Merry Christmas Mr. Feuring

well, I'm sure that everyone has noticed my recent lack of activity on this blog, and I'm making a quick post to let you know what's going on: My life exploded. Ok, maybe it wasn't quite that bad, but my apartment has had no heat for well over 2 weeks, one of the heating pipes also broke and flooded my room and water damaged my bed and fried my computer (I'm typing this up on my tiny Eee PC). All my business files, photos, and over 10 gigabytes of music are now trapped in limbo, I have no idea if I'll I ever get them back. And at the same time it just so happens that my van died (possibly because of the -48 weather here). Because of these apartment shenanigans I've missed out on countless hours of training and I had planned to weigh in on Christmas eve at 165lbs, It'll be a tough goal, but I got my van fixed yesterday, and most of my apartment is back to being normal (with the exception of the heating pipes being fixed [we're using a portable furnace right now]) so I intend to train like a demon out of Hell this week, and make my goal! I'll update ａｇａｉｎ　as soon as I can．

Blogging Is Dead

Blogging Is Dead

Well the title says it all pretty well. It seems that this blogging phase is dead. At least with everyone else I started with. Which is weird since I barely wanted to do it in the first place and now I seem to be the last one standing. Even check out my first post, this blog was originally intended to be competition for my brother's blog. But alas, his blog is dead. Does that mean that my readership is dead too then? And I'm simply typing words into the figurative black hole that is the Internet? At any rate, I'll keep updating my blog for awhile whenever I find a tasteful ass clapping video.

...eh. She probably has some incurable STD.

Anyways, last year I did a lead up to Christmas with an article cleverly titled "Jared's Top 5 Most Wanted Christmas Video Games". This year I will do a similar article, just not right now. In the next week check back because it'll be up and I must say that this year I may just cover presents entirely, not just video games.

Real quick

So my fundraiser fight went really well. The ring was bouncy as hell but it was ok. But I won't take much time talking about it. Also, last weekend my good friend Sean Quinn fought for the Canadian promotion CFC and won in the first round with what was essentially a flawless victory. He didn't get hit once, so it was awesome. A fight like that makes it really easy to get motivated, and I've trained very hard all this week. I hope for my training to continue this well all the way till the Christmas break, then come back and be ready to fight (hopefully the end of January or sooner).

Blog Hard: October 2009 Edition

Blog Hard: October 2009 Edition

Well now that October 2009 has ended, it's time to review:"The Question" Project Finale
Well folks, here it is, the final update and review of my ambitious Halloween costume. To go as the obscure (but totally badass) superhero "The Question". You can check out Part 1 here and Part 2 here. Let's just say that I am calling my final product a resounding success. Let's take a look at me in full costume:

I have to say that I could only have been happier if I could have seen better out of it. That thing made me clinically blind for the night. But at the same time, I looked sharp and got some good recognition. Lot's of compliments about it ranging from "Great costume" to "That guy is creepy looking" to the most bizarre (but some how logical) "Dude, I would rob a bank if I were you!". So yeah, this years costume was realized successfully. Next year I hope to be yolked enough to just go shirtless and only have some torn purple pants, paint myself green and go as the Incredible Hulk.

Video Games

To give you an idea of what I do in the day to day, it's like this: I train other people, and I train myself at least twice a day. And whenever I have spare time I play video games. October featured my birthday (which I ate way too much junk on by the way), so naturally I was showered with video games. In one month I beat: John Woo's Stranglehold, Ghostbusters, Lock's Quest, Kingdom Hearts II, Uncharted 2, and Naruto: Broken Bond. So that's a little over a game a week. Plus, I'm currently playing Dissidia: Final Fantasy, Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, and I recently bought Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (but it's first person so it's kind of a gamble to whether I'll like it). I figure that so long as my training and work doesn't suffer I can waste as much time as I like. That's fair isn't it?

