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November 30, 2007
All in a day's work
One of the things I like about hockey players is, for the most part, they're a pretty humorous lot. For example, take what happened to Chicago Blackhawk Tuomo Ruutu:
In what officials called an "unfortunate coincidence," Bensenville police briefly detained Ruutu, 24, because he matched the description of a suspect who reportedly robbed a nearby apartment complex at gunpoint earlier in the day, said Village Manager James Johnson.
Authorities say a man wielding a handgun entered the office of the Brentwood Apartments in Bensenville around 11:50 a.m. and demanded cash from the manager, who did not have any money, Johnson said. After finding the office safe contained no money either, witnesses said the man fled the building on foot wearing a black hat, black jacket and black pants, Johnson said.
As police searched for the suspect, who remains at large, Ruutu went for a run after the Blackhawks' practice at the Edge ice arena, less than a mile from the apartment complex. Ruutu, a 6-foot, 200-pound forward, was stopped by police while wearing his black team sweat suit and a black knit hat, Johnson said.
Now, your typical baseball player or football player would've flipped out, but not Ruutu. He took it all in good fun:
For his part, Ruutu, a native of Finland who was drafted by the Blackhawks in 2001, said he understood why police detained him and described his brief stint in the back of a squad car as "a fun incident."
"I was just in the wrong spot at the wrong time," Ruutu said Wednesday. "It happens to me all the time."
Ah, good stuff. I remember the time I was mistakenly arrested. No, just kidding. However, I would probably have a good chuckle at this, too. I know exactly the line, though, where it goes from funny story to section 1983 lawsuit: body cavity search. Who's with me?
Posted at 12:47 AM | Comments (0)
November 29, 2007
My faith in humanity
foodlife, originally uploaded by crispyteriyaki.
Posted at 11:31 PM | Comments (0)
November 27, 2007
Oh Dr. Phil
Dr. Phil is always meddling in peoples' business. His unique brand of bullying/psychology usually gets results, and he succeeded again. This time, he convinced a teenager to break up her online romance:
A Tuscola County teenager who flew to the Middle East last year to be with a man she met on MySpace.com has broken up with him on the "Dr. Phil" show.
Katherine Lester, 18, told Abdullah Jinzawi he was possessive and called her names.
Jinzawi watched on a monitor from the West Bank town of Jericho, where he lives.
Jinzawi denied being verbally abusive during questioning by host Phil McGraw before pulling off his microphone and stepping away from the camera.
Lester developed an online romance in 2005 with Jinzawi. She kept it secret for months before disappearing in June 2006 from her mother's home in Gilford.
Lester was en route to an Israeli airport a few days later to see Jinzawi.
She was intercepted in Jordan by U.S. authorities, who seized her passport and put her on a flight to the United States.
Posted at 01:26 PM | Comments (0)
Not a pretty business
maxpoultry, originally uploaded by snoopoz.
I'm pleased that I don't happen to live near Accomac, Virginia. Nor do I live near any meat-processing plants, as far as I know. I'm especially pleased at this point, because the chances of this happening to me are slim:
A waste truck leaked poultry fat along 20 miles of roadway Tuesday, causing at least four crashes and making a stinky mess.
Virginia State Police said the tanker truck hauling a waste product of poultry grease to Maryland from a Perdue Farms plant had a valve open and the liquid fat leaked onto Route 13 from the plant to the Maryland line.
Sgt. Joe Bunting said there were at least four crashes and several spinouts reported between 5 and 6 a.m. on northbound Route 13, the primary road through the Eastern Shore. One person injured in one of the crashes was taken to a local hospital, he said.
Bunting described the consistency of the grease on the road as a "glassy film." He said Virginia Department of Transportation crews were sanding the road surface.
The sand was helping drivers get traction, but VDOT planned to lay down more sand as the day went on, Bunting said.
The liquefied fat was sticking to the tires of cars that were spreading it onto secondary roads in the region, Bunting said. He added that drivers who got the grease on their vehicle tires would smell a "really funky" odor.
