Me and My Buds

I workout a lot.

While doing this, I like listening to music.  While I'm sure this is normal for many people, I seem to have an issue that crops up every few months:

I go thru earbuds like crazy.

I'm the only person I know who has this problem; I shit out a pair of those tiny little buds that people stuff into their ears to tune out the world just about quarterly.  My last pair (or rather, my current pair, as I've yet to replace these) led me to believe that they'd be the last ones I'd have to purchase for a while, because they're water-proof.

Why does being water-proof matter?  I sweat a lot, especially if I'm doing high intensity cardio (say, running or cycling great distances).  The sweat gets into the buds and fries them out.  I can tell when they're about to go because the sound gets really static-y or I just lose sound in one (or both) of the buds.

My current set, H2O Audio's Surge 2G water-proof earbuds aren't starting to go bad in the buds, but in the jack stem, causing me to have to reach down and twist it every so often or deal with static and cut out.

So, I figure since I've had so many different pairs of earbuds in the last few years, I'd review some of the better ones for you, just in case you're dealing with some of the same problems that I am.

Apple Ear Buds

Everyone is familiar with these white "give-a-way" buds that come with every iPod for the last ten years.  General complaints: poor sound quality and fit.

What's great about them:  Relatively cheap if you know where to buy them (say, Amazon.com, if you search the term "OEM" followed by what Apple product you're looking for, earbuds, charging cables, etc) you can get them in bulk.

What's not so great about them:  If most of your audiophile friends complain that there's not much too the sound quality on these guys, they're right.  Try a pair of these, and then listen to the exact same song with any other brand and you'll hear the difference.

Best for: low-to-moderate physical activity.  From listening to music or watching a video on your iPod or iPad on the couch, to walks and light gym work.

Estimated Use Life: with the prescribed above activities, these should have at least a year shelf life, however, if you're more active on a more consistent basis (marathon runner in training, for example) or you sweat in buckets all the time, expect to get between two and four months out of these guys before they're cooked.

Personal experience:  Sound quality aside, I have no real beef with these except the price Apple demands for them.  I think they fit my ears fine (others have complained about this aspect as well), however with my level of activity, I will only use a pair of these if I can't find a more durable set.

($29.99 @ Apple.com, $10-$15 @ Amazon.com)


Skullcandy "Smokin' Bud" Ear Buds

These guys are nearly as ubiquitous as the Apple earbuds.  Again, quality-wise these aren't your best bet, but they're cheap so you won't feel the pinch too bad if you burn thru a pair in a matter of months.

What's great about them:  Decent sound quality (better than Apple's) and you can't beat the price of less than 15 bucks and they come in a variety of colors.  Buy in bulk.


What's not so great about them:  You get what you pay for.  A high intensity work out will kill these things in weeks, not months.  Often times they only come with one set of rubberized "custom-fit" ear pieces, that may or may not ride comfortably in your ears.

Best for: Any workout, as these things will be toast no matter how much or how little you workout. 


Estimated Use Life: A few weeks to a few months, depending.


Personal Experience:  I've had a few pairs of these over the years and my experience has always been the same.  They're "ok" and "good enough" to get me thru a period between having decent to really nice buds.  They're place holders.  However, I find the fit on these to be bothersome, as the rubber inserts don't fit my ears all too well.  While running, they'll sometimes fall out.

($11.99-$18.99 @ Amazon.com or any local retailer)


Rocketfish EHP-11

A middle of the road brand, Rocketfish make all sort of audio components like bluetooth stereo equipment and car gps mounts.


What's great about them:  Came with about a dozen different sized rubberized ear buds so that you could find a "perfect fit" for your individual ear, and a magnetized fob to coral the extra-long chord.


What's not so great about them:  With all the choices in little rubber pieces, none of them fit my ear properly.  Plus the sound quality is affected by the gigantic 1970's stereo jack stem.

Best for: low intensity activity, as the jack stem and extra long chord tend to get in the way.

Estimated Use Life:  I got about a solid month or so out of these before they got chucked, however, with the level of discomfort I experienced, I wanted to get rid of them sooner, but couldn't justify doing so with what I spent.


