Geoffrey Taucer

Fuckin approved! Read or Die is awesome. As for Cowboy Bebop and FLCL, I have never been able to figure out what the appeal of those is. I mean, they aren't bad; I just don't see anything special about them that justifies the massive amounts of praise they get (though I did like the Bebop movie). Same goes for Evangelion (though I admit I never watched it all the way through -- it didn't hold my interest) Wolf's Rain and Ghost in the Shell: SAC are both better, imo.

Ghost in the Shell: Standalone Complex Wolf's Rain Paranoia Agent

Got an appointment for this thursday.

Finally got a bit more of a workout today, though still not as much of one as I'd like. 5 muscle-ups, 5 sets of 10 seconds in band-assisted iron cross, 15 bulgarian dips, 30 seconds in straddle planche, 30 seconds in straddle front lever. My wrist was hurting too much to do more than that.

Did a bit more work on shoulder flexibility today. Also did a couple of muscle-ups and crosses. Getting my wrist looked at this comming thursday, so hopefully I'll be able to get back into real hardcorse strength training after that. (I really should still be working core and leg strength, but it's just hard to keep myself motivated; I'm used to just comming in and going straight to rings)

Running helps all three. Abs less so, but it does work them.

Did a bit of flexibility today, but no strength aside from one press handstand on rings -- which hurt my wrist too much to do anything more.

Finally got a bit of work done today. I was still a bit limited by my wrist, but I managed to get in 10 muscle-ups, 15 bulgarian dips, 15 pull-ups, and 2 sets of 15 seconds in a stretch-band assisted cross before my wrist started hurting too much to keep going. Then I did some hanging toe-touches (10, with #5 and #10 held for 5 seconds), some arch lifts (same deal as the toe-touches), 60 calf raises, and 30 lunge jumps. Spent about 45 minutes working flexibility. Splits and shoulder stretches, mainly.

I LOVE the intro! And the transition gives me chills. Strings are beautifully done. Excellent choice of guitar tones throughout the piece. Solos are awesome. Ending is beautifully done. Were I a judge, I would give this a YES.

Approved. Well thought-out, well executed.

I submitted a really shitty Mario RPG medley years and years ago, and I've never checked to see if it actually got posted.

Been awhile since I've played OoT, but let's take a look. Bass, sounds a bit wierd, doesn't really mesh with the rest of the mix. Percussion is cool in the first half; has sort of a Yoko Kanno-ish feel to it. Sort of acceptably wierd and minimalist. HOSNAP, here we go! I'm really liking the groove once the mix picks up at 0:58. String hits, while not particularly realistics, sound great in context, and compliment the percussion really well. Still not wild about the bass, but it sounds better here than it did at the beginning. After that awesome transition, though, things just sorta get dull. Percussion gets less interesting, strings get old quickly, and nothing new is comming in to keep my attention -- I assume this part will be further developed for the final mix, though. The non-staccato strings don't sound very good. Definitely some cool ideas here so far. Keep working on it!

Check-in: this started off as a pretty good week, but my wrist, which has been bothering me slightly for months, has suddenly gotten much much worse, and prevented me from getting much done from thursday on. I'll be getting it looked at on monday.

It would take some creativity, but I think it could be done. Some requirements, though: Link must not talk. (As I said, it would take some real creativity to make a 2 hour movie where the main character doesn't talk, but I'm sure it can be done). Ganondorf must be played by (in order of preference) Clint Eastwood, Jack Nicholson, or Hugo Weaving. The music must completely own.

Definitely not a good day today. I did not get jack shit done today. 6 or 7 handstand pusho-ups on parallel bars, one 10-second stretch band-assisted cross, and that's it. My wrist was hurting too much for me to do any more. Unfortunately, I won't be able to get it looked at until monday, so it may be several until I can fully dive back into training again. Also, I caved in to my cravings and bought to packages of Oreos, despite the fact that I'm trying to limit myself to one package a month. I guess I can still do some core work, endurance, and flexibility, but I think it's pretty likely I won't be able to do any hardcore upper-body strength until I get this wrist thing figured out. And the hard core upper-body strength is the fun stuff (Admittedly, though, I could use more work on core strength, flexibility, and endurance, so perhaps this is a good thing)

Didn't he die in a car crash or something?

Went in for a vault workout this morning. Spent the entire morning working on a double-twisting tsukahara, a new vault for me (I'll see if I can post a video tomorrow) Didn't do much of anything else today; my wrist which has been hurting a little bit for months has gotten a LOT worse in the past few days. I'm going to get x-rays tomorrow.

I'd EQ the clean rythm guitars a bit, so they aren't fighting for the same frequency as the lead.

