you've been served

well, okay, i know it's not supposed to be a competition, but sometimes it's really hard to remind myself... this morning in yoga class, i was actually struggling a fair amount, since i guess i haven't been keeping up my practice enough during the recent busy times at work. which wouldn't have been so bad, except there was a new couple that has started showing up in the last few weeks that were there, and, well, they're basically much better than i am. didn't really put me "to shame," per se, but certainly impressed me, to say the least. sure, there's always people more advanced than you, but i had sortof gotten used to the idea that i had been doing this longer than even the instructors at the studio i go to here, and was a little proud of myself for the couple of one or two things that i could do that few if any of the others could. of course, all good things eventually get jolted back to reality.

i talked to him a bit in the locker room afterwards (though for the life of me i can't remember his name), and i guess he's leaving in a couple of weeks to go through the "teacher training" program in hong kong that duncan and marielle did.

i still really think i'd like to try teaching someday. maybe i really will get to spend some time at the astanga research institute in mysore after i finish my phd. who knows.

the first step is to acknowledge the problem

another "best of darbnet" moment, this time in (yet another) discussion of elections and such.

Al Petterson:

"But what's done is done. Illinois and Texas may have been stolen by Kennedy/Johnson's folks in 1960. I can't claim vote fraud has never benefitted the side I like.

"What bugs me today isn't Florida 2000. It isn't Ohio 2004. What bugs me is that I cannot seem to find a single Republican -- among my acquaintances or among politicians -- who values fair elections enough to agree we should fix the obvious problems, or who even agrees that the obviously partisan, obviously incompetent, and corporate/privatized nature of how we handle our elections is a problem at all."

the strongest little beer

wow. last night we went to the "fete de la biere" in ouchy, and i let myself get talked into buying a bottle of the "strongest beer in the world." and i must say, weighing in at 14% by volume, the "eggenberger samichlaus 2002" had a stunningly impressive left hook. i mean, it was like drinking port---except it tasted like beer.

trippy.

(ps: and since when did they start marking years on the beers? sure, i can believe that there are good and bad years for the grape harvest, and hence for wine, but how exactly do you screw up growing WHEAT? that seems like it would take talent...)