Movies

Well another October has come and gone, and even though Regina's Galaxy Cinemas is now equipped with Digital 3D we have once again been overlooked when it comes to getting a Nightmare Before Christmas in 3D. Now granted there is still time for us to get it, this is beginning to look like the THIRD FUDGEING year in a row we're going to miss it. When it came to theatres originally I was too young and didn't get to see it. Screw the 3D if that's what it takes! I just want to see it in the theatres! This month I also saw Zombieland and Paranormal Activity. Both good and easily recommendable. (I'm more excited for Fantastic Mr. Fox [ November 13th!]). In other sweet movie news, they released Tales From The Darkside on DVD. I remember seeing it years ago and thinking it kicked ass, so I bought it of course. Did I mention it was $5.00! That's a bargain for sure. On the other end of the spectrum, the awesome (yet for some reason not theatrically wide-released) movie Trick R Treat came out on DVD finally. Yes, it is an awesome movie, but the fudgeing DVD was $30.00 for a basic DVD with no extra features. I don't condone downloading movies, but when it comes to a regular DVD being $30.00, well you can figure out the rest...I ADMIT AND SUGGEST NOTHING!

Weather

O.K. weather! What the fudge is up?! It flip flopped so hard this month I don't even know what to make of it anymore, and don't give me that "Oh, that's just Saskatchewan weather" because that's just lies. It might as well be a book by Dan Brown (he wrote the Davinci Code...also known as the wackiest story ever taken seriously). My solution is to use DNA splicing to inject myself with the genes of the much heartier stage of human evolution (especially in cold climates) known as the Vikings. Problem solved, it worked for Dr. Connors when he wanted to grow his arm back right?...........oh right

What The Future Holds

With October behind us we can all look forward to the nightmarish cold surely around the bend, but also the best Holiday of the year in Christmas (Feuring Fitness sessions would make a great present for you or your loved ones!.....Or even a great revenge gift for your enemies!). But in the more near future, as in this coming Saturday (November 7th) you can all come see me fight one of my teammates in an exhibition sparring match at the fundraiser "Battle of the Sexes". It's being put on for another of my fellow teammates who is going to Thailand to fight in the amateur championships. There won't be any big KO's or anything, it's just sparring, but you can come out and see some good fighting regardless. Plus you'll get to see Woody from Jack Fm get ....well, I'll let you speculate how that one will end.

The Fiction Challenge

The Fiction Challenge

The short explanation of this next post is that my brother Donovan challenged me to a fiction writing contest and I said I could do it better than him. So here is part one of my (apparently) new Web Serial. Entitled:

Cash Handsome: A Sword And Sorcery Tale...With Guns

Undisclosed Location in the Colorado Mountains, February, 2009:

Cash's bleeding hands gripped the steering wheel tightly. He strained his blood shot eyes trying to make out the snowy, winding, night road in front of him. He just finished his last government job. He swore to himself it would be his last. The toughness of the job showed on his body and it would serve as a reminder to keep his decision straight. The laceration above his left eye, the bloody knuckles, the burn marks on his left shoulder. His suave, new tuxedo covered in speckles of blood, ready for the trash. Why does he deal with this shit? Because the madmen need to be contained, he thinks, of all the men in the government I'm the most like Batman. “But enough...”, he mutters aloud “This was the weirdest time...this was the last time”, he glances to his passenger seat and his custom weapons of death that sit there, silent now.

