hope, hype and lat pulldowns

the phrase "president obama" hasn't lost its luster. hearing it is like someone dropping a warm blanket over me when i didn't realise 'til then that i was cold. don't get me wrong -- i didn't drink the koolaid and i'd be happy with "president hufflepuff" or "president whickyclickclickwhirratweet"... anything that's not "president bush." but how lovely to have a president who can speak, who doesn't elevate the lowest common denominator. watching tuesday's inauguration speech was like reading dickens again after 8years of jonathan kellerman.

teho quipped "morale, it matters," and he's spot on. if obama's administration could accomplish 2 things i'd call it a Win:
1. give us a reason to think we don't suck for being american
2. stop thinking the rest of the world is like us, and just dying to be a democracy.

if all 3 snorgoyles could kick off in the next 4 years that'd be awesome too, but icing on the cake, my man.

'tis friday; bitch session w/E on the calendar. i am anxious to see if he thinks i've gotten any huge-r since we last rode.
- i've been lifting! - i proclaimed as we toiled up a long landenberg hill. can you tell?
he surveyed me doubtfully.
- ummm keep at it - he answered.
black tights minimise, you know.

but i had to go and open my big yapper to F too, and he probed my shoulders & biceps while i flexed valiantly.
- you're shaking - he chuckled.
- i just lifted this morning! - i protested.
- it's okay - he said soothingly. girls aren't supposed to have muscles.

not in afghanistan maybe, but i'm american bitch. and that might MEAN something now.

aside: Fresh Air on tuesday aired terry gross' interview with iconographer & street artist shepard fairey, remarkably well-spoken for a dude who's been arrested 14 times. give it a listen.

i keep the bible in a pool of blood

lately i've been haunting the local football messageboard, don'taskwhy, and it is harder than you might think. first of all, i cannot keep my big piehole shut even if i know SFA about highschool football; and second, because students frequent the board and you get booted if you talk about drugs or use bad language, i have to use the TourettesCheck to make sure no shitfucksuckcunts slip out and get me banned. it is a different world out there, people. take this recent exchange:
[CYO = Catholic Youth Something]

sportwatcherhof

Re: CYO Football
Does anyone else find it a little strange how most of the kids on the CYO teams are not even catholic?

finleynine

Re: CYO Football
i find it a little strange that you know this, sportwatcher. do you have some kind of catholic divining rod?

sportwatcherhof

Re: CYO Football
finleynine.. No divining rod needed. I just know the kids and families that play with my son, and know who I see and don't see at church. It is a common fact that most teams have more non catholics than catholics. I am sure you know the people in your church.

what the fuck is "church." no i am sure i don't know the people there.

i do, however, know that according to this meme i'll subject you to, my body gets 43 miles per gallon. i don't know whether my not having thrown up or fainted from exertion upped or damped this #.

43 miles per gallon

the real story behind The Photo

i have to ask - PK wrote - is that pic of palin on your blog real?
no it's not, it's just a good 'shop job and if i were a nicer person -- if i were ethically nuanced, for example -- i would take it down to avoid any misconceptions but i'm not so it stays.

what i will do is point you to the original photo on Flickr, where you can also follow the unfolding story as the manipulated version hits meme levels. beginning 3mos ago with a respectful (denied) request for usage rights, the conversation snowballs into an exchange between photographer, journalist, troll and bystander and along the way addresses seasonable issues like creative license, political propagandising and "star-spangled porn."

doctor casino, the photographer of the orig "elizabeth" photo, shows admirable restraint & composure, even a sense of humor:

My new favorite theme in the comments against this image is that it somehow proves that conservative women have better bodies than liberals; ie "Who wants to see a feminist in a swimsuit?" Elizabeth, of course, has never voted Republican in her life, and we first became friends after I noticed her in a performance as "The Angry Vagina" in The Vagina Monologues. So, who wants to see a feminist in a swimsuit? 20,000+ internet surfers, apparently!

apparently. later skaterz i'm busy -- tryin to stick this:

on this:


and it's not going well.

