My dad and I caught Fight Science on the National Geographic channel earlier today. Everyone in my family is a closet martial arts fan of some sort (my mother enjoys martial arts anime and movies, as do my brother and I, while my father enjoys watching the real thing) so the documentary kept us riveted for two hours.

To sum up what was said, boxing delivered the strongest punch, Muay Thai delivered the strongest kick (well, knee), kung fu has the fastest strike time and Glen Levy, the ninjitsu expert, definitely had a crazed glint in his eye when he learnt that dim mak really does exist. Disturbing killer instinct aside, I have decided that the martial arts I now most want to learn is ninjitsu. The sense of balance those guys have is amazing, and strangely enough, that's what impressed me the most out of everything I saw on the show.

The ultimate weapon, as determined by the scientists on the show, turned out to be the samurai katana, because it offered the best combination of range, control and impact, compared to the other weapons tested, such as the Chinese broadsword (dao) and qin (light-weight sword), bo and nunchukus.

During this segment, my father asked me (in his usual way of testing how good my general knowledge is), "so what's the most famous sword?" My response? "Either Excalibur or the lightsabre." Heh.

After the documentary ended, I flipped over to Star Sports just in time to watch my favourite Norwegian, the baby-faced killer himself, Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, score a second goal against Newcastle. During the match, I also watched Cristiano Ronaldo miss a fair number of shots. Since there was so many close-ups of his face after his failed shots, I realised that the man I met in Goa, and who subsequently became my tour guide and driver, does resemble Ronaldo, so the Portugeuse heritage is really still quite prominant.