The snow is falling heavily, in thick, cottony flakes. The visibility is low, the road is icy, Cash is tired. He looks at the dashboard clock of his 1990 purple Chevrolet Lumina van, (driven for it's pure inconspicuous look, and roomy back seats) 1:59Am. Cash looks back to the road, he's so tired. His eyes wander wearily back to the dashboard clock just as the time rolls to 2:00Am. “Maybe I should pull over for the night, dress my wounds and have a Vodka-Orange Crush for a job.....done”, Cash brings his attention back to the road and is startled to see a figure moving in the distance “the hell is that?”. As his headlights flow over the figure he sees that it is a man. A man that had been confirmed dead, just hours ago. “Shit, I hate you stupid occultists! Can't you ever just die from a gunshot like everybody else!” Cash yells as he slams on the breaks. The moment causes his clunky vehicle to skid forward, never out of control though. Cash rarely loses control of a situation, especially something as mundane as an icy highway. The van stops inches in front of the man. Cash can see the man now fully illuminated by the headlights. His face has a crimson streak down the right side stemming from a gaping wound in his forehead, a gunshot wound. His hands are occupied by a silver egg shaped device, smooth all over, but covered in cryptic writing. Cash steps out of his van into the cold, snowy night. “Didn't I kill you once tonight?” Cash says coolly while taking off his tuxedo coat and rolling up his sleeves, “Got anything to say before I kill you again”. The bloody man tilts his head “You should know that bullets aren't enough nowadays, a man of your experience should have been more thorough”. Cash leans back into his van and picks something up from behind his seat, he makes a pulling motion that is and emerges back into the snowy night with an unsheathed arms-length blade. A katana so sharp the air whistles as it passes over it. “This time I'm going to cut off your head. If you survive that, then I guess you just deserve to keep on living....since...you know...two bullets directly into your noggin didn't do it”. The man laughs “You're such a jackass!”. He raises the silver device to the sky and looks Cash in the eyes “Bon Voyage...”. “NO YOU DON'T!” yells Cash as he passes by the man as fast and fleeting as a specter. A glint of moonlight pierces through the dark clouds and glints momentarily off the lighting fast flick of sharp metal. The man's arms are severed at the forearm before he even knows it. As the feeling leaves his fingertips he can no longer hold onto the silver device. It falls lazily and lands hard onto Cash's vehicle's hood accompanied by the man's own severed arms and begins to glow gold. As blood pours from the man's bloody nubs he cackles “You probably should have have...” Cash interrupts “Yeah, yeah, yeah....I probably should have been more careful with an unfamiliar silver egg....shit...at least I got your arms, you prick!”. The gold light spreads out enveloping Cash, the man, the van, and about 2 miles of snowy mountain road. A high pitch noise accompanies the light like a thousand tweeting birds. Cash becomes unbalanced and grabs hold of his van door, throwing his katana onto the seat, then falling to his knees he covers his ears. “N...no.....this was supposed to be.............the last job” Cash utters before his vision becomes a white blur, and he falls unconscious.

Cash's eyes are closed. Flickering back and forth, like he's trying to wake from a nightmare. Perhaps it's the smell of burning motor oil that is causing him to twitch. Perhaps it's the snow blowing over his unconscious body and burying him inch by inch. Whatever the case, Cash finally comes to. “Nughhhhh.....wha........” Cash props himself up on all fours and tries to get his head on straight. After a few seconds of disorientation he manages to stand. Barely. His Lumina, his once glorious Lumina is sitting beside him, totaled. The tires are flat, the interior appears to have suffered some burn damage, every window is cracked, and the hood where the silver egg fell is completely melted through. Also, the wipers had melted into black ruler length smears. But his weapons remain. No sign of his enemy's blood or limbs, no sign of the egg. What the hell happened? Cash surveys his surroundings. It's still night, but he can tell the location is different. For one, what the hell happened to the damn mountains I was driving through?This looks like a prairie, which means the wind is going to make this snow suck even worse, but I can hardly hole up in my van. It looks like it had sex with a hurricane that had a volcano penis! Then in the distance, Cash hears the sound of howling. It carries on the wind eerily. Wolves? Dogs? Oh, please be helpful dogs! Through the darkness glowing eyes begin to appear two at a time accompanied by the sound of growling and snapping. Cash stares back at the eyes in the darkness “I don't kill animals...so back off poochies”. A booming voice comes back at him, which breaks the moment's silence enough to almost give Cash a scare. Almost...but not quite. “That is fortunate for you. These are my sled dogs, boy. Had you touched even a single hair I would have had to use your innards for making my next soup!”. A man about six feet tall emerges from the center of the pack, he's walking on all fours like any of the animals surrounding him. He's covered in pelts and looks just like a dog. If he hadn't said something I would have never even known there was a man in that mess-o-dogs! Cash responds with his all too natural cockiness “That would have been a little hard to accomplish, dog-man. I'm something of a combat expert. Also, that soup sounds fucking awful, I hope you don't actually eat like that”. The man stands up on two legs and surprises Cash with some type of unidentifiable projectile weapon in his hand. Cash responds immediately by turning for his weapons. The dog-man fires and clips Cash in the right butt-cheek with what looks like a metal dart on a cord, but feels like a gunshot. “SON OF A BITCH!” exclaims Cash as he falls down limp. “Now stay still and settle down, I have your DNA...and you're paralyzed until I take the dart out. You'd better be cooperative unless you want to see what it's like to be eaten by a pack of dog's while you can't even move. From this metal abomination behind you I can tell you must be from the future. Looks like the 90's.” says the man in charge. “2009, actually. And what do you mean the future. Nobody has ever said the Lumina looks futuristic, not even when it was brand new! Where the hell am I!?” Cash says, puzzled. The dog-man offers an explanation that floors Cash Handsome. “Boy, you'd best not believe that your the first time traveler I've encountered. I'll take the dart out, and you can gather your shit together. If you don't want to die in the freezing plains then you'd be wise to come back to the city with me. Call me Tobias, and I hope you have some stuff to barter with, those clothes look like they're done for, and nothing comes free in New Camelot”