of VPs and pit bulls

sarah palin continues to bubble to the surface of conversations around here.
- Macain picked a Hottie for Vp! - laf texted me soon after the official announcement and the buzz hasn't evolved much since.
- oh, she's a total hottie – D agreed - compared to laura bush?? she'd be the hottest first lady maybe EVER.
a long jon stewart pause.
- you mean, VP.
- yeah. what did I say.
- you said first lady.
- yeah well she'd make a hot VP too. much better than that geraldine ferraro.

presents quite a moral conundrum doesn't it. have you heard the leaked mccain/palin voicemail? [no liquids in the mouths upon the listenings, unless your monitors need cleaning.]

yesterday we got into a heated MyCo debate about whether palin's family and parenting... skills? challenges? dinnerplates? -should be factored into a debate about her political qualifications. when arguing with parents single libertarians, i've found, rarely win. i think that's because our concept of the world derives from Atlas Shrugged, whereas loucypher's struggles with braces, catholic school and cheerleading give him a more pragmatic yet ethically-nuanced perspective.

i have a pragmatic, nuanced perspective for you. it came yesterday when i was running trail and passed a guy walking his dog. in the short seconds it took to register him while phil anselmo roared in my ear about feeling fucking hostile, i noted a goatee, floppy bangs and a pitbull; and i realised that the one thing missing from NIN shows now is hawtness. let's get to the real issues people. how do we coax this guy back outside. where's that platform.

3rd & 10

a beautiful day yesterday. slept in instead of swimming and in the afternoon blew off a RBRBRBR BTW workout to watch delcastle scrimmage against howard & st george's. i'd sidled in on utter whim but immediately became part of the scene, folded into a mix of siblings, parents and teachers who'd collected in the stands on a perfect day in august to watch a bunch of high school kids score a touchdown every 45min. a girl who melted me with her marion jones smile rubbed her little brother's shoulders while he squirmed with pleasure. the fathers of squashed and spindled players tromped heavily down the risers to confab with the physical therapist – we wrapped the ankle, just ice it tonight and we won't run him tomorrow/it's just a jammed finger, nothing to worry about/he's a tough kid, he'll be fine tomorrow – and smiled at me on the way back up, relief smoothing the corners of their eyes. a big, big man who to this day holds penns grove school records in the 100m, 200m, long jump and 4x100 relay railed against clewless assistant coaches and the questionable wisdom of spending money on computers instead of hiring quality coaches who would “get those skinny fuckers in the gym and put some meat on their bones.” we held our collective breath when another boy crumpled on the field and the players went down on bended knee, and we clapped when the trainer resurrected him.

i didn't intend to sit there for 2 hours, didn't intend to be there in the first place, but it was an unexpected pleasure and i left reconstituted.

it is good to be free.

thursday earling morny at the YMCA

went down like this
eats
1 doubleshot latte
handful of jelly beans
NO advil!!!
20 min on EFX
Canterbury Tales on ipod
jackshep rowing.
eep
4 miles on treadmill
Tool on ipod
1 mi ez
2 miles @7:19
lovely to open up (a little).
window reflecting
jack's 4 sets of pullups.
nearly fall off tready.
finished w/6x30sec @6:20ish
repercussions
so far just
happiness.

[note: pic is Not My Fault. must have happened when i was cuing up the Knight's Tale on the iScrotum. oopsie.]

The Oracle is motivating

finally getting back into the training groove after a month flipped upside-down by 12days in scotland, an unplanned trip to baltimore and a flu that knocked me out for 5 days. feels good to be moving again.

but this Quality Over Quantity school of thought The Oracle subscribes to demands a deep stock of emotional fortitude, mental focus and blind faith, 3 things noticeably absent from Finn's Top 10 Strengths list, which includes things like Eating ice cream, Not folding laundry and Ignoring spills on the kitchen counter. also The Oracle subscribes to Pain, another foreign construct in my happy world of 12mi @ 8min/mile. yesterday it took me 6hours to screw up enough courage to get on the bike and grind out a BTW 20mi ride and 3mi run. 77min of PAIN. a small child sitting on a seesaw in his backyard saw my face during the run and then ran inside, his fat little arms flailing.