Personal Experience:  Like I said, I felt a high level of discomfort from these, plus the buds were constantly falling out of my ears!  The extra long chord and jack stem kept getting in the way as well (that magnetic fob is useless), leaving me no other choice but to toss these before they started to crackle and go static-y.

($29.99 @ Best Buy, $5-$20 @ Amazon.com)


H2O Audio Surge Ear Buds

Water-proof earbuds!  Olympian Michael Phelps is on the packaging and website!  For what they're charging these must be the answer I'm looking for!

What's great about them:  They're water-proof.  That being said, they should be sweat-proof as well, which was the primary reason I bought them.  They also come with an assortment of rubber pieces to custom-fit into your ear, and of the bunch tested, H20 Audio's were the only pair to give me something close to a custom fit.

What's not so great about them:  Extra long chord, long jack stem (sound familiar?).  However, this is because these buds are designed to be used in a pool with a special water-proof jacket for your iPod or iPhone.

Best for:  Pool work (which I've used them for as well) or any high intensity cardio workout.   However, underwater the sound is terrible.  The buds, if not seated just right before pulling the swim cap over your ears, will pinch and chaffe the insides of the ear.  Keep them for running and cycling.

Estimated Use Life:  I got about 6 months out of these before the jack stem started to go out on me.  Within that 6 months, I trained for and completed a marathon, plus have worked out at least four days a week for at least 90 minutes a session.  Not bad.


Personal Experience:  Like I just said, I put these guys thru the ringer and they came out alright.  The jack stem gets in the way and now I believe it's on the way out, causing static-y feed back in the buds.  But for what I paid, I'd like to have gotten at least a full year out of these guys.

($45-$60 depending on exact model, @ Amazon.com)

Emailing Me is a Privilege, Not a Right

You have no right to email me.

Emailing me is strictly a privilege I extend to a certain few people.  This is because email, to me, is a primary form of communication, on the same level as a phone call or text message.  I try to think back to when this took place; this idea that email has gone from something I rarely-if-ever checked, to one of three ways to get in touch with me directly.

I draw the lineage back to my first "smart phone," a Blackberry 8300-series Curve, red in color.  It was 2008, smart phones were becoming ubiquitous and better, faster and cheaper.  Before this point in mobile technology, only super elite businessmen and doctors carried the big, chunky phones with their dainty little plastic stylus that could fetch emails and in a limited way surf the internet.

But technology got better and manufacturers saw a market ready to pop.  The smart phone was a status symbol for the rich and entitled.  I was due for an upgrade, so for the low-low price of 200 dollars, I bought my first Blackberry (a phone that I believe is now part of a government-sponsored "free phones for the poor" program).

With my Blackberry I became no longer tethered to an ethernet cable-attached computer terminal to read an email.  But then again, no one was really emailing me.  So I started emailing them.  I sent people emails instead of texts (my phone plan features "unlimited data" but limited text messaging.  It was cheaper to send emails, is what I'm getting at.) and that's how it all started.

Now my email-ing has become a monster.  I have a professional looking signature that I stole after being inspired by one I saw on a boss's email.  I fire off emails like thank you notes or to keep the ball rolling on projects.  I make sure everyone is on the same page with a CC (or a BCC, depending).

My Blackberry became an iPhone 3GS, which allowed me to email even faster, but not at first because I had Blackberry Thumb and found typing on the sometimes temperamental touchscreen bothersome.

But then came this backlash of all the emailing I was doing.  My email address was getting around, getting into the wrong hands, or at least in the hands of people I didn't want having it.

It's one thing to use my email address to get me access to something.  For instance: if I'm ordering something online, I need to use my email address to confirm the purchase.  This in turn will result in unsolicited emailings from said-company about shit I don't want.  This is solved by either A) sending a reply email with the word "remove" in it, so I'm taken off the list (problematic, because if I want to order from the site again, I start this whole process all over) or B) I can just set up a filter, where I program my email client to "filter" unwanted emails meeting a certain criteria to the trash or archive, unread and uncared for.

I'm usually an option B guy.

But sometimes my email address with fall into the wrong hands unintentionally.  Distant family members get a hold of it, and then bombard your inbox with "funny fwds."  These are usually older aunts or uncles or family friends who came into the internet age with trepidation and never adapted beyond AOL and HTML scripting, or developed "email etiquette".

