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?

Nothing But Green Lights

Just whiling away the hours 'til turkey time...

Had a rough day yesterday. I woke up fully expecting to go to the gym, go to work, and then play hockey, but my stomach had other plans. I ended up spending much of the day in the bathroom courtesy of a nasty stomach bug. It was really at its worst until about 1 p.m. or so, but I ended up going about 20 hours without eating by the time I was able to eat a bagel at 2:30. I just watched a lot of TiVo'd shows and a couple of Netflix rentals that had been languishing on the shelf. But thankfully, it was just a temporary bug. I feel fine today and have been eating normally. Also, Deb and the girls managed to escape it, which is also good news.

Got out of work early today to help Deb make the house presentable for Matt, Tricia, Danny and Timmy, who are staying with us for T-giving. They should be arriving in about an hour or so. Looks like it will be cold and possibly wet or snowy tomorrow morning when we run our race.

Congrats to Deb, who found out yesterday she was accepted to the Boston Marathon charity team sponsored by the Massachusetts Adoption Resource Exchange. Which means she has to raise $2,500 for MARE in addition to training for the big race next April. She ran the marathon in '98 as a bandit, long before I ever harbored the slightest desire to run more than a couple of miles at a stretch.

Zippity do dah:

• It was sad today to hear of the death of Chris Whitley, a truly great guitarist and songwriter whose work I have followed for the past 14 years or so. He died of lung cancer at the age of 45. His 1991 debut album, Living With the Law, was a blues-rock masterpiece, and his follow-up, Din of Ecstacy, went in a totally different direction, embracing Hendrixian feedback and loudness. The one time I saw him live was when he was touring with the latter album, almost exactly 10 years ago at the Middle East in Cambridge. There were only about 25 people there (it was a Tuesday night, I think) and he had some sound problems at first, but holy crap, did he wail. He followed an adventurous musical path in the years that followed, from acoustic blues to electro-jazz. I regret never seeing him play again, but I'm glad I saw him when I did. He will be missed.
• You've probably seen this already, but our fearless leader is at it again. Y'know, leading and stuff.
• Here's a great story from Florida about a guy who got hit in the genitals with a taser. But he was naked, breaking windows and asking women to touch him, so I'd say it serves him right.
• Talk about timing. The creator of Stove Top stuffing recently shuffled off this mortal coil just before her favorite holiday.

Feel Good Inc.

What is up, mein freunds? I've been remiss in my blogification lately. My bad.

Bracing for the annual gorgefest that is Thanksgiving. Actually, I was pretty good last year. As fun as it is to stuff one's face, I don't like feeling afterward like I just swallowed a Yugo. We're staying local this year; Matt, Tricia, and the boys will be visiting from NJ. Deb, Matt and I have all signed up to run a 5-mile race in Salem on Thanksgiving morning; although Matt ran the Philadelphia Marathon today (big ups to Matt for getting his second marathon in the books), so I'm not sure if he'll have recuperated in time to run Thursday.

Homina de homina:

• Met up Friday night at the Miracle of Science in Cambridge with the crew from my Webnoize days: Dr. Doobs, Briggy, Cable Elk and OJ and his wife Amy. It was the fourth anniversary of Black Friday, the day we all got shiznittcanned. As with all our get-togethers, a good time was had by all. Well, I had a good time, anyway. Dave pointed out that the World Series champeen White Sox hosted former Styx lead singer Dennis DeYoung (yes, yes, domi arigoto, Mr. Roboto) during their playoff run. If that wasn't enough, former Journey mouth Steve Perry was also a featured fan of the Pale Hose because the team had adopted "Don't Stop Believin'" as its theme song. Desperate to get back on the winning track, Yankees bossman George Steinbrenner has signed REO Speedwagon' singer Kevin Cronin and Foreigner yowler Lou Gramm to one-year contracts for 2006.
• Not sure if this is a hoax, but the BBC is reporting that a 3-year-old boy in India has been running marathons. In his latest feat, he supposedly ran 33 miles in 6:30. Doesn't seem possible to me, but I suppose you never know. I don't think Hannah could run a mile without stopping; not because she's not physically able, but because she would probably get bored after the first couple of minutes. I can't imagine any 3-year-old having the mental fortitude to keep himself going for that long of a period; not unless his Svengali of a coach is driving in front of him the whole way with a big-screen TV playing cartoons.
• A so-called shout out to the UNH Wildcats football team, which beat Maine yesterday by a ridiculous score of 59-47 and won a share of the Atlantic 10 football title. Ranked #1 in the nation in 1-AA, the 10-1 Cats advance to the NCAA playoffs as the top seed and host Colgate next Saturday in Durham, NH. The game's on ESPN2 at noon. QB Ricky Santos, who's only a sophomore, racked up SEVEN touchdowns yesterday, four passing and three rushing. Awesome.

