Does Howard Stern read my blog?

Why I Dislike Yoga Teachers

All of you yoga lovers out there, take no offense. I have nothing against yoga. If it works for you, it's great. It didn't for me. But that is an entirely different story. Right now I just want to rant about yoga teachers.

Every single one I've met (I can think of 3 right now) has been a condescending, self-righteous individual trying to tell me how yoga is so much better than anything else out there and refusing to acknowledge that there may be other--more effective for some people--ways to get/stay in shape.

If you are unable to acknowledge effective alternatives, you are stupid. That's it. Nothing worse than someone claiming their way is the one and only, for everyone. And I haven't met as many people teaching any other exercise/life style having this weird stupid belief than people teaching yoga.

Today, I went to my regular gym class--complete conditioning. It's a girly aerobics/weights workout, great cardio, some stretching, awesome stuff. But my instructor is pregnant, so we had a sub, who happened to be a yoga teacher. Before the class, I asked her if there was going to be any cardio (which should have tipped her off as to what I was looking for), she said, no cardio but some stretching, weights, abs, and butt. Fine, I've done pilates before, and I liked it a lot, so I was hoping maybe this would be similar. I have also done yoga before, and I really dislike it. I would never willingly do it again, ever. It doesn't work for me, and I do not enjoy it.

So, this instructor proceeds doing hatha yoga.

Oh, and in the beginning of the class, she claimed her accent was German and Polish...then why the hell did she use Russian words for when she did not know English words?

Some time into the class, she introduces us to this "special exercise makes your stomach good." Lie down on your back, put your legs up at 45 degree angle, hold for a count of 100. Well, genius, they do it in pilates. It's one of the most basic exercises called the hundred. Nice try.

The next special exercise? "Great for bra area, shoulders, sides." Also known as chest flies. Never seen this one before.

And my favorite! Now that she has used common non-yoga exercises, she proceeds to tell us about how weights and gym "make you look like man, I like woman figure. I never use weights, eat meat, steak, same weight 20 years."

And I am very happy for her, but no need to hate on the gym. Seriously, no need. I do not look like a man. I've tried yoga and I didn't like it. I love my cardio and weights, they make me feel and look good. Are you telling me something is wrong with me?

Maybe if she were teaching people who haven't done any kind of exercise before, this strategy would be perfect--show them special exercises and hate on the gym, and hope they enjoyed your class enough to do it again. But she's subbing for a regular class that incorporates cardio and weights, and people coming to it are coming because they like it, not because they are looking for an alternative.

What is it that makes it so difficult for yoga teachers to acknowledge that different people may respond differently to different exercise styles???

Why Drug Laws are Bad

Because drug research is worthless. You have academics who don't know shit about drugs writing crazy assertions about them. The following article is the dumbest things on Marijuana I've read in a long time.

Basically because East Coast weed sucks, people mail shit here all the time and someone lost a 33 pound shipment of weed. Here is the blurb from Planet Money's CHIEF DRUG CORRESPONDENT, this is the guy who is supposed to know the most about drugs:

"When undercover officers make wholesale buys, usually they pay about $1,000 a pound for medium-grade marijuana. So the 33 pounds that Anderson and Sloan received probably cost the local importer about $33,000. As a rule of thumb, a pound can be stretched into 360 $10 bags, meaning the shipment's retail value was nearly $120,000."

The above misinformation is exactly why drug laws are terrible because the people who write them don't know shit about drugs. I won't even point out that there are transportation costs as well as distribution costs associated with a sale that means he will definitely not net $120,000 even based on their erroneous numbers.

First off, why even mention the cost for medium grade weed? If someone is shipping weed by Fedex they are shipping quality weed. That's like saying, Pabst Blue Ribbon costs $5 a case, when you're estimating the cost of a case of Glen Livet (I realize that beer and scotch are different, but thats the disparity between quality weed from CA and the dog shit they have in DC).

The cost of quality weed in California is anywhere from $2500-5000 a pound direct from growers. How the fuck is this guy getting shit for $1000 a pound? At $1000 a pound and 16 ounces in a pound that means he's getting an ounce for $62.50. NOT BLOODY LIKELY. Obviously his information is based on DC fucking cops buy bullshit DC crap, which I'm not convinced is that cheap either. I feel like his information is from back in the day when dime bags cost a dime.

He goes on to claim that you can divide a pound into 360 bags. There are over 450 grams in pound so where the fuck does this 360 number come from? He claims its a rule of thumb, who's fucking thumb? He also claims that these 360 bags can be sold for $10 each. First, if you bag a pound into 360 bags you will have 1.25 gram bags. Where the fuck can you buy more than a gram for $10?

Full article available here

See if you can guess which one is my comment.

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Ambalamps

Sheeeeiiiiiiiiiiit

I love the Wire. I am writing a paper for law school right now and somehow it turned into a paper acclaiming this amazing series.

So enlighten us Prosecutor Obonda.

Who is Cary Fukunaga?

Only the hottest young director most snubbed by the Oscars this year. This Asian American (Asian Dad/White Mom, Awe Yeah!) is the director of the best foreign film of 2009 that didn't get nominated for the Oscars. Cary Fukunaga won the 2009 Sundance Film Festival Director's Award with Sin Nombre.

