Joss Whedon has made several good television shows. Most recently, he made Firefly. That show died before it got a chance, which is a shame. It was great and I wish it could have gone on for a long time.
That is why I’m going to have to be very supportive of his latest effort, Doctor Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. There have been two episodes online so far, and they are fantastic. One of the few times I’ve enjoyed a musical. The third episode comes out on Saturday, a day when I’ll be completely in the wilderness.
And a part of me is tempted to bring my laptop down in case there is a rogue wi-fi connection available in the middle of nowhere.
Now, to support this, I’m going to have to buy the episodes on iTunes and the eventual DVD.

This could get expensive.

The other day I checked my mailbox and found the usual stack of flyers. Only this time, there was a useful one in it. Free coupons for the video rental place I go to. The one that is three and a half minutes away, door-to-door. (I timed it.) And these are good coupons too! Outright free movie rentals. These are the first-hit’s-free offers to get you to rent movies.
In other words, I can use these.
But wait, there’s more! My neighbors are not as discriminating as me. The recycling bin below the mailboxes had lots of extras available. Score!
They expire in August, and I’ll be done my Death Race training in the start of that month. I can see me being a total couch potato for an entire month.

And I’m going to get new rentals too!

Earlier this week, on the way home from CostCo, I annoyed a motorcyclist. I didn’t see him as I changed lanes on Groat road. He had to swerve out of the way. When we were next to each other I yelled out an apology and things seemed fine from there.
This incident has improved my driving skills. I’m now taking better care when changing lanes. However, I’m not taking total blame on this. Maybe I was changing lanes with insufficient signaling, but he may have been speeding along, faster than the speed limit. Groat road is known for motorcyclists going too fast. I know, I’ve done it.
The right thing to do would be to take total responsibility, but I have to live with myself, and wallowing in guilt is no way to live. I’m tired of doing that.
This might explain why I haven’t taken my scooter out this year. It’s not safe if there are people like me on the road.
The complete opposite is also true.
Today, on the way home from CostCo, I was on Groat road and I saw a motorcyclist ahead of me, heading in the opposite direction. He took the curve a little too quickly and hit the divider. There was a spray of rocks and gravel, but he kept going. It didn’t look comfortable. However, two seconds later, a rock from his collision hit my windshield, leaving a nice divot.
That does not look cheap to repair.
When I last went to get an oil change at the Honda dealership, they phoned my up after about an expensive repair my car also needed. They mentioned parts I’ve never heard of, and did not tell me the consequences of not fixing it. I’m not sure if it was them looking for trouble, or another repair that will cost me money to fix.
I’m going camping tomorrow. I’m not driving.

There was an article in the paper last Friday about the “Chick Drain”. Basically, the women in Alberta (or even Canada) are leaving the country in hopes of finding men. Apparently it is easier to date men in the States. Canadians are poor salesmen of themselves.
Interesting and frightening. I always thought the dating scene in Alberta was bad because it is mostly men here, working in the oil patch. Now I find that the women are actively moving away. And now that I think about it, my sister did the exact same thing.
My biggest beef with the article is that it just describes the problem and offers no advice on a solution. I have found very little education available on picking up women in a friendly manner. Mostly I’ve been able to find duplicitous advice that doesn’t seem gentlemanly. (Which is practically the point of the article.) I would like to know how to go from talking to someone you barely know to asking them out for dinner without looking/feeling creepy.
I can’t recall ever seeing a scene in a movie where a man successfully picks up a woman whom he knows nothing about. Either the scene cuts out early, or it is meant to show how bad the man is at picking up women.
I have no good role-models.

I ran. Then I ran some more. Then I went dancing. And then I ran some more. Eight and a half hours total over this weekend. 90.2km total.
In theory I would continue this insane schedule next weekend (only slightly insanier). It feels like I’m back in university, but instead of studying, physical activity! However, back then, it wasn’t bad if I studied too much. Now, if I exercise too much, I could injure myself.
Next weekend I will be climbing a mountain instead. It looks like a good way to get hill training and altitude acclimation in at the same time.
I hope the weather is good.
In an interesting development, apparently my next door neighbor is also going to go to the Death Race. But he is only doing one leg.
As you can see, he is much smarter than I am.

