I have been inspired by these guys to work it out. At the same time I realised that there is much truth in not announcing your goals, here’s another look at the transformation that Gerald Butler went through.

Gym Jones - On Talent.

A friend and training mentor once told me, “The secret of the pros is that they train in secret.” For a while that made sense. It seemed that where performance is highly optimized — and where optimization is highly coveted — it would make sense that methodology would be closely guarded.

But secret methodology is the province of world-class athletes; not of participants; nor of enthusiasts. Most people — if sufficiently motivated, and if unencumbered by lame excuses that they assign to genetics — want to know the secret that distinguishes the pros from themselves. The real “secret” of the fit, the fast and the “talented” is no secret at all; it’s a much harder pill (than genetics) to swallow. And no one will accept it because of what it demands: real commitment in the form of regular, consistent, indefinite practice. And real practice demands devotion.

THE PROS TRAIN. And they train consistently and indefinitely. In other words, they commit.

People love to say that they don’t train (or practice or study…) They think it makes their mediocre performance more impressive. Or they use a hero as an example, saying he or she doesn’t practice either. But the truth is that anyone who becomes really world-class good at anything has devoted a large part of their lives to that thing — often to the exclusion of all else. They may not call it “training” or “practice;” the actual labels are irrelevant. It’s the time spent that counts.

“Practice” and “training” are not timelines and diet plans — although those are effective parts of it. Real training means committing to the process: showing up at the keyboard or behind the lens or in the ring or on the rope, and doing it religiously, even when you’re tired, even when you’ve got nothing to say, even when it’s too cold, too hot, too hard.

People wish they had talent. They see it as a practice-free ticket to crowd-stunning skill. But talent doesn’t exist. “Talent” doesn’t get results; practice and devotion do.

Was Picasso gifted from birth with the talent to become an artistic genius? Or was he gifted with the tenacity to become a genius at anything? As he wobbled down the street on his first bicycle, did his mother see her son’s uncommon ability, or his uncommon focus and determination? What led her to predict that he would be great? Was he out-of-the-womb a brilliant finger-painter? Or was he just stubborn?

Fantastic read wouldn’t you say? You can see another transformational picture of the actor Vincent up at this page.

Far too long have the insults been thrown. Tub of lard, the seeds were sown.
Now shall rise a new beginning. The weighty shall be taken skinning.
In there is but one trust. You aren’t a snowflake, just crumb off crust.
Work hard son, let the pain be relished. One day at a time, we fall.
- KPages, 2008

For some there is the easy way to do things. The sleight of hand when people aren’t looking to claim the trick your own. Far too long have people lived in the self delusion that great achievement comes without the necessary hours of toil. I should know, I thought there were instant ways to tune yourself up. Instant Pizza, Instant Coke, Instant food. Was I to blame? Was it the culture to hang? It’s easy to place the blame on the enviroment. It’s “safer” to direct your fingers, after all who would want to own up to the shame? That’s when Gym Jones founder Mark Twight hits you like a brick. There is no shortcut. There is no easy way. There is pain and some more. There is stripping away of the very core of your procrastination to reveal what only can make you human. Pure living, no bullshit. Here are a couple of essays taken from their page that I recommend reading to give you a jolt of reality like it did to me. There is no point fooling yourself again. 300 workout,  on the myth of talent, and the why he started Gym Jones.

To cut a long story short, Mark believes that the real human experience is in rock climbing, having scaled many mountains he is of the opinion that the fear of failure, constant struggle to overcome an almost impossible hurdle are what kindles the human spirit to make it human. I have started taking the gift we have a bit more seriously and have started the path of stopping constant self abuse. These words are an inspiration to the strategy of working out. One must be smart about but don’t fool yourself. There’s only 2 ways to achieve weight loss (fat loss is more correct, but with it comes off the weight as well). You have to eat proper, you have to exercise. This is painful when you are overweight, but with time it get’s easier. It’s not easy, and don’t let anyone bullshit you into saying you just stay off this and that and eat this and that  and youare done. You’ll be done for 5 months then it’ll all come back when you get lazy. Fitness is a life goal, not for the faint hearted, if you are in then you are in. I have posted stuff taken directly from his links on Philosophy, these are posted here for inspiring me to continuously work out and not give up. I hope they help you as well.

Mark Twight on people posting stuff about the 300 workout.

It appears everyone has an opinion about “300” and how the actors and stunt crew achieved the level of fitness – and consequentially, appearance – for the movie. I have read that it was all CGI, make-up, steroids, etc. However, no one has come right out and said, “those guys worked really hard and had the self-discipline to control what they put into their mouths.”