Posted at 01:21 PM | Comments (1)
November 25, 2007
Oh please
One of my favorite classes in college was Propaganda Analysis. The name is pretty self-explanatory. We learned all about propaganda, including some interesting bits, like a Three Stooges episode. A more-subtle form of propaganda, I think, is when legislators propose a law and name it So-and-so's Law. The idea is simple: humanize the law by associating it with a victim who presumably would have not been in a victim if only for that law. The most famous of these is Megan's Law. It also started this trend, I believe.
However, I've found that lawmakers are starting to invoke the victim's name in situations that aren't as, shall we say, tragic. Consider this new law in Ohio, which would require prosecutors to notify the families of murder victims when the murderer is up for release. The man sponsoring the bill has dubbed it "Roberta's Law." When I read this, I said to myself, "Ah, Roberta must have been killed by the man who murdered her relative after he got out of prison. What a tragedy!" But in reality, here's what happened to Roberta:
Known has Roberta’s Law, the bill was partly spurred by a case in Columbus where Robert Francis learned about the release of his daughter’s murderer. He read about the release in the newspaper, said Shaun Busken, legislative aide for Stivers.
Whaaa? So now all you have to do is be upset by something to get a law named after you? If that was true, there'd be about 500 Tim's Laws by this point. I'm not trying to minimize the anger and shock that someone must feel when one reads in the newspaper that his daughter's murderer is out of jail, but I don't think it deserves its own law.
Posted at 08:44 AM | Comments (0)
November 23, 2007
Mister S
Greetings from sunny Buffalo. Naturally, I'm here for my annual Thanksgiving trek, and it's a grand time as always. This time, my parents decided to bring Simon the Dog from Ohio. He's getting the whole Buffalo experience. He came downtown for the Turkey Trot yesterday, where I ran the 5 mile course in a "scalding" 34:20 - it's easy to run that fast when it's 30 degrees and raining.
After the race, we drove 60 miles east for dinner in Rochester, but we left Simon in the hotel. Needless to say, he spent all day sleeping and was pretty hyped up when we got home. I walked him around the hotel grounds at midnight, and then he fell asleep. I fell asleep too. At 6 am, I was awoken to Simon's nasty wet dog nose, and he wanted to go outside. What could I do but hook him to his leash and take him for a walk? As I bundled up at 6 in the morning to take the dog for a walk in the pitch black, I had a realization: people are up at this time shopping. Black Friday, they call it. I love a good deal, but I'm not getting up at 5:30 am to save $25 on an iPod. I'm pretty cranky in the morning as it is, but imagine 500 cranky people trying to be the first in line at Wal-Mart.
Posted at 09:35 AM | Comments (0)
November 20, 2007
Likely story
So a naked woman stole his SUV? I guess he never watched Seinfeld:
A Depew man visiting a Buffalo bar over the weekend became so intoxicated that he awoke in a burnt-out vacant home and discovered that his SUV had been stolen, police reported.
The man told Ferry-Fillmore District police on Sunday that he was at a bar, possibly on Clinton Street or Howard Street, where he was in an intoxicated state.
The man "encountered an unknown naked female" who stole his green Ford Explorer, according to police.
Officers reported that he does not remember what happened because he awoke from an intoxicated state in an unknown burnt-out vacant house.
Posted at 03:11 PM | Comments (0)
November 17, 2007
Craigslist post of the day
Wow, if only I was a law school graduate already. I could take on this very worthwhile case:
I was flown in to be a part of a major talk show and was attacked back stage before the filming of the show took place.
The shows paramedics explained to me that my injuries required stiches and that I needed to get it done immedietly. The show then told me that they would get a car to take me to the hospital, instead however the car took me to the airport and the shows producers told me that if I didnt board my plain immedietly that they would cancel my flight home...
When I got home I went to the hospital and they explained to me that too much time had lapsed and that they could not sew my injury up. Since then I have contracted staph because of the injury as well as have not been able to work.
Posted at 04:06 PM | Comments (0)
November 16, 2007
Happy trails
This is sad news. Joe Nuxhall, the youngest person to ever appear in a Major League game, and who then became a broadcaster, who along with Marty Brenneman, was the voice of summer as I grew up, has passed away:
Hamilton native Joe Nuxhall, who as a 15-year-old in 1944 made history by pitching for the Reds and later became a fixture in the Reds radio booth, died at 10:55 p.m. Thursday night at Mercy Hospital-Fairfield. He was 79.