I walked along Whyte Avenue to go get my hair cut. The way was blocked, however, by the annual Art Walk.
Since I had to pass a lot of art, I’ve come to a few conclusions. Foremost is that most of the artists can’t draw. Sometimes you can see a bit of evidence that they could if they wanted, but they usually mess it up by being “artistic”.
Sad, really.
If I’m going to buy art, I want concrete evidence that the artist had a vision in mind when they made it. (This is also my opinion of movies.) Splotches of color don’t cut it.
And then, if they can actually draw, what they drew is boring. Naked women lounging around; You would think that would be something, but if they aren’t doing anything, or don’t look like they had an interesting past, then it is a waste of my time. And easily mistaken as porn; Which you don’t want to hang on your wall if there is a chance your mother will visit.
Finally, I found someone who did have good art. They had an idea in their head, and they expertly put it on canvas. Plus, something is happening in each of their pictures. Since I’ve found their website and can see their titles, they just got cooler.
Unfortunately, the artist is the son of a good friend, so I can’t claim to be completely unbiased. In my defense, I didn’t realize I knew him until after my eye was caught by the art.

There was an Apple store opening up in West Edmonton Mall. The first 1000 people would get a free t-shirt. Do I need this t-shirt? No. Do I want this t-shirt more than life itself? Possible exaggerating there, but the thought does count.
However, I had a run I needed to do this morning. So I get up earlier than ever to hit the pavement for two hours. I feel like I’m in school again where I should always be studying for something. Only now it is physical instead of mental.
Anyway, I finish the run and get down to the store before it opens. There is a line up, but I find two old co-workers that I haven’t seen in years. I spent the rest of the morning with them, talking and reminiscing.
The store was cool. Crowded too. And I really want to buy something there, but I’m in the middle of a quandary.
The iPhone comes out in a week. But everything I’ve read is that it is way over-priced. Maybe Rogers is only doing that to gouge the Apple-philes who stood too close to the RFD and aren’t thinking properly. It might go down in a few months…
Or it might not. Which means I will not be getting a cell phone, and will stick with my landline. Which also means I should get an iPod Touch. (FYI, they are cheaper at Costco.)
So, do I buy an iPod Touch and assume the price will not go down? Or keep waiting until an iPhone can be mine for a reasonable price?
I really would like to try programming these things. I wish I had an idea for a cool application…

It concerns me that most of what I blog about lately has to do just with running. It’s not that interesting, and yet it is the most interesting thing about me. What else do I have but daily life?
Speaking of…
I woke up this morning in the greater Calgary area. It pretty much rained all day. When I got to Edmonton in the evening, it was nice and clear. My condo was an inferno. (Not literally. Just temperaturly.)
Still, despite having to work tomorrow, I wandered down to the river valley and saw the fireworks. Very nice. Warm out, and I don’t recall feeling and mosquitos.

If God had a name, what would it be
And would you call it to his face
If you were faced with him in all his glory

What would you ask if you had just one question

Which is a good point. What would you ask God if you had one question? Luckily, by definition, the obvious question has already been answered; Is there a god? So we can move onto juicier stuff.
If we want to get maximum value out of the one question, we’ve got to think of the benefit to humanity. Two things come to mind, depending on whether we want to be forward thinking or backward thinking. Both are requests for technology that would help everybody.
“What is the way to travel faster than the speed of light?” With that we would, presumably, be able to conquer the galaxy and spread humanity out. Let’s face it, all our eggs are in the Earth basket right now. Of course God could be a jerk and reveal a method that has too high a cost to use. (First you need a planet made of antimatter…) If we have time we could probably get some scientists and lawyers to come up with the ideal version of the question. Also, it takes away humanity’s victory in finding the discovery. It wouldn’t feel like we made it and deserved it, but had it handed to us. Stuff we get for free isn’t as appreciated.
The other technology, which I can’t phrase in the form of a question here, is a lesser known science fiction trope. Basically, a machine that allows people to see anything that happened in the past. With that we could answer all the questions of history, but more importantly, always have a credible witness to any crime. Everyone would have to take responsibility for their actions.
Of course it is also possible to massively abuse the technology if it was common and not just used in the hands of licensed professionals. It could destroy all privacy when anyone could see what you were up to at such-and-such a time. If used well, I think this would give a good way to clean up humanity. But after looking at what I wrote, it also looks like a good way to start a despotic government.
So I guess the first question is my top choice.

