Freerunning - Kids in a playground.

Alison, you seem to know a lot about a channel you dislike. :)

Freerunning is awesome. I wish I did it more. The tricks are cool, but the part that really gets me is its founding principle, I guess you could call it. Essentially it is getting from point A to point B in the smoothest, most fluid and most direct way possible. Overcoming any obstacle with only the use of your body. It sure makes the average runner dull by comparison.

The evolution of sports always interest me. this one came from a guy in France named David Belle who grew up in a poor community. He essentially just played with his surroundings the same way skateboarders do and Parkour was born. A facility whose sole purpose is dedicated to freerunning is something I never thought I'd see. I'd love to go there and play

For the free running thing, if you are interested then try it!

You'd be surprised what you can actually do if you just push yourself.

I can say at almost 30 years of age I'm a hell of a lot more capable of doing "fancy" tricks then when I was in my early or even mid 20s. If you told my 20 year old self that I would be doing macaos or Au sem maos I would probably laugh at you. Now anything seems possible.

Here's one for you: Extreme Couponing


This confuses me. People spend 30+ hours a week EVERY week clipping coupons to build stockpiles they'll never go through before things go bad. To me, this screams of both thrift and selfishness. I can see being proud of buying your own groceries without spending money; but stockpiling? Give it to people who need it. That dude is never going to go through that much stuff in his lifetime, why not give it to people who need it and WILL use it?

wrt TLC, I feel like we've discussed this before, but... they've started calling themselves "The Life Channel" instead. Because the only things you're going to learn via watching "I didn't know I was pregnant", "Say Yes to the dress", "Extreme couponing", "Toddlers and Tiaras" and "Miami ink" is that your brain may actually shut off if continually subject to useless television.

TLC stopped being smart some time in the very early 00's. ... back when they aired "A Baby Story" during the mid-afternoon and discovered that people really wanted to watch that kind of stuff. They're nearly 100% reality-based programming now, in that they've taken real-life stories and tweaked them into competitions and facsimiles of the reality they would have been without tv cameras and fame. It's really weird to watch. Hoarders gives me the creeps though. I don't feel like I've missed out by not owning a television since 2007.

Discovery is where all the real "learning" opportunities lie (besides the sociological implications of "19 Kids and Counting" etc.)

So... This seems like something people would've talked a lot about back in undergrad or highschool. it still seems kinda cool now, except I'd be afraid of breaking things and/or fucking up via depth perception mistakes.



Tempest Freerunning Academy in LA, of course.

That's some local products that dun that video. Hoorah!