I know I’m not supposed to buy myself too much before Christmas, but I was out walking and I found myself at Future Shop this lunch. Just released — so I KNOW no one would have even thought of buying it for me — was the U2 “The Best of 1990 - 2000″ dvd video collection. Three hours of U2 on one disc. And it was on sale, so I picked myself up a copy.

brad.gets.beat.up.by.a.little.kid

I made the mistake of going to Judo a few minutes early last night. My class starts at eight, but — thanks to the speedy skytrain — I made it there about 20 minutes early, and just in time to watch the last few minutes of the kids class that goes right before us. So I’m sitting there, in my gi on sides of the mat, stretching — warming up, and such — along with a couple other guys from my class. This is normal. This is cool. This is do-able. The Sensei from the kids class suddenly says: “Pick a senior to fight.” — in other words, pick someone from the senior class not a senior citizen, though you really feel bad at 26 when someone refers to you as a senior. The next thing I know this little bugger kid — about 8 years old — hauls me onto the mat and starts beating on me. The thing is, he’s good. He knows his stuff. And Judo is not about strength — it’s about balance, and knowing how and where to push and pull. I’m thinking I’ll just let this kid do what he knows and play along. Nope. He literally flipped me over his shoulder. Then again. And again. And yes, again. In fact, he did this repeatedly — flipping, sweeping, tripping — for about ten minutes, and at the end wasn’t even giving me a chance to stand up before he raged at me and threw me back down. Sigh…