In Sept. 1993 or '94, I'm thinking '94, I attended my first "blind party" with people I had previously known only via the Internet. I had found a cyberhome in AOL's "chat rooms", in a stable community of unstable people styled "Type Your Brains Out" (TYBO). I drove down to Fredericksburg, VA in my aged Buick Riviera to meet up with them at a Best Western. (Same one that's still on Plank Rd.?) At the time, AOL charged some flat subscription rate per month but, here's the catch, after 20 or 25 hours they ... (...more)

session #29: 3.3 mi / 45m42s, peaking at 7.3mph for a half-lap. Nothing short of amazing considering how BLAH days on end of low atmospheric pressure has me feeling.

Words fail me. Almost as failingly as they failed Palin, when she was asked which Founding Father she most admired; or that other time when she was asked what newspapers she reads. The stunning part isn't that "Palinista" posted this at all; it's that in late 2011, months after Mamma Grisly had backed out of the '12 presidential race as decisively as her handlers have been able to get her to do anything, there were still zombies trying to drum up mindshare for her.... (...more)

Been pushing a little harder/longer on ab workouts on my off-days. Why do muscles feel sore a day or two after a moderate workout? Because they literally suffer a certain amount of "micro-injury". First, a certain amount of lactic acid damage inflicted by "pushing" muscle metabolism, that is, metabolizing glucose faster than oxygen can be supplied to convert it to pyruvic acid instead of lactic acid. And second, tiny ruptures or "fraying" of the muscle fiber structure. This is the bodybuilding principle... (...more)

A few days ago, the Occupy Oakland protesters numbered around 150. Then Oakland cops under direction of mayor Jean Quan shot an Iraq veteran, a peaceful protester, in the face with a rubber bullet, and targeted other protesters with stun grenades. In all, hundreds of peaceful protesters were injured with projectile weapons and/or exposed to chemical weapons. The shooting victim (the most publicized one, anyway), 24-year-old Scott Thomas Olsen, a retired Marine, is currently hospitalized and his conditio... (...more)