- is it normal to cry during these workouts? - i asked The Oracle - or am i just a big pussy.
i am sure The Oracle never cries. firstly, he is a dude, and second he is perfect.
- yes - he surprised me - crying is normal for that type of workout. You’ll cry when you stand on the top step of the podium listening to the national anthem too.

that is why i have the blind faith.

whats good about today?

lets see.
theres this marc jacobs ad in this months elle:

and this:

also
having a training schedule from now til 4/6, and
NOT having a fever.
yes it was worth getting out of bed this morn.

but jesus christ this office sounds like a fucking TB ward.

the irish blog awards, and The Oracle

first of all, congrats to fatmammycat and twenty major for representin (FMC in spirit) at the irish blog awards saturday nite. FMC took best post award; twenty snagged most humorous post and best blog overall. congrats to both, and to arseblog for winning best sport blog.

now, let us speak of sport, which i don't do often because i know that playing with dust particles is more exciting than reading about so-and-so's training plan, unless so-and-so happens to be your competition and if you are my competition then i have done this blogging thing wrong wrong all wrong.

to some people, having the right coach is the difference between an All-American season and one that ends in june when you're burnt out on the sofa reading Lucky magazine and eating Mallomars. finding a proper coach can be an arduous process, and having just gone through it myself i feel qualified to offer this guide called:

HOW TO FIND THE RIGHT MULTISPORT COACH FOR YOU:
A GUIDE FOR DUMBFUCKS ACCUSTOMED TO FLYING BY THE SEAT OF THEIR PANTS AND SETTING UP THEIR BIKES IN TRANSITION AS THE STARTGUN SOUNDS

step #1. undergo a rude awakening. finding out that qualifiers for long-course duathlon (run-bike-run) worlds are only a month away is very effective. attendant upon this awareness are these realities:

• - your first race of the season will be a worlds qualifier
• - your second race will be another worlds qualifier (for short course), 3 weeks later
• - you are just now coming off base. you have done NO speedwork.
  
• - you will be off the bike for 11 consecutive days this month
• - you are fucked
• - you need professional help
• - your bowels are hot, roiling liquid

2. while you're in the bathroom, text all your friends who have coaches and ask whether it's too late to get connected with them (it is MARCH, after all). don't discriminate, blanketbomb. beggars can't be choosers.

3. back at your desk, stare at your unresponsive phone and then recall a crazy pipedream idea E proposed on a ride. send an email to the 2004 elite world duathlon champion and throw yourself at his mercy, esplainin' you're seeking training & racing advice from someone who's:

• - experienced, and successful
  
• - okay training by feel not numbers, and not all caught up in heart-rate, wattages, V02 max or lactate-threshold. some people dig that shit. not me.
  
• - appreciative of the fact there's life outside training and racing. there's whisk(e)y, for one, and 65hr work weeks.
  
• - unlikely to get on your tits too bad if you spend a weekend in the boozetank or battling the Dog, instead of riding a bike.
  

4. SQUEEEEE when he says yes and run back to the bathroom.

so now, for the first time i have an Oracle to guide me and reveal certain truths -- like if i wish to place top 2 in my AG in carrboro, NC on april 6th i need to get on a bike as often as i can during those 11 days in scotland.

so, finn's world has undergone a seismic shift, and instead of lazily slouching toward a half-ironman in june we are rabbiting into race shape for april. huzzah! -and i need a nap.

GoogleImageSearch: danny lohner

doggie lama's dad is 37 today.
somehow this:





grew up to be this:







and the world is a better place for it.


i think.

thanksgiving is a time to give thanks

thanksgiving is a time to give thanks for all the good things you have in your life. it is a time to recognise your blessings and tell the people you usually blow off that they are important to you. you do this by sitting down with them and gorging yourself with meat, stuffing and sauces, then going to watch the telly.

there are a LOT of things that i am thankful for. here they are:

[click to embiggen]

yup, i think that is a wrap.

happy thanksgiving! cya next week.

black dog at the door

8am Hangover Remedy Run with Laf and Young Buck sunday. Laf and i were in the same straits -- my skull got 2 sizes smaller overnight - he insisted -- so Buck let us set the pace. Laf was leading up cellulite hill, where i might have checked out a little.

