Combatting the Poo Brain

More than one post in a month! I must have come down with a brain fever!

As I said in my previous post, I feel to be suffering from the poo brain, an affliction where in my brain does basically nothing and my facial expression is similar to the posted picture of everyone's second favourite Batman (because lets face it, those two movies with George Clooney as Batman are pretty fantastic). In light of this, lately I have been trying to work my brain muscle in some way or another and you know what? I feel like writing could be a fun thing so here I go on another rambling gallivant through my cranial spaces in search of some sort of coherent thought. Oddly enough I'd like to say a quick little thanks to Team Petootz and one C. Doom-Hammer for providing enough thought provoking blog material between the three of them to actually motivate me to do something, which is something teachers have been trying to do for close to 20 years. Good on 'em.

Otherwise, let try and unclog some of this poo from my brain. One would think that starting a project would be a good way to do such a thing and being a manual labour kinda guy that would generally entail making something. Sadly in my current circumstances I can't do that because I have no access to tools and I'm moving in less than 2 weeks so I'd like as little stuff as possible (but I'd still really like to try may hand at some blacksmithing) so that leaves me with trying to pump the old mind muscle with some other endeavors such as the ramble you're reading (or at least skimming), drawing and attempting to learn Finnish whilst skateboarding.  Now writing is pretty self explanatory, what with this blog being the form it's taking and all that jazz so I shan't go into that and I'm guessing a majority of my readership (do I even have a readership or am I just writing to no one?) already know that I have spent 4+ years doing drawing as part of my industrial design education so I feel I'd really just be telling you junk you already know there as well. Which leaves me with the interesting field of learning Finnish and skateboarding at the same time.

Now I should probably point out that this isn't some hilarious concept for learning a difficult Finno-Uralic language with enough variations for each word to make your head spin. Mercy me no, not at all. I just happen to have made friends with a local group of skateboarders and curiously enough they tend to speak to each other in Finnish swapping to English when something important comes up. As a result I don't have much to do while they're talking (other than skateboarding) but listen to them and try and figure out what's going on and the result of that is me slowly gaining an understanding of this rather mind boggling language. I certainly wouldn't understand a full conversation and I certainly can't say much but I have been very proud to confuse the hell out of various Finnish people by commenting on conversations that they had assumed I wouldn't understand. So far I can only really do this while talking about skateboards and a few other basic subjects but hey, that's a start.

Now one would think it would make logical sense to take this chance to listen to Finnish all the time by supplementing it with some book learning and you'd be right. However that's not how I roll, preferring instead to piece together an understanding of the language through reading whatever I can get my hands on (I've become quite good at deciphering fast food menus) and asking questions because sadly I'm not a guy that can be trusted to study on his own. Which is something I should really work on because I'm probably missing out on a whole range of educational benefits. But I am really finding that in the last month or two that I have been hanging with these cool cats, my understanding of the language has drastically improved. It probably has a lot to do with Finnish borrowing a lot of words from English when it comes to skateboards but whatever. I find it quite irritating that in all my months prior to meeting these guys, I had made very little head way with my linguistics simply because Finns are so accepting of the fact that their language is so god damned difficult. When they meet someone for the first time they'll talk to you in Finnish and the second you don't react they automatically switch to English and it's very hard to get them to change back, thus throwing away any chance you had to practice your Finnish. I have literally had Finnish people tell me to not bother learning Finnish because its too hard if you're not raised with it and everyone speaks English anyway. Which is a shame because its a pretty cool language with a lot of letters that most folks can't pronounce. Here's an example for you from my favourite internet famous Finn.

P.S. Some of the controls for this blog are in Finnish, how neat is that!

Gettn' the Poo Brain

Lately I've felt that my head don't work quite proper no more. I find my self mis-spelling things (not really a big deal), typing words with random letters in them or just plain typing a completely different word to the one I intended. I find my self spending hours doing not much more that flicking between two different web pages, seeing if either of them has updated while I was looking at the other. I think the technical term for this is "Poo Brain". Please see the attached video for a detailed description.

