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The Meme of Seven

Sunday, June 15th, 2008

 

I have been tagged by the mighty General of the Hordes. So be it!

Here are the rules:

1. Link to your tagger and post these rules on your blog.
2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.
4. Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.
5. Present an image of martial discord from whatever period or situation you’d like.

Here are the facts:

1. I own an authentic, WWII era Gunto sword as well as a Red Army cavalry sabre, an Indonesian katar, an Arab, possibly Yemeni dagger and a fair number of replicas of various edged weapons. The katar could easily be used to punch through a car door and the sabre, while too heavy for sword fighting, was cast to slash through unarmed crowds. The flat would be an effective bludgeon. Nice guys, those Soviets.

2.  I played golf on and off through my twenties, never playing particularly well despite lessons, dedication and endless buckets emptied at the driving range. Then, in my early-mid thirties I was on a trip to California and played 18 with a borrowed set of clubs that were too long for me on a fairly tough course. I shot an 82 that day and handily beat several much better golfers. I have not played a round of golf since.

3.  I save a great deal of time not caring a whit about professional sports. Most sportswriters and TV commentators come across to me as undersized, ill-informed louts who vastly underestimate how physically talented even the mediocre players are at that level. Or how hard most of them worked to get there. I keep hoping that one of the ex-athlete, color commentators will just go postal someday and strangle one of them on live television. I’d also settle for George Foreman punching out Larry Merchant.

4. I find that sipping excellent liquor, smoking a good cigar and having intelligent company is a high point of civilization.

5. I met my wife on Match.com.

6. My two educational regrets are not opting to study Russian in college and not taking at least a minor in physics. I did not take Russian because I needed a language program that could be done in a year ( I should have just gone straight through to the MA or PhD but that’s a different issue) and my interest in physics did not begin until later.

7.  I’ve wandered through the halls of the Capitol building and enjoyed a Diet Coke outside the office door of Rep. David Obey (D-Wis.).

I herby and irrevocably tag the following unfortunates:

Dan of tdaxp

HistoryGuy99

Jeremy Young

Michael Tanji

Dave Schuler

Tim Stevens

Selil

Many Irons in the Fire

Thursday, May 8th, 2008

Professional as well as personal projects are coming to a head. No blogging tonight.

 

Mad Props Department

Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008

A co-worker’s husband, Justin, who happens to be a hell of a nice guy, was just nominated for the Bronze Star. Incidentally, he had bureaucratically manuvered out of a safe and easy stateside assignment in order to lead an infantry platoon in Iraq.

A good dude.

Resting on my Laurels

Saturday, March 29th, 2008

I noticed this morning that last month I hit the five year mark as a blogger. Last week, at some point, I went over 250,000 hits. The interesting thing is that it took me almost five years to accumulate 200,000 hits but only five months to rack up the next 50,000+ .  A good trend in my view, for which I would like to thank my readers and commenters – it is your interest and stimulating feedback that makes Zenpundit worth doing.

In honor of this anniversary, I’m taking the day off and will return to blogging Sunday night. Have a great weekend everyone and thanks!

Blogfriends Rising

Sunday, March 2nd, 2008

Friends of Zenpundit are an enterprising crew:

Shane Deichman has launched a new business entity, EMC2 and has joined a thinker who has been featured here, Dr. Yaneer Bar-Yam, at The New England Complex Systems Institute. Having talked a little science with Shane, where he swiftly blasts out of my humble layman’s orbit, I think this will be a fantastic fit for his expertise in particle physics. AND, if this is not enough…there’s a new Deichman on the way !

Dr. Daniel Nexon has finished his book, one that should be read by anyone interested in 4GW and the emergence of the Westphalian society of states,  Religious Conflict, International Change, and the Struggle for Power in Early Modern Europe,.

Dan of tdaxp has wed his true love and found time, somewhere, to redesign his blog with a sharp new look, abandoning the crappy, subpar, Blogspirit platform in the process.

Jesus! I feel lazy in comparison…..


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