(Apologies in advance for the meta-profanity.)

The most recent appearance of the D-word on my radar, from Merlin Mann’s new post at 43 Folders, Photography, and the Tolerance for Courageous Sucking, in which his internal monologue tries to undercut his new hobby:

“Oh, Jesus. Really?” some voice whined. “Now you’re That Guy? Can’t you just walk out there like a grownup, retrace your steps, and be back here in 5 goddamned minutes? You really need to drag your giant, douchey camera out for a four-block walk? Who’re you now, freakin' Diane Arbus? Jeez, get a life.”

“Douchey?” When I was in high school, if you used that word as your expletive of choice that was a pretty good indicator that you were somebody I wanted nothing to do with, but now it looks like that simple litmus test is a thing of the past. Not only does Merlin Mann (who I like) use it, but Jon Stewart (who I like) uses it as a comedic crutch (if recent episode of The Daily Show are any indication).

So are they words on the rise, or has my brain decided (totally against my will) to pick them out of the air? A little research…

Google Trends has “douche” marginally on the rise as a search term:

… but I’m wondering about word frequency in text, not in people’s searches. I assume search frequency is more driven by legitimate need and preteens looking up naughty words rather than any linguistic prevalence. Although what’s up with that big spike in late 2004? Anyway, the “news reference volume” is a more what I’m looking for, so off to Google News which gives me a timeline of the actual word usage (as opposed to search usage):

Looks like a spike to me, especially if you contrast with “fuck”, which is the model of a fully saturated cuss word:

Fuck can stay, but I’m already tired of douche. I’m hoping it’s a fad.

Very cool indoor caving setup, cobbled together with eye-bolts and hinges. Great pulling workout, and that knee-over-the-arm move is clever (makes it look easy, until you consider the grip strength involved). ‹via cr›

Focusing on MySpace in the Lori Drew case is to take your eye off the ball:

Let’s be clear. Megan Meier’s suicide is a tragedy. The fact that it was precipitated by bullying is horrific. And the fact that an adult was involved is downright heinous. But by centering the conversation around MySpace, people lose track of the core problems here.

Interesting insights on bullying, parenting, technology and their intersections (and conflations).

Engadget embeds some Simpsons Apple mockery.

This one’s making the rounds… Chicken Head Tracking. Pretty remarkable ability. Not remarkable enough that I’m worried about our evolutionary advantage, except perhaps on the dance floor, but still.

I love these little aggregator coincidences: this afternoon The Science of Sport puts up a good piece on swimming’s credibility crisis, and this evening I catch this NewScientist article on a new nanotech fabric that is unwettable (too bad the word “waterproof” is already in play). You can leave it in water for hours and it comes out bone dry.

Coach Sommer, who you may remember from articles like Building an Olympic Body through Bodyweight Conditioning or Developing the Hanging Leg Lift, has a post up on a very interesting "prehab" exercise, Wall Extensions:

Wall Extensions are a relatively simple movement that can be quite effective in treating what I have occasionally referred to as "Bench Press Syndrome"; or a greatly reduced range of motion throughout the shoulder girdle due to an incorrectly designed exercise program.

Just tried these, there is only one way to describe my performance: I sucked. Which is totally unfair, since I don't bench, and work harder on pullups than pushups. Sigh, stupid computer job. Definitely something to add to my regular stretch breaks.

Also, very exciting, his long-awaited book on gymnastic strength training for the layperson, Building the Gymnastic Body is available for preorder! As you can see from the link, you can also buy it with DVDs and/or rings if you want.

I remember, quite a few years ago now, watching DoG play at Regionals. I still remember Billy Rodriguez exhorting a defender from the sidelines, "where do you want to make him go?"

As one who was (and still is, if I let my mind wander) inclined to play defense by merely chasing my guy around, this was revelatory. "Where do I want to make him go"?! What a concept!

Now, years later, Josh Mullen has put up a post laying out how that works in practical terms: Good Defense Happens BEFORE the Disc Moves. Perhaps not as pithy as "where do you want to make him go", but much more helpful.

I'm quite late with this one, but here's Michael Pollan's Open Letter to the Next Farmer in Chief (written pre-election). One excerpt can't capture 10 pages of goodness, but I was struck by this bit:

What was once a regional food economy is now national and increasingly global in scope -- thanks again to fossil fuel. Cheap energy -- for trucking food as well as pumping water -- is the reason New York City now gets its produce from California rather than from the "Garden State" next door, as it did before the advent of Interstate highways and national trucking networks. More recently, cheap energy has underwritten a globalized food economy in which it makes (or rather, made) economic sense to catch salmon in Alaska, ship it to China to be filleted and then ship the fillets back to California to be eaten; or one in which California and Mexico can profitably swap tomatoes back and forth across the border; or Denmark and the United States can trade sugar cookies across the Atlantic. About that particular swap the economist Herman Daly once quipped, "Exchanging recipes would surely be more efficient."

I appreciate this guy's motivation, from a New Yorker comment on Theatre Of War, a play about the Scottish regiment deployed to Iraq:

At least one veteran declared himself a conscientious objector to the general approval of the play. "I didn't join the Army because I didn't want to work the deli counter at a convenience store," Jason Everman, a heavily tattooed, bearded veteran of the Army Rangers and the Special Forces, who served in Afghanistan and Iraq, said, referring to the play's depiction of soldiers as having been motivated to enlist by the lack of alternatives. "I joined the Army because I had a specific agenda: to develop the warrior aspect of my persona."

As a teen-ager living in Washington state, Everman explained, he had been inspired by the "Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini." "He was the quintessential Renaissance man: an accomplished warrior, an artist, a philosopher," he said. Everman had already taken care of the artistic aspect of his persona, a friend who was with him said, at which Everman admitted that he had been a guitarist. (No kidding: post-encounter intelligence reveals that in the early nineties he played with Nirvana and Soundgarden.) Having left the military in 2006, he is now studying philosophy at Columbia University. "It's the Platonic ideal of the tripartite soul," he said. "Wisdom, courage, and temperance. Those are Plato's words, not mine."

Here's the Cellini autobiography.

The trailer for the new Pixar movie is, umm, Up. Can't wait.

MAKE links up a self-balancing unicycle.