New Facination: Kottke.org

All kinds of useful news in my Google Reader. And they even linked to McSweeneys today!

This Is How I Run

Submitted for the approval of those of you interested in good running playlists:

Warm Up

• Pleasure and Pain by Ben Harper and Tom Freund
• Here at the Right Time by Josh Ritter
• Moon Shadow by Cat Stevens
• I Belong to You by Superchick

Steady Pace

• If You Wanna Be Happy by Jimmy Soul
• Wasted and Ready by Ben Kweller
• The Last Night by Skillet
• Hoity Toity by Flatfoot 56
• How Many Miles by Ben Harper
• Stand in the Place by REM

Race To The Finish

• The Sign by Ace of Base
• China Town Jail Break by Flatfoot 56
• The Way That I Am by Eminem

The three part system works. I like to do 1/4 Warm up, 1/2 Steady, 1/4 Race. Try it out.

An Open Letter to the Children's Book of the Month Club

Dear Children’s Book of the Month Club,

I just received in the mail a bill for $25.98, and a letter from your billing supervisor, Mr. Stephen Moore, asking me to protect my account status by paying this bill. As far as I know, I have never had an account to protect with Children’s Book of the Month Club. Certainly you have sent me hundreds of catalogs offering me 10 free books if only I agree to three years of inconvenience, so I wonder if you consider possession of those catalogs a membership to your Club? I have never requested any books or product from your company, so any product that you may be billing me for is entirely a mistake.

Thank you, but I do not wish to protect an account status that I do not even hold, so please remove this bill from your records, and cancel any membership that you have imagined in my name.

Sincerely,

Jessica Grabner

The Carrots are in the Trash

Last Sunday I got the immense pleasure of doing my grocery shopping at Sam's Club Mega Store.
I'm pleased with the following purchases:

• 10 pack of athletic socks. Very cushy, like running on air.
  
• 3 pack of sport bras.
  
• 43 oz box of Kashi Go Lean Crunch. Give me another week and a half.
  
• 3 pack of Soy milk.
• 45 pieces individually wrapped string cheese.
• 450 count multi vitamins.

Among the disappointments:

• 5 pound bag of carrots that turned out to be slimy and gross. All attempts to dry them out failed miserably. They're still slimy and gross, and utterly inedible.
  
• 2 pound bag of bananas, ripened very quickly, ended up being bruised on the bottom.
  

My lesson: Buy non perishables from Sam's. They're great. Save the produce for Pick N Save.

A Eulogy of Sorts

Now, in my time as a runner, I've seen a lot of wildlife on the streets and on the trails. I've seen dead deer, and I've seen live deer (up close and personal, might I add). I've seen foxes, squirrels, and chipmunks, and even a mouse or two. I've seen birds of all shapes and sizes, and swarms of dragonflies that could have carried me away.

Today, I saw a frog. It could have been a toad, I'm not sure. I was moving too fast, and my timing was a bit off, and it turns out I didn't recognize it as an actual living thing until it was, um, er, underfoot. The fact that it was amphibious and not plantlike was further confirmed by the disconcerting squishing that happened as my Ryka landed squarely on Frog/ Toad.

To the friends and family of Mr./Ms. Frog/ Toad: I am sorry for the unintentional death of your loved one. I'm certain he/ she was dear to you. Quite a bit of hopping done in his/her day, I'm sure. You may retrieve his/ her body on the Oak Leaf Trail, somewhere between 116th St and Beloit Rd, so that funeral services may be held.

In my own defense: It is autumn in Wisconsin. This means that the trails are littered with fallen leaves and other items of nature. The amphibian with whom I crossed paths blended in quite nicely with all of said fallen leaves, and was virtually impossible to distinguish until i was nearly on top of it. That said, the tympanum of amphibians such as frogs and toads are rather close to the ground, and when I run, I do tend to cause substantial vibrations in the pavement. if Mr. or Ms. F/T had been at all with it, he/ she would have hopped out of the way long before I arrived. If one were to ponder that fact for just a moment, one might come to the conclusion that maybe Mr./ Ms. F/T had a death wish of sorts. unhappy with the home life, perhaps? Burrow troubles?

I feel awful, really I do. I promise to look a little more closely at the ground from now on. but really, you little guys need to stay out of the way. Get hopping!