Friday, May 30, 2008

alternatives to running, pt 4

the 4th alternative to running is.... running!!  hooray!  for this morning i ran 4 miles on the treadmill and the foot held up.  even better, a 7:30min mile felt gratifying easy after pushing through water for 3 weeks.  and after a week's absence, jack shepherd was back on the treadmill this morning.  oh frabjous day.  i am happy like a meerkat, like a marita.  this cannot last.  


but while it does, here's some good stuff off the beaten path. song titles play; thumbnails download.


The National - About Today
live from the White Sessions. a simple song, rich vocals, and violin.  heard this song in the car on the way back from burying grandmother.  wept.  thanks heather.  



El-P - Flyentology (Cassettes Won't Listen Remix)
could also be called the "Tom Cruise You Creep Me the Fuck Out" remix.  cutting lyrics with special surprise backup vocals which teho will ID in 2sec.  i don't know about the rest of you. 


danny lohner's been a recluse of late (kidz stay in skool) but he still makes an occasional appearance. on this one, he even sings.   

Ever wished for a version of RWIB with full, stereo vocals before trenty comes out from behind the treez? here you go.  thx PK.


HAPPY.  MFBT.

Wednesday, May 28, 2008

alternatives to running, pt 3

- i solved the flotation issue! – D announced last night as he maneuvered a case of wine through the kitchen door.
- what flotation issue?
- you know, you. in the pond.


so it's back to this. undeterred by the massive prehistoric creature he coaxed from the pond's depths (and reinstated!!) with a bass lure, D has still got a bee in his bonnet about setting me up to run in there. all his man brain cells have been working overtime to address the problem that without a flotation belt i will sink to the mucky bottom.

- and?
- milk jugs. we'll fill plastic one-gallon milk jugs with air and tie them around your waist.
- do you know how much I weigh?? my waist isn't big enough for all the milk jugs i'll need to keep me up.

he is chastened but not defeated.

- okay then we'll make you bigger. we'll make you bigger AND give you more flotation. know how?
- by fetching that pint of haagen dazs for me?
- nope. BUBBLE WRAP. there's a ton of it in the basement. bubble wrap and those bladders of air that amazon uses. we'll just duct-tape all that around you and attach the milk jugs. and if that still's not enough a couple plastic garbage bags full of air should do the trick.
- so this scrap heap that you'll truss around me will keep me afloat so i can run.
- if it doesn't, i'll have my camera, so i win either way.
- i do not believe that in this instance you have my best interests at heart.
- kel thought it was a good idea.
- kel is running 25miles in the middle of Death Valley. i don't think she's a trustworthy barometer of good ideas.
- girl, you need to run. you're losing your sense of play.


he's right, of course.

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

of Badwater and banana bread

recovering from a 3day weekend of par-tays. to honor those who've died for our country, on memorial day weekend we merkins consume belt-popping quantities of potato salad, coleslaw and variations on beef, washed down with lite beer and wine from boxes. good times.

caught up with kel at coach's Miller Lite fest. in july she's heading west for the
Badwater ultramarathon -- as in 135 miles of running starting in Death Valley, CA (where temps have climbed to 134deg F), climbing 3 mountain ranges and finishing at mt whitney. runner's world calls Badwater “one of the toughest, craziest races on the planet” and kel is doing it. well, part of it anyway: her friend signed up and at kel's wedding reception last year he proposed the idea that she pace one of his overnight legs. drunk on Brut and lurrrv, she accepted, and as a sign of their commitment he presented her with one of those white suits worn by crazy people who run in the desert.

- he gave you a suit to run at night? and you're not worried?? is there anyone else on his support team?
kel looked unsure.
- well, there's the amputee...
“the amputee” is
amy palmiero-winters, who runs with a prosthetic leg – or legs. kel says just like we have training shoes and racing flats, amy has a training leg and a racing leg, and she hasn't decided which to wear for Badwater.

this is kel's friend's second attempt at Badwater: the first time his kidneys shut down midway through and the medics pulled him when he could no longer pee.