One of the most beloved figures in Cincinnati’s rich baseball history, Nuxhall was admitted to Mercy Hospital-Fairfield on Monday for pneumonia, a low pulse rate and low white blood count. Thursday morning, doctors postponed surgery to insert a pacemaker because of Nuxhall’s low pulse, his son Kim Nuxhall said.
The Ol’ Left-hander, as he came to be known to scores of Reds fans, spent six decades with the team as a player and radio broadcaster until retiring after the 2004 season. Working under a personal services contract with the Reds, he broadcast selected games during the 2007 season.
For those of you in Cub-land, Nuxhall was, in his later years, much like Ron Santo or Harry Caray: a sharp baseball mind, who knew more about the game than I ever could, but who was also hopelessly unable to keep up with everything happening. Nuxhall had that country-fried announcing style that is often prized, but without the annoyingness of you-know-who. Anyway, here's to the Ol' Lefthander. You brought a lot of joy to peoples' lives... Including mine.
Posted at 01:53 PM | Comments (0)
November 15, 2007
You kill me
I got to thinking today, and as I often do, it was nothing important. But it makes a hell of a blog post. My question is this: who is the most notable actor to have never played a character who dies on screen?
I got to thinking, and I decided that it would be best to limit my query to the most notable actors. Even luminaries like John Wayne have died in their movies. (I suppose this is a good time for a spoiler warning... So if you don't want to find out the endings of some movies, read no more.) I can think of at least two movies I've seen where The Duke gives up the ghost. (This one and this one.) I suppose this also counts, but in my recollection, he doesn't die on screen. Parts of the movie take place around his funeral, but he doesn't actually die as part of the plot.
I am not sure about other luminaries from that era like Jimmy Stewart, Gary Cooper or Clint Eastwood. Does anybody know if they bite it any of their movies?
Thinking about today's stars, most of them have died in a movie. Brad Pitt gets it here, and here. (Though technically, I suppose as a figment of Ed Norton's imagination, he doesn't technically die.) Russell Crowe doesn't make it through this one. Denzel Washington shuffles off this mortal coil here and here. (I'm not sure if I should count the second one, because he was still a relatively obscure actor at the time, making his death less memorable.) Mel Gibson had a pretty gruesome demise in this movie. Even Tom Hanks gets in on the act. Jack Nicholson, Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio all get rubbed out within the space of minutes in this movie. However, Leo has never had a problem with death, as evidenced here. I have never seen this movie, but having read the book version, I have a pretty good idea what happens to him at the end.
There were a couple of tough ones. I had to look hard to find a movie where George Clooney expires. I found one. Arnold Schwarzenegger is a tough one. I don't consider him to have died in the Terminator movies, because he's a machine. It's like blowing up a car. However, apparently he croaks in this critically-lampooned film. It took me awhile to find a movie where Morgan Freeman gets whacked. Apparently Tom Cruise dies in this movie, but the synopsis suggests his death is off screen, so I don't know if that counts; but Tom Cruise is wacky nowadays and I don't want to give him the pleasure.
Now, I limited myself to the more bankable stars of today. I mean, I'm sure you could say, "Wait a minute, Shia LaBouef doesn't die in any movies!" (Maybe he does, I don't know.) To you I respond, he is outside the scope of this analysis.
So here's what I've come up with. The biggest actor to have never died on screen is... Harrison Ford. Think about it. What movie has Harrison Ford died in? He got worked over pretty well in Witness and the Indiana Jones movies; he was frozen in carbonite (see 9:00 into this video... trust me, it's worth it) in Empire Strikes Back; he had several guns to his head in Air Force One; he was in imminent danger in Force 10 From Navarone; and he was almost run over by a train in The Fugitive. But he doesn't die. Is there a movie where he actually dies? I'd be interested to know. What other famous actors have never died on screen?
Posted at 11:14 PM | Comments (0)
And nobody said yes?
Good thing I don't know anyone who lives in Seattle. I know a few people who might be the culprit in this bizarre story:
Local mothers in some of Seattle’s upscale neighborhoods are reporting being propositioned by a man while they were with their children, reported KIRO 7 Eyewitness News.