- see right there - i addressed the nicely rolling haunches before me - did we just pass a bunch of runners going the other way? or did i make that up. because in this condition i'm just not sure.
- yes we did – Young Buck confirmed behind me.
- oh was THAT what that “swoosh” sound was – the haunches mused. Laf was in possibly worse shape than me because his bowels had decided they'd had enough of the previous night's dinner and were determined to expel the lot of it. he darted off trail 4 times in the first 3 miles.

we reached the top of the hill and Buck scampered off while Laf and i paused to reconnect with our lungs. i was starting to feel better. my head still throbbed but i was thankful i hadn't slept through the alarm as i'd been sorely tempted. and i could finally voice a realisation.

- at the end of every season, after my last big race, i don't know if this happens with you, but i get depressed and feel like crap. Laf nodded.
- i was like that after ironman wisconsin.
- it's like post-partum depression. and so for these past two weeks nothing's had a point and nothing gave me pleasure.
- nothing? - he leered. i let that grounder dribble by.
- okay, almost nothing. there was music this time. but even though i KNOW this will come, as it does every year, it still creeps up and takes over and i start to think this is how it will be from now on. no ups & downs, just gray.
- but then you come out of it.
- yeah, but what if you don't? what if you've used up whatever brings you back and you get stuck?

Laf pulled the rim of his baseball cap down a notch and looked away. the morning sun glanced off his cheek, setting in relief a crosshatch of wrinkles i hadn't noticed before. he looked wrung out. he's living with his parents, his house isn't selling and his soon-to-be ex-wife recently began to exhibit symptoms associated with MS. what brings us back??

Buck reappeared before a bend in the trail and surveyed us silently. i tugged his sleeve gently and we trotted up to Buck.

maynard's vagina hasn't leaked yet

puscifer's first album, V is for Vagina (hellyeah), is due out oct 30th. chafing at the glacial pace of tool releases i suppose, maynard j keenan occasionally escapes his crate at danny carey's place and beagles his way into a outstanding side project like tapeworm, a perfect circle or puscifer. in addition to MJK, other contributors to the puscifer cumpot include josh eustis, lustmord, milla jovovich and ex-nin bassist danny somebody.

MJK and trent reznor seem to share the same brain sometimes: there's the censorship is a cancer / OSR twinning, the concept of nature cleaning shit up in a swath of wrath (aenima and the warning) and the outspoken dissatisfaction with the current administration.

so i guess it's no surprise that MJK this weekend came out with his own State of the Industry address which, like reznor's declaration of independence last week, acknowledges his enviable position in a market struggling to reinvent itself, and his ability to help direct.

i’m doing this pretty much on my own. no label support aside from the distributor. it’s a HUGE learning curve. but if i can navigate it, i will be able to share what i’ve learned. i can make it easier for other bands that are trying to do it on their own. make it possible for us all to survive in our little microcosms rather than fall victim to the seductive song of the sirens… the expensive and impersonal macrocosm of the major label dog and pony show.

and while he doesn't quite come out and suggest “steal it,” keenan recognises the new world order has triggered a wider exposure to and appreciation of new music. but on the flip side, while illegal downloading won't kill or maim the keenans and reznors, it could destroy isis, autolux, and the burning brides:

downloading wont effect me TOO much. but it will affect those bands right on the edge. bands who could use the hundred bucks to make it to the next town to play a show (gas and food aren’t free. go figure) . or could use some cash to record a new record.( imagine that. it actually takes money to record a record.) i can afford to pay for the recording of my record. i’m one of the lucky ones. (thanks to nirvana and the label feeding frenzy, i won the early 90’s grunge lottery.) but those days are history. in order for young bands to survive nowadays, they need to get paid for their efforts. touring costs money. recording costs money. unless you’re ok with bands recording their songs on their Palm Treo.

the puscifer appetiser EP Don't Shoot the Messenger popped up on iTunes last week; here's the track listing:
trekka (sean beaven mix)
REV 22:20
the undertaker (renholder mix)
REV 22:20 (4:20 mix)

if you think you've seen these before, you have. danny lohner used REV 20:20 in the first Underworld soundtrack and his Undertaker remix appeared on the second. so not terribly new stuff but it's the price of a fucking latte so drink a cup of free ass coffee this morning and buy some music instead.