The guy who earns my scorn is the ass who tries to disguise his drooping belly with a baggy t-shirt and pushes his chest out whenever a girl walks by because he has convinced himself he’s “not like the rest.” He’s the guy who offers free advice about training just because he’s one step ahead of the poor guy who has to listen. And the most annoying pricks are the ones who say, “I’ve tried to get that ripped (muscular, lean, fit, fast, whatever) and I can’t do it so it’s impossible that anyone else can do it without chemicals.” Those who aren’t the real thing always find an excuse for their failings when confronted by the real thing. Or they cast the accomplishments of anyone further up the food chain as having been achieved by cheating.

This is a natural consequence of having been told from childhood, “you are a unique snowflake.”

Well you’re not and I’m not. If you weren’t given the gift you can’t get the gift so the best you can do – if your goal is important – is work as hard as you possibly can, pay attention every hour of every day and then maybe, maybe if you’ve done enough and been smart enough you’ll emerge from the muck of mediocrity to shine a bit brighter than you shone before. Then, upon reflection you might decide your goal is a bit more important so you’ll start paying attention every minute of every hour of every day. You’ll find people who are better than you and you’ll take an empty cup when you meet them. Their example will destroy or inspire you and if it’s the latter you may stay and learn. You might imitate, doing as they do because you’ve already accepted that you do not know best – if you did you’d be leading the group they were trying to join. Perhaps being exposed to their superior ability will drive you to work harder than you thought possible, or necessary. Maybe you’ll overcome your self-imposed (or worse, society-imposed) limitations and shine even more brightly. Wow, you’re getting it: positive reinforcement for hard work and suffering.

you’re getting it: positive reinforcement for hard work and suffering. So maybe you give your goal even more significance and you begin cutting away the ideas and the expectations and the people who you believe prevent you from achieving it. Now you become a real selfish prick, and you begin paying attention every second of every minute of every hour of every day, and you sustain your awareness for weeks and months at a time. You no longer think yourself a unique snowflake, you’re a steel-edged blade shaped like a snowflake and you’re spinning at warp speed. You’re the biggest fish in the pond. You’re a badass.

I’ll agree with one of the quotes, which states that the actors in 300 are not normal guys, though I disagree with the rest of the comment. Some of them were different because they were willing to do whatever it took to achieve their objective and most of those commenting on the forums don’t have a clue what the phrase means. Some of the actors (with non-speaking roles) were different because they came from a background of martial arts, from years of study, of discipline and self-discipline. They weren’t necessarily well muscled and fit because of it but their dedication to martial arts taught them how to learn and how to work hard. When a new objective presented itself they instinctively understood what they had to do to reach it from their current status.

1:   Buy Gaming Stuff online - That’s really the name of the website.
2:  The IT Depot - what’s with everyone putting “The” in the title?
3:  Tech Shop - had the most range among the three for what I was looking for.

I’m still searching for the QCK Heavy Steel Series at a good deal. 1500 RS for a mouse pad seems a lot excessive.

a) Intellect
b) Motor Skills.

In that order. Intellect is the primary thing that seperates idiots from the achievers. This is not limited to just one field. I believe this is pervasive over all games. Being smart, gets you better - faster. Motor skills, to a large extent, can be learnt by any idiot. How hard is it to move a mouse and press keys on keyboard after all ? But purposeful action is something that largely eludes many people getting into any game. That being said, I have immense respect for players still grinding it at the game and STILL enjoying it. That’s the most important part, if you aren’t enjoying it, stop doing it. Why tortuself in this one life you have. I came across an interview with Alex Valle, a street fighter legend of the game. He’s 31 years old now and still going strong with strategy. And the stuff that this game has.. man you wouldn’t believe the amount of mechanics there is to this game. The whole interview with Alex Valle is up here, but I thought I’ll post some of the most interesting tid bits related to strategy thatI found.

Alex Valle of USA , street fighter

On how developing motor skills before tournaments is important.

If you’ve seen an online match, they’re so sloppy because nobody cares. You want to land all this crazy stuff, but it’s so sloppy trying to do it. If you were to take that same sloppiness to a real tournament match, like 50% of your life would be gone attempting to do something technical. Attempting. So once you figure that that out in round 1, in round 2 you’re not going to have anything left. You’re not even going to attempt your old strats that you practiced online, because when it counts and you’re sitting right next to the person and they know that you can’t beat them, they don’t work.

On how age affects game play

The only thing that’s going to affect me is my execution. For many of the standard photographic situations that are coming at me, it’s the conditioning and the execution part that I’ll probably be struggling in. As far as strategies and overcoming all the obstacles, that will never leave me. Age really doesn’t matter. You still have Street Fighter II Super Turbo players who are pushing 40 and still dominating, and that game requires a lot of fast-paced execution. There are no short cuts in Super Turbo: if you missed an uppercut, it’s because you really missed an uppercut.