Last Spring, Jennifer said she was on her way to a park in the View Ridge neighborhood when the first incident occurred.
The woman said she was walking near View Point Playing Field with her two young children when a man drove up beside her.
What Jennifer said she initially thought was a flattering conversation degenerated and became sexually explicit.
“He called me a hot mother and said he couldn’t believe I was a mother. Then it got more disgusting and made me feel uncomfortable,” said Jennifer.
On Wednesday, Jennifer said she started seeing warnings from other women about the same type of incidents on a listserve she joined for young Seattle moms.
One woman in Laurelhurst said, “he asked if she was interested in starring in a mommy porn movie.” The woman said the man offered her $10,000.
Posted at 04:45 PM | Comments (0)
November 13, 2007
I heart politics
I always knew those Q&A sessions political candidates weren't always on the up-and-up. Remember when Mr. Burns ran for governor, and made Lisa ask a question at dinner? However, it still tickles me to see Hillary's campaign get busted for planting questions in the audience:
The college student who was told what question to ask at one of New York Sen. Hillary Clinton's campaign events says "voters have the right to know what happened" and she wasn't the only one who was planted.
Student Muriel Gallo-Chasanoff said a staffer told her what to ask at a campaign event for Sen. Hillary Clinton.
In an exclusive on-camera interview with CNN, Muriel Gallo-Chasanoff, a 19-year-old sophomore at Grinnell College in Grinnell, Iowa, said that giving anyone specific questions to ask is "dishonest," and the whole incident has given her a negative outlook on politics.
Gallo-Chasanoff, whose story was first reported in the campus newspaper, said what happened was really pretty simple: She says a senior Clinton staffer asked if she'd like to ask the senator a question after an energy speech the Democratic presidential hopeful gave in Newton, Iowa, on November 6.
"I sort of thought about it, and I said 'Yeah, can I ask how her energy plan compares to the other candidates' energy plans?'" Gallo-Chasanoff said Monday night.
"'I don't think that's a good idea," the staffer said, according to Gallo-Chasanoff, "because I don't know how familiar she is with their plans."
He then opened a binder to a page that, according to Gallo-Chasanoff, had about eight questions on it.
"The top one was planned specifically for a college student," she added. " It said 'college student' in brackets and then the question."
Topping that sheet of paper was the following: "As a young person, I'm worried about the long-term effects of global warming. How does your plan combat climate change?"
Actually, I think most people would've known it was fake when she began with, "as a young person..." Who talks like that? Not young people, that's for sure.
Posted at 01:09 PM | Comments (0)
Keep out of the water
I'm so glad I don't live in Florida. Suppose I break into a car, then flee when the cops catch up to me. Naturally, the best way to get away is to jump into the nearest pond. If it's an Illinois pond, I probably get tired out after awhile and either drown or get fished out by the cops. But if I'm in Florida, chances are an alligator eats me:
A man who allegedly was fleeing police was attacked and killed by an alligator in a pond, Local 10 reported..
Miccosukee police, assisted by Sweetwater canine units, responded to a call on the Miccosukee Indian Reservation about vehicles being broken into.
Local 10's Todd Tongen said police captured one man, but another fled on foot and dove into a retention pond. Signs warned of the danger of live alligators in the pond behind the casino and hotel.
Eyewitnesses said they were shouting to the man to swim back to shore. When the man finally spotted the alligator, eyewitnesses said he screamed but then disappeared under the water.
The alligator and another smaller one were later trapped and brought to All American Gator in Pembroke Park.
Local 10 learned the larger alligator was well known on the reservation and employees had nicknamed it Poncho.
If an alligator either digests or kills a person it's a state law through Florida Fish and Wildlife that it be destroyed, so the alligator will be put in an incinerator or be buried, Tongen reported
Posted at 01:05 PM | Comments (0)
November 10, 2007
Spicy!
Not for nothing, but I found out how to use the special thing on Flickr to stick pictures right into this here commentary, without having to do all the crap I used to have to do to put in pictures. Here's a picture I took of some peppers some guy was selling. Why this one? It's almost Christmas, and red and green are well known as the colors of Christmas.
