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[Mar. 18th, 2012|09:39 am] |
For a long time, I've been interested in martial arts but been held back by inflexibility and lack of fitness. I've tried various things, such as lots of stretching and going to physiotherapists. Those helped a little.
But in the past few weeks, I've been working close to where I live and that's given me the opportunity to try something else - being much more generally active. I walk or cycle to and from work every day, and try to make it to a couple of martial arts classes a week. My work and study is quite sedentary, so I find the hour or so of walking each day is really making a huge difference - strengthening my weak leg and stretching it out as I walk. And I'm finding my general fitness is slowly improving as well. I think incorporating physical activity into my everyday life is something I'm much more likely to stick with than a gym routine or the occasional yoga class. |
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| (no subject) |
[Mar. 10th, 2012|09:40 am] |
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There's a blog post brewing in my brain about leading an active lifestyle. But it's still brewing, and it would be much more in line with my current goals if I got off my butt to get to a martial arts class or finish the cleaning I've got to do than blogging about it. |
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| (no subject) |
[Mar. 4th, 2012|01:35 pm] |
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It occurred to me some time after the Aphex Twin show that we would have had no way of knowing if he was even there. |
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| Aphex Twin |
[Mar. 3rd, 2012|10:08 am] |
Last night, my house mate Tim invited me to go to the Aphex Twin gig. I didn't think there would be any tickets left, but went along on the off chance I might be lucky. Turns out I was.
The support act was a DJ who played pretty well. Aphex Twin himself was mixed for me: he played from behind a grate onto which video was projected. Would have been nice to see his face given we'd paid to see him. For the first few songs/pieces the bass was so loud that I couldn't hear anything else, loud enough that my teeth shook. Needless to say, I didn't enjoy the gig at that point. Then either they tuned the mix, or my ears adjusted, or both, and the next section was enjoyably danceable. The last part was just enjoyably weird, as the music seemed to stop following any obvious song structure or rhythm and just explore the possibilities of synths synced to live video.
So, an enjoyably strange evening. |
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| (no subject) |
[Mar. 2nd, 2012|11:27 am] |
A few days ago, I was threatening to write something about making applied statistics more respectable. Well, the short version is that if that sounds interesting to you, you should read Cosma Shalizi's blog, and follow any links that look interesting. Posted via LiveJournal app for iPhone. |
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| File formats |
[Feb. 24th, 2012|07:50 pm] |
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Apparently people actually read this, so I might start posting again. There's a post on Slashdot about Office file formats in government. I'll be interested to see what the result of the discussion is. I work at the Ministry of Health, and we use Microsoft Office for everything. Everyone's constantly sending Word documents back and forth. There would be tremendous organisational inertia to overcome in switching to something else. |
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| (no subject) |
[Feb. 24th, 2012|09:04 am] |
Does anyone still read this thing? I have a blog post brewing about a number of things, and I miss writing longer pieces, so I might start blogging again. I particularly want to write about doing applied statistics in a way that you don't have to be embarrassed about. Posted via LiveJournal app for iPhone. |
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| Guitar |
[Apr. 17th, 2011|03:37 pm] |
Does anyone still blog? It seems nearly everyone has moved onto Twitter/Facebook. I miss being able to express thoughts in more than 160 characters.
I went to a picnic recently, and some people were passing a steel string guitar around. I'm not a good acoustic player, but it was fun so I had a bash. Someone played Under The Bridge, and took liberties with the chord voicings. So I was inspired to pick up my guitar and work through the official transcription, which I own. While the basic form of the song is pretty simple, as you can hear, the clever part is the choice of chord voicings and fills. I'll be practicing that one for a while.
I've also started over working through the Berklee method books, starting at Volume 2. I learned by playing by ear and memorising, so sight reading is still something I'm getting used to, and sometimes I'm not disciplined enough to do it properly. But I'm getting better at that. I'll be so happy when I start to get good at position playing. |
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| Physiotherapy |
[Feb. 21st, 2011|05:53 pm] |
I'm at Elevate in Sydney CBD. For a long time, I've struggled with flexibility issues, and I began to think something must be wrong. It turned out something is wrong-I have a minor skeletal deformity in my left hip joint, and my muscles have developed in a strangely imbalanced way to compensate. Except it isn't working, I have severely reduced range of motion and had chronic pain in my left hip joint.
My Physio thinks he can correct the problem, but it's going to take a while. So I'll be off training for at least six weeks, and more likely two months or more. But it will be worth it if my joint pain goes away and I can move like the other people my judo class. Posted via LiveJournal app for iPhone. |
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| (no subject) |
[Sep. 7th, 2010|03:29 pm] |
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"Curiously enough, the only thing that went through the mind of the bowl of petunias as it fell was 'Oh no, not again.'" - Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. |
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