I got up before the crack of dawn to go do a super-run. Starting at 5:30, I ran 51km into the Kananaskis. Since in the Calgary area, the high today is 30 degrees, I thought an early departure time was important. And it helped. Just not completely.
My father was nice enough to be a support vehicle for me, letting me get more water if I needed it, but also letting me know the temperature. It maxed out at 20 degrees, but I don’t think the car took into account that I wasn’t in the shade and the pavement radiated heat. I thought it would be cooler in the mountains.
I eventually ran out of park, so I had to turn around and head back to get the necessary distance. Which means I had to go over the pass twice. The “pass” is another word for small mountain. I had to walk up that monster.
But now I’m done, and I’ll be paying for this for the next couple of days.

I don’t think I’ve been getting enough sleep lately. I’m wide awake at bedtime, but paying for it the next morning. So I’ve been cranky. I noticed I was far too aggressive while driving home today.
In any case, I had said I would go out to a salsa dancing class tonight. I really should have been packing, or doing hill training, but if I’m invited out, I have to go. Unfortunately, ten minutes after I agreed to go, the person who invited me bailed out. So I ended up going to the get-together, not knowing anyone, and not knowing even who was part of the get-together.
If this was a con game, it would be known as a “bait and switch”.
The class was okay, but the crowd did seem a little old for me. I think I would have been better off going to the Funky Buddha’s salsa night. The dance floor is much smaller, but the girls are younger. And I can be awkward just as easily in a bar conveniently close to home.

Swing class was fun. There were less people there this time. That was probably a good thing because the place where it was held was already fairly hot.
It was pointed out that I was looking sunburnt. I don’t feel sunburnt, but now that I look at my forehead with new eyes, I can agree there is a resemblance to the burning of the skin.
Everyone seemed to like the dipping part the best. It’s a fun maneuver.

I went to an informal improv class today. Or at least part of. I would have like to have been there on time, but the aforementioned run took precedence. It was nice, but it has been about a year since I last did improv. Rusty did not begin to describe it.
Still, fun was had by all.
Now, for the first time in years, I am not having pasta on a Saturday night while I am at home. Since I have always done a long run on Sunday morning, pasta was a good source of calories. But since I did the run this morning, I get to have variety.
Ironically, my dinner-of-champions yesterday was poutine. And for lunch today I had a boost drink. It was dangerous, because last week I saw a friend drink one while on the run and end up with horrible stomach problems. Hasn’t affected me. So far.
I am really looking forward to being able to sleep-in tomorrow. And because I can, I get to stay up late tonight. Swing dancing, here I come.

It’s a beautiful day out. But not for running. Unfortunately that is exactly what I did. It was way too hot.
I got a new hydration pack. This one doesn’t leave my neck in a vise. It’s eyesore green in color. However it only holds 1.5 litres. And on a hot day like today, that isn’t enough.
Well, I still have a lot to do today. Including stuff I should have been at two hours ago. But I need to train for running, and this was the day we were doing it.
Morons.

A new record yesterday. 51km. That is far too long.
What did help is that I had purchased a hydration pack. This is a minimalist backpack that holds 3 litres of water. That was enough to get me through the entire run. Well almost; I did grab some water from a gas station, but I think I had enough in my pack still to cover it.
The problem was that the pack was designed for cyclists. Which meant that it rode up high on my back; To the point where it had my neck in a clamp. Most of the time I had to slouch over to give it some relief. I’m bruised there today, and I don’t see me ever trying it on again. I’ve already returned it, but now I need to find a new source of water.
We all know what happens when I run out of water.
One of the other problems I have to deal with is calories. After a long, long run, my stomach shrinks to nothing. So I felt very full at lunch, even though I should have eaten more. Heck, dinner was a large slice of lemon pie. That is not a sufficient source of calories. But because my stomach is so small, I don’t feel hungry.
It took me until this evening to figure out why I was so lethargic today. So I’m scrounging my home for any sources of calories and scarfing them down.
Don’t move too slowly around here. I can’t guarantee your safety.

