Nunchucks: Why are they illegal in CA?

I will neither confirm nor deny my possession of wooden nunchucks at my residence in California. But I will say this: they are about as dangerous as a baseball bat. Guns are legal in California. Knives, pitchforks, sharpened sticks are legal in California. But there is one weapon so amazing, so dangerous, so concealable, to which there is NO defense, that a state law is required to keep it under control. Even the Sansetsukon, which is just a pair of nunchucks with an extra nunchuck on one end, is legal in CA. But the almighty nunchuck is forbidden. Looking at the picture of Bruce Lee, though, sort of helps you imagine what these people were thinking. Keep in mind Bruce Lee is from California, and he can actually play ping pong with a pair of nunchucks. (I'm told that this video isn't real, so watch this one instead; he whips them out at 1:20)

Try and remember what it was like in the dark ages when you could legally tie two sticks together. You're leaving your friend's party at midnight, walking to your car, when a comical accent says behind you, "Giv-a me all you money!" You turn around, and a vaguely Asian mugger is brandishing nunchucks at you. You try and defend yourself using your gun, but as everyone knows, nunchucks repel bullets. Your knife is equally useless. They find your body the next morning, covered with nunchuck-shaped gashes.

This law is particularly ironic considering that, according to wikipedia, nunchucks were probably adapted as a weapon (from a farming tool) because of a ban on edged weapons. Irony, thy name is California Penal Code. Next they'll ban blunt objects longer than 3 feet. All trees will be burnt., all femurs broken.

By the way, if you haven't looked at the wiki page for the Sansetsukon, or the bruce lee video do so now. They're pretty cool.

Forrest's sarcastic book reviews: "A Man in Full"

Welcome to the first of what I hope will be many sarcastic book reviews. Today I will review Tom Wolfe's A Man in Full. Some quick stats:

pages: 742
year release: 1998
believable characters: 0.4
entertainment value: 0.0

I would start this paragraph off with a spoiler alert, but the book has no plot. Tom Wolfe uses "reporting techniques" to write this entire novel, and it shows. Almost all of the first two hundred pages consist of endlessly detailed descriptions of people and their places. I didn't get much further than that, but in order to pass the course I was taking I read a quick summary. If you don't include all the crappy description, the book is about four pages long. It's as if Tom Wolfe watched ten minutes of "Days of our lives" and decided to base an 800-page colossus on it.

"But," you might argue, "detailed descriptions have some merit!" Yes, if you're describing interesting or beautiful things. But not a dingy Atlanta apartment, with the sniveling tenant inside, who has a nose like a harpsichord and boots to match. The ceiling fan spins like it's got somewhere to be, but the grit on the door speaks volumes about the ...

It goes on like that for the rest of the book, and makes about as much sense. Squeezed between the inane recitation is the crude outline of a plot. A wealthy, behind-the-times southern businessman has financial difficulties, and then goes crazy and joins a fringe religion. Various other characters are also described. In fact the whole book seems to have been written with Atlanta readers in mind, with a shout-out to every dull neighborhood between Chamblee (northeast of Atlanta, GA) and Oakland (just east of San Francisco, CA). But it seems like a successful strategy. Get all the rich white people who have lived in, or who have relatives from, Atlanta, to buy the book. "Moving to Atlanta? Here's a great book that (I'm told) is about Atlanta!" or "You've never been to my homeland, Atlanta? Here's a great book you have to read before you come!"

Worst. Book. Ever.

Until the next installment of of "Forrest's sarcastic book reviews." Any suggtions?

Kill all roaches: my legacy to humanity

If you get to know me, you'll soon learn that I hate roaches so very, very much. Maybe it has to do with my childhood, or something. I don't know. But I know this: millions of years from now, when my body is nought but dust, my works (huge pyramid tomb, obelisks, and statues of me) utterly destroyed, and my name forgotten, I want my legacy to be the complete and permanent extinction of all roaches. That's how I want to make my unmistakable and timeless mark on the universe. And here's how to do it.

We need to create a mutation in them that has the following two effects.
1) If the individual receives only one copy, then the gene affects meiosis such that ALL of the individual's offspring receive a copy of the gene, rather than just half.
2) If the individual receives two copies (one from each parent), then the individual is stillborn or sterile.

We only need to introduce a small number of these mutated individuals into the world to start the process. The first effect will cause this gene to spread among any population of roaches. No matter how quickly they multiply, even if every female lays ten million eggs, they cannot escape this gene forever. The second effect makes sure all of them die once they have this gene. If you work out the differential equations, the result is an exponential decline, approaching zero. Of course, at low numbers, stochastic effects dominate, and it's possible that all 10 of the "diseased" individuals will die in an accident, leaving 3 "healthy" ones. But then a lack of genetic variation should help us, and the same stochastic effects might favor us by just finishing them off.

Another effect which might harm our efforts is the mixed-ness of roach populations. If we introduce this gene into a population, and it kills that entire population before any leave to other groups to infect them, then we fail. Just like the ebola virus, our gene might be too lethal to spread successfully. In addition, we have to consider that there are several roach species. We'd have to execute this process for each species. But that gives us an opportunity to perfect our method of extermination.

Finally, we examine the possibility of ecological harm. Would the sudden disappearance of roaches disturb the environment? Yes. They are plentiful, eat stuff nothing else wants (dead leaves), and lots of other things eat them. But is it worth it? Lack of roaches, or ecological stability? I don't think it's that simple; the ecosphere can cope, other less repulsive things will start eating leaves and living in our walls (like cute little kitten-shaped insects, perhaps). But to make our difficult choice a little bit easier, I leave you with the (paraphrased) words of the late Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.:

"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not [have to deal with roaches] but [can play with kittens all day long]. I have a dream today!"

Foot fungus, thirst are the terrorists' victory

If you've flown on a plane in the past 8 years (which you have), then you know what I'm talking about. Those people, who allegedly hate our way of life and want us to suffer, have succeeded. First (not chronologically), the shoe bomber. Yeah, he didn't blow up a plane with his shoes, but consider this. How many Americans have had to stop what they're doing, hunch their crippled, feeble backs over, and take off their shoes? And then walk barefoot right behind that guy with the terrible feet? (Those of you who know me know I'm talking about myself: terrible, awful feet.) It's a lot like death: absolutely everyone has to go through it, and we all look stupid and uncomfortable while it's happening. Next, the "drink bombers" or whatever we're calling them now. The people who tried to make a bomb out of liquids brought onto the plane in huge sports drinks bottles. They're the reason we can't bring on any liquids larger than 3 ounces. No drinks, no lotion, nothing.


How can we fight this new terrorist threat? Stop flying? Wear socks? Drive? Or we can turn these things around, by having airports offer free foot baths to everyone. You'd have to show up an extra hour early, but I might fly just to get a foot bath. Also: free drinks! Open bars at all airports. Imagine what the terrorists would think when their schemes only result in us engaging in more hedonistic pleasures they hate so much: alcohol, enjoying that foot bath way too much, gambling on which of us will be "randomly selected".