What are your favorite sports to watch and play?
Combatives: i.e. Boxing, Wrestling (real, not acted,) Muay Thai, Judo, etc.
PROMPT: Sports
Reply
Tag Archives: bloganuary
PROMPT: Lottery
What would you do if you won the lottery?
The first thing I would do would be to say, “How did I win the lottery without buying a ticket? That is some fine luck.” Then I would get paranoid that it was like one of those Korben Dallas, “Fifth Element,” set-ups.
While I do admire how Voltaire became a wealthy man exploiting the mathematical ineptitude of his nation’s “lottery authority,” I’m pretty sure the kinks have all been worked out such that the house always wins.
Share on Facebook, Twitter, Email, etc.
PROMPT: Books
What books do you want to read?
I’d love to read all the good ones, but even with my voracious approach to reading I barely make a dent.
Here’s the top of the list of books I’m excited about right at the moment, by category:
Travel lit related to an impending trip to the Caucasus region: “A Man Was Going Down the Road” by Otar Chiladze; “Ali and Nino” by Kurban Said; “The Burning Tigris” by Peter Balakian; and “Kvachi” by Mikheil Javakhishvili.
Related to a Chinese literature (in translation) kick that I’m on: “The Romance of the Three Kingdoms” Luo Guanzhong; “Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio” by Pu Songling; “In the Thick Woods a Deer Is Seen at Times” and “A Pair of Swallows Fly” [The latter two are bilingual poetry translations of works from the Tang Dynasty and the Book of Poetry, respectively.]
Books and editions coming out this year: “Judo Unleashed” by Neil Ohlenkamp; a new verse translation of Kamo no Chomei’s “Hojoki” translated by Matthew Stavros; “Nuclear War” by Annie Jacobsen; and a new translation of Natsumi Soseki’s “Kokoro.”
Related to things I’m working on presently: “Thinking, Fast and Slow” Daniel Kahneman; “Blink” by Malcolm Gladwell; “Gut Feelings” by Gerd Gigerenzer; and “The Meaning of Travel” by Emily Thomas.
Long overdue: “Metamorphoses” by Ovid; “The Decameron” by Giovanni Boccaccio, and I should probably finish Joyce’s “Ulysses”
Odds and Ends: “Rental Person Who Does Nothing” by Shoji Morimoto; “Is This Anything?” by Jerry Seinfeld; “Sick in the Head” by Judd Apatow.
Are you sorry you asked yet?
Share on Facebook, Twitter, Email, etc.
PROMPT: Missed Attractions
Name an attraction or town close to home that you still haven’t got around to visiting.
From Bangalore: Yercaud, Tirupati, and Kanchipuram are all within a five-hour drive, but we haven’t visited.
I’ve got to say that the Pandemic was good for seeing a lot of destinations that were too long for a daytrip, but near enough to do with a couple / few days. We saw many sights in Karnataka, and a few in Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. Because of uncertainty around flying and getting caught in shifting quarantine requirements, we did a lot more ground transportation trips closer to Bangalore that we were pretty certain we could get home from if there was an uptick in numbers.
Share on Facebook, Twitter, Email, etc.
PROMPT: Fun
List five things you do for fun.
1.) Read; 2.) Move; 3.) Juggle; 4.) Hike; 5.) Breathe
Share on Facebook, Twitter, Email, etc.
PROMPT: Good Leader
What makes a good leader?
I don’t think I know, not really. But I don’t feel bad because I don’t think a lot of people who consider themselves experts do either. For example, one of the biggest cons in academia is that professors in business schools often get paid much more than their science and humanities counterparts on the presumption that they would go run businesses if they weren’t paid a higher salary than the others. Most of them would not. The idea that a thorough theoretical knowledge of the world of commerce and the operations of a corporation would translate into all the X-factors needed to head a company (e.g. charisma, risk-acceptance profile, creativity, and an internal emotional landscape that borders on [or is outright] psychopathic) seems laughable. If that’s the way the world worked a quartet of music professors would be outselling the Beatles and the ranks of Olympic gold medalists would be swollen with Kinesiology PhDs.
NOTE: I should explain the “psychopathy” crack. Many of us have quite enough angst from making decisions that seem to have the potential to ruin our own lives. Some can take a little more angst and are ok making decisions that might mess up not only their own lives, but also those of their children. It takes a special kind of reptilian-like nature (beneath the appearance of charm and polished interpersonal skills) to regularly make decisions that can screw up the lives of complete strangers by the hundreds or thousands.
Share on Facebook, Twitter, Email, etc.
PROMPT: Un-invent
If you could un-invent something, what would it be?
Being acquainted with the Law of Unintended Consequences, there isn’t a thing I’d un-invent. You start arrogantly messing in the natural progression of things, and you never know what kind of monster you’ll birth.
Once upon a time, I might have said nuclear weapons (still a strong contender for ender of our species.) Then again, who knows what kind of horrific World War III we might have had, had we not been forced to sober up a little.
Share on Facebook, Twitter, Email, etc.
PROMPT: Clutter
Where can you reduce clutter in your life?
My mind. It’s a constant battle.
Share on Facebook, Twitter, Email, etc.
PROMPT: Online Communication
In what ways do you communicate online?
Snarkily, sincerely… all sorts of ways, really.
Share on Facebook, Twitter, Email, etc.
PROMPT: Road Trip
Think back on your most memorable road trip.
Through Michigan, across southeast Ontario (visiting Toronto,) back into the US at Niagra Falls, and back around to the start via Upstate New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio.
Memorable because it was probably my first purposeless road trip of a significant distance (as an adult and as a driver.)
Tiger Riding for Beginners 