Did a bit of tumbling and trampoline in the morning. Also did 6 or 7 reps of a ring strength set in a dream machine; back lever, roll up to cross, press to maltese, press to invert, lower back to maltese, lower to back lever and repeat. (A ring machine is a set of rings connected through a pulley to a spotting belt, so you're essentially doing each exercise with 50% of your full weight. In the afternoon, did an hour or so of tumbling. Worked on double fronts, arabian doubles, and Thomases (a Thomas is 1.5 flips backwards with 1.5 twists -- it lands in a dive roll). These are the three highest difficulty skills in my routine (the other passes are all sequences of lower-difficulty elements -- which I'll hopefully be working on on friday). Landed all three on floor, the first time I've done all thre ein the same workout in several months. Did some minimal strength work; 10 muscle-ups, one 10-second stretch band assisted cross, and some rotator cuff pulls.

Focused on flexibility today. Did four sets of a minute in each split, three different types of shoulder stretch, pike stretch, and straddle pancake. Didn't do any strength work.

What's giving you trouble with the handstand? Is it strength or balance? A good way to work handstands without a spotter is to start by doing it against a wall. Stand with your back to the wall, put your hands on the floor in front of you, and walk your feet up the wall. As you walk your feet up, you can walk your hands in a bit closer to the wall until eventually you're in a handstand with your belly against the wall. One thing I like about this is that in order to get your hands really close and hit a full handstand, you are forced to hit the proper shoulder extension, something many athletes (including far too many gymnasts) don't do all that well. The other thing is just practice. Having a spotter sometimes helps. But handstands really take awhile to get a feel for (for most people). The trick (to the extent there is a trick) is to stay tight and straight and use your wrists and hands to adjust the balance; if you start to fall forward, push down with your fingertips. If you start to fall backwards, push down with the heel of your hand. As your shoulders get stronger, you can also use them to control the balance. Technically, correct technique is to do as little as possible with the shoulders (aside from keeping them tight and extended), but if you don't plan on competing as a gymnast, I don't see how it will really matter. Heck, your shoulders will probably get a better workout from it if you're using them to adjust your balance as well. It may take months (or even a year) to get it to the point where you can really hold it, but when you hit that tight position and find the balance point, it just feels so damn good it's worth all the trouble. EDIT: Did a bit of vault, and a bit of strength today, but not as much of either as I would have liked to. My shoulders were completely dead today: couldn't do crosswork at all. I did, however, manage to hold a straight-body, legs-together planche for 15 seconds, a personal record for that skill. Also worked a bit on building anaerobic endurance; I had one of my girls time me for 70 seconds of short sprints, punch fronts, and press handstands without stopping. (I chose 70 seconds because that's the upper limit on the length of a floor routine). Tomorrow's a flexibility day, but on wednesday I'm gonna see if I can get in some more tumbling, since I really haven't been doing that enough lately.

Cello needs more upper- and upper-mid presence. Koto could afford to be brought forward a bit. I love the arrangement, though.

Oh god not another corriHOLY SHIT THIS IS COOL! This is actually really sweet. Great tones, really neat and original interperetation. Arpeggios are especially nicely done. I definitely look forward to seeing where this one will go.

Don't have a day-by-day breakdown; I'll start doing that next week. I tried a new method of organizing my strength workout; I split up my workout into groups of 2 more-or-less complimentary exercises, then did 2 maxed out sets of each one. For example, dips and pull-ups. I'd do as many bulgarian dips as I could do, then without stopping for a break, as many pull-ups as I could do, then back to dips, then back to pull-ups, maxing out every time. THen I'd go on to the next pair of exercises. My strength workouts usually last an hour to an hour and a half, but I was more or less dead after 45 minutes of this. It was great. Felt like a got a lot more done in a lot less time. Also, I put together a rings routine this week. I found that I'm a lot closer to some of my goals than I thought, and a long ways off from others. What I've been doing up until now is heavy strength once a week, and light stuff every day, but I think I'm going to bump the heavy strength up to twice a week. Gonna try to stick to a schedule: Monday: Floor, rings strength Tuesday: Heavy flexibility Wednesday: Floor/vault and light ring strength in the morning, heavy general strength in the afternoon Thursday: Vault in the morning, vault and rings (mainly routines) in the afternoon Friday: Floor/vault and light ring strength in the morning, whatever I feel like doing in the afternoon Saturday: Day off. Perhaps some light rings strength, but that's it Sunday: Heavy strength, both general and rings-specific. Then I'll take a break for lunch and come back for flexibility

Haha, I've seen that. His muscle-up is absolutely beautiful. The Olympic cross (the sideways-turned iron cross) is pretty cool too. It's a shame that's not a recognized skill anymore. And, of course, the dismount was win. Here's a vid of the guy predicted by most to be the 2008 Olympic Gold Medalist on rings: