50 More

After posting earlier this morning, I read Elroy's comment on the Dec. 20th post. I still had a few minutes before my hour was up so dropped down and was able to do 50 more. That means I'll be doing 200 not 150 each day. Anyway, I hope that each of you that celebrates Christmas has merry day tomorrow.

Push Batman Push

A big set back yesterday. Having done my ten days of alternating A days (100 push-ups over spread over an hour) and B days (100 push-ups throughout the day) and then taken two days rest, I tried to do as many as I could in a single set. My big number: 55. Ouch. I've got to raise this. I have a whole set of excuses but the Batman doesn't get excuses and so neither do I. Next week I must have a significant improvement. So I'll up my number from 100 push-ups to 150 and try to do fewer sets of larger numbers. I don't think that I can jump right up to 200.

Also I have been learning knots (I've memorized my fourth one and have completed a couple more) but I don't have access to Gimp or a steady stream of internet right now so I'll hold off until after Christmas to post about them.

Batman and Ropin'

Today is day ten of the push-up regiment. That means it's the last day of Round 1. I still feel good about it although I have to admit, I'm a little bit stiff. After a two day break I'll see how many push-ups I can do consecutively. Before I started I could do about 45ish. I hope to double that on Tuesday.

I received two books that I ordered for this Building Batman project in the mail today.

Book 1: The Knot Book by Budworth and Compton. Batman knows knots. Trust me. Climbing up and down building... oh ya he knows knots. Tying up baddies for Gordon to pick up. Some fun with Catwoman. Mooring the Batboat.

Book 2: Visual Guide to Lock Picking by McCloud. That's right, not only am I learning from a friend but also on my own. It will probably take me quite some time to understand lock-picking well enough to explain anything but sooner or later we'll cover this stuff.

So here's the plan. Over the next few weeks I'll introduce you to a knot or so a day as I learn and practice them. As that happens I'll learn as much as I can about lock picking. Learning these couple of skills will be big step in becoming Batman.

Home Made Equipment

My lock picking friend came in this morning with an old lock, a homemade Torque Wrench, a make shift Slim Jim and a WR3 bump key.

Of course, I'll explain what all those things are in blog posts as I learn to use them.

Batman: Lock-pick Extraordinaire

I haven't mentioned it yet but I've been looking into lock-picking a bit. It's not quite next on the list of Batman's Skills for me to learn but it's pretty high up there. So you have something to look forward to for after Christmas now.

I was talking to a friend of mine about being interested in lock-picking and it turns out he has some experience from his days in a hardware shop. It turns out that this shop acted as a minor locksmith's and part of his job was to pick the locks that came in without keys.

Anyway, he offered to teach me how to make a pick set. If all goes according to plan not only will he teach me how to pick locks but also how to create makeshift picks and fashion more sturdy long term picks. Great coincidence that I plan to take full advantage of.

Welcome to Wayne Manor

This is the funniest thing I have seen since... I really don't know... I'm speechless. The art is amazingly fun and the stories are hilarious.

The webcomic (if I can call it that) is called Welcome to Wayne Manor and it's amazing (did I already mention that?). The guy who does it also posts his stuff on deviantART but it's nothing different than the blog site.

Please!!! You must go leave this artist a comment or two encouraging him to keep going. The blog hasn't been happening for that long but I laugh and smile so much every time something new is posted.

Who Has The Time To Fight Crime?

You know the worst thing about push-ups? The ups.

It's actually finding time to spread the sets out evenly throughout the day. It's tough to find the little bits of seconds here and there.

Push-Ups

Four days ago I started doing push-ups following the Blog Comics, Films, Kung Fu, and Whatever the Hell Else. I'm starting easy since I've never been a particularly athletic guy but I'll try to improve fast.

The routine consists of picking a number of push-ups to do (I'm doing Elroy's gentle 100). On day one you do 100 over the course of an hour. The next day, you do 100 hundred sometime throughout the whole day. Then you repeat. You do this for ten days and then rest for two days. After the two days of rest, you try to do as many as you can in one go. Then start all over again with a larger number of push-ups.

I don't know what Batman would think about two days of rest but I think in the real world there's wisdom in giving yourself a break of some sort.

Drink Up, Batman

I made a mistake yesterday.

I drank an espresso and an americano. They were decaf so it was ok, right?
Wrong!

Getting off of caffeine wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I had a couple of restless nights and a few days with minor headaches but really it wasn't so bad. Since quitting I had drank a few decafe coffees here and there when others went for coffee and I wanted a break.

If I had just checked Wikipedia first I would have known that the international standard of decaffeination is only 97%. That means that my espresso and americano gave me about 45mg worth of caffeine (calculated from this website) which is equivalent to about a can of diet coke.

This is terrible! I was up until early this morning (I read some of a book called Varieties of Religious Experience by William James which I would recommend highly as a must read to anyone who just loves lecture series from over a hundred years ago on the psychology related to religious experiences. Oh and I also reread Justice) and had to sleep in this morning all because of the equivalent of a pop?

So what do I do? Drink no coffee so that when I do finally drink it (as is bound to happen since its the most consumed drug in the world) I'm messed or need it every single day so that if I don't get a cup I have withdrawl?

It depends on the other side-effects of coffee. Are there long term problems? Long term benefits? Is there a way to be immune to caffeine? That last idea would be best but try as I might, I could not find a believable method of becoming immune (which is different than normalizing and being able to sleep again or drink more without getting jittery which is called caffeine intoxication).

It seems one major side-effect is that caffeine makes it harder for your body to retain calcium which means weak bones. But it sounds like this is not really serious if you drink milk. Despite your kidneys doing all the processing of caffeine, coffee doesn't seem to pose any health concerns for your kidneys.

Children and pregnant women might not want to drink tonnes of coffee since caffeine is a drug that primarily effects the nervous system and children's nervous systems are still developing. That being said there are no documented longer term effects due to drinking coffee while pregnant.

So what about benefits? Caffeine seems to have poorly understood but positive effects on athletes
and metabolisms. I suppose that this would appeal to a crimefighter without superpowers.

To the obvious benefit: caffeine is a stimulant. People use it to increase energy, decrease fatigue and make them more focused. Fine. But there is something else here. Studies seem to say that caffeine boosts short term memory retention.
That's amazing. Even better, not only does it improve short term memory, caffeine may also reduce memory decline in the elderly (especially women) and prevent memory loss.

Conclusions: There's enough benefits to caffeine not to stop. From this little experimental diet of mine, it seems that I can stop anytime I'd like given three or four days. But the moral of all this seems to be "All things in moderation." Governments seem to take a pretty conservative stance of saying that you shouldn't ingest over 400mg a day if you are a healthy adult (that's a venti at you local Starbucks). So here is my revised plan. I'll finish the month-of-no-caffeine but after that I won't be so strict. However, I won't drink coffee daily, making sure it isn't a habit. In this way, I'll cash in on the benefits by being able to chose when I wish to drink it instead of "needing my coffee to get through the day" while avoiding worrying about caffeine intoxication in everyday situations.

Aerodynamics of Boomerangs

I promised this a long time ago but I was too busy to write up the details and there were a couple of things that I needed to figure out how to explain better. I think I can explain how a boomerang works to absolutely anyone. That being said I may be wrong so if there is something that you don't understand in my explanation just ask.

We'll end up talking about a lot of stuff that doesn't have to do with boomerangs just so that we have all the details we need. In fact, we'll start by talking about syringes.

So you go to a doctor and they give you a needle. The fluid in the main barrel is flowing with some speed because the nurse is pushing on the end but when it gets to the needle part what happens? Because the area of the pipe has changed the fluid must move faster to get the same amount out in the same amount of time. Maybe the diagram helps a bit.

OK. Now let's talk about something seemingly completely different (and still with nothing to do with boomerangs). You're driving really fast on a highway in your Batmobile. Then you pass a semi-truck (driven by the Joker, maybe?) that is going the other way. What happens? You get sucked TOWARDS the truck not blown away from it. How come?

This has to do with Bernoulli's equation (I swear this is the only equation that we will need in order to understand boomerangs so don't get scared away, dear reader) which says that pressure plus velocity (squared) must stay constant. That means that if velocity is increased the pressure must go down and if velocity is decreased the pressure must increase to compensate and make sure that when you add them together they stay constant.

So what happened with the semi-truck? The truck and you form a short channel and just like the medicine in the syringe speeds up in the needle, as air passes between you and the truck it must speed-up too. BUT if the air speeds up that means that the pressure must go down between you and the truck (Bernoulli's equation) but the pressure on the other side of your car stays the same. That means that there is a stronger force on the other side pushing you towards the truck.

Good. Now lets talk about airplanes. Airplanes are like boomerangs, right? Forget about everything except the wing. The wing of an airplane is an aerofoil. The air that passes on the top of the wing is pushed up and has a longer path than the air below. So the air above goes faster than the air below. That means (by Bernoulli's equation) that the pressure below the wing is bigger - there is a force pushing up on the wing! This is the lift force and it's what makes airplanes fly.





Now it's time to use our imaginations. Imagine turning a wing complete sideways . Now what happens? Well for one thing there is no force counteracting gravity and it will fall but there is a force pushing it sideways. The side ways force will make the wing go forwards and sideways. It will curve but it won't quite go turn and travel in a circular path just like a boomerang.

BUT this has a bigger problem. What? Well think of a pencil that you balance on it's tip - and you laugh at me and say, "how could I balance a pencil on it's tip. The smallest bump imaginable would cause it to fall over." Right! As it tips gravity can enact more and more torque on it since as it tips the centre of gravity moves further and further away from straight over the fulcrum (like where the pencil is touching the table).

Our imaginary turning wing is even worse. If it started to tip (as it definitely will) then not only would gravity make it tip faster and faster but also soon the lift would be pointing down more and more. Our sideways wing will flip over really fast and as soon as that happens it's not going to move in a circle anymore. It will just crash downwards. Maybe the series of diagrams illustrates it.

Here's an idea. A pencil will tip because it's unstable but what if you spin the pencil really fast? Now it's like a top. As long as a top is spinning fast enough it will be stable which has to do with angular momentum. Even though gravity pulls down on the centre of mass as it starts to tip, it doesn't fall because the angular momentum which points up from the tops principle axis changes the direction of motion and causes it to have processional motion rather than falling.

So let's spin our wing. The spinning will cause the wing to be staple and it will move in a strafing path rather than tipping.

Good try but there is another problem! The wing is travelling one way at the top of the circle and the other way at the bottom! That means at the bottom the aerofoil is facing the wrong way. How do we fix this? Cut it in half and turn one arm around and glue it back together. That way the aerofoil is pointing the right way at both the top and the bottom. This is a boomerang! The wing on the top and the wing on the bottom both have a lift force pointing in the same direction causing the boomerang to turn to the left (that's why boomerangs can only be left or right handed - they have to be built differently for different hands). The two diagram shows how the aerofoil shape has the leading edge on opposite sides of each each arm of the boomerang.

The wing on top is traveling through the air faster than the bottom one because the boomerang is spinning and moving forward and the top wing moves with it while the bottom wing moves against the direction of motion. So the forward moving top wing has more sideways force than the retreating bottom wing. This unequal force is what turns the boomerang so that it goes in a circular path and not just side ways. The turning force comes from the unequal air speed of the spinning wings while the spinning is able to keep it steady.

The bend in a boomerang isn't needed at all although I've read that it makes it easier to throw. That's what I know about boomerangs.

If this was too long an explanation then you should check out

avkids
Boomerang Shop

If this was too short and you were saying to yourself, "It doesn't mean anything if it's not expressed mathematically" then the websites for you would be

Unspinning the Boomerang
Boomerangs.com

And if you still aren't satisfied check out this really in depth look at

Research Support Technologies

Batarang Found

I went out one last time to try to find the boomerang that I lost. The wind had blown all weekend and most of the leaves are off the trees now. I'd gone looking 3 or 4 times during lunch hours and on my way home from work and I was starting to feel like I would never find it again.

But I did! There it was hanging from a branch in this little tree in someones back yard. I could just see it over the fence.

It's a little beat up (I think the rain warped it a touch) but it flies just fine. Now I just have to hope that it doesn't snow tomorrow.

All One Big Batdream

My sleep the last couple of days has been fitful and littered with dreams. Now, I know that vivid dreams and restless nights are common if you've recently quit smoking cigarettes or pot but both of those have sedative properties. Caffeine is an upper and so if this isn't just a coincidence then I'm surprised. Perhaps vivid dreaming is associated with any change in chemicals that effects the way you think.

Every Day Poisons

I've mentioned that it's turning into a pretty busy time of the year which makes Bat-training that much more difficult. So in order to make the best use of my time, I tried to think of something I could try that wouldn't require practice (unlike boomerangs or ambidexterity) or really any time investment at all.

So I decided to get rid of any addictions in my life. It's pretty canonical that as Bruce Wayne, the Batman fakes drinking at parties so that he can keep up his playboy persona while being in peek physical condition.

What other drugs would Batman refuse? It depends a lot on who's writing the Batman character. Does he do drugs just to see what it's like to be the Joker? Maybe? Or does he take performance enhancing drugs? No? Then no drugs at all maybe? Not even coffee?

So here are my thoughts. Batman would never let allow himself to be addicted. The entire point of Bruce Wayne dressing up as a Bat and beating-up criminals is to feel like he has some measure of control over a world that he really feels he has no control over at all.

So this leads me to think that he would use whatever drugs necessary to make himself more effective but would never allow himself to become addicted to any of them. If he ever felt that any drug had gained power over him in any way, he would use some of that iron determination to break the addiction.

So here's what I've begun doing. I've thought about all the drugs that I take (mostly caffeine but also small amounts of nicotine and alcohol) and I stopped taking them. I stopped on the 1st of December and I will try to go for a whole month. Then at the end of that month I will binge on all the drugs that I had quit on and try to operate normally while intoxicated with these everyday drugs.

This personal experiment marks the start of gaining the toxicology knowledge that Batman must have.

Poison Ivy Ate My Batarang

I still haven't found my boomerang. I went out a couple of times over the weekend but I can't find it anywhere. I check the ground I've been looking up in the trees but I just don't see it. There are a couple of big evergreens in the area so if it's stuck up in one of those, I don't know if I'll ever get it back.

In the mean time, I've ordered two new boomerangs. I feel confident enough with how well things had been going (before a tree ate my boomerang) that I bought two intermediate level ones: the Rainier and the Adirondack Standard. I got them both from the Boomerang Man again.

Hopefully, I they arrive before it starts to snow.

Poor Batman

When my day was done, I took my boomerang to a football field to practice throwing some more. I had a rough time at first. In fact, my first couple of throws duffed right into the ground - which by the way is pretty impressive because the boomerang hits hard and bounces up but then since its really a flying gyroscope it stabilizes itself and flies really far. Those seem like especially dangerous throws since the boomerang stays so very low to the ground and its definitely definitely out of control.

Anyway, eventually things got better and I made some pretty good throws despite the wind. I was even throwing it around the goal posts so that it went past the posts, circled around them and came back to me. But as it got darker it also got gustier. One throw which started out looking pretty good the ended up being my last.

The boomerang started to climb really fast all of a sudden and the stadium lights which had been great up until then made me lose sight of its flight. Since the boomerang started climbing, it wasn't turning as sharp anymore. I had been getting a feel for the way boomerangs fly so I knew the boomerang would be WAY to my left.

I couldn't see it, but I could definitely hear it when it crashed into the tree tops. It had flown right out of the football field. I peered though the field's netting but couldn't see it any where so I climbed the fence and searched the grove of trees for a long time. I never found it.

Batman's Bigger Box

The title of my last post reminded me:
If you've been reading Morrison's run on Batman but haven't been reading Batman comics since the fifties then you should really check out this post:
http://www.comicmix.com/news/2008/11/26/the-stories-that-informed-batman-r-i-p/
I'd be willing to give my thoughts on R.I.P. if anyone wants to hear but you'd have to leave a comment to start the discussion. Otherwise, I'm perfectly content keeping them to myself.

"Batman and Robin Will Never Die"

I haven't posted in a while. I guess that's what happens when you aren't independently wealthy with billions of dollars to spend on becoming the Batman. But although I haven't posted I've been doing plenty of practicing. I'm not a pro but I am definitely getting better with the boomerang. I can make it return to me within a circle of radius say 5ish yards consistently now as long as there is very little wind. But man the ol' batarang is starting to look pretty beat up from all the fences, poles, bleachers, sidewalks and people I've hit ... ok so I haven't hit any people yet.

Hopefully this weekend I'll be able to write a post about how to throw a boomerang and what the science behind boomerangs is. I thought I'd write that last one because the other day when I was walking back from the football field carrying my boomerang, I overheard a couple of guys talking about how they "didn't believe in boomerangs". There's all kinds of people in the world. I wonder what they do believe in.

I've also been practicing writing and drawing with my left hand. Maybe I'll scan some practice sheets to show you.

And finally I met a girl today who fences! Hopefully I'll be able to convince her to give me some lessons because I'm a firm believer that Batman could duel Zorro to a stand still.

Building Batman - Boomerang: Day 3

I went out to practice with my boomerang again and things started out really well. I decided to try a new park - one more on my daily path. Its smaller with more trees and all-n-all a bit nicer than the one I had been going to. To test the wind and the size of the park my first throw was pretty light hearted. My throw curved but definitely didn't come back. My second throw was a lot more serious though. I chucked it low and hard. It came back perfectly - my second throw of the day and it was great. The next three throws were nearly perfect - the boomerang started low and straight, turned and climbed then came right back to me. It was great. On my fourth throw, I got the boomerang stuck in a tree - a big tree.

Fact: When throwing a boomerang you really, really... really really need as much space as they say you need. If your boomerang goes into the foliage of a tree, you are royally screwed. It is a light bent object and so it will not come down.

I felt like a little kid looking way up there and knowing that I would never be able to have my toy again. But I decided I would try to get it back. The branches were too a few feet too high to reach and the trunk too wide to shimmy so I tipped over a nearby garbage can and climbed up that for some added height. It still wasn't enough to reach a branch so that I could start climbing.

I tossed a stick up into the leaves a bunch but I never hit it and did alot of staring up, trying to look like I was formulating a plan and not just praying that a gust of wind would magically come by and blow it out of the branches.

Luckily, some people playing football in the park had been impressed enough with my initial throws (or just the fact that someone was actually trying to throwing a boomerang) to start a conversation with me. They now came over and after a couple of tries and some sharp eyes, they had knocked the boomerang back down to earth.

At that point, I went home. I'll try again tomorrow.

Boomerangs

Boomerangs!!! I received my boomerang in the mail today. OH MAN! It is so great. I came home, the package was waiting for me and it was a perfect day to be outside. So I dropped my stuff and ran out to a pitch.

I was worried to start throwing because I had read this blog and I was pretty sure that I wouldn't be able to get it to turn around but I had read alot of instructions on the internet (like this one, this one and this one) and the instructions that came with the boomerang (which is from the Boomerang Man website, if you forgoit) said exactly the same things.

My first throw turned a bit to the left (that's the direction that right handed boomerangs turn)s but definately didn't come back. I figured it needed to go higher to make it all the way around so I tilted it more - the boomerang shot straight up into the air, crashed down and bounced a couple of times before it died. But it wasn't broken so I kept throwing and throwing

and throwing




and throwing











and throwing until I caught it! It was far from perfect. I had to run to catch it but: I threw the boomerang, I watched the boomerang turn and I caught the boomerang! They say that that the best way to catch a boomerang is with both hands, clapping down on it like a crocodile's jaw but I think I only caught it once like that. I found it much easier to catch with one hand. That is probably the boomerang. The one that I picked is a beginner model and so when it is thrown well it hovers over my head for a second before I catch it. I think that with practice I will be able to throw it lower and closer to the ground but for now I'm just happy when I can catch it at all. After my first time, I was able to catch three more throws (and screw up a hundred) before it got dark. I'll go back out to practice more tomorrow morning.

PS I thought about boomerangs being a weapon: a boomerang could definitely be a weapon. If the boomerang hit anything on the first half of its trip it could cause some serious (although probably non-lethal) damage but the beauty is by the time it has finished its return, the boomerang has slowed to a manageable speed. I take back what I said about a real life Batman not actually using a boomerang. In actuality, using one that turned really tight, with enough practice and skill a boomerang would be perfect for the Batman. That being said I'd love to see anybody throw a boomerang while wearing leather gloves or catch a boomerang thrown in the dark or a narrow alley.

Only One Batman

`There is only one Batman in this world,'' said Batman mayor Huseyin Kalkan.

The mayor of the south eastern Turkish town of Batman says he going to take the producers of the Batman films to court according to Dogan, The Earth Times and Hurriyet (second Hurriyet article). Why? Why because they used the town's name without permission, of course!

To add to the hilarity Kalkan is going to sue Christopher Nolan, the DIRECTOR of Dark Knight, not DC comics or Warner Bros. Studios who of course would be the ones to actually own the rights to Batman, not the director of the movie franchise. Unlike, a character or an image, the name of a local region cannot legally be registered as a brand name.

Another thing to get straight: It's not just this mayor who is at fault for being crazy about rights. A former resident of Batman who now lives in Germany tells this story:

“I named my two restaurants Batman. But six months ago, a team of employees from the production company of the movie Batman made me change the title. Telling them that Batman was the name of my hometown did not change anything.”

"The royalty of the name 'Batman' belongs to us," Huseyin says and he is willing to go to the United States to file his court case if necessary. And I thought only Frank Miller was nuts.

Something about this story rang wrong with me so I dug a touch deeper and found an old article in the Guardian entitled "What's in a name? Too much in Turkey" . A previous mayor of Batman named Abdullah Akin had planned to change some of the city's street names but the provincial governor objected to some of his choices such as Mahatma Gandhi Street, Democracy Avenue and Human Rights Boulevard. A court ruled that 14 of the proposed names couldn't be used because of their association to revolt and resistance. The rational behind this court ruling becomes clear when you know that they also added that streets in Batman must not be given Kurdish names. They want to stifle Kurdish self-determination. If you aren't aware Turkey isn't exactly famous for its human rights record or its relationship with its Kurdish citizens. And Batman is a town with a large Kurdish population. For a quick intro to Kurdish people in Turkey see the Wikipedia article.

This doesn't mean that suing Christopher Nolan isn't stupid. It's just that all the blogs and news briefs I read didn't seem to look any deeper into the situation than just, "Man, those people are stupid."

Picking the Perfect Boomerang

Chances are pretty good that the city you live in doesn't have a local shop that sells boomerangs(mine doesn't). So that means that if you are going to buy boomerangs, you'll have to do it online. Maybe my thoughts on distributors will make things easier for you.

Kendell's Boomerangs

Good page. Well laid out so that everything is easy to find with a fairly good description of each boomerang. Orders are emailed or by mail.
Beginner: The bottom three boomerangs(Correla,Flared Vee and Beta) look like the kind of thing that you might be interested in. At $12 each they are a great price.
Sport: The most expensive sport boomerang is only $25. The Ultra V and the Ohm look like particularily nice traditional shaped boomerangs.
Shipping:
USA $6 Shipping/handling for orders of $10-70 or $8 for $70-100
CANADA $20 Shipping/handling for orders of $20-50
INTERNATIONAL $25 Shipping/handling for orders of $20-50
If you check out the artistic section, Batman-fans might just be in for a surprise.

Boomerang Man

There are lots of boomerangs on this site! Unfortunately, it looks like it hasn't been organized in a while - there are beginner boomerangs in the intermediate section and intermediate ones in the beginner. I guess its not a clean cut devision but... The thing to notice is this website doesn't make their own. Accepts PayPal and phone orders.
The Yanaki looks like an especially good beginner boomerang. I'd be willing to spend a little more money for a boomerang that will last as long as it sounds like this one will. The Glacier also sounds good since it doesn't need to be thrown very hard.
For more intermediate boomerangs check out these guys: The Rainer looks like a good one because it flies low. That appeals to me. MAN! So many good sounding boomerangs! I don't know what to say about them all - The Raptor, the Adirondack Standard, the Eagle... Wow these are all Colorado boomerangs. BUT STRANGELY ENOUGH THEY ARE ALL CHEAPER THAN ON THE COLORADOBOOMERANGS SITE!
Shipping: $6.00 Shipping/handling on USA/CANADA orders of $49

Colorado Boomerangs

Use this site together with the BOOMERANG MAN - you'll be better informed and maybe you'll save a couple of dollars. Most of the BOOMERANG MAN's boomerangs come from here and are often cheaper but reading a second write-up is really useful in deciding which boomerang to get.
Shipping: $4.95 Shipping/handeling on Continental USA orders under 4lbs. ($12.95 Canada and 19.95 Europe)

Wallaby Boomerangs

Don't let the fact this is the nicest website of the bunch fool you. There really isn't alot of selection and the prices seem comparatively high. It doesn't really matter which region you chose - the selection is always the same. I think the easiest way to see what they offer is to go under the online boutique and chose catalog.
The catalog doesn't have much information really and like I said there are only a dozen to chose from and they seem about $10 too expensive. Is exotic wood really that important?
Shipping: They don't tell you the shipping until you've already started filling in VISA info - $9

Cryderman

As I always say, any boomerangs good enough for Prince Charles are good enough for Batman. That's right, the royal family owns a pair of Cyderman boomerangs. These are expensive boomerangs but man, are they gorgeous. The wood is all inlayed and sexy. My only real problem is that there is no information about how each one behaves. I don't really think that these are beginner boomerangs.

BlueStarRangs

This is a good site. Apparently, the "G 12 rangs are unbreakable". If you go to the very bottom of the Products page there is a sports link. This shows a bunch of sets of boomerangs. The first set {VeeRang, Trapezoid, Falcon} seems like the perfect group. If you want to get a more than one beginner boomerang maybe this set of three is a good recommendation
Shipping: 12euro Shipping/handling on European orders of 3-5 boomerangs. $21 Shipping/handling on USA/world orders of 3-5 boomerangs.

DGM Boomerangs

These boomerangs are $50 a pop. They really do look great - when this guy says they are painted by hand he means hand painted not spray painted. I can't say for sure but once I see how much I enjoy throwing and have gotten good with some different beginner models, I may buy the KAMIKAZE. Its return flight is low and quick, they say it whips in rather than hovers. That sounds great if you are good enough to make it work.
DGM BOOMERANGS' shipping/handling fees are all over the place and seem high. Check it out for yourself.
And for those of you who are real Batman fans, the ornamental batarang just might be a must-have.

boomerangs.com

I like how friendly this site is. Since it is organized by brand, price checking is easy (with the exception of Samba Boomerangs which I didn't find online anywhere). That being said, it does seem like the WalMart of boomerang sellers. The prices are comparable - sometimes higher than the Boomerang Man by a couple of bucks, other times a touch lower.
Shipping/handling is reasonable at $4.95 for Continental U.S. and $16.00 international (Canada, Mexico, and Europe).

REDI Boomerangs

These boomerangs LOOK fine but the writeups about how they fly are not super informative and at 18euro or higher plus a complex shipping scheme, I'm just not interested in taking the risk. Plus, it doesn't look like they ven ship to the new US.

So in conclusion, it seems that the selection of beginner boomerangs, price and shipping of the Boomerang Man is best, although you might want use the site with Colorado Boomerangs. I'm going to order 1 single boomerang to begin with. And my choice is (drumroll please) the Yanaki. Durable, accurate, handles winds well, really nice to catch, excellent first timer. cannot and will not go wrong - do I really have a choice? It sounds like this cheap boomerang is perfect for a beginner like me.

I can't wait to give it a whirl. (Oh man, I hope they don't ban me from the internet forever for making such a terrible pun)

Batarang

Batman needs his Batarang. If I had to name two tools that every incarnation of Batman has, I would pick his Batbelt and his batarang (this UGO article agrees, too).


So I've started shopping for a boomerang. I couldn't find a local shop which kept them in stock but there are plenty of good places on the web to buy them. As always I know nothing about this Batman skill so where's the best place to start looking? Wikipedia. From there, I happened to find Canboom which made me realize that most countries probably have a national association so of course Australia does, America does and many more.
I recommend looking at

boomerangs.com
Boomerang Association of Australia
and
boomerangs.org

But in all honesty how good of a weapon is a boomerang? They are really light and there's very little information about them being used as a weapons (perhaps even some dispute) but it sounds like you can throw them super fast and the edges could be sharp-ish so maybe... According to this site much heavier throwing sticks would have done most of the killing while boomerangs would have been either for communiction or distraction. For a really brief history of boomerangs checkout the REDI or Boomerang Association of Australia websites.

I'd be willing to bet that a real-live Batman would use BatShuriken not Batarangs. In fact, many comics show Batman throwing sharp objects that don't return and this is definitely what the modern family of movies shows. Shuriken are considered non-lethal weapons that are used mainly for distraction purposes. They would be perfect for Batman...
But the Batarang is definitely more canonical or mainstream or classic and so we'll learn to use it first.

Oh, Batman

This is probably the funniest I've ever seen Batman:

Batman on the Brain

When I was supposed to be marking this afternoon, I was actually reading some blogs that chronicle other people's attempts at becoming ambidextrous.

The Biomatrix.net is creepily similar in intent to Building Batman. They claim to be

a website that takes self-improvement to the next helping you to become stronger, faster, better and smarter

Strange that these self-improved and smarter people forgot a word in their intro. sentence, isn't it? ("...to the next [level,] helping...").

Anyway, in the article Become Ambidextrous, the author notes that his head "feels sort of tense" and suggests that it may be a placebo or a coincidence. Strangely enough, I've had the same sensation since I started using my left-hand and thought it was a coincidence myself. I also had the same amazing improvement in the first days of practice. Personally, I thought that this would be much harder than just breaking the habit of using my right-hand but now I already feel that that is all it is - being right-handed is just a sloppy habit. Here's a notable blog about someone else who's decided to kick the "right-handed habit".

Is Batman Right-Handed

I found the the answer to my own question. I asked "Was Bruce born ambidextrous?" According to one episode of the Batman (TV series), the villain Egghead used the fact that Batman was RIGHT-HANDED to deduce his secret identity. But even so, I'm sticking to my convictions that Batman is ambidextrous because if that happened once, I wouldn't let it happen a second time.

Further evidence: carefully watch his hands:

BatSkill #1: The Left Side of the BatBelt

Batskill #1
Becoming Ambidextrous.

And my readers (of which I have none yet, I'm sure) cry: "I've never seen that listed as one of Batman's abilities."

But you'd better believe it, old chum! There is no doubt in my mind that Batman is ambidextrous. You think that a ninja from the League of Assassins is attacking Batman by throwing daggers at him, and the dark knight is catching the ones that are on his right but dodging the ones on his left? (that's right, I pick the a League ninja as the first enemy I note in this blog). Or maybe Catwoman is tossing invaluable loot from the top of a building, are you going to tell me that the Caped Crusader couldn't catch it with his leftpaw? (supposing he's right handed.)

So it's as good a place as any to start and I'm serious about learning these things. So I'm not going to rush into the hardest things first. I'm starting easy.

Question: was Bruce born ambidextrous? I couldn't determine a solid answer for whether people are actually born ambidextrous or not (from the very little bit of reading that I've done). But one thing seems clear: anyone can learn if they are determined enough. Referencing these three sources (not exactly irrefutable sources - I'll agree), I have begun using my left hand for simple tasks.

1. When I write, I use my left hand for all titles, headings, dates, etc and my right (which by the way is my dominant hand) for all the rest.
2. I'm trying to remember to pour and drink with my left.
3. I keep a coin at my desk and flip it with my left hand whenever I'm thinking.
4. When I type I'm trying to hit the space bar with my left thumb as often as with my right.
5. I try to remember to use my left hand to open doors and use keys
6. And starting today I've begun using my computer mouse with my left hand.

What have I learned so far from this? I didn't really realize how much we handicap ourselves by primarily relying on only one hand. And Batman would never allow himself to have such an obvious handicap.

Holy Articticulate Articles, Batman!

Here are a couple more old articles about what it would take to build yourself into the Batman:

This first one is a good one:
Why Batman Could Exist--But Not for Long

And
So You Wanna be Batman, Huh?

The reason to read that second one is because the last paragraph brings up an easily forgotten point:

The truly impossible piece is the notion that Batman could have such a small operation. The kind of vehicles and accutraments Batman favors are temper[a]mental creatures in real life, and even prototype level fabrication efforts that are highly automated require quite a large production crew. A back office of scores to a couple of hundred people would be necessary to keep the operation in working order, and at least a dozen o[r] two would have to have such a regular and working relationship that they would have to know exactly what they were doing for whom.

Being Batman Part II

Two more sites that talk about what we're going to talk about:
Being Batman
and
The Cost of Outfitting a Real Batman
I think both of these pages are ok but they ended to soon. And just brought up the ideas. We'll do more detail.

And don't worry we'll definitely compile a Batbelt - but we'll do it as I learn skills. A good detailed list of what could be in the belt is:
The Great Batman Equipment Archive

Being Batman

I saw this old Forbes article today
Forbes: Being Batman

And the thread that led me there:
How would one become Batman?

Holy Dumbfounded Batman

I guess maybe I should point a couple of things out so that you're not confused:

I don't in any way, shape or form intend to go beating up evil-doers. Nope. What I do plan to do is learn a huge variety of abilities because they will make me a better person. I was never a boy-scout or anything of the sort, I have never played sports or done any of the childhood things that I expect would make this easier. So I expect that I will have no experience in any of the things that happen in this blog until after I write about them

I just thought you should know.


The other thing I thought you might be wondering about is the list I posted yesterday. I hope that if you have suggestions you'll let me know but let me tell you: I don't plan to get bogged down in martial arts. Batman is supposed to be an expert in every form of fight-style imaginable. I don't plan on being an expert in anything that I learn to do for this blog and I certainly don't want to spend my life learning to hit people. That's why martial arts is way down the list.

But what I will do is learn at least one and try out as many as I can when the opportunities come up.

BatSkills

Let's get organized:

I won't be able to learn all the skills that Bruce Wayne gained on his trek to becoming the Batman in one day. I'll need to take start one at a time. So first thing is to make a list of Batman's abilities.

BatSkills:

boomerang throwing

lock picking
first aid
acting
wall climbing/buildering
urban repelling
forensic toxicology
emergency driving
piloting
acrobatics
shurikenjutsu/star throwing
criminology/forensic psychology
forensic science
escapology
martial arts
strategic/tactics methods
practical chemistry
crime scene analysis
strength development - athletic training
hacking
ambidextrous
code breaking
scuba diving
base jumping
counterfeiting
puzzles/riddles
strategic/tactics methods

This list is by no means exhaustive (it gets a little nit-picky at the end too) and if you have any more suggestions I'd love to hear them. We'll update and change this list as time goes on.

Building Batman

He's just a normal guy in a cape.

Batman that is. And yet they talk about him like he could take down Superman. But he's just a normal guy. It's not important that he was born Bruce Wayne - sure the money helps but really any body could have been Batman. Or can be...

And that is the question raised in this blog. I'll chronicle my attempts to emulate Batman. Of course, it goes without saying that I won't travel the world seeking out the best in all related fields but I'll try to gain an introduction into each of the skills Bruce Wayne mastered before he donned the cape and cowl.