I'm sure we all remember chain emails from the 1990s.  "Send this forward to five friends or ____ will happen to you," was a threat.  Or "If you want to find true love, forward this to X amount of friends within two hours..." came the promise.

No one, at least I'm fairly positive, believed in any of that, but sent the forwards on to everyone in their address book, ensuring, like some sickly penis unhinged on the local town, we would all get a virus or two, or because the email would be so thick with glittery HTML .gif graphics, our Dell laptops would instantly come to a screeching halt trying to load the entire 25-page email.

(I can remember back to one of my college days... getting one of these giant emails and subsequently every email correspondence relating to the original email, because two idiots kept "reply all"-ing each other to tell the other how funny the email was.  It nearly made me throw my Compaq laptop out of my third story window)

There's no tactful way to get these emails to stop, unless you outright block or filter the sender.  Reasoning with your 50-sum-odd-old aunt won't help.  She won't "get it."

"Auntie Muriel, it was so nice seeing you last month, but could you please stop sending me these forwards...." she'll become indignant, complain to your mother, and now you have two of these goddamn harpies breathing guilt down your neck.

Then there's the overtly racist forwards from your backwoods uncle who tries to stuff his political views down your throat at every opportunity he can find.  And since you see him only once a year, usually completely plastered at Thanksgiving, sending you endless emails from fringe right wing groups that have names similar to KKK splinter cells operating autonomously out in the woods of Michigan seems like his best bet. 

"Obama isn't our president," one would start, with quote-unquote "proof" of his "real birth certificate" "recovred" from a hospital in "Kenyah".

So I set up a two-prong defense against this type of shit-emails.  I give only certain people my "real address" email that goes directly to my phone, computer, iPad, etc.  In this email, I port in emails from other accounts, and in other accounts, I have filters set up, so only the REALLY IMPORTANT emails ever make it thru to my actual, live email.

Other people, crazy aunts and uncles, people I vaguely remember from high school or co-workers I wouldn't piss on to save from spontaneous combustion, they receive the other email addresses.  Usually a gmail.com address with something that might look like my name attached to it.

There's probably a total of five people, maybe up to ten, who have my real email address.  Because it's not an inherent right you have to email me, or anyone else.  It's a privilege I extend to you, like giving out my phone number or physical address.

My Gym (and Why I Hate It)

People who know me know I hate my gym.  It's because it's not really a "gym" so much as it's a "health club" with an elderly clientele, juice heads, and children running around unsupervised.  

I go here, because it's local and they have a pool, which for me is kind of a big deal.  Laps are the best kind of workout, second being running.  So, for one last time, here's a breakdown of everything I hate at my gym, and why:


The Patronage:

Like I said a second ago, there's just this.. wide swath of people that go to my gym.  Half of the week, I go in the mornings, and I'm forced to deal with the elderly.  Old woman sitting on stationary bikes who bark at you for touching the TV channel, lest they miss one second of Ellen or Rachael Ray.  If they're not on the bikes, they're getting in my way when I want to use equipment.  And they're SO SLOW!  Like, all I want to do is just rip out four sets of ten reps, in under five minutes... but then they just sit on the equipment, while their bored fitness trainer looks on, or texts his girlfriend, or watches the tv, inattentive to their client.  If I try to budge in, even politely, I'm met with resistance. 

The old ladies like to chit-chat with each other too.  True story:  the other day, I was over by the free weights, where no little old ladies have any business being in the first place, when, standing in front of the rack of weights, two old bettys are gabbing about how fucking unbelievably precious their grandchildren are.  I had had enough by this point, and carrying two 60 lb dumbbells, walked between them and set down my load.  They both looked at me as if I just kicked a puppy down a flight of stairs.  I pulled my earbud out and looked one of them dead in the eyes:

"This is not your living room," I told her.  Stuck my bud back in and went back to my workout.  They left shortly thereafter.

The men are no better.  I walk into the men's locker room and there's no less than 6 or 7 pairs of naked, old, hairy balls dangling around.  At what age do men just stop being modest around each other?  Big fat hair-covered bellies and asscracks, the smell of icyhot and farts lingers.... inevitably there will be one in one of the toilet stalls, letting loose bladdery gas as he bares down.  And they all just stand around talking about the most absurd shit!