I actually do feel I have somewhat of an advantage over these new guys because being really good at all games, I’m already prepared for it. They have to put in the work and the time to adjust to any hardships.

On dealing with trash talking

Yeah. Going back to everyone calling me “1998-Power” and “old timer” and stuff it is what it is, but were in 2009 and my name is still out there. Where are you at?

On playing high level and enjoying it

Look, I’m not the only one: but there are only a handful of people who can still do this. I’m one of them, John Choi’s one of them, Justin Wong can do it. These guys don’t really have to go to all these tournaments to prove anything. They have this set in stone in their minds: it’s like riding a bike, being good at Street Fighter. You can like practice two weeks before a tournament, a national tournament, and still place like top 10, top 8, whatever. That what happens after many years of grinding at this game. We will never suck, and I rode this for the past couple of years. After not practicing, I’m still placing top 8 at EVO, but now in Street Fighter 4, I’ve never seen as much hype and hunger for a game that it takes me back to the 90’s. It really does. I’m stepping over my life boundaries between taking my girlfriend out or holding RTSD sessions for these players. Or like going to Watson’s pad and leveling up with them, or doing what I’ve got to do to really be dominant in this game. I’m doing what everybody that really enjoys something does.

Excellent analogy between Street Fighter (and games like Quake 3) vs RTS (Warcraft 3)

Let me give you my analogy for this. (clears throat). You’ve got tennis, where you can watch any Open live, and then you’ve got an MMA fight, right? So if someone hits a serve and someone hits it back, no one’s saying anything in tennis until someone finally scores a point and then everybody claps because they’re allowed to. In MMA, you’ve got people cheering all the way down to the ring. You’ve got the announcements, the hype, and whatever happens before to piss those to guys off to put them where they are up to the very first swing. That’s what you have with Street Fighter right now. An RTS game is like tennis: you can’t really see anything. There’s just boring, there’s no hype. It’s crap. You don’t even feel intensity. Even if those guys were shit-talking before, you don’t know that. You don’t care. You just want to see how fast they have a zerg rush. Who cares. When you’re watching these guys at SBO on the live stream, you know Slasher and Gootecks did a really good job just trying to talk about what’s going on. Some people like it, some people didn’t like it, but it was really hype. I’ve never seen anything like this before.

On staying motivated

Actually, I do. Keep playing. Everybody out there, if you can’t make it to EVO, you might make it next year. It’s not like mandatory you have to go to these things. Just keep in mind that the community is strong, and we’re always going to help you, but also keep in mind that it’s a very competitive scene. Don’t take it the wrong way if someone wants to win really bad. That’s just them. Either you can suck it up or challenge it, or just get better man. Get better at home. Do what you’ve got to do to get better at Street Fighter, and the scene will take over.

I think this is a fine interview , read up the whole stuff. Shoryuken!! Here’s an awesome video btw of Alex playing Sagat against the best street fighter player in the world, Daigo Umehara.

Here’s an excellent link for basic photography tips. I liked the ones below as well. Click on the pics to see a larger view.

Hilarious stuff some of them.

Added below are the thumb rules and do give the copy a read, this is gold stuff.

Shorter is better - No long stories, just the facts but interesting ones at that.
A good press release is between 300-400 words - he quotes 200, I would say 300 is ideal.
Keep it easy - skip out of the fluff like best company in the world, disrupting all landscape around you.
Keep the title snappy and clear - If you talk about Gun control, talk about it in the title.
3 percent to 5 percent keyword density in copy - if your total words are 100, SEO keywords are 5.
15 percent density keyword in title - This was new to me.
Persistency pays off - keep iterating it and revising it till you can cut out the flab no more.

Great stuff to read for all writers.

I dont count my situps. I start count when it starts hurting. When I feel pain, thats when I count, coz that’s when it really counts- Mohammed Ali

Links for today was something I started on my office email and sent it over to my gmail address for later reading. Along the lines I started checking out firefox extensions like Read it Later , delicious bookmarks, foxymarks and so on and so forth. None of that ever got to me reading them later on unless they had something super urgent in them. So I decided that I’ll follow the ways of my good friend (not really)  Steve Ruebel from Micro Persuasion and post interesting links that I see. Start clicking!

Redesigning Expression Engine by Jesse Bennet
An ode to Jay Leno - Money.CNN
Great designs should be experienced - Jared Spool
6 famous super heros you didn’t know where ripped off - Cracked.com

Getting more active on Twitter
A couple of my friends can’t get it and call it crap. Sometimes it might appear to be a waste of time, but people have successfully leveraged it to form a whole new form of expression and medium to connect with. I have started following up on tweets, and try to keep updating whenever I can. Twitter’s not without it’s share of celebrities. The extremely hot, and now proven intelligent  without doubt, Gul Panag is on twitter. There’s also Ashton Kutcher and his wife Demi Moore who seem to be having their fun. Oprah and Larry King are on it as well. All in all a great bunch of people, I think you should get in touch with as well.