- how long is your overnight leg?
- only 25 miles.
- “only.”


at Badwater you have to change your shoes regularly because after about 10miles the midsoles begin to soften from the heat. not just the soles, but the very
skeleton of your shoes. bart yasso, of Yasso 800s fame, writes about his Badwater experience in his new memoir, My Life on the Run. a third of the way into his race, yasso began noticing mounds of freshly-baked banana bread on the side of the road. he wasn't hallucinating, as he first thought: one of his competitors up the road was sponsored by chiquita and at regular intervals was throwing up bananas which cooked nicely in the 160deg asphalt. when he began passing mushy, uncooked piles yasso knew the quarry was close.

- has amy done this before? does she have to worry about her prosthesis melting, or getting so hot it burns her?
- i don't know, finn. why don't you come along and run a leg?
- ha! you're a funny one. grab me that box of pinot won't you.


for the next 15min she tried to cajole me from 80 different directions but i was having none of it and eventually D distracted her with details of his pond-running proposal. if i had to make a deal with god whereby i could run again only if i did Badwater i MIGHT take him up on it after long deliberation.

oh who am i fooling. there would be no deliberating. i miss running that much.

Friday, May 23, 2008

do i dare disturb the snapping turtle?

d went fishing for bass in the backyard pond. he caught a teensy catfish, and this:

whoozall thinks i should take him up on his pond-running idea? how about tossing the snorgoyles in? do i hear a Yea? what's that? you say it is MFBT? and a 3-day weekend??
Let us go then, you and me,
Where the whiskey is spread as far as we can see
Til we're patients etherized upon a table.

Thursday, May 22, 2008

alternatives to running, pt2

foot still hurts; can't run; bailing on next weekend's half-ironman.
so i'm riding more -- which isn't so bad: i have E and laf and options for group rides justabout every day of the week. but cycling by nature offers challenges you won't encounter running trail through White Clay Creek SP.


- why is that man so angry? - i asked laf as we rode past a gesticulating driver waiting to turn onto rt 4 from the Taco Bell.
- i guess we kept him from making his turn.

so even though we're going with traffic -- ARE traffic -- seƱor Dodge Durango is pissed off because he had to wait 20sec to make his turn. WTFever. i don't engage with irate drivers because i am a big scairdycat, i mean i am a lover and not a fighter, but being as italian as risotto laf is both; and when the Durango roared by us, wheels squealing in protest and nearly clipping laf's shoulder, he sprinted to catch the vehicle at the red light 50yds up the road. i poodled along, prepared to call 911 should shots ring out. from my position of cowardice, i mean discretion, i could see words and spittle exchanged. when i caught up with laf his hackles were spiky and his face mottled with emotion.
- everything okay? - i asked insouciantly.
- you know what he said to me?!? he said 'my daughter has a bike like that.'
- THAT'S what he was shouting? that his daughter has a bike like yours?
i thought of TuesNiteTrack's john, whose daughter sally kicks my ass over any triathlon course, long or short. i don't know what kind of bike she rides, but if it's a fuji like mine and laf's, my chest would puff out if john said that to me. i'd feel kinda bad-ass.
- well that's cool - i pronounced, wonderingly. people are funny.
laf looked at me skeptically.
- he had a 4-year old girl sitting in the back seat. he was saying SHE had a bike like mine.
- that little girl has a fuji?
he sighed.
- it was an INSULT, finn. like i was riding a little girl's bike.
my brow furrowed.
- really?
- really.
- hmm, i still think i would have said 'thank you.' after all, you have a very nice bike.
- you keep assuming people are like you. they're not.

and that's a good thing. because if they were, weddings would never be on time, no one would do taxes and there would be constant shortages of jelly beans. there would be no floaters in the crapper and no marinated carrots, and no one would have heard of nora roberts.

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

the wrongs, and the rights

today i gather perspective like morels.
[note: Wrong does not neces imply Bad, unless it is a wrong about my foot]

THE WRONGS

  1. oh lessee... my foot?
  2. and waking up with the Bumblebee Tuna jingle on the mental jukebox, after having suffered through air supply's "All Out of Love" for all out of yesterday.
  3. ThingsIDidLastNight.com [ok is a snarf]
  4. dude who ran the delaware marathon this weekend:

  5. windows not having a QuickLook option to view files without opening them.
  6. this email from loucypher's bro-in-law:
    From: meow
    Sent: Tuesday, May 20, 2008 9:15 AM
    Subject:

    My boss just took a shit and it smells like Doritos and beer. I wonder what he ate last night.
  7. ManBabies®:

    ManBabies.com - Dad?
    GET MORE AT ManBabies.com!

