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End of an unseen era

Apparently there will be no more ninjas soon.

Sad. Who will pirates fight?

Rambling

Full Moon tomorrow. Good times. Looks nearly-full today.

Supposed to storm like hell this week. I have to admit I'm looking forward to that a bit.

Decided that I'm done with martial arts 'till the next session starts up again in 2013. Too many lingering pains and I'm completely brain-fried on how to do some very basic, important moves. Tried to throw someone last night and nearly injured both myself and my partner in the exercise. That's just a message from my subconscious that a best test is not in my future this time around.

Strangely disappointing feeling.

Can you believe it's nearly December? Holy crap but this year is burning by fast.

Review: The Flying Swords of Dragon's Gate

As I previously-mentioned, I obtained The Flying Swords of Dragon's Gate on DVD.

I'd heard a little about it and it's a Tsui Hark movie starring Jet Li. Totally worth the price to pick up.

Weird-ass movie.

It's the sequel to a story I know little about New Dragon Gate Inn. I expect the story might have made more sense if I'd seen that, but I'm uncertain if that's the case.

Badass swordsman Zhou Huai'an (Jet Li) is a rebel/Robin Hood like character who goes around assassinating corrupt government officials in Ming Dynasty China.

A bureau of corrupt officials, led by an uber-badass Yu Huatian, sets out to kill Zhou and to retrieve an escaped maid from the Imperial Court who is pregnant (possibly with the Emperor's love-child).

And then the story goes sideways. The maid is rescued by Ling Yanqiu, who is pretending to be Zhou and has some kind of mad crush on the man (I guess they have a history of some sort).

Ling helps the maid and takes her to the Dragon's Gate Inn, a rebuilt inn in the western desert that Ling seems to know intimately well (complete with a series of secret tunnels under the inn). She and the maid are pursued by Yu Huatian, who is in turn pursued by Zhou.

Meanwhile there's a group of con-artist criminals at the inn seeking buried treasure and one is a dead-ringer for Yu.

To say the story gets complicated from there doesn't begin to touch on matters. There's betrayals, reversals, and lots of wire-fu swordfighting. First time I've seen a swordfight in a tornado, to my memory.

Entertaining movie, if a little excessively-complex in plot. The ending left me scratching my head, but that's fine. Still worth the viewing.

Talking Turkey

Aaaah... that was a nice week-plus off. Highlights:

• Saw Patrick Rothfuss at Borderland Books. Got some hardbacks signed. Didn't get to actually meet the man, as the wait was crazy. Borderlands and Mr. Rothfuss were awesome in letting those of us on the short-end of the lottery leave our books for him to sign later.
  That man is insanely engaging and gifted.
• So. Much. Lazy.
• A lot of beer. This would normally not be worthy of note, but it was excessive, even by my standards. Some sake one day to mix things up.
• Lunch with my friend V in Japantown. Picked up Flying Swords of Dragon's Gate on DVD then walked from J-Town to the Mission to retrieve my books at Borderlands.
  Upon reflection, not a brilliant move. Oy, that was a long walk.
• Thanksgiving. Went surprisingly smoothly. Yay!
• Saw Skyfall. Damn that was a good movie. Very atypical for Bond flix in terms of plot, but well-done all the same.

Gluttony

I think I overdid it this Thanksgiving. Wow. I feel as though I've expanded to twice my size.

I may have to become a vegetarian.

Reviewing the SCOTTEVEST Hoodie

Some time back I mused about SCOTTEVEST and their fascinating, pocket-laden garments.

I won't reinvent the wheel by repeating my thoughts. Recently I obtained another of their Cotton Hoodies. One can never have too many hoodies in the Bay Area, in my opinion. Our microclimate lends itself to that sort of outer-garment.

And I do like to carry lots of junk.

I already have a hoodie from a prior purchase. I opted for a different color this time. Contact with SCOTTEVEST acknowledged some concerns I had about prior purchases. Mainly the sticky zippers.

So, on to my recently-obtained hoodie:

Pros:

• Damn but this thing is comfortable!
• A fairly-ridiculous number of pockets I can use.
• Little touches, such as a microfiber cloth for cleaning glasses and a keychain on an extendable cord, are included.

Cons:

• The zippers are still sticky. They mostly work, but they haven't improved since my purchase of my previous hoodie and those zippers inconveniently stick a fair amount.
• Requires very special care in washing. Seriously. Pay attention to the instructions and do NOT put one of these in the dryer on anything but very low heat!

Conclusions: I'm still a little on-the-fence over this. For the price, I'd expect better quality zippers so I'm not tearing open my pockets to try to access a cell phone or a flashlight or whatever.

That said, it's warm, comfortable, and the stitching and cloth seems pretty durable. My older hoodie has held up quite well in the time I've had it. I suspect the new one will do the same.

The special care is a bit annoying, especially in winter when I can't exactly put clothes outside to dry in any kind of reasonable amount of time (hello rainy season!), but it's not really all that of a downer. I just pull it out of a low tumble cycle early and line-dry it and I haven't had problems.

If they beefed up the zippers, I'd have to hail this as a "must-have". Until then, I'd recommend this as a "nice-to-have, but with caveats". At least the two-year warranty is a nice thing.

And, as I've previously said, SCOTTEVEST has top-notch customer service, so if I had to exchange/return the hoodie, I'm sure I wouldn't have problems.