Some things that occurred to me as I recovered from seeing Prince's giant phallic silhouette during the Super Bowl halftime show:
• Everybody gets excited about the Super Bowl commercials, but if people really think jokes about people getting kicked in the crotch are so great why isn't my column more popular?
• Anybody who watched any TV at all in the weeks before the Super Bowl knows each 30-second commercial during the game cost advertisers $2.6 million. That comes out to something like $50,000 for every second of cleavage shown during the average beer commercial. Or $25,000 for every Chicago fumble during the game.
• According to USA Today the most popular Super Bowl commercial involved crabs worshiping a cooler filled with Bud Light. Seven of the 10 most popular ads were for Budweiser products. Other popular ads: One guy hits another with a rock in a fight for the last Bud Light; a Doritos eater crashes his car while ogling a woman; and two mechanics rip out their chest hair to prove their manliness after they accidentally kiss while eating a Snickers. Stupid people hurting themselves and those close to them. That's the way to move product.
• At what point does coverage of Barbaro's death officially constitute beating a dead horse?
• Honestly, this time last year there were like six people in the world who knew who this horse was and now that he's won a couple of races we're supposed to mourn him like we've lost a national hero? I like animals as much as the next guy, but how much longer do I have to fly my Kentucky Derby program at half staff?
• This week's Time Magazine features an item about Barbaro in the section reserved to mention the deaths of famous and important people. Meanwhile, Newsweek is examining the impact on our youth of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton going out without their undies. It's good to see serious journalism is alive and well.
• Up next: US News & World Report dishes on its best and worst dressed at the State of the Union and BusinessWeek examines the economic impact of Reese Witherspoon's divorce from Ryan Phillippe.
• I'm torn. I feel bad for knowing Reese Witherspoon and Ryan Phillippe just got divorced (and foolish for admitting it in print) but strangely good to know that Reese is single again. Do you think it's too soon to call?
• Then again, I'm not sure I want to date a chick with kids.
• Something I learned while looking to make sure I was spelling Phillippe right (sadly, I was): the web site www.ryanphillipe.com is devoted entirely to Minnesota-born actor Josh Hartnett. I smell an especially hunky lawsuit brewing.
• As far as I can tell, covering celebrities these days consists entirely of waiting for one celebrity to say something slightly mean-spirited about another celebrity, then running to the second celebrity to get their even more mean-spirited response, then repeating the process long enough to spark stories about how everyone's tired of hearing about this feud. You know who would make really good celebrity journalists? Just about any middle school girl.
• It's been really cold the last few days. I just wanted to make sure someone mentioned that to you.
• Am I too late to make a joke about Al Gore and global warming?
• A community celebration in Hartlepool, England has canceled its traditional sack race because it has gotten too expensive to insure the event. Up next at kids' fun day: Standing very, very still. The kid who stands the stillest wins. Also, everyone else wins. Trophies for everyone!
• There's like, there's love and then there's "Driving 900 miles with a plan to kill the woman who you think is making a move on the guy you like." Then, somewhere way, way beyond that, there's "Wearing a diaper while driving so you don't have to make as many pit stops." In other words, don't mess with NASA astronaut Lisa Marie Nowak. The Right Stuff, indeed.
• Maybe being single isn't so bad.
Friday, February 09, 2007
On the run
Earlier this year I did something I didn't expect I'd ever do. No, I didn't volunteer to organize a Britney Spears fan club. It's something even stranger.
I took up running.
Until late last year I was pretty sure my opinion of recreational running served as pretty good proof there was no such thing as a jogging gene. My dad used to run all the time. He ran marathons. He ran ultra marathons. He ran on roads. He ran cross country. He was like Forrest Gump, only I don't think he ever met the President.
For several years straight he maintained a streak of running every day. By the time he was done nobody had any idea where he was (ba-dum bum!).
Meanwhile, my personal attitude toward jogging could be described as such: If it was done in course of another, otherwise enjoyable activity — say a game of basketball or soccer — I was OK with it. In the rare instances I needed to be somewhere faster than a brisk walk would allow, I could tolerate it. If someone was chasing me, well, I figure I'd better run. But if I'd ever said, "Gosh, I think I'll go for a quick three-mile jog?" Well, I'm pretty sure that would have been a sign some vital spring in my brain had finally come uncoiled.
I was a cross country skiier in high school, and by the time I'd graduated I figured I'd done enough running to last a lifetime.
I almost caved a few years ago. Back before biking became my exercise of choice I decided I wanted to get into better shape, and I decided running was the way to do it. So, I bought new running shoes. I bought shorts and t-shirts. I even bought an MP3 player so I wouldn't have something in my head besides my own thoughts. And I ran. Once. Maybe twice. And then I came to my senses. I eventually gave the shoes to my brother, who feels the same way I do about running but presumably found some other use for them.
I thought I was done after that. I really did. But around the time the outdoor biking season was winding down last year (say, early December) I decided I needed to find a way to keep from ballooning out of shape over the winter. That meant either riding a stationary bike, which I decided a few years ago is almost as pointless as jogging, or finding something else. I decided to give running another try, and I discovered something that surprised me: running on a treadmill is somehow less awful than running outside.
For the record, then: love biking outside, can't stand it inside; despise running outside, yet actually enjoy it when I do it in a situation that makes me feel a little like a hamster on an exercise wheel.
I have no idea why that is. Maybe it has something to do with the fact running on a treadmill doesn't require me to know where I'm going. Or maybe it's because I can watch TV while I do it. Maybe I just have something against the sun. Or maybe I just like the feedback I get running on a treadmill. On my bike I have a computer that tells me how far I've gone and how fast. Same on a treadmill.
Then again, maybe I've just managed to stick with it long enough that I can finally go more than 100 yards without collapsing in a heap. That wasn't always the case. The runs I went on a couple of years ago could probably be more accurately described as lurching staggers interrupted by frequent periods of walking — you know, to recover. When I ran last Sunday I averaged about eight minutes per mile and ran just over five miles in 40 minutes.
I was feeling pretty good about myself until later that day. Flipping through the channels I stumbled onto some kind of indoor track championships. I tuned in just in time to watch an Ethiopian woman set a world record by running 3.1 miles at a pace of just under 4:40 a mile. I never had any delusions I would ever be a world-class runner, but getting your butt kicked hurts all the same.
But let's see her write a column.
I took up running.
Until late last year I was pretty sure my opinion of recreational running served as pretty good proof there was no such thing as a jogging gene. My dad used to run all the time. He ran marathons. He ran ultra marathons. He ran on roads. He ran cross country. He was like Forrest Gump, only I don