I threw a party tonight. After it was over, I got an instant message from a guest who had driven down Whyte Avenue. “Talk about the scenic route.”
I haven’t been on Whyte for awhile, so I thought I should go and enjoy the half-naked women who patrol this part of town.
Of course, you have to also put up with the crazies who also cavort the streets. But there are hot women. However, if they are outside, chances are they were exiled there to smoke.
The two Kokanee Glacier Girls were looking very nice, but they didn’t seem to want to talk. Weird.

If you look on the web, you can find a site that pretty much states “Although the water in the creeks looks crystal clear it is not safe to drink. If you must drink the water is should be boiled for at least 5 minutes.”
That is not a good sign.
I called into the park to ask a few questions. It doesn’t sound like I’m at a high risk, since the water I drank from isn’t far from the source. They still suggested I go see a doctor. I’m feeling fairly good. I’m beginning to suspect that the burping and stomach irritation I’ve been feeling is because I’ve also been drinking milk that expired (according to the best before date) two days ago. (Friends insist that doesn’t mean it instantly goes to undrinkable, so I’ve been playing with the ragged edge of disaster.)
I also found out that there is plenty of water in the park. If I had continued on the trail for a bit more, I would have found a drinking tap. All the campgrounds have one as well.
So now I have to go back and prove I can do this properly.

Yesterday evening was horrible. I came home and went to bed with a stomach and head-ache. I crawled out of bed by eight and got enough energy by nine to reheat some stale leftovers before I went back. Sleep eluded me for most of the night because the stupid headache wouldn’t go away.
Today I feel better. A Tylenol in the morning helped.
Now I have to wonder why I was feeling so bad. When you are awake in the middle of the night, your brain tries to find things to do, and random theorizing is as good a task as any.
The most popular: I was cramped up in a rainy house ever since the long run. Yesterday I walked forty minutes to a training session downtown. This exercise might have finally caught up all the abuse I did to my body. This caused the utter collapse of my health leading to my sickness.
Another theory: I went out to lunch at the Mongolie Grill and possibly spent too much time scraping out the dregs of their rice noodle container. I don’t know how long they had been there, and they may have gone bad.
Final theory: The classroom got stuffy and hard to breath. It was crowded.

I did it again today. Four days ago I ran more than I had ever done. I broke that record today.
I had planned to do some mountain hiking this weekend near Canmore, but that got cancelled due to avalanche warnings (probably for the best) so I decided that I would do my Sunday run today. In the Kananaskis. I chose today, earlier than is probably advisable, because it is looking like this will be the only nice day this weekend. Plus, my parents and sister were out in the morning, so I wouldn’t be missing their company.
I crossed the road to Highway 22. I also discovered that the ditch had water in it. The hard way. So my first act was to take off one shoe and try to wring as much water out of my sock as possible. An inauspicious start. I was surprised that I didn’t end up with a painful blister during the run. I did get one, but not in a painful area.
Then I ran.
My plan was to run 46km today. I headed into the park, mostly gaining altitude, but there are valleys in the way. The lowest point I hit was 1230 meters above sea level, and the highest point was 1450 meters. I had my mother’s six year old GPS unit with me to give me an idea of how far I was traveling. At about twenty kilometers in I found I couldn’t trust it; There was a place that I had driven a car odometer, and found it was 20.1km away. The GPS said it was 21.3km. I added three more clicks and then turned around. Now I would be going mostly downhill.
It was not easy though. I had thought there would be water available in the park. Technically, I suppose, that was true, but I was hoping for something more refined than crouching over a creek and trying to fill the bottle with non-silty water. When I was running towards the mountains I had gotten caught in a rainstorm, but you can’t get much water into your mouth with your tongue out. And it was gone by the time I came back again.
It also got hotter and hotter. I now have a nice sunburn. But I think, despite what other people might say, (you know who you are) that I need more sun in my life. I really don’t want to turn into a morlock.
The last ten kilometers were without water. I did harass an innocent road crew worker and got a few gulps of water out of her, but it wasn’t enough. I got sluggish. It was almost like I could feel my blood thickening. And those valleys were now killers. I had walk a large part of them. I’ll say it was because I was worried about my right calf, but really, I was tired. I have to go buy a better water carrying system.
My shirt had been around my waist for almost the entire run. Then, with three kilometers to go, I noticed it was gone. I looked behind myself and saw it lying on the pavement twenty meters away, back up a hill. It took several long seconds before I decided to go back for it. I was very tempted to take a car out later to collect it.