the EP didn't leak, but V is for Vagina has. or has it? you may find that, upon dloading (and this is all theoretical of course), the tracks you have don't match the associated track listing AT ALL – that in fact, you now have a copy of living syndication's new album Aneurythm. mistake at the dload farm, you may think, but that happens rarely, and actually Aneurythm isn't half-bad. tho you've never heard of this band before, maybe you will give them a listen, maybe you will like what you hear and go to a show and buy a t-shirt. maybe you will go to their MySpace, where you find among the syndication's influences a perfect circle and tool. and you may think, could mj keenan be so clever, to "leak" a trojan horse??

today's eyecandy: APC's judith (the orig, not lohner's peerless remix). i'm as straight as the next chick but when paz lenchantin whips her hair into a knot at the top of her head without dropping the bassline i'm utterly enchanted. ply me with turkish delight and take me to your wintery kingdom, paz.

countdown to richmond: 1+ week

in the bank is another week, such as it was. getting my ass out the door in the afternoon has become a mental battle, and many times the bike loses out to the hammock. during an ez ride, E attempted to console me.
- it's all just polishing, right? i mean, you're talking about workouts that will give you a fraction of a degree of improvement.
- i suppose.
- really, it's the hours you put in a month ago that are going to help you out in richmond.
an awkward silence ensues.
- you mean the hours i racked up in maine.
- with the gin. yeah, those.

we sensibly abandoned this subject for a discussion about the top-speed of armadillos and whether or not they're capable of "scampering." E says to scamper all you need is legs, while i argued to afford scamperability there has to be a level of spinal flexibility, which your average armadillo don't got. clearly this calls for more research, pref performed on a beach in st. john with a mojito in one hand and iphone in t'other.

this week i eeked out only one quality workout, a greg watson special [cos i figure who better to (try to) emulate than the duathon world champ several times over]; to wit:
warm up - run 2.5 miles - ride 5 miles - run 2.5 - ride 5 - run 2.5 - cooldown.
this workout's supposed to be done at race pace. it wasn't, but it was done. period.

when i got on the bike, however, i was warmed-up from the run, so i bombed the descent on my twisty, rough road that may resemble parts of the purportedly technical, potholed richmond bike course. as i dodged potholes and shot tangents i thought if this is what richmond's like, the bike will be a blast. hills, tight turns and road challenges may give me a leg up over the Tiny People... unless upon meeting the course's bumps and grates the Tiny People fling their water bottles or Tiny Bodies in front of me, in which case we're all fucked.

so.
it is friday. Eat, drink, and be merry / For tomorrow we die.

mark danielewski is a normal dude. sort of.

went to philly last night to see the notorious MZD, aka mark danielewski, author of House of Leaves and Only Revolutions, which just came out in paperback. dude is one of my heroes: if i were stranded on a desert isle i'd request House of Leaves and a bottle of jameson, in that order.

Z opened with a johnny truant passage from House of Leaves that he said had inspired Only Revolutions, then read sam's account of escaping the Juke Joint (S209) followed by hailey's take on leaving st. louis (H217) -- two subsequent chapters told in two voices.

now i'm going to do something appalling – he proposed – and read the end of the book. authors aren't supposed to read the endings, i know, but you may have noticed one of the peculiar things about this book is that the ending is also the middle. so he offered up sam's version of hailey's death (S353); and the difference in these 3 passages' voices – between sam's hormone-pumped description of the restaurant, to hailey's beatnik lovesong, to sam's heavy, wordsworthian sorrow as hailey goes – the shift in voices, the songs of experience vs. innocence, really comes through when read aloud.

like shakespeare, the Only Revolutions danielewski is the spoken word, whereas House of Leaves is the... well i still don't know what the fuck it is. it's like Lateralus, when OR is V is for Vagina. or something.


when asked the inevitable question about what kind of shit-fit pantheon threw when they saw what they had to publish, danielewski said definitively that HoL had made that possible. i got a decent amount for my second book - he revealed – nothing by movie or advertising standards, but in the literary world something decent – and i knew i could have just given pantheon a book over the phone, something easy that would have taken 3 months, but i had in my mind these two homeless kids, and i went with that. OR was a 6-year effort, during which danielewski was obsessed, working 10 and 12-hour days, 6 days a week, blowing up two relationships and continually wondering “what would hailey think about this” and approaching elderly gentlemen in coffee shops, asking “where were you in the 50s? were you ever in love?”

one of MZD's great loves is deconstructing the convention that language is independent of form, that it carries the same meaning regardless of appearance. he's all about leading the reader into meaning using typography and visual design -- tracking the flight of a bullet stretched in word-clusters scattered over squares of whitespace in House of Leaves, for ex.