Positive Tension

Sooooo. A week after NYC and I feel pretty good. My quads were pretty sore for a few days and I felt ready when I ran 5 miles on Friday morning. Of course, about halfway through the run they started getting pretty tight again. And I realized that during the marathon I had sustained a monstrous blister on my right little toe; I originally just thought it was the nail digging into the toe, but since it wasn't bleeding, I paid it no mind. I took a few more days off and it seems close to normal now. Ran today with no problem; of course, how could you have a problem when it's pushing 65 degrees in mid-November in New England? Sweet.

There are a few photos of me running NYC up at Brightroom.com. A bunch of the finish line pics are pretty crowded, but there's one shot of me wincing right after I stopped; this is a better shot of me earlier in the race, when I still had hope for the future.

Good luck to my bro-in-law Matt, who will be running the Philly Marathon this coming Sunday; he should have cooler weather than I got in New York on the 6th.

Whoop de doo:

• Is it possible for an entire nation to not have a sense of humor? I'm talking about you, Kazakhstan.
• Now this is where I want to go when I'm old and in the way: to the nursing home/pub.
• I've run five marathons and I play hockey, but this woman kicks my butt.
• I don't pretend to understand the intricacies of the Muslim world. I respect it as an ancient and popular religion, and I condemn its extremists just as I would those of any other religion. But what's up with some Saudi Muslims calling a fatwa against soccer rules? I guess some folks in the Middle East are taking a page from the NHL and trying to make their game more fan friendly. (Thanks to Deadspin for the tip.)
• A healthy "Channel 11" salute goes out to Sony BMG, which installed copy-protection software on about 20 new CD releases designed to prevent users from ripping MP3s that can be played on iPods. Fine, whatever, but when you accept the XCP software installation, it uses a "rootkit" program that hides on your PC and makes it vulnerable to viruses. After taking mucho heat and facing a class-action lawsuit, Sony BMG last week said it was halting production of the CDs with this software on it. According to the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the tainted CDs include new releases from Trey Anastasio, Celine Dion, Neil Diamond, and Life of Agony, among others. As if people needed another reason not buy CDs.

A Plague Upon Your Hissing

I'm back from running the NYC Marathon, and I've got the sore quads to prove it. 'Twas a warm day in the Big Apple on Sunday, as predicted, sunny, humid and 65-70 degrees. It actually started out cool and foggy, but sure enough when the race started at 10 a.m., the clouds parted and the sun began baking the 37,000 runners about to make their way through the five boroughs. It's a great experience: fans everywhere shouting encouragement, bands playing throughout the course, runners from all over the world and of all shapes and sizes endeavoring to finish one of the most prestigious marathons on the planet.

