OK, I just heard a promo for the Columbus Day Parade here, with Antonin Scalia, Maria Bartiromo, and Joe Piscopo. Is that the most random group of three Italian-Americans you've ever heard?

You posted this JUST to bait Hec, didn't you?

Only if he is up for belly-raspberries.

Are you offering?

Cindy, I have a vast collection of TV themes and have studyied the subject. It's cool when you find out that Earle Hagen wrote the whistling them for Andy Griffith, as well as the super moody "Harlem Nocturne" and the spy action "I Spy" themes.

Jeff Barry (as I've noted before), the Archies honcho, wrote The Jefferson's theme. He had one of the cast members sing it too, I recall. Maybe the daughter of the mixed race couple?

Raq, I did have some snarky allusion to Rebecca Gayheart and Dead Like Me but didn't want to be spoilish. But I'll white font and say She got kicked off DLM and Firefly very early, and I can't help but wonder if it's related to her manslaughter charge, where she went around a stopped car at crosswalk and ran over a kid. Not that they were directly related, but just that she might have a particularly selfish and reckless personality.

This filming is SO cheesy.

When I was taking karate, it was made pretty clear to us students that ideally we'd never use our skills in a real life fight, because our goal was to live life so rightly that we'd never get into a situation where the skills were needed. YRightlyLivedLifeMV

FWiW, though, just acting confident and calm will head off a lot of trouble, and that's the sort of attitude that karate, tai chi, and other martial arts (as well as yoga) fosters.

It might be related to the fact that Rebecca Gayheart can't act. I've hated her since her soap days.

Are you offering?

Now, which one of us has a fuzzy belly? I ask you!

Hint: not the one who can't grow facial hair.

It's the attitude they're supposed to foster. Depends on the quality of both teacher and student. It's really easy to avoid being inculcated with the psychological attributes.

I'm thinking that with yoga, it's harder to get the psych bits than not, because of how it's now presented.

Hint: not the one who can't grow facial hair.

Are you trying to make me think about your downy belly? Because I have seen you in a bikini.

The book's called Godel's Proof. It's just a little thing I picked up in the library -- copyright 1958, so I doubt anyone here's read it.

Also unsurprisingly, I get twitchy when arts get so dramatically bowdlerised.

Do you think Tai Chi's bowdlerised, then, or a bowdlerization in itself? My admittedly small amount of googling suggests that it's always been both martial art and exercise.

There are few martial arts that aren't exercise. However, I consider that a side effect. For most/many Eastern arts it's a fight/philosophy thing (it's hard to fight systematically without philosophy, I've come to learn). If you strip out the fight, you get a philosophy with hand gestures.

If you strip out the fight, you get a philosophy with hand gestures.

Jazz hands!