TEH RIGHTE
  1. buying a plane ticket to belgium.
  2. taking a shit the size of your forearm in the 4th floor crapper (triggered by buying plane ticket to belgium). smells like citrus fruit, jelly beans and absinthe.
  3. pool-running the time equivalent of a 400-800-1200-1600-1200-800-400 in the outdoor pool in a 45degree rain (also doubles as a Very Wrong for the lifeguard cowering under the umbrella).
  4. the matthew fox dude with the tats whose gorgeous stride on the treadmill makes hamstering away on the EFX alongside not quite so deadly. where were you monday, you better be there tomorrow.
ding fries are done.

Thursday, May 15, 2008

alternatives to running, pt 1

it should be fairly obvious from the presence of Frankenfoot that i cannot run. the Oracle has worked around this obstacle by prescribing pool-running. if you've never done or seen it, pool-running is strapping on a flotation belt and contracting your legs to move at top speed down the lane of a pool, travelling at the pace of a hungover snail dragging a brick. ever had that nightmare where you're running as fast as you can and going nowhere? then you've pool-run. just imagine that same nightmare only with less blood, fewer clowns, and david hasselhoff never shows up.

so D has come to the rescue by submitting his proposal to save me from the mind-gobbling boredom of staring at the walls of the Y's indoor pool for hours and hours and hours.
- why don't you run in the pond in the backyard? down by the spillway it's deep enough. i can hook you up so you have some resistance, and you can just run in place. you could be out in NATURE.
- what about the snapper? - i asked timorously.
there is a snapping turtle the size of a Smart Car in the pond. it eats ducks and goslings and once it made a grab for fat lodie when she was hunting voles in the jewelweed.
- oh you'll be making too much commotion for it to want to bother you.

yeah right. i see a nefarious little training strategy shaping up here.

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

pop quiz!!

here's a pop quiz: can you identify global brands (like Gap, Starbucks, Microsoft) by the tag clouds associated with them?

what would you guess??
see, you are good at this.

n
oah brier's Brand Tags project is based on the theory that if you ask enough people to define a brand in a word or phrase, and then make a tag cloud out of the results, you'll end up with a picture of what the brand represents. [click each thumbnail for the full view.]

hmm, i wonder...

getting harder...


well, did you get them all right?

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

when obama wins....

toilet tanks won't sweat anymore, pasta will always be al dente & gluten-free, and jameson will come out of my kitchen faucet.

also, we won't see crappy powerpoint presentations like this anymore. in fact, ppt will just go away. so will MS Turd.


and when obama wins, shit like this won't happen:


there. i've made a deal with your devil.

what else?

you go to here now.

Tuesday, May 06, 2008

why i am an only child

- finn i know you're there, hon. pick up...

sigh.

- i talked to laf and he hasn't heard from you either. so whatever, it's back but it'll leave eventually. you always forget that part. anyway. i talked to your sister. yes, your sister. she called me because she got a letter from your grandmother's trust, about the money, and she said there was a note from you. and get this -- she wanted to know what your a-gen-da was. heh! i said, i don't think there is an agenda. i think that your grandparents just left you some money, that's all. and she said, nina there is ALWAYS an a-gen-da.

a cough that multiplies on itself.

- what a shitty way to live... so i told her if that's the way it is, maybe SHE'S the one with the a-gen-da. then she hung up. sorry. i hope i didn't add to whatever fire you've got going over there. just thought you should know. families are a bitch aren't they. i'm not family though, so maybe you could -- GODDAMN IT CHLOE get off the fucking counter! jesus christ i hate that dog. call me bye.

Monday, May 05, 2008

trent reznor is generous

from nin.com:

Click HERE to get the new full-length nine inch nails record: the slip.

(thank you for your continued and loyal support over the years - this one's on me)

it's GOOD, like an evolution of Year Zero.

[still at the end of every hardearned day people find some reason to believe]