Man in The Box

Hey! Guess whose (almost) a third year design student?! It's Keith! That happened!

Haven't updated in a while, so here goes.

What have I been listening to you (probably aren't) asking? Well let me tell you:

Facelift by Alice in Chains has worked it's way into my "things I listen to entirely too much" list. It's so good though, man I wish I had known about these guys years ago.

Coheed and Cambria's new album Year of the Black Rainbow is great, just awesome. It has a lot more of a heavy kind of busy sound, lots of drum machine stuff and textured guitar. It sounds a lot like a more melodic version of their earlier stuff actually. A different sound than the Coheed and Cambria I've come to know and love, but still a great album.

Gorillaz new album Plastic Beach is just ... incredible. I overheard someone saying that it sounds like the contributors to the album have more of a hold over it than previously, calling it more of a "Gorillaz featuring:" album, but to me Gorillaz has always been that sort of music. I mean, it's pretty much Damon Albarn and whoever he can get isn't it? I'm not sure what some people were expecting. Also, Snoop Dogg's stuff on it reminds me of why I love that guy.

Lastly I've been giving In an Aeroplane over the Sea by Neutral Milk Hotel another listen. Really enjoying it. There's something about a band that can take 4 simple chords and write a really good song that's musically simple that I love a lot. Kind of like Marcy Playground, that way. I forgot how much I loved Two Headed Boy until last week. Dayum.

Music done, I must talk about Kick-Ass for a bit. I saw this movie with Rory, my girlfriend Alicia and Rory's girlfriend Linda, and I liked it a lot. It wasn't some incredible game-changing movie, but it knew what it was, and it never stopped being fun. I had read the comic a couple of weeks ago, and (unlike some of my friends, apparently) I am a bit of a fan of Mark Millar's stuff. I liked Wanted a lot (the comic more than the movie, although the movie was fun as shit) and Kick-Ass was a great comic. They changed quite a bit for the movie, but they kept the same overall tone, and to be honest the stuff they changed was really just because it wouldn't have worked as well in the movie **SPOILAR WARNING** For instance, in the comic you can pass off the not seeing Red Mist as being in league with his dad, but in the movie it would be a little difficult **OKAY SPOILURS OVER** The movie is the proud owner of my favourite single line in a movie in recent years. So that's something.

Speaking of comics, I got the first to volumes of Runaways this week, on sale for like 5 bucks in the TPB format. It's a great series by Brian K Vaughan (guy who did Y:The Last Man), and various artists. I'm liking it a lot, although it's a little more "teen-romancey" than I normally like. I need to finish reading it though, maybe if they're still on sale I'll buy the next one this week.

Started going to the gym this week, it's been a good time, although I need to start stretching after or my legs are going to RAPE me. I don't know how I'm going to do TaeKwonDo this week, especially if he makes us do that bending stance/sidekick conversion stuff. I feel like if I got into sparring today I might not be able to pull off a single back kick without falling over in pain, let alone a reversal (which he seems to be fond of). I realize though that I need to work on my non-linear stuff a lot more. My front snaps and turning kicks aren't bad now (aside from the control, which I need to work on still, core muscles whoooo), but side kicks are a bitch if I'm keeping proper form, and back kicks are damn near impossible. I seem to want to do them out of order, and I have a feeling that's going to get me punched in the neck if I don't start guarding my head better.

On the bright side my arm/hand work has been going great. I can pull off all of my knife hand/fist strikes pretty quickly and I'm working up to incorporating that oh-so-important sine wave movement into the whole thing. Practising on a heavy bag this week has really shown me how devastating a knife hand strike can be (even from close range and straight on) if I have the right wave movement, and if I throw my hips into it. 200 pounds of force being exerted through a centimetre of space is nothing to scoff at, apparently. I was actually kind of baffled at how far back the bag can go with one of those. Guards are a little tougher to practise alone, because I don't know if I'm fast enough for a real opponent or if I'm thinking properly when predicting movements. Once sparring starts again I'll be able to see if I'm getting a hang of it or not. Unfortunately the only other coloured belts in the class are black belts, so I might be up against them mostly, which is going to lead to a lot more time spent being kicked in the stomach than I would like to admit.