"Yup, that Obama there ain't been born in this country, no sir, they can't even find a dat-gum birth certificate..."

"He ain't MY president...."

"Jesus didn't die for me to have no black president," and so on.  I just keep my head down and gear up and try to get out of the forest of dicks as quickly and quietly as possible.

The evening sessions are no better.  Low-educated juiceheads get out of their day jobs and clutter up the place with their tiny wife-beater undershirts, bulging muscles, the smell of Hungarian Horsecock Steriods and the all-too-quick-to-point-out attitude about how you're doing your workout "all wrong."  They sit on benches or stand in the middle of the gym on their cell phones, either texting or shouting into them at arms length.

While they're being boobs, they're monopolizing the free weight area, the benches, the machines.... they're like fucking gremlins that got fed after midnight, they just spawn everywhere, shouting at each other from across the gym floor:

"AY JIMMY!  LOOK AT ALL THIS WEIGHT I CAN LIFT!  HAVE YOU BEEN JUMPIN' ROPE LATELY, YOU'RE LOOKING REAL CUT!  NO, I'M TAKING A NEW WHY ISOLATE!  THANKS FOR NOTICING!"

I wish, for creativity-sake, I was making most of this up.

Then you have the unattended children that just run amok all over this place.  Dad's with "weekend duty" will bring the kids to the gym for an hour while they workout.  The kids, unchecked, throw bosu balls around, run and trip on shit, run and run into you, destroy equipment by not using it correctly, and NO ONE SAYS ANYTHING!  I grabbed a small 9 year old boy last weekend by the arm after he was just banging on objects with a light dumbbell and asked him where his parents were.  He pointed across the gym where a sweat-covered middle-aged man was sitting on a machine, sending a text to someone.  I marched the child over and presented him to his parent.

"Unless you're planning on paying me for babysitting duties, watch your own kid," and left it at that.  I'm sure the asshole got indignant about the whole thing.

The Lack of Respect for Equipment:

It goes so much further than just not wiping down the equipment when you're done using it (which no one does, except me and my wife) but not putting equipment back to it's proper place or even cleaning up after yourself.

The locker room is usually a hot mess by the time I'm leaving in the evenings; used towels everywhere, paper towels in clumps by a trashcan because people were too lazy to follow up on their missed throw, loose gear just strewn about.  The airduct above my locker was last wiped of dust when George Bush was president.  The first one.

If I want to take a soak in the jaccuzzi, I can only do so if I'm wearing a condom and a cork up my ass.

Broken equipment stays that way for weeks at a time, no matter how many times my wife or I tell the staff that something's not working correctly.  Benches are torn and there's a sizable hole in the middle of the freeweight section begging for someone to step into it under load and destroy their knee or ankle.  All of these things have been brought up at one time or another.  The best the staff can do I guess, is leave a little computer-printed sign that says "out of order."

People pee in the pool.  I know this because I'll be swimming and find myself in the middle of a murky, warm section of my lane where someone just left.  Cocksucker.

Also, the parking lot looks like a moonscape.  I'm starting to get curious as to what my $55-a month membership fee is going towards?

And rack your fucking weights when you're done with them!  Wipe down the sweaty puddle you left on the goddamn bench you were using!  I'm here to do MY workout, not yours, and I don't get paid to clean up after you!

Jesus.

The Cost:

Lastly, my membership is $55 dollars a month, like I just said.  For that amount of money, I should be getting a goddamn complimentary handjob every time I walk in the place. 

Yes, there's a pool, and yes there are classes I can sign up for, but like I said in the last section, the equipment is very slow to repair, and the place is usually filthy.  Given the bulk of my workout can be done at home (minus swimming laps) it's very frustrating to pay the amount I'm locked into for the next year.  The place can be better.  There has to be 500 people going there a day, total.  That's 500 people paying roughly 60 bucks a month.  Do the math, improve the place.

I'm going to open my own gym one day and membership fees will be assessed based off body fat % and composition.  The less you have, the less you pay.  The tvs will be locked on either the Weather Channel or ESPN.  No bitching, no grunting, no yelling, no children, no cell phones, no naked old men.  It will be bare bones and members will be expected to sign up and train for a local athletic competition within 3 months of starting a membership, or their privileges will be revoked.

This is my gym.