Sin Nombre is basically City of God meets Under Siege II(That's the one on the train right?). There are two story lines. One story chronicles a Honduran family's journey through Mexico as they try to make it to America and the other is about La Mara Salvatrucha, the gang tattoo-face(See above) is a part of.

I was almost stabbed by a tattoo-face once, which may be why I like this movie, keeping it real and all.

I had to do community service for Los Angeles County when I was in college for breaking the law. I got into an altercation with this guy and it went something like this:

Guy: You fat chink.

Me: Smashes guys face

So during my time at community service, I will refer to it as Tree Farm, I was probably the only person there who had ever set foot on a college campus. I was immediately dubbed "College boy" because...I brought a book to read(It wasn't even a textbook, it was A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin and if you haven't read it yet, I suggest you do).

Tree Farm was basically a meeting spot for people to do community service from. Each morning we would arrive at 8:00 am and the men and women would split up into groups. Usually about 50 men and like 4 women(All of whom were they for prostitution, don't women commit any other petty crimes?). As the crew leaders strolled in with vans about an hour later we would each sign up with a crew and he would take us out to perform our community service for the day.

Exactly what you would expect from government employees, they were completely worthless. One guy was actually named Rick James, but looked more like a skinny Hulk Hogan. He had already crashed one of the vans, which is why he was relegated to farm duty. Working for Rick was miserable. One day those of us left at the farm for farm duty had to load a truck with firewood. They gave us a wheelbarrow with a flat tire to transport the firewood. A wheelbarrow has 1 tire, when that tire is flat, it becomes a barrow. Moving a barrow without the wheel is near impossible because there is no way to balance it with a flat tire. Being the College Boy that I was, I suggested since we were moving the wood from one side of the parking lot to the other we should drive the truck across the lot to the wood and load it from there. Rick James freaked the fuck out and asked me if I thought I was smarter than him (of course I fucking did).

There was one guy, Sal, that I loved working for. Sal didn't give a fuck about his government job and spent most of the day on the phone dealing with his landscaping business. Instead of performing community service, most of the time with Sal we'd just run errands for his business and ride in the van.

You've seen people performing community service on television wearing fluorescent vests picking up trash? That was me, except either television is a lie or Los Angeles County is poor as fuck because no one ever had those little trash picker upper things. I actually got laughed at when I was incredulous and asked "We're supposed to pick up trash with our hands?" The response was a box of latex gloves thrown in my face.

So Tree Farm is where I met Tattoo-Face. Tattoo-Face was performing community service for stealing a car and having a loaded gun in his stolen car. He had a great many tattoos, but the most memorable ones for me were the ones on his face. He had two devil horns tattooed on his forehead where devil horns would be if he actually had them. I was there for punching a guy in the face a few times. Tattoo-face was way harder than me. One day while we were performing one of the many great services(today was pond scum cleanup) we do for Los Angeles County Parks, Tattoo-Face and I had a conversation. First, I want to describe this very stupid process of pond scum clean up conducted by the LA County Parks Department, I know the Parks Department was involved because they provided us our "tools", if you could call them that. The tools they gave us were rakes that had empty 2-liter bottles tied to the rakes so they would float. Then some genius decided to tie a rope to the end of the rake handle so they would have a make-shift rake/soda bottle floating grappling hook. The process of pond scum clean up involved throwing the rake as far as you could (Maybe 8 feet) and then pulling in the rope. If you didn't guess, it was rather ineffective.

It was a hot day so I took off my sweatshirt. I was wearing a "Puck Fomona" t-shirt. The shirt is the same principle as "Yuck Fale" or "Huck Farvard" or "Fuck Florida". The shirt referred to Pomona College and not the city of Pomona, I just wished the shirt was more clear on that. As soon as I took off my sweatshirt Tattoo-Face looked at me and said "What the fuck does your shirt say? Essay" I hesitated because I was unsure how to answer the question. I didn't want to offend him and assume he could read so I just repeated what the shirt said "Puck Fomona." He then took off his shirt and he had P-O-M-O-N-A tattooed across the top of his back, assuming that he didn't go to college there, I immediately tried to clarify that my shirt referred to the college and not his fair city of Pomona(Which is actually an armpit). None of this mattered though and he just mad dogged me all day and told me to shut up every time I talked. He treated me like a complete bitch and I took it like a bitch--I just didn't want to get stabbed.

So maybe I wasn't almost stabbed, but then again who's to say he didn't have a knife, you never met Tattoo-Face.

Offense of Marriage Act

What is Female America's fascination with weddings and marriage? I swear half of WE programing is wedding dress shows; Bridezilla, Say Yes! To the Dress, Redneck Wedding, etc.

Don't let them fool you! These shows are only reinforcing gender stereotypes and telling you ladies that you need a man to make you complete and happy. Not only do these shows reinforce gender roles, but they also support and glamorize an institution that is denied to many Americans. The defense of "traditional" marriage is complete bullshit because "tradition" is often racist(homophobic) and bigoted. "Traditionally" Asians and Latins could not be naturalized to become United States citizens, and African-Americans were considered 3/5 of a citizen.

What Would Jesus Do? Suck a cock, according to Sir Elton John.

And while I'm ranting about weddings, please don't keep your wedding picture as your facebook profile picture if you got married in 2003.