to the weather and noted that the weather was often good. This sadly extended to the ski trip in NZ, in which the weather was so nice and sunny we had lousy snow.

Anyway, that trend has continued for every holiday I can remember, and I went through the elaborate second-guessing that you do only when something is truly irrelevent. Will talking about being a weather god jinx me? Apparently not: I’ve immodestly mentioned the “fact” on many occasions. So, therefore, talking about it is *good*: the powers that have bestowed on me such fortune like me talking about it.

So I’m trying something new. I don’t really believe it. The “weather god” argument was partly to make myself notice the weather more, in order to more objectively notice when things go right and when they go wrong. I think that much of our superstition and pattern recognition require that less attention be paid during times that don’t match the pattern for the superstition to build up. It’s a kind of post-hoc version of some of my Dad’s work on behavioural psychology, oddly enough (paying attention to a behaviour tends to increase it, regardless of the type of attention.)

Anyway, I’ve been trying to throw that off by paying attention beforehand, and by detecting my fear of jinxing something over which I have no control, and deliberately saying or doing the thing that would jinx me. In particular, I have been saying “I bet the traffic will be excellent on the way home today!”, and “I’m almost certain I won’t roll a 1,” and “It will be excellent weather this weekend, just as the weather reports predict.” Which is fun anyway, although a little bit goes a long way: I’m not trying to be obnoxious about it to other people (although in my most recent D&D game, I confidently predicted that the dice rolling would be purely random and that the dice certainly would not punish us for talking about them, which caused some disgruntlement, and, obviously, much attention to the first couple of rolls, which were entirely coincidentally rather poor). Mostly it’s just thinking confident thoughts, and trying to confront my many superstitions head-on.

It seems fairly logical that the areas over which we have the least control are areas we have the most superstition. These are the things I get superstitious about:

Weather
Traffic & queues
Dice
Cards

Golf

I played another round of golf on Sunday with Owen R. at the Wakehurst golf course, and failed to set the world on fire (the chain-reaction process needs some work - I think hitting the Plutonium into the Caesium is probably going to need at least a 1-wood). I got Isotope-67, and Owen got Isotope-55. Mind you, Owen got 69 the first time he played the Wakehurst course, a week earlier. So there’s hope yet.

Pride & Prejudice & top ten films

Anna and I saw “Pride & Prejudice” on Monday night. It’s an exceptional film. One of my favorite of the year. I had really not been expecting it to be great, let alone good - the posters rather put me off, and I thought Keira Knightly a bit of a lightweight for the lead. But she’s excellent, and so is Darcy, and the cinematography and set design and direction are just stunning: clever, and beautiful, and absolutely functional in telling the story. The camerawork was even a little sly: it reminded me of Christopher Doyle’s work on “In the Mood for Love”.

Anyway, my second-favorite film of the year so far, I think. My top ten (in rough order) so far would be something like:

Oldboy
Pride & Prejudice
Wallace & Grommit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit
Serenity
Kung Fu Hustle
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
Batman Begins
Howl’s Moving Castle
Red Eye
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Invented Draft

I’ve finished my 45 cards for the invented draft, and we’re now awaiting the last couple of stragglers to finish theirs so we can start playing - we’re currently expecting to do the draft in two weeks on Monday. This should be cool. Everyone has to review someone else’s cards as well, and I’ve done my review and I’m rather excited about drafting some of the cards I’ve reviewed. There are many clever people in this company.

Fitness

I haven’t played any squash or badminton in several months, due to schedule conflicts (France, the Netherlands, Sweden, Lindeman Island, etc.), and I haven’t even gone jogging in the last three weeks since getting back from Sweden.

I played squash last Thursday, and it went about as well as I’d have expected (ie. I lost all the games, but they were reasonably close) until the last ten minutes or so. Oddly, I just wasn’t moving around the court as well. I didn’t feel particularly tired, and my muscles weren’t hurting, but they just weren’t moving as quickly. I lost the last couple of games in a an uncompetitive manner, and was somewhat puzzled by it all, until the next day - in fact, from Friday morning until Wednesday - when my legs made it known that they were going to make me walk as though I had two wooden legs. And cause me to periodically groan.

Anyway, it’s Thursday afternoon again, and this week it’s badminton instead of squash. I really ought to do some stretching about now.

Archery

I have been unable to hold myself from obsessing about archery. It is my Latest Fad. Happily, I have (so far) avoided buying an archery set, a decision made easy by the fact that the lessons only cost $20 anyway, which would go down to $10 if I had my own equipment. So, price would not be the reason, given that the price is likely to be ~$600 for a kit. I resolve to only buy a kit if the rental equipment becomes the limiting factor in my enjoyment - which is certainly not the case at the moment.

I went on Saturday morning, and then again on Tuesday morning (I took the day off to relax), and yes, it’s still relaxing and enjoyable and I’m looking forward to next Saturday morning. I am now shooting as well on the 30 metre targets as I did on the 18 metre targets two weeks ago: from the six arrows, my best score is 53/60, and I’m averaging about 45.

Pod-siblings t-shirts for sale

Marco would like it known that he is selling copies of the excellently designed pod-sibling t-shirt (by Chris Fellows) on eBay:

So, there you go.

Music

Jon & Kate came over on Saturday afternoon (it was a very busy weekend - we also went to a housewarming on Saturday night) and we played music and watched the pilot episode of “Lost”, which encouraged us to watch more later (ie. tonight).

Currently playing:
- Summer Rain (U2)
- Eight Days a Week
- Free Man in Paris

I realised a trick for learning new tunes. If I simplify my bass part, I can get comfortable with it quickly and then elaborate it once I know the structure of the tune. In the end, I get better faster than if I try and faithfully play the proper bass part from the beginning.