Really Good Guacamole

I whipped up some pretty good guac last weekend, just on a spur of the moment kind of thing.  So here's what I did, yield makes about five servings:

What you'll need:

Three avacados, halved and scooped out
1 and 1/2 tablespoons of lemon juice OR the juice from one fresh lemon
1 tablespoon of your favorite hot sauce
salt and pepper to taste
Your favorite chips

Method:

Mash up the avacados with a fork in a bowl until they're just about whipped.  Add lemon juice and hot sauce, continue to whip contents until thickened and well blended.  Taste.  Add salt and pepper to your liking, making sure to fully blend the mixture.  Enjoy with chips!

Racist Gamers (Offensive NFSW-text Ahead)

(You were warned....)

Anyone who tells you that racism in America (or anywhere else, but mostly America) doesn't exist hasn't played online video games.

Let me set the scene for you:  It's early AM... wife's fast asleep in the bedroom across the house, you get up to let the dog piss in the yard and settle in in front of the tv, fire up the Xbox and log into your game (or my purposes, Call of Duty: Black Ops).

You enter a game lobby, this area where gamers congregate while we wait for the next match to start.  No one's saying anything.

The screen goes black, and then the load card... a screen that shows what map you and everyone else will be playing on while the game gets itself ready... comes up and that's when some ignorant asshole starts sputtering hateful shit.

"NIGGER NIGGER NIGGER NIGGER NIGGER!"

Not exactly the most articulate thing, mind you, but it's affect is purposeful.  Otherwise, I wouldn't be here writing about it hours later.

This happens more often than you'd think.  See, these racist fuckfaces wait til this load screen to speak, because during this screen everyone's mic (a microphone one wears to communicate to other players in the game) is on, but no one can see anyone else's screen name, in order to give attribution to who's speaking.  It's like picking up a phone, dialing a random number and shouting into it.

As soon as the game starts, and people can see each other's screen names again, the racist goes quiet.  He's a coward who will not stand for his convictions and beliefs, because in his heart he knows they're wrong, he's wrong, and will be judge by others for it.

The reason why he does this is two fold: he wants to fuck with people (and he's largely successful, again, because here I am writing about this experience) and he wants to spread his racist agenda (again, successful) I only wish he would do it where I could see his screenname so I could put his mic on mute (an option) so I won't have to deal with his bullshit.

So if you're an ignorant, hate-filled son of a bitch with a high speed internet connection and a love of First Person Shooters, and you're not too busy finger-raping your little sister, please make your racist, inbred comments in the game lobby, so I know who to mute in advance.  Also, so I can track you down in game and make your playing experience a fucking misery.  I don't care if there's an objective to hold or defend or attack... I'm coming for you, every time I spawn until you Rage Quit.

I consider it my way of fighting racism where it exists in the digital world.

US Gov't 101 (Why Americans Love Fast Food)

I take this class at school in US Govt.  It's not that I don't know anything about how our government operates, quite on the contrary.  But because I prefer not to stress myself out during my second college experience, I load my schedule with classes that are essentially no brainers.  I pretty much show up, do the reading, take the tests, write the papers and pass with high marks.

So I'm sitting in this class yesterday and the discussion of political apathy comes up.  The scourge of American Politics in the 20th century was the simple fact that the American people became disillusioned with the political machine.  After the Nixon, Ford and Carter Administrations thru the late 1960s and into the 80s, Americans collectively could not give two shits about what happened in the Beltway.

And can you blame them?  No longer could they trust what was supposed to be the most trusted position in the country.  They were being lied to about a war no one wanted anything to do with, being lied about where their money was going, being lied to who was really in charge of the country.

So people just ... unplugged from the machine.

The 80s and the "New America" or "America's Re-Awakening" with Ronald Regan changed all that, along with Clinton, the Second Bush, and the current Obama administration, and suddenly people were becoming politically aware again.  So aware, that anyone sitting in my government class will not hesitate to tell you their misinformed and utterly ridiculous personal opinion on America, politics and the president.

The class is comprised of a wide slice of Americana; there's old ladies and Eastern European immigrants, and white guys and black girls... it's a fucking United Colors of Benetton ad or a carefully chosen focus group, minus the one-way mirror in the back of the room.  So everyone has an opinion, a fear, a need to be heard.

