Dirt Floor

Hey, happy Cyber Monday, everybody. You know, the busiest online shopping day of the year. I'm doing my part by not doing any online shopping.

That four-day weekend just flew by. The T-giving Day race was a chilly, wet affair. We got a dusting of snow the night before, but the snow turned to rain that morning. I ran faster than I have in a long time (7:33 pace); it was fun to run in a race with Deb and my brother-in-law Matt, as well as several friends of mine. Later in the day, I definitely ate too much, but not to a ridiculous degree. On Friday, Matt and I held down the fort while the ladies went shopping at 5 a.m. After they got back, we went running and then caught Jarhead at the local googolplex; I had heard and read mixed reviews, but it was pretty good. Certainly doesn't match up to other classic war films like Apocalypse Now, but I enjoyed it.

Wiggity wack:

• Some crazy doings up in Canada, where the minority Liberal government received a no-confidence vote from the three opposing parties today. This means an election is going to happen in January. It's pretty interesting to see such major shifts midstream, unlike the U.S., where we're stuck with a president for four years no matter what. Something similar happened in 1979, when conservative prime minister Joe Clark was given the boot only nine months after taking office.
• Having a fat ass can be hazardous to your health. That's the conclusion reached by a new Irish study that found that fatter butts are causing many drug injections to miss their mark. The study recommends that hospitals use longer needles to ensure that medication is effectively delivered. Laying off the donuts might help, too.
• Nut allergies are no fun, let me tell you. As someone allergic to all types of nuts, I have to be extremely careful about what I eat. Of course, my wife loves peanut butter, so she steers clear of me after she's had a PB&J sandwich. Nothing's ever happened to me based on someone else eating something with nuts in it, but a girl in Quebec died after kissing her boyfriend, who had just eaten peanut butter. My allergy is mild, but it's still scary to read stories like that.
• The American Heart Association just released new CPR guidelines, emphasizing chest compressions over mouth-to-mouth. Now germophobes have no excuse.
• InPhase Technologies and Maxell have developed a new disc that holds 300GB of storage, about 60 times the capacity of a DVD. The only drawback is they've dubbed the technology Tapestry...a name sure to appeal to Zeppelin-loving stoners everywhere.
• This is typical: A festering piece of crap like The Simple Life is able to find a home on a new network, but great shows like Arrested Development, Freaks and Geeks, and Undeclared get cancelled. WTF?