I was hoping to break 4 hours and even foolishly thought I still had a shot about two-thirds of the way through the race. But the heat is insidious to marathon runners; even though you think you're hydrated and pacing yourself well, you're slowly being drained of your energy. I felt good coming off the Queensboro Bridge at mile 17 and turning onto 1st Ave. I started stopping for Gatorade and kept moving along at a decent pace. But at about mile 20, my legs started to feel like they were made of lead. I was able to keep running, but not as quickly and it was all I could do to fight off the doubts that were creeping into my mind. But I kept plugging along and was able to even speed up a little on the downhill portions of the last two-mile stretch in Central Park. The last mile felt interminably long (it always does) and I felt incredible relief as I crossed the finish line, followed by pain and then lightheadedness. I finished in 4:10, the same (only 20 seconds slower) as in 2003 when I ran NYC (and the same time I had when I ran the Boston Marathon in '02). Took me a few minutes to get my bearings as I wobbled slowly through the chute, got my timing chip removed from my shoe, got some food, and headed toward the family reunion area where my brother-in-law Matt was waiting for me.

Huge thanks to Matt, Tricia and their boys for feeding and housing me over the weekend; Deb and the girls stayed home, since we're going down to NJ again next weekend for Timmy's 2nd birthday extravaganza. I had originally planned on driving back Sunday night after the race, but I'm glad I changed my mind, because I was exhausted and hurting. Unfortunately, Matt had parked about two miles away from Central Park, so we had a long walk to the car, but in the end, it was probably better to keep moving. It was definitely nice to enjoy a steak dinner and a couple of beers at the Siegel homestead to celebrate. It's also nice to have my fifth marathon under my belt. I'm thinking I'll take next spring off and do one in the fall; Chicago, perhaps?

La de da:

• This Carolina Panthers cheerleaders-gone-wild story is a frat boy's dream.
• Man, France is going to hell in a Le Car. The rioting is unreal. Here's another take on it from Israel-based Debkafile.
• There's dumb, and then there's the Kansas State Board of Education, which today introduced standards that question the theory of evolution. Wow.

Run Like Hell

Real quick post here. I'm hitting the road tomorrow morning for New Joisey, where I'll be staying before I run the NYC Marathon Sunday morning. The forecast still calls for pain, I mean warm temperatures (high of 70). But at least it'll be cloudy. I'm rested and ready. Let's do this thing! I'll file a full report when I get back on Monday.

Hey, Coke's getting rid of Vanilla Coke, which I actually kinda liked. Apparently, black cherry is the new hot flava. I'm still enjoying Dr. Pepper, though.

Here's an interesting court twist: worker's compensation for hockey goons. Miracles never cease.

Later.

Do They Know It's Halloween?

Here we are on All Hallows Eve and I'm basking in the orange afterglow of a Leafs victory. Wins have been hard to come by lately for my fave hockey team, culminating Saturday night in quite possibly the worst game I've seen them play in a few years, an 8-0 thrashing at the hands of the hated Ottawa Senators. But they bounced back tonight with a nice 2-1 win against Florida. So that's nice.

So I solved the Halloween costume dilemma, but not without some last-second machinations. I went out Wednesday night to pick up a costume or parts of one, but could find nothing that inspired me. I had an idea of being a disgruntled elf, but I couldn't find anything remotely elf-related. I came home with my only option to find costume materials from my own wardrobe. As I drifted off to sleep, I struck upon the idea of dressing as Barry Bonds, complete with enhanced arms and pecs...I then thought I didn't have any San Francisco Giants gear, so that would be difficult to pull off. Then I figured it would be funny to dress as a nerd on steroids. Then I fell asleep. Thursday morning, I quickly grabbed my white running turtleneck and some t-shirts to stuff inside as fake muscles. I got to work and realized I didn't have enough good nerd stuff, so I went to Vinnin Square in Swampscott at lunch to buy some more material for my costume. At Marshalls, I came across a Giants t-shirt and decided to go with the Bonds costume. Couldn't find a Giants cap, so I got a Nike hat and went to Walgreens to pick up a baby medicine dropper, which resembles a syringe. And voila, a costume was born. Some people got it, some didn't, and I experienced what can only be described as "drooping pec syndrome" because the shirts kept sliding down. But I'd say it was a hit.