And don't get it mistaken, politics is a nasty river to navigate; there's a lot of emotionally charged topics that lead people to become indignant in defense of their personal beliefs.  This, obviously, leads to spirited debates, which will always put a smile on my face.  As long as people CARE ENOUGH to debate a topic, there's hope for America.

But when we got on to the topic of why people are still somewhat apathetic towards the American political system, I was stunned at what I heard.  The following are some notes I took while other classmates were talking:


Politics are boring.  They should make it more like "American Idol."

Valid point, as Americans are more likely to vote and vote often for a candidate seeking the title of "America's Idol" than the President of the United States, and I'm even taking Chicago 1960 into account as well.  Why are people more attached to some 20-something with a guitar and a dream than a 40 year old who holds the codes to launch a full-on nuclear holocaust?

It's all about packaging.

"American Idol" is glitzy and the thing to talk about the next morning around the water cooler because people can understand it with little effort.  They see a performance and they can tell immediately if it was good or bad, or in the very least repeat some analysis they heard from a radio dj on their way into work that morning.  With politics, you have to know what you're talking about, and pay attention.    It's also real-fucking-life you're talking about, not some meaningless talent show where the winner will be a big "who?" in a matter of months following his success.

With politics, you have to take a stance with something, or at least you're expected to.  With "American Idol" your stance can be as base as "I like her hair" or "they sang 'good'" there's little to no accountability for your beliefs.


I wish I knew more about the political system, like, if there was a show I could watch...

This comment stunned me.  Dude, do you not have cable?  I mean, we don't have cable but, I know there's like, a million Cable News Networks, including CNN, which is literally the Cable News Network which do nothing but pump popular opinions into people's sensory.  Like, dude, sit down for half an hour and absorb.

But I liken cable news to fast food; it's fast food for your brain.  While fast food for your stomach will do it's job; take away your hunger, sustain you for the time being, taste kinda good, too much of it will rot your insides.  The same can be said for cable news, especially in a political manner.

I make it a point not to pay much attention to what politics cable news happen to be waving on any given day, but I will turn half a deaf ear towards it, just because it's there, similar to how if you ordered a burger and fries, I might snatch a fry or two, because that's my duty as an American given the situation.  But sadly, like the fast food epidemic in this country, the majority of people are gorging themselves on fast, non-nourishing, baseless, biased politic punditry every night for dinner, and coming into work the next day brain sick, regurgitating what they heard from Glenn Beck or Keith Olberman as fact.

People, please, there are better alternatives to feed your political appetite.  You simply have to go out, work a little bit, just like a wholesome meal.  In the end, you'll be fuller, more appreciative, and less likely to puke up rhetoric the next morning.

I wish politicians would just say what they mean....

Ah, yes, the bane of politics around the world.  Hunny, a politician will NEVER say what he means, because he's a salesman at heart.  Here, he's trying to sell you him or herself or an idea or someone else's idea.  It's all about packaging.

If you went to go buy an expensive home appliance and the salesman told you plainly that the machine would only work for you for 190 days a year, or you had to be a white male to really reap the full benefits of the machine, would you buy it (not withstanding, you're a white male)?  Of course you wouldn't.  If a politician told you the same thing, would you vote for him or her?  My guess is probably not.

With politics as a whole, the reward comes from paying attention, learning to read between the lines (I mis-typed "lines" and typed "lies" instead, I think I should've kept it) and developing a commercial grade Bullshit Detector.  If you simply only hear what's being said on the surface, you're not getting the full idea of the political system.  This takes time and patience and you can't just expect to jump into the middle of things and understand what's going on right off the bat.  It's complex and all the double-speak only makes it more so.

Take your favorite drama, be it "The Sopranos" or any other soap opera.  Let's say you've been hearing all this wonderful stuff about it, and you decide you want to tune in one night.  You watch an episode and you're like "I have no idea what's going on here, this is stupid..." and you turn it off.  The reward here comes from doing your research and finding out who the characters and players are, what their back stories are, and how they're all related to each other.  You know you would readily do this for some trashy tv show, so why not politics?  Just because Tony's not having Mitch McDonald whacked down by the piers, doesn't make it less interesting.