Only Revolutions is more horsed: font face, size and color are strictly controlled, as are the number of words on a page, pages in the book; the physical orientation of the book itself; how hailey and sam's stories intertwine beginning to end, and chapter to chapter. it's a beautiful book, but i wonder if the story is compromised, constrained by its form. i imagine it's like the conundrum every translator of dante confronts: do you stay true to dante's complex rhyming verse structure? -or do you ultimately choose substance over form and resort to free verse? is it possible to have both form and substance without sacrificing either? because, to some extent, form IS the story of OR.

fuck it. i'm telling the mayor i'm taking a danielewski day. surely he'll understand.

no i have DON'T have anything better to do

your better isn't very much fun.

danny lohner reinterprets a classic

not his BEST remix, but i could still watch this all day.



and maybe i will.

[thanks to rev, the MySpaceAddict, for finding this.
now turn off the comp and git outside, boyo.]

my housesitter left his porn behind...

having returned from vacay with a need to go minimal, i've spent the last two weekends weeding out my closets and packing bags for Goodwill. this weekend i attacked the closet in the TV room, where winter clothes are stored.

imagine my first-consternation, then glee, when i came upon these works of art jammed between a couple of my wool sweaters:

i'm 99.9% sure the culprit is F, who house-sat while D and i were in maine -- homie left the plastic wrap for the jenna jameson oeuvre under the TV tray for D to find when he vacuumed. (we're a little burned that F left just the boxes and absconded with the discs.) we entertained various hypotheses to explain why the boxes were hidden in my sweaters: cleaning up for company, perhaps? a cry for help? were your sweaters stuck together? - asked D.

the real question is, do i return these to F? if so, how? do i pop into the biz dev meeting tomorrow morning and say thanks for house-sitting man, but you left these behind while half of MyCo looks on? do i leave them in full view on his desk? do i tell F i'm through with D because i found porn in the house and i'm sure it's his? or do i pack them in a brown paper bag and coolly leave them on his chair?

cruel or kind?
WWYouD?

talent vs. experience

rode the flats with the Penis Brigade last night, the lone female representin' among a bunch of burly-chested, hairy-legged macho dudes who require constant attention because you never know when one of them will miss the curl of a turn and ride right off the road. most of them ride for fun, not competition, so it's a refreshing change of pace. you better hope that none of your teammates see you on this ride - LAF said to me - you'd get so much shit. that's why i wear an old kit - i told him, and then watched paulie walnuts ride into somebody's backyard. but they're all mountain bikers so their saves are pretty good.

flatlands suck the life out of me, so when we hit summit bridge coming out of chesapeake city i got to the front and found wings, riding everyone except LAF off my wheel. summit's a long gradual incline, and if you find the right gear and rhythm you can really fly up it -- and if you're used to time-trialing, you crest the top and hold the effort steady, clicking through gears as you hit 30, 33, 35mph. it felt SO good -- smooth and fluid and simple.

- you're so talented - LAF said as he pulled alongside me.
- what?
- you didn't change position that whole time. you didn't move. - he means my shoulders & hips don't rock.
- that's not talent. that's hours in the saddle while your body figures out how to be more efficient. it's experience and laziness. why do any extra work?
- i guess. i always learn something when i ride with you.

it's all relative, isn't it. the next time i do the barksdale ride i will marvel at how L manages to stay with us when i would be off-the-back on the first hill if i were carrying those 30 extra pounds. but she's been riding for so long that she knows how to survive in a peleton. that said, it's also gratifying to have your "talents" called out.

i have fallen in love with swimming again too.

this time next week

this time next week i will be sitting on a dock in maine reading the last Harry Pooter book with nothing on the iCal except for happy hour.

here are pix from june, when LAF & friends were up there. pretty chillin, eh?