The Unbearable LIghtness of Feet

In an amazing display of male stupidity I recently agreed to go running with my boss. While everyone would acknowledge that I am the superior athlete (highest ranked rider in my house 39 years straight!) it turns out I suck at running. As I drug myself out of bed the next morning, then down the stairs and then into work where I was unable to requisition a wheelchair it occured to me I should probably get some real shoes. So I rolled down to Roadrunner Sports, which appears to be slightly less evil than Performance Bicycles, and got myself the full-meal deal shoe fitting.

The end result is that I got a couple custom orthotics out of the deal that have dramatically improved the fit of all my shoes. Now, I've since learned that there is a lot of heated debate over whether orthotics improve bio-mechanical efficiency blah blah. I don't know or realy care about that. The issue I had was just uncomfortable fit: my shoes where either to tight or too loose. As Hone LLC or Darth Tubbs can attest from the '09 Les Schroll "But I'm Not Dead!" Memorial Ride up St. Helens that pain can be pretty dramatic.

Anyway, if you have ill-fitting shoe issues I can't recommend custom orthotics enough.

Lazy Reporting

While I don't condone using any type of social welfare benefits for gambling, guns, strippers or other such vices reporting that $2 million have been withdrawn at locations that peddle these vices is useful only if we know what the total percentage this represents. 2 million out of 3 million is an outrage that suggests the need for immediate reform. Let's get our pitchforks out yo! But 2 million out of 10 Billion is an impressively small amount of abuse. Awards and bonuses for everyone involved for such an effective program! As written, the article provides something for black souled newspaper commenters to project onto.

Can Haz Code and Inuendo

Is there a particular reason velonews is adopting the annoying tendency of hard news organizations to try to make their news articles as opaque as possible? Is Trent Lowe saying that the visit to Del Mora was authorized by the team and for the purpose of the health check and therefore didn't violate the terms of conduct on the team?

Shorter Paul Ryan

The only way we can avoid Greece's fate is to adopt Greece's austerity measures and lemon socialism.

NSFW

Don't blame me if you watch this and get fired


This Day In History: The Invention Of The Handjob

Conservahumor is teh Suck

I don't know if it's always been true, but the entirety of conservative humor has sucked my whole life. I am sure there are many competing theories as to why but mine is simple: most good humor is grounded in truth. This is especially true for political humor. I always like South Park because, behind all the offensive jokes, the show mocked real behavior and attitudes.

Case in point: The Endive. I get that it's supposed to be a conservative version of the Onion. But, unlike the Onion, it's just not funny. When I first read the Endive my reaction wasn't "ouch, that's a good one" it was "ouch, this joke is predicated on a complete misunderstanding of the subject".

Take this article about Obama meeting with Ming the Merciless:

“We aren’t at war with Mongo’s people,” said the President, “We’re at war with the greed and selfishness that started this world-wide economic crisis. We’re not so different, Ming and I. Sure, I have a little more hair on my head and a little less on my face; but we both share the common goal of ruling peacefully with the help of an army of mindless robots."

Was the author even awake when they watched moviee in question? Ming's goal isn't to rule peacefully at all. He creates elaborate spectacles and political schemes where he seeks to actively humiliate his subjects for his own amusement. While he does have various mindless minions in his employ the movers and shakers of his cruel regime are colorful whack jobs who take fetishistic pleasure in torture and destruction.

So setting aside whether Obots are mindess drones the truth telling falls apart because the analogy is predicated on not having watched the f*&^ing movie. Now compare that with a good Onion article about Star Trek. It's funny because *that's actually what Star Trek fans are like*!




PS: it also helps to have a consistent criticism. Setting aside the misunderstanding of Flash Gordon the story paints Obama both as a despotic dictator and a weakwilled pansy. That makes no sense.

iPhone killed the blogging star

I realized the main reason I blog less is that I rarely use my laptop anymore. It's much easier to do the other stuff I do on my iPhone. Plus the nvidia chip issue makes the laptop so slow I forget what I am writing before I can write it. I wonder if my new laptop will lead to more blogging?

My dream

A Steelers/Seahwaks Superbowl rematch. There would be poetic justice is the amazingly inconsistent Hawks managed to beat the Steelers and avenge the theft of our Lombardi Trophy in '05.

And, yah, I am looking at you refs. You really screwed that one up epically.

I hate myself and I want you to know it

The only reasonable explanation I can come up with for agreeing to my bosses suggestion that we have my weekly 1:1 over a nice 5 mile run is that, deep down inside, I loathe myself. Really, why else would I have engaged in an activity which I knew would leave me hobbled and in unending agony?

And unlike every mom whose (sp?) hormones convince her she loved be pregnant I was perfectly aware how much running is THE.WORST.EXERCISE.EVER. cause it MAKES ME HURT 11!!11!

WTF PruDog!

False equivelences aside

So the big argument being fought is over the false equivelence of metaphors that reference violence but have been drained of actual violent connotation (i.e. you're dead to me, don't bring a knife to a gunfight) and those that validate violence as an acceptable solution to political disagreement (inviting donors to shoot targets with political opponents names on them).

I am not going to waid into that debate because plenty of other people have and because I don't believe it's being had in good faith; in otherwords Sarah Palin wants to be able to say whatever she wants without being held accountable and it wouldn't matter how direct the connection is.

While I don't accept that all metephors that spring from violent imagery are the same I do think, in general, the use of violent and sports imagery does have negative impacts. Specifically, there's ample evidence that rampant use sports metaphors in politics desensitizes people to the actual, real life impact of policy.

Ouch!

It's been awhile since I fell off my bicycle and had forgotten that sometimes the road rash goes away but the pain sticks around. Specifically, it feels like someone put a knife in my back and didn't take it out. Ouch.

If not now, when?

The answer, for many in the Northwest is next month. The question, of course, is when does racing start. It starts on beautiful February 13th in balmy Oregonia. Hazah!

I'm so old I remember when heading to OR was a weekend ritual, not a massive trek that only a crazy person would make. Perhaps it's because there is more racing? Maybe more racers? Maybe we are environmentally conscious?

I don't know, but I for one welcome our frosty-season races and say "have at thee!"

But I have a wonderful singing voice

I have been inundated with two requests to update the blog. I haven't had much to say since I've been busy working and training. Ok, maybe not so much training. But, once you make the switch to Masters it becomes all about consistency.

Luckily for you Mrs. PDog decided to race Chiller Cross in Bellingham. Adding to your good fortune Mrs. PDog's brother & sister-in-law were kind enough to watch PPuppy 2.0 so I could race too.

You'll be happy to know that I took full advantage of my 2011 racing age and lined up in the Masters 40+ C race. Hey, my cross skillz suck. And to prove it I managed to lead the race and then settle into second before crashing myself not once, but twice. In the same spot. Sweet. And to cap it off, in my mad attempt to crawl back into the top 10 I unleashed a mad sprint into the finish that not only bumped me up a spot but also saw me hurtle pass Mrs. PDog at the line!

She was so happy about my performance that words failed her. Well, that's not really true. She had lots of words like "asshole" and "way to go jackass". But I am sure that's just because she hadn't yet internalized the impact that one spot will have on my morale and season! I mean, when the other riders hear (likely from this very blog) of my awesome form in January they will give up all hope, stop training and just forfiet countless victories to me.

It's like they say "it's not whether you win or lose that matters. It's whether I won or lose". Now excuse me, I need to go see if Mrs. PDog is talking to me again yet.