There were more things said in that class, which caused my heart to literally break, including someone calling Jimi Hendrick's rendition of "The National Anthem" at Woodstock "disrespectful."  On that, we live in a country where freedom of expression reigns over all.

Also, he didn't mess up the words.  (Warning, prepare for a giant, Red White and Blue Boner ahead):

Running Cold

My wife's friend Eddie got in touch with me recently and asked about some gear for cold weather running.  He's new to running (so new, in fact, I don't think he's yet BEEN running) so I was obviously perplexed as to why he'd want to get started NOW, in February, when running is just about its suckiest.

In the northeast, February is a month where you'll either be greeted with snow or freezing rain about 50% of the time.  Not to mention the average temperature hovers around 30 degrees on a good day.  I can't stand cold weather running, and I try to avoid it as much as possible.  I'll only run outside maybe twice a week, oppose to in warmer weather, 5-6 times.  I supplement the rest of my weekly running indoors on gym treadmills, but I cut my mileage significantly, because running on treadmills is bad for your knees and hips.

But never to be undaunted by a cry for help (or advice) I pieced together this list of cold weather running gear, keeping in mind that Eddie, being a beginner runner, is likely to be either A) on a budget, or B) not so committed to running as to want to drop 100 dollars on a pair of tights.



EMS Techwick Beanie and Gloves:

Your mom was right; you'll catch a cold if you don't at least cover your head and ears while you're playing outside.  You lose nearly 90% of your body heat thru the extremities, so it's in your best interest to keep them covered.



I like EMS's Techwick stuff, because it's comfy and it breathes, so you're not going to get too gross or sweaty while wearing it.  I used to be a huge opponent to wearing gloves when I ran, because I didn't like how my sweaty digits felt after only a few miles.  EMS's glove liners will allow the stagnant moisture escape but keep your flanges dry and warm.  ($15 bucks each, ems.com)

EMS Excel Running Tights:

I'm not the biggest fan of running in long tights, because the leg muscles being as big as they are, they tend to produce a lot of heat very quickly (usually before your first mile) so covering them up tends to lead to overheating or moisture.  However, again, EMS comes thru with a tight that wicks away moisture and allows heat to dissipate slowly over time, keeping you warmer (but not too warm) longer.  ($35 bucks, ems.com)

Underarmour Base Layer Top:

What I lack for love in running tights, I make up for in a good base layer top.  There are many to chose from, but Underarmour gets the job done for the right price.  It's a durable product that for the money, you can expect to put tons of mileage on.  I still have a set from nearly about eight years ago that still gets weekly use this time of year.  ($50 bucks, ua.com)




Underarmour Compression Sock:

Gotta keep those toesies warm too!  These socks feed heated blood from your quads and calves down to the tips of your feet and back, allowing you to get in a few extra miles before you can't feel your feet anymore.  They're a little pricey but have you ever had to run with numb toes?  It sucks, especially if you hit one of those barely-iced-over-puddles.  ($20 bucks, ua.com)





Nike Training Long Sleeve Jersey:

Layering is important.  You don't want to be out there with just a base layer (at least til April) so Nike's training long sleeve is a good "middle layer" that still insulates but allows for air to circulate.  Moisture from your base layer will transport to this middle layer and evaporate more efficiently.  ($45 bucks, nikerunning.com)





Nike Windrunner Jacket:

Keeping in mind with the layering, you need something to keep those sudden and harsh gusts of cold winter wind off your body.  Nike makes a fairly decent light weight windbreaker complete with hood (incase you get caught in a freakish ice downpour) and water proof pockets that'll keep all your goods (ipod, gels, cell phone, etc) dry.  ($80 bucks, nikerunning.com)






Brooks Defyance Running Shoe:

Lastly, I swear by Brooks, but picking out a shoe for someone else (let alone a beginner runner) is dangerous work.  However, I wish someone had pointed these out to me when I first started getting serious about my runs.  The Defyance is a neutral running shoe and great for people who put between 5-15 miles or more a week on the road.  ($100 bucks, brooksrunning.com)

I'm Better Than You

My body fat percent
Hovers around a cent
My resting heart rate
Is about forty eight
I can do 100 push ups
my body, I'll never corrupt.

