I’ve been into martial arts for a while, and found a great site a few months ago on self defense.  Yesterday I noticed the guy had published a new self defense ebook, and ordered it.  The book is awesome, so if anyone is interested in self defense or martial arts I’d highly recommend it.  It’s great from a mixed martial arts perspective, as it covers a lot of MMA training as a base, but then goes into specific techniques you can add for self defense.  Plus, the guy has a post on the palm stick where he mentions how awesome the Surefire LX2 is, which I blogged about the other day. 

For more of his great work check out his New Orleans gallery.

You can find plenty more on this terrific blog.

Surefire LX2

I rather like high quality, super bright flashlights.  Over the years I’ve had a couple of Inova lights.  They’re built like tanks and are much brighter than your average flashlight.  But recently I decided to upgrade to a Surefire light, widely considered the best flashlights in the world.  Surefire recently came out with the LX2 Lumamax, which is has two output levels, one of which is insanely bright.  My wife took a picture of me shining a friend of mine, and you can see the effect it had on his face:

LX2 Beam

If you shine someone in the face at night…when their eyes have adapted to the dark…they become unable to see at all for a solid 3 seconds or so, and see a serious white spot for a minute or more.  Not only is this an awesome flashlight, but it’s also a lot of fun to shine your friends and family members with.  If you’re about to hit the toilet with your laptop and want to read up on this light, there’s a very long thread/review here at the Candle Power Forums.  I bought mine from Optics HQ, and their customer service was excellent…so much so that I ordered another Surefire E2L Outdoorsman for a family member:

Surefire E2L Outdoorsman

Why the Outdoorsman?  Well, the LX2 is so bright it’s ridiculous.  The Outdoorsman is likely a better choice for those looking for a longer lasting light (Battery wise, the Outdoorsman’s low mode at 3 lumens lasts 100 hours compared to 30 hours for the LX2′s 15 lumen low mode.) that won’t destroy their own night vision when looking for something in a dark room.  But if temporarily blinding people is one of your primary reasons for getting a flight, or you just want a light that’s crazy bright, you can’t beat the LX2.  (If you want the LX2 but don’t want the super bright spot all the time…even the 15 lumen low mode is very bright…get yourself an FO4 Diffuser.  That was my solution for using my LX2 indoors.)  Very, very cool flashlight.  I’ll never buy another non-Surefire light again.

I first blogged about Vibram Five Finger shoes back in May of this year, and posted on the horror of modern shoes shortly after.  These shoes have quickly become the only thing I wear, and today I received the newest model in the mail…the black KSO Treks pictured above and below:

The KSO Treks are only sold in stores, and they’re out of stock throughout the country.  Fortunately though I was able to find them at GSS Gear due to a tip on this awesome Five Fingers forum.  The Treks are made of leather, compared to the synthetic material on the KSO’s, and they’re insanely comfortable.  Additionally, the soles are a bit thicker and have crazy treads as you can see in the picture below compared to the KSO’s:

Really, these treads are crazy:

Since I’ve been wearing Five Finger shoes almost exclusively for the past year, I’ve come to hate modern shoes, which are terrible for your feet.  All it takes is a month or two of wearing Five Fingers to realize how caged your feet have been!  Granted, Five Fingers are not cheap, but they’re the best shoes you’ll ever wear, period.  Not only that, but the Vibram Five Fingers customer service is incredible.  Although I really hate to admit it, I had a problem with my beloved FF’s.  The straps on my KSO’s were fraying:

I called Vibram and they advised me to bring my shoes back to Massey’s where I purchased them, in order to get an exchange for a brand new pair of shoes.  Now that’s customer service!

So go ahead, ditch your crappy shoes and get yourself a pair of Five Fingers!

Rack & Roll

We’ve gone a little too far into politics lately, and away from reading on the toilet.  It’s time to get back to toilet talk!  What better way to start than with the best toilet paper holder in existence?  The people over at Rack and Roll have created the perfect, stylish solution for reading on the toilet.  They call it “the neat solution to a dirty habit“.  Instead of having a bunch of books and magazines sprawled out on top of your toilet, or getting soiled on the floor, you put them on a stainless steal rack next to the roll!  Awesome!  Here’s a close up of the rack:

The Rack

Enjoy!

Looks fun, but totally nuts!

This video starts off a little slow, but be sure to keep watching.  It’s PURE CRAZY!