I think it is possible that 9 months of living a life of comfort and leisure in Finland may have made my brain space into naught but a mush used to process nothing more than "what should I have for dinner?", "what TV show or movie should I watch?" and occasionally "what do I want to drink?". I think it may be a lack of intellectual stimulation that may have bought around the rather severe case of the Poo Brain that I am now suffering. I can tell you, its not so great. I think the best way to combat this would be to craft something. I am strongly considering taking some sort of knife making course when I return to the land of Australia. That'd be cool. I think the best possible career path would be that of a blacksmith. Think about it, working all day in a forge hammering steel and in the evening I'd be the one that the local tavern would call to settle ruckuses due to my burly strength attained behind the anvil. I can't really imagine any real conceivable down side to that. Just think, I could make armor!

"KORKOKENKÄKUKKAMEKKOSUOHIIHTO 2012" an excercise report

This is a post at the request of one C. Doomantle and is a study of the video KORKOKENKÄKUKKAMEKKOSUOHIIHTO 2012 and the quality of workout achieved by such an activity. There is also a smaller report as to whether this sport is as fun to do as it is to watch that will be addressed in a different article.

Korkokenkäkukkamekkosuohiihto 2012 or "high-heels-flower-dress-cross-country-skiing" is a video depicting the act of several Finnish ladies taking part in an event where they race across marsh land in the Pudasjärvi region of Finland on modified skis, whilst wearing summer dresses with flower prints on them. This paper will endeavor to analyze the  benefits and level of physical activity created by taking part in the activity.

Despite minor differences in the equipment used, it would stand to reason that many of the health benefits found in cross-country skiing would also be found in korkokenkäkukkamekkosuohiihto. These health benefits are many for cross-country skiing offering a workout that works a majority of the muscles in the body, burns calories quickly, increases cardio-vascular fitness and due to its low impact nature provides a good base to build strong joints. A majority of these benefits could easily be applied to the activity depicted in the video above to a lesser extent than that of traditional cross country skiing. Many of the same muscles would still be worked during this activity as they would be in cross-country skiing. That is except for the lower legs. Due to the nature of the skis using high heeled shoes rather than traditional ski bindings that allow for free movement of the heels, more emphasis is placed on the calf muscles and many of those in the posterior chain of the individuals taking part, thusly giving them a fine set of pins and some nice butts to boot. Calorie burning is a field that it would be said that  korkokenkäkukkamekkosuohiihto is not as effective as traditional cross-country skiing for two reasons. Firstly the activity of korkokenkäkukkamekkosuohiihto is not as vigorous as that of cross-country skiing due to participants having to move slowly in order to negotiate the difficult marsh land terrain (this would however create a stronger workout for the muscles being utilized). Secondly the temperature in which the athletes are working plays a roll in the amount of calories burnt, one simply burns more calories in a cold environment that they do in a warm one, so simply because of the fact that this activity takes place in summer it can be said that less calories are burnt. Similar points can also be made in relation to the aerobic nature of the activity as well. The low impact nature of traditional cross country skiing along with the sustained high heart rate it creates allows the participant to keep their heart and lungs working at a consistent rate for an extended period. However in the case of  korkokenkäkukkamekkosuohiihto this is not as evident. As previously mentioned the slower nature of this activity puts more strain on the muscles and as a result they will fatigue faster and as a result a sustained cardio work out is harder to achive. This in-ability to keep a sustained low impact workout also has an effect on the joint health promoted by cross-country skiing as the joints, which while still be moved to a full range of motion, may have un-necessary stresses placed upon them that could prove detrimental to their health due to skis becoming stuck in the mud and other such mishaps.

In closing one could conclude that there is a decent workout to be had whilst partaking in  korkokenkäkukkamekkosuohiihto but in doing so one would want to pay great attention to what is going on in front of you.