I'm better than you
This is fact, it's true
I'm the essence of greatness
judges line up to rate this
My visage is high maintenance

I practically live in the gym
in the pool, I endlessly swim
I run marathons
and triathlons
I even carry the baton
for your college track team.
I'm all lean
a clean, fighting machine
I'm what every fat slob secretly dreams

Because I'm better than you
Women line up to be choosed
I'm the picture of a god
my abs are 90% of my bod
My diet is all protein, I love me some cod

I practically never see my wife
I don't have much of a life
Our last vacation,
was to a Work Out Nation
I get angry when I don't workout
I'll stand in the mirror and pout
Pull on imaginary fat
that I think is growing that
is not really there.
They call me douchebag,
Juicehead and gym rat
They say I'm over compensating
for lack of a tool used in mating
The gym janitor gets pissed when I won't go home
my back is breaking out, from all the testosterone
my knees are bad
my kids are mad
because I lift weights
But I won't lift them.

But I'm still better than you
Don't deny it, it's true
Nice half marathon
Did you run it, or did you jog?
I'm lost in a protein shake fog.

In your worst nightmare
I'm your trainer in your ear
I'm the asshole giving you advice
while you try to figure out a new device
I noticably flex when we speak
I get off on intimidating the meek

Because I'm better than you.

Assignment: Procrastinate.

I'm a hardcore procrastinator.  This is something I freely admit, as most of those who contextually fuck ourselves over out of sheer habit (and maybe sheer maliase) understand.  It's a process that involves me sitting down, staring at my oversized computer screen blankly, trying to urge myself to actually write.

But I'm too easily distracted.  Hell, since starting this first post, I've gotten up no less than three times (twice at my wife's beck and call, and once to get the little baggie of dried cranberries that I meant to get the other two times I walked out to the kitchen.).  Add to that, I have five tabs on my browser open, each with java-enabled updates (twitter, espn, Huffpost, NYT, gmail) I habitually skip from one to the other as soon as I see an update.

I remember hearing a bunch of times that in order to write well, you need to be isolated away from distractions.  While I believe this to be absolutely true, I am without a cabin in the woods out in the far reaches of northern Maine.  Granted, where I live is essentially a geographic hole in the ground without cell service, but our wifi is strong.  Super strong actually, because I keep our router chained in a closet and feed it nothing but anabolic steroids farmed from Hungarian horse DNA.

True story:  one time I woke up in the middle of the night and found our router out of his closet, bent over the corpse of a rabbit it had caught and dragged into the kitchen, feasting on the poor beast's flesh.  It turned it's blinking-light face towards me, spattered with fresh-kill blood and growled.  I slowly backed into the bedroom and locked the door, making my wife switch sides of the bed so SHE was closer to the bedroom door leading to the kitchen.


But once I get going with whatever I want to write, I usually can't stop.  It becomes like what a meth addict doing his laundry is like; a feverish compulsion to complete the task lest the "bugs" get back under his skin.  Only the bugs in my case are distractions.  It doesn't help when my brain fires off synapses 12 times faster than yours does.  Because I'm super human.  Truth.

What else is hindering my writing ability today is that the java scripting on this hosting site is horrendous.  Everytime I have to hit "enter" to start a new paragraph, ... the cursor just sits there, plaintively blinking at me, as if it doesn't understand the goddamn command to hop down a level.  It just, blinks, almost as if to insult my creative abilities, to hamstring them even.

Ah Christ, it did it again!  Fuck!

Now I'm just being obnoxious.  But it is a huge pain, like a speed bump to my process.  You get your car up to a good clip, like 30mph, and then you pump the brakes and slow the F down to go over this little bump, only to pick speed back up, to slow down again.  Real aggravating.  This is why speed bumps are seldom in more than sets of ... like three or four.

Damnit!  I just spent the last minute futzing around with my iTunes library.  God, concentrate!  ....calm down.

And what's probably the last thing that's causing me to be so lax about my ability to sit down and write something meaningful is that I have literally a stack of stuff to write out:  Honors Contract proposal (only has to be a paragraph long, but something about getting what I want to say in just four or five sentences seems daunting), correspondence from my family on the west coast, other emails that require my attention. 

It's my adult responsibility to get back to these people all within a timely manner, but the simple thought of KNOWING I HAVE to do it makes me want to do it even less.  It's a helluva conundrum.