I like candy:

• Hey, with Harriet "Why not me?" Miers withdrawing her name from the Supreme Court hat, Bush decided to nominate someone who's actually been a judge before. Of course, the guy's somewhere to the right of Attila the Hun, but what did you expect?
• I've been digging The Colbert Report, a new show from the funny bastids who bring you The Daily Show. Stephen Colbert has been cultivating his character for years, but he takes it to a new Bill O'Reillyesque level on this show. Funny, funny stuff.
• Six days to the marathon. The long-range forecast is calling for warm temperatures (68!) and clouds; a little too warm for my liking, but that can change as we all know. I'm taking it easy during the taper period. Ran 6 on Sunday and will do two more runs of 3 miles this week and that's it. It's all about healing and rest. I just hope I feel good on race day and the weather is a little cooler than predicted.
• Speaking of Halloween, a new survey from Family Media Guide found that impalement is the most frequent gruesome act committed against victims in horror movies. The runners-up are pain caused by protruding object and bite injury. The winner for the most violent movie is 2003's Freddy vs. Jason, with 167 instances of violence (impalements, severed limbs, electrocutions), followed by the truly great Jaws, with 105 (mostly of the chompity-chomp-chomp variety).
  
  All right, time to go scrape the sugar off my teeth. Later.

My Thoughts are a Gas

Greetings from the Garden City (aka Beverly, MA). I need to come up with a Halloween costume. No, I'm not going trick-or-treating, although I will be taking Hannah out for a little while next Monday. On Thursday, my office hosts its annual Halloween parade for the kids of employees; we all get dressed up (well, some of us do) and decorate our offices and hallways and such, and then the kids show up at about 3 or so to trick or treat through the halls. Of course, some of the single folks use it as an excuse to leave early. But I always found it to be a fun event, long before I ever had kids of my own. Deb's going to bring Hannah and Lily right from daycare; they'll transform themselves into Belle (from "Beauty and the Beast") and Snow White, respectively. But I need to figure out what I'm going to dress as. Last year, I rocked it as Elvis Supafly; my profile photo to the right is from '03, when I was Mike Tyson and Hannah was a giraffe. So, got any costume ideas for this year?

Whoot whoot:

• Just watched the Leafs-Bruins game. As with pretty much every game I've seen this year, it was an exciting tilt, with Toronto edging the B's 5-4 in a shootout. Lots of end-to-end action, great goaltending, sloppy play, stupid penalties, nice goals. Definitely edge-of-your-seat stuff. The Leafs gave up a bad goal to go down 4-3, tied up the game while shorthanded and then had to kill off two straight penalties, including the first four minutes of overtime. Eric Lindros scored the only goal in the shootout to win the game. The two teams play again in Boston on Thursday.
• Met up with some of my peeps from the Webnoize days at Redbones Saturday night. I enjoyed some Texas beef ribs and entertaining conversation with Briggy, OJ and Amy, Cable Elk, Big Audio Douglass and his girlfriend Carrie, and some Russian friends of B.A.D.'s. Always a fun time. We'll be meeting again at the Miracle of Science in three weeks to commemorate the fourth anniversary of Black Friday, aka the day we all got laid off.
• So if you weren't old enough to see Led Zep, Pink Floyd, or AC/DC in concert in their 1970s heyday, Kmart will hook your ass up.
• I was excited to read the other day that one of my fave Canuckian bands, The Pursuit of Happiness, is back together, recording a couple of new songs, and going on tour. I suspect they won't venture down this way, but it sure would be cool if they did since I've only seen them once, back in the '89.
• Here's the lowdown on a couple of podcasts I've been digging lately: Cinecast is a movie podcast hosted twice weekly by two Chicago dudes named Adam Kempenaar and Sam Hallgren. Intelligent, entertaining, thought-provoking stuff. Phedippidations (yeah, it's a mouthful) is a podcast about long-distance done by a guy WHILE he's actually running. Host Steve Walker (or "Steve Runner," his nom de pod) takes a portable MP3 recorder with him on his Sunday long runs and manages to provide insightful commentary about running, motivation, strategy, observations. It's really great. I actually had a similar idea a few months back, but I concluded that my podcast would basically just be 45 minutes of me breathing heavy and hocking loogies and saying stuff like, "Damn, I'm tired." Trust me, Steve's podcast is the real deal. And A Foot in the Crease is all about the Toronto Maple Leafs, produced weekly by Toronto hockey nuts Dave McCarthy and Jeff Hume.
• Less than two weeks to the New York Marathon. I'm getting excited. It's amazing how your attitude about running improves when you cut back on the mileage. I went out for 10 yesterday and felt great.