Learning to Rock Wordpress themes
You’ll notice I have changed my theme to Thesis, this is hailed as one of the best themes around on the WWW for Wordpress. I got myself this theme thanks to a friend and will be using the book I purchased - How to be a wordpress rockstar to shape up my skills in Wordpress theme and design.

Learning advertising, online marketing and logo design
Three interests of late and something that I have started working with certain people with. I love the fact that you can mingle freely as a consultant, brew the entrepreneurial blood in you and at the same time be truly happy with your work. My areas of interest (and soon to be expertise) would be SMO, Social Media consultation, Wordpress theming and design. I have an immense interest in Logo design and Font-o-logy, but I am not sure if I will convert that to a commercial venture.

Books, books, books and more books. Movies Movies and more movies.
I love them, can’t get enough of them and will keep continuing reviewing them all.

Reading biographies of Leaders and CEOs.
For some strange reason, I am drawn to knowing more about the life of those in command. Do I see myself in that position some day? Quite possibly. Do I enjoy reading about them? Most definitely. Do I want to write about what I have observed and learned? Without a doubt. That’s part of the stuff you can look forward to me writing about.

By the way, if anyone wants a copy of the watchmen comics do let me know and thanks to my friend, I’ll forward it. You can, if you are really smart, grab the torrents and read it up as well. I heard it comes highly recommend. Check out my movie review here.

Till then cheerios.

Watchmen is a movie directed by Zack Sydner. You would remember him from the wonderful movie 300, where the visuals were mind blowing, the script tight and the flow great. He kept the visuals part of that equation intact and floundered miserably on the the other two. This is based on a comic book and you know how seriously I take such movies where the rendering of the movie/character/hero has to bear some sort of resembalance to the whole thing right? Right.

The story starts about an ex-superhero being killed and a murder investigation then starts by a current hero. This current hero is the coolest character in the movie and goes by the name Rorschach. He is convinced that there is a larger plot, but how large is revealed as the movie goes on. This is a complicated intrinsic plot from the looks of it and many events occur together which are loosely pieced in the end.

So how was the movie?
In one word : disappointing. There were many useless scenes and the only reason I would give it credit is allowing full frontal nudity in Indian theatres. Apparently sex on the Indian screens is not really taboo. But that’s not the point. The point is this movie was patched together for lack of a strong story line. I haven’t read the watchmen comics but I know from what I have heard (from my friends and in particular Arvind and Tvac) that it holds a lot more depth and is hailed as one of the best “books” written. Not just a comic, but a book. Why would they want to screw it up in a movie? Largely because of the lack of being able to convey emotions that are abound in books and art. You cannot really express many things that you could in a book in a movie. And this is where the attempt failed. Scenes where miss.jupiter and nightowl fight and save some people from a burning house showed that they were as good a team so they had to do it to celebrate. Epic Fail.

It is important to understand that this concept of Watchmen was brought at a time when the readers in the 80’s and 90’s thought about a new understanding of the concept of a “super hero”. The understanding is that they use them and these superheros work together to prevent nuclear war destruction which was a large threat between Russia and the USA. The super heros start to question their roles in the whole equation and start to develop their character. There is a God in it who goes by Dr.Manhattan who has so many powers endowed and cannot age or die and can see into the future. How does he deal with it? What about the roles played by lesser godly heros who give into the dark temptations of man (Greed, Power and Lust). These are concepts that were explored and brings about a concept that is largely on the minds of people. Are Superheros more human than we think? Do they crumble?

These concepts should have been explored in a better way rather than focus on meaningless trivilaties. So many scenes like the Jailbreak, the love making scenes between the heros and heroines were largely useless in the story telling, but necessary to appear commerical. The reason this movie failed was trying to appeal to a commercial audience by roping them into the visual awe and forgetting that many people sometimes need

End Result: Movies at 5/10 mostly for visuals. But it’s a far better tribute paid to Alan Moore than that effin idiot who killed the Batman. Watch it for seeing how far we have progressed in visual effects in Cinema, but read the book if you want some deep meaning into this. As far as I can tell the movie is good for those that don’t expect anything, don’t read between the lines and don’t expect to go in with prejudged thoughts.

{UPDATE} - Thanks to Pegu I now have the Watchmen comics with me so as is customary, I shall read it and add a follow up. My score of the movie, by itself without comparing, still stands.