I had planned to finally get back to hill training today. Except I don’t think I should. While doing the really long run on Sunday, I strained my right calf a bit. A year ago I got a large recurring cramp in it while doing the Red Deer marathon. Since then, when all my muscles are tired, it has started to get tight. While pushing up a hill I think I may have done something to it.
So I’m not going to do hill training and instead will try (this is a weird concept) to “listen to my body”.
I’m still going to do an insane distance for next weekend. Unless I do mountain climbing instead.

Today I ran the longest I have ever done. Later on I found out I had also run the furthest. In other words, I ran more than a marathon, but only by about 100 meters. However, it took about 40 minutes longer than a marathon. It was a training run so I wasn’t pushing it. In fact, I was occasionally stopping to wait for slower members of the group to catch up.
I was out for four hours. Long enough that, even though I started at 8:30, at some point I had to switch from saying “good morning” to people to “good afternoon”.
Four hours of running pretty much ruins your day. After the run and eating a lunch, the day is pretty much gone. And the only deadly sin you have the energy for is sloth.

I forgot how messy tonkatsu is to cook. My kitchen looks like a disaster area now.
I remember learning once, in a recipe, how to check if a pan is hot enough: Sprinkle water on it, and the drops should bounce around. Or something like that.
Word of advice: That doesn’t work if the pan has hot oil in it.
We’ll chalk this up as a learning experience.

I have run out of soap. I have been using Ivory soap, which comes in nice economy packs. It doesn’t imply anything other than getting you clean.
I decided to try something classier this time while I was shopping. My old brand was there, cheap as ever, but my skin has been dry lately. Let’s upgrade. So I grabbed a different brand of soap, more expensive, but with great potential promised.
At least I assumed it was soap. When I got home I noticed that it makes no promise to make anyone clean. Moisturized, yes. Cleanliness, no. The actual product described itself as a “Beauty Bar”.
Apparently what that means is that the soap stinks and will give your entire bathroom a sickly floral scent.

My skin is feeling much nicer though.

My diet isn’t going well. I ran a far distance yesterday morning, then had a good lunch. But for dinner I had a Dairy Queen blizzard. I had snacked on some Timbits, but on the whole, that wasn’t a proper meal.
Surprise surprise, I was lethargic most of today. It only got better when I spent time making myself a sizable dinner.

I’m still hungry.

Last Friday I had a barbecue. I had a box of fortune cookies wandering around and we had a few of them. I like the taste of these cookies, and generally would prefer if they came without a piece of paper in them.
However, these cookies, VH brand, were bad. They didn’t taste that good. Maybe it was because they were “Low Fat” but I’m not going to give them that credit. And maybe I don’t like the fortunes, but these were insultingly bad. They read more like advertisements for VH sauce. And they were worded so that you couldn’t add “in bed” to the end of them.
That’s just wrong.

And now comes the part where your legs realize what you did to them and take revenge.

I got up really early and ran a marathon today. I only did a minute and a half better than last year, but I felt a lot better at the end. I wasn’t dying, and my right leg didn’t cramp up. It did feel tight a few times, and I had to run up hills carefully, but it never cramped. It helped a lot to go slowly at the start. I could have gone slower, but I think that would have backfired on me; I would be out running for longer and getting worse.
My time was 3:43:20. I placed 48th out of 301 runners who finished. My goal was 3:30:00, but I’m okay with missing it. I had a pace calculator that indicated I should have gone faster, and I’m glad I ignored it. I wasn’t doing too badly at the halfway point, getting there in 1:47:50, but, well let’s face it, in the second half I was tired.
The weather-wise, it was hot. Thankfully, for the first half it was overcast. I think it drizzled a few times. In the second half, you really felt it when the sun was out.
Getting to the race was interesting. I got up before the crack of dawn and a friend, also running it, drove me down there. He had a GPS guidance system that was supposedly telling us how to get to the start line. First it told us to turn where there was no street. When we didn’t it offered an alternate route, turning right onto 55st. We did that and found it dead-ended after twenty meters, where it turned into a running path. Eventually we got there with only one more weird route. The theory is that because we hadn’t docked the unit, it didn’t realize it was in a car. It was trying to find routes for pedestrians. Apparently very fast moving ones.

Actually, I didn’t sleep that well.

And it feels really hot.