Sideways in Reverse

What up? Just sneaking in a quick post as I wind things down toward the NYC Marathon, which is less than three weeks away. I'm in taper mode now, which means my longest runs are behind me (thank glayvin) and I'm just letting my body rest and heal before the big race. Last Sunday, I ran 13.6 miles and next Sunday, it'll be down to 10, then 6 the weekend before the race. The worst injury I have right now has nothing to do with running. I woke up Monday morning and must have slept wrong, because my neck and traps were tight and sore. Two days later and it's still bothering me, but it'll go away.

Homina homina:

• Another testament to the greatness of the Wikipedia--which, for those of you unfamiliar with it, is essentially an online encyclopedia that anyone can contribute to--is this fine page on the contributions of the Simpsons to our vocabulary. Not just the ubiquitous "d'oh," but also a staggering number of commonly used words and phrases such as "craptastic," the aforementioned "glayvin" and one of my favorites, "And I, for one, welcome our new insect overlords."
• Wilmaaaaaaaa! What's with these stupid hurricanes, anyway?
• This is old news, but Apple finally announced the release of the video-enabled iPod last week and started selling TV shows and music videos on iTunes. Not really a must-have for me, but definitely a cool-looking device. I like how Apple convinced Disney/ABC to start selling hot shows like "Lost" and "Desperate Housewives" as downloads. Definitely a smart move.
• The NHL season has been fun to watch so far and surprisingly enough, so have the Leafs. Even though captain Mats Sundin has been out with a serious eye injury since game 1, Eric Lindros, Jason Allison and the rest of the team has really stepped it up. The secret of their success has been the power play, which popped in seven goals last Friday night alone. I'm sure the team will have its ups and downs, but I'm enjoying the early season ride so far.
• Hey, another bunch of holy rolling nitwits have put together a list of the best and worst family shows on television. What, "Family Guy" has raunchy humor? I'm shocked. Shocked, I tell you.
• There has been much discussion on the local sports talk radio station about the NBA's edict that players dress nicer when not in uniform. Some have construed the new rules as targeting black players who wear throwback jerseys and chains and such, others contend the league is simply trying to improve its image. I'm just glad they let me dress like a slob at my job; don't know what I'd do if I had to start wearing ties again. Yeesh.

From the Floor Boards Up

Werd up. Just getting a quick post up early Friday morning as the girls enjoy the reopening of our guest room. Since my last post, the sheetrocking was finished and then the dudes came in and plastered both that room and the bathroom walls and ceiling on Columbus Day. Deb's brother Matt and his family will be coming for a visit this weekend, so we've got the room presentable. Deb painted the ceiling this week, but we'll wait until later to paint the walls.

I'm enjoying the best part of marathon training, which is known as the taper. I ran 22 miles last Sunday relatively pain free (just a little hamstring tightness) and now I'm cutting back on the mileage in the last three weeks to the race. Hoping to heal up a bit before the big day, but I don't feel too bad right now.