The Question Project Part II

The Question Project Part II

In Part 1 of "The Question Project" I talked about what I wanted to be this Halloween and what I'd need to achieve it. Check out my picture checklist below for a quick update

As of right now I have the blue suit, the gloves, and the blue hat. Tomorrow I hope to get the blue trench coat and orange shirt. The orange shirt might end up being replaced though. Although The Question often wears the orange shirt he also more than often has a vest on, which in my opinion would be easier to acquire, so that may be substituted in. And of course the most pressing matter, the blank face.

I've been working hard on it and came up with a few different options but in the end I think I'm going to end up going with my currently constructed mask. A wire frame with multi-layered flesh toned nylon over top. It's not complete yet but I think it's starting to look pretty good, it's nearly impossible to see out of however and I'm going to have to make some eye holes. Here are some pictures of the early mask and how it looks on me thus far:It might look a tad ratty at the moment but I plan on getting the edges nice and smooth, and adding at least 2 or 3 more layers of nylon. And finally I will attach a neck piece that will not only help hold the mask on my face but will wrap entirely around my neck in order to give the same consistent nylon look all over my head (except my hair of course which will still be visible [hence why I'm not just pulling a nylon over my head]). Hopefully it will end up looking pretty good. I'll make a final post Saturday once everything is complete. Also, this Saturday is the 2009 pumpkin carving contest between me and my brothers. I won last year with a kick ass "Punisher" pumpkin you can see below, and I have a pretty good idea of what I want to do this year so hopefully it'll work out.

Jared At The Movies!....And some other junk

A Week In Recap:

Dear readers of Blog Hard,
Guess what I did last week? If you said absolutely nothing you are correct. I've been sick all week and haven't trained once. It's a terrible feeling. Not only am I congested, I have a sore throat, and gooey lungs. It sucks. Plus my weight is entirely thrown off from my lack of exercise. Your body processes food entirely differently when you are following a pro-athlete regiment, and I'm sorry to say that even though I was sick I ate basically the same. Which means my high calorie intake which is usually fine when I'm training like a steam engine is now nothing but a week of fatness with my metabolism slowed right down. Good stuff. But I digress. I won't waste your time going over how emo being sick is, because we've all been there. Instead I'm going to give you a multi-laired blog post with excitement and wonder!

#1 - Internet Stuff:

So if you are lucky enough to know me personally, then you know that I am mental for Cracked.com . In fact, it is my new messiah. They had one article several days ago that was entitled "5 Horror Novels That Will Shrivel Your Balls This Halloween". If you happen to go to that link and read the article you will see that both #5 AND #1 on the list are a book called "John Dies At The End" written by David Wong. David Wong is in fact the man who wrote said article, which just makes it even funnier. But not only that, David Wong is the ghostwriter name of the actual editor of Cracked.com . And since I worship Cracked, I essentially MUST have this book. It sounds absolutely hilarious, just check out this excerpt supplied from the article:

We kicked through the slithering things and stomped up after the dog, just as the stairwell door banged shut on its own. I reached for the knob.

At the same moment it began to melt and transform, turning pink and finally taking the shape of a flaccid penis. It flopped softly against the door, like a man was cramming it through the knob hole from the other side.