On another level, how on Earth is it almost Christmas? It's about 45 days away. I don't see people gearing up for St. Patty's Day in January, or Memorial Day in March. Granted, we want those days to get here fast, but do we start preparing so soon? Unless you happen to be staging a parade on that holiday, it probably has not entered your mind.
Posted at 01:08 AM | Comments (0)
You said it
Greetings From Buffalo, originally uploaded by chauss513.
Flickr is such a great website, though I find it impossible to navigate sometimes. I joined a group for pictures of Buffalo - don't worry, I'm in the Gapers' Block one, too - and the first one I came across pretty much summarizes what most people feel about snow. Anyone care to disagree with me?
Now that I've pimped for Flickr, I guess it's only fair to send you a link to my photo page. Don't use the information contained therein to stalk me. You know who you are.
Posted at 12:45 AM | Comments (0)
November 08, 2007
Frankly my dear, I think you are lying
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I really love polls. They are so often a load of bunk. For example, today we get the results of a poll purporting to rank the movie quotes most-used in regular conversation. Number one was the ubiquitous "I'll be back" from the Terminator movie, but number two made me gasp:
"Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn", Rhett Butler's closing line in the 1939 epic "Gone With The Wind", came second in the survey of 2,000 people conducted by the myfilms.com website, the UK Film Council's cinema and film finder.
Not for nothing, but I don't think I've ever heard anybody quote that line. It's a good line, but not one for every day conversation. At least not among people of my age. Was "I don't give a damn" a popular line among The Greatest Generation? Is there a whole batch of Gone With The Wind enthusiasts who quote lines like I quote Ocean's 11 or Happy Gilmore? I simply am not seeing this.
On a different level, "Frankly my dear, I don't give a damn" is too cumbersome of an insult nowadays. If most people had the choice between that, and, say, "fuck you," I think they would prefer the latter. Actually, I bet if they made Gone With The Wind today, Rhett Butler would say "fuck you" instead of "I don't give a damn." I mean, I don't think people talked like that during the Civil War, but that never really stopped anyone.
Posted at 09:30 AM | Comments (0)
November 07, 2007
I'm slipping under
Britney in a previous incarnation.
[Pic]
So you probably know I really enjoy my music, and one of my favorite music blogs is Cover Freak. As its name implies, it's mostly links to cover songs. The author hits a home run in this week's entry, with a country western cover of Britney Spears' "Toxic."
Speaking of music, I found this completely by accident, but oh is it awesome: We Walk The Line, a tribute to Johnny Cash recorded at a Norwegian prison. It's so obscure I can't find any links to it in English. But it's awesome, especially when whoever does "Folsom Prison Blues" starts with, "Hello, I'm not Johnny Cash."
Update: never find, I found it on the Amazon UK site. You should totally buy it. Or acquire it however you see fit.
Posted at 10:24 PM | Comments (0)
November 06, 2007
The good ol' days
What is this world coming to? If it's not a girl suing the police because she hid her keys from the cops and then suffered brain injuries when she crashed her car in a drunken stupor, it's a high school basketball coach getting hauled into court because he liked to hit his players in the groin:
A former high school basketball coach on trial for allegedly hitting players in the groin with a clipboard and other objects took the stand in his own defense, calling himself a fun-loving coach and saying that some players were lying.
Gregory Lynn Burr, 29, is charged with sexual assault on a child by a person in a position of trust, and other counts. He's accused of hitting nine 14- to 16-year-old boys during the 2005-2006 season at the Monument Academy charter school.
Burr smiled and laughed Monday as he spoke of some of the incidents, recalling four times when he said he hit players in the groin accidentally.
After his testimony, he reportedly looked at his former players and called one a "nancy" and told the other he should "run it off."
Posted at 03:55 PM | Comments (0)
November 05, 2007
No mas
I just thought of something that really annoys me. Every now and then, in the standard romantic comedy, the female love interest will be bilingual. In addition to a charming accent when she speaks English, she'll also dish it out in rapid fire Spanish or French, or maybe Italian. Sometimes, when the hunky guy trying to win her love will make some flirtatious remark, she'll say something derisive in her native tongue. The guy will then either: A, be dumbfounded; or B, say something equally salacious in said language, whereupon the love interest will be severely flustered.