And boom goes the dynamite:

• So I had my 20th high school reunion last Saturday night up in Portsmouth. It rained like a mofo all the way up there. The turnout wasn't as good as the organizers had hoped; only 57 out of 100+ showed up. But it was a good time. I thought people looked surprisingly good; maybe the folks who didn't decided not to go. Deb spent the whole time hanging out with the husband of a classmate of mine, commisserating on their outsider status. The following day we went to the wedding of a friend and former coworker, which was held at a beautiful mansion in Manchester. A busy weekend.
• You know the world's a mess when the terrorists start going after the poor Smurfs.
• For Motley Crue, it's been the best of times, it's been the worst of times. They've had success on their reunion tour, but the band members have had a tough time of it. First Vince Neil tears a calf muscle on stage, now Tommy Lee almost gets blown up by the pyro.
• How would you like to go to a wedding and then find the band replaced by the original members of R.E.M.? Granted, it was one of their guitar techs who got married, so you knew the guys would be there, but still...
• Well, the NHL season is just over a week old and the changes have definitely generated a lot more offense. It's not like every game is a 7-6 barnburner, but the increased emphasis on calling penalties for obstruction have led to a lot of power play situations and better flow. Ironically, the higher number of penalties mean more stoppages in play, but generally, the games move along much quicker so far. We'll have to see if the officials keep calling penalties the same way all season, but I like what I see. I'm still not totally sold on the shootout, but the product is definitely better.
• The Red Sox and the Yankees are both gone from the MLB playoffs, which no doubt bums out just about everyone except the folks in Chicago, Anaheim, St. Louis and Houston (and anyone who's sick of the Sox and Yanks). The second round so far has been marked by a truly horrendous display of umpiring, as the White Sox were basically given a gift win in game 2 that evened the series instead of seeing them going down 2-0 to the Angels.

Gotta Give the Peeps What They Need

Hoo-ah! The 2005-2006 NHL season kicked off last night with all 30 teams in action, and I for one was loving life. Wielding the remote like a finely tuned instrument, I deftly zipped from the Sox-Sox playoff game to OLN's opening night coverage to the Bruins-Montreal game to the Leafs-Senators game, which was my primary focus.

The boys in blue played much better than expected, dominating much of the game but only leading 1-0 late in the third when Ottawa tied it up. The Leafs answered back with a big goal from Eric Lindros, who had an impressive night, but the Sens tied it up right away and eventually the game went to overtime, and then the first shootout in league history. Although it's exciting, my problem with the shootout is it takes a team game and transforms it into a head to head competition. The Sens scored twice in the shootout while the Leafs failed to put one past Dominik Hasek, leaving Ottawa a 3-2 winner. The loss was made even worse by the fact that Toronto lost captain Mats Sundin early after he was struck in the eye; he'll be out four to six weeks with a broken orbital bone. The Leafs usually get hit with the injury bug late in the season; this year, their best player is struck down seven minutes into the season. I was encouraged by the play of new additions Lindros, Jason Allison (who was impressive, but damn, is he slow), Jeff O'Neill and Alexander Khavanov. Eddie Belfour was excellent in net, although it looks like he could use some practice on the shootout, and the defense, which included rookies Carlo Colaiacovo and Andy Wozniewski, was solid. Still, it's going to be a tough stretch without Sundin.

As for the play overall, the rules changes definitely generated more offense and more flow. There were fewer whistles and stoppages of play, but a lot of penalties as the officials called anything that looked like obstruction. Special teams is a crucial factor, as teams are getting more power plays now than ever before; at least for now. We'll see if they're still making the same calls in January.

A little sumpin'-sumpin':

• Scary-sounding alert today out of NYC about potential subway attacks. Let's hope it's just bogus chatter.
• Here's an amazing story about a battle for Everglades bad-ass supremacy between alligators and Burmese pythons. No kidding. Wildlife officials found the carcass of a 13-foot python that had swallowed a 6-foot gator, which in turn managed to partially claw its way through the snake's midsection before dying. Check out the incredible photos.
• Say what you will about Dick Cheney, but there's no denying the man just exudes warmth. Warmth caused by the molten lava that courses through his veins, of course.