I turned back to John and said, "That door cannot be opened."

Gold. Pure gold. And I'm not really a book reader, (in fact 99% of what I have are comics and the other 1% is a split between informational books on fighting and actual novels.) but I am actually excited to read this book.

Also on the Internet I found this, which kicks ass! I would have just posted the video but the embed wouldn't work for some reason...

#2 - Video Games:

This'll be a short part of the blog because I'm sure that reading about me playing video games is even less fun than someone forcing you to watch them play...whilst never giving you a turn...and then pausing it to go to the bathroom and leaving you there to watch the pause screen. All I want to say is be on the lookout if you want cheap games, because Christmas is coming and all the major stores are moving out their old stock for the new stuff. Today I found Ninja Gaiden DS for $14.00 at Superstore. That's right, ANOTHER find at Superstore. Also, they had Oblivion for PS3 for $18.00 which I might pick up later, I'm still in debate about that one. So since my birthday I've been bombarded by video games. Dissidia: Final Fantasy, Uncharted 2, God Of War: Chains of Olympus, Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days, Ghostbusters, Stranglehold, and I'm sure there is even more I'm forgetting. So these next two days I'm going to focus on getting over this damn sickness and doing some hardcore video gaming.

Now for our feature article:

#3 - Jared At The Movies!:

So last night I head out to the movies to see "Paranormal Activity". A movie that has enjoyed much success with the critics (getting 85% on the Tomato Meter), and achieved widespread distribution despite the fact it only took 1 week to film. If you haven't heard any more about this movie I won't ruin anything except that it's being hailed as one of the scariest films of all time, hence why it went from being a select screening in 16 cities to nation-wide distribution. It's filmed all through the view of one camera, and the movie takes place on one set. This movie cost almost nothing to make, and before we even got in to see it I was rolling around in my head how "this movie is making so much fudgeing profit!".

One of the people I went with was at the concession and out of nowhere suddenly had a coupon for a free drink. So I scored a free Nestea. Sweet. Then we headed into the theatre. Once everyone was seated and the movie was about to begin it was a near full theatre. And this was at midnight, with the movie having been shown several times that night already. "This movie made so much fudgeing profit!". Before the movie started my friend decided he should use the washroom after drinking a full sized drink, even though the movie was starting in like 2 minutes. I was all like "Sucker, I drank a Nestea and don't have to...................uh oh". Almost as soon as he got back from the washroom the movie began, and so did my own personal horror of having to piss worse than almost ever before.

I hadn't had to leave a movie to use the washroom since the first Lord Of The Rings movie, but this was bad, this was lip-biting, tears of pain bad. I tried to make it anyways. We were right in the middle of the row and I hate walking by people. I thought to myself "if this movie is as scary as they say it is, the first scary thing that happens is gonna open the waterways and I'm going to literally piss myself". Not because of anything scary, but again because of my lip-biting anti-whizzing pain. It sucked. I tried crossing my legs from side to side but eventually I was shaking at the knee trying to hold it in, but hey, I'm almost a mere mortal and can't hang on forever. The movie streak was over. I shuffled through the isle past people giving me scowling looks. I'm sure a couple people thought "MAN, THAT GUY IS SO SCARED! HE CAN'T EVEN TAKE IT!", but no. It wasn't that the movie was scary. It's that I love Nestea. When I get back action is happening on the screen and I didn't want to cut anyone off so I just stood in the dark hall. I think I missed a critical part of the movie, but it wasn't enough that I couldn't pick it up. Anyways, the rest of the movie was watched comfortably. And again I don't want to ruin anything about it. I'll just say that you shouldn't buy into the "scariest movie of all time" hype. It's simply not. I didn't find it scary at all to be honest, but it was an enjoyable movie. After it was over I immediately wasn't impressed and even said to my friend "I liked Cloverfield better". I hated Cloverfield. But after like 5 minutes what I had just saw sunk in I began to like it more. All in all it actually was pretty good considering what it was and what it achieved. I'd give it about a 7.5/10. This year my favorite horror movie still remains Drag Me To Hell, but there is still time.