However, this annoys me in real life. Earlier this year, I dated a girl who was fluent in Spanish. Sometimes I would say something, but instead of responding in English, she'd say God knows what in Spanish. To me, when you speak in another language, what you're really doing is expressing your inner thoughts out loud, but assuming nobody else can understand you. Whenever she spoke in Spanish, I just wanted to say "You know I don't speak Spanish! In English please." (Obligatory Anchorman clip here.) If you don't want me to hear it, don't say it! As charming as it is in the movies, it doesn't work in real life. Or maybe that was because she did about 1,000 other things that annoyed me?
Posted at 11:10 PM | Comments (0)
November 02, 2007
Gimme some candy
Damn, dude. A giant bag of candy is available for $2 at Walgreens. Enjoy explaining this one to the lawyer:
Bullies have been poaching Halloween candy from smaller kids since trick-or-treating began, but police say a Cincinnati man went too far this year in helping a younger cousin fill his goody bag.
Derrick Finn, 21, has been charged with complicity to aggravated robbery.
“He served as the lookout while his cousin stole someone's Halloween candy,” said Betsy Sundermann, an assistant Hamilton County prosecutor.
Finn took some cousins out for beggar's night on Wednesday and was arrested later that evening after the alleged victim pointed him out to police. He remained in jail Friday pending a court date next week. Bond was set at $5,000.
A 15-year-old has been charged with misdemeanor robbery, and a 14-year-old has been charged with misdemeanor complicity to robbery, prosecutors said.
Finn's lawyer said suggested the candy hardly was enough to cause the level of crime to rise to a felony.
“Depends on what kind of candy it is,” Hamilton County Municipal Court Judge Lisa Allen responded.
As for the judge, it depends on what type of candy it is? Is there some million-dollar candy out there I don't know about? Was somebody giving out Ghiradelli? Or maybe the judge simply knows what all kids know about trick or treat: some candy is good, other candy sucks. Briefly, I think we all enjoyed getting Starburst, or Three Musketeers, or the holy trinity of candy: Snickers, Hersheys or Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. Damn, that shit was good. On the other hand, some candy is universally acknowledged as sucking: candy corn, red vines, or God forbid... Circus peanuts. So I guess what her honor is saying is, if the evidence showed he robbed the kids of circus peanuts and candy corn, it's a misdemeanor. But if there was even one Hershey Kiss in that bag... Lock his ass up.
Posted at 03:35 PM | Comments (0)
Judges judging judges
Judges are a curious sort. Back when I worked at juvie over the summer, the judge in my courtroom was prone to delivering long monologues and admonitions to my clients, who usually mumbled in response. He was one tough mofo. He also had pictures of Denzel Washington in his chambers. However, to the best of my knowledge, he never did anything like this:
A judge who ordered a woman to drop her pants and decided a custody dispute by flipping a coin was removed from the bench by the Virginia Supreme Court on Friday. The decision against Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court Judge James Michael Shull of Gate City was unanimous.
"Unless our citizens can trust that judges will fairly resolve the disputes brought before our courts, and treat all litigants with dignity, our courts will lose the public's respect and confidence upon which our legal system depends," Justice Barbara Milano Keenan wrote.
According to the court, Shull admitted tossing a coin to determine which parent would have visitation with a child on Christmas. Shull said he was trying to encourage the parents to decide the issue themselves but later acknowledged that he was wrong.
The pants-dropping incidents, the court said, "were even more egregious."
The court said they occurred when a woman was seeking a protective order against a partner who she said had stabbed her in the leg. Shull knew the woman had a history of mental problems and insisted on seeing the wound, the court said.
The woman dropped her pants once to display the wound, then dropped them a second time after Shull left the bench for a closer look to determine whether the woman had received stitches.
Posted at 03:16 PM | Comments (0)
November 01, 2007
Whatever, yo
[Pic]
There's a most interesting article in the New York Times today about a new trend in races: banning headphones:
At the peak of the marathon season, with one of the year’s biggest races set for Sunday in New York, a worry has emerged among some runners, and it has nothing to do with hitting the wall at Mile 20: Will Beyoncé be there to push them to the finish? Will they be able to call upon Bon Jovi for support when there is no one else to turn to?
USA Track & Field, the national governing body for running, this year banned the use of headphones and portable audio players like iPods at its official races. The new rule was created to ensure safety and to prevent runners from having a competitive edge.
But trying to enforce such a rule on a 26.2-mile course filled with thousands of runners may be futile. The New York City Marathon, which strongly discourages the use of audio players, will not attempt to police its field on Sunday for lack of a surefire way to carry out the ban.
Technically, at last weekend’s Marine Corps Marathon here, and even at much smaller events like the Creaky Bones 5-kilometer race in Florida and the Corn Maze 4-miler in Tennessee, runners should not have had the luxury of listening to their favorite songs along the way. Marine Corps Marathon officials threatened to disqualify runners using headphones, but did not follow through.
This strikes me as absurd. Yes, it's a safety issue, but in a race like a marathon, I don't think it matters whether you have headphones or not. People who are running a marathon are singurlarly focused on themselves, and they won't notice their surroundings one way or another. Even more, it's a matter of conscience: unless you realize there's other people around, you won't bother to look. So many people cause accidents on the lake path here because they aren't conscientious about their surroundings. An iPod ban won't change that.
Personally, I don't like to run races listening to my iPod. When I go out for running, I take my iPod, mostly to relieve boredom. But in a race, it's hard to get bored. Running with a group of people, running against them, is all I need to get to the end. Admittedly, the longest race I've done recently is an 8k, but even when I ran the Chicago and Cleveland Marathons, I wasn't thinking some tunes would really get me through the race.
There's also a group of competitive runners who think "recreational" runners shouldn't be running races. That's all absurd and overly idealistic. I ran a 5k a few weeks ago, and I probably lost a good 20 seconds off my race time because the trail was jammed with slow runners. There's no way I'm ever going to win a race, but I definitely pride myself on improving my times and finishing the race as fast as I can. I didn't care, though. I said to myself, they paid the $20 fee like me, and even if they're running slowly, at least they are exercising. That's why running is such a great sport: it's probably the only one where the average schlub is in the same event as a world-class athlete.
However, as I always say, if music is what you need to run a race, go for it. Personally, I am 100% with the people who say the atmosphere is what is special about running a race. No matter what, you can't get the atmosphere with Bad Medicine blasting in your ears. It's fine for lonely runs along the lake, but when I have 5,000 other people around me, I'll take the ambiance.
Posted at 09:54 PM | Comments (0)
How I amuse myself
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I have this fun little game I play now. Last week, I took my car over to the dealership to have some work done on it. A few days later, I got a call from some mysterious phone number. Now, I know some people don't answer the phone if it's a number they don't know, but I'm not finicky like that - I just happened to miss the call. Whoever it was didn't leave a message.
The number then called me an hour later, and then another hour later. Each time I didn't notice the phone ring; each time they didn't leave a message. To me, not leaving a message only means one thing: telemarketer.
The next day, they called again. A few hours later, another call came my way. And so on and so on. Finally I decided I wasn't going to answer it. If they want to talk to me that badly, they can leave a message.
This went on for a few days, until finally I called the number back. A recorded message told me it was the Mazda customer service line, and they were taking surveys about the level of satisfaction I had with the visit. Now I'd be lying if I didn't say they did a good job, because they fixed my problem and didn't charge me that much. However, for some reason, the fact they continue to call and not say who they are really irks me.
Nevertheless, I am now currently locked in a battle of wills with the survey people. Lots of times they call me when I am really not available, like in class or at work. I am not even joking, they called me as I was writing this post. But I am not going to give them the satisfaction of continually calling me. Instead, I get the satisfaction of feeling the vibration in my pocket, removing said phone from my pocket in the hopes that somebody I want to talk to is calling, and then vindictively hitting "ignore" when I see that it's just Mazda.
It's been about a week now, and they are still calling three to four times a day. Again, no message just to say, "We're from Mazda and would like to ask you about your recent visit to our dealership." Keep on calling, Mazda. I have lots of time. Do you?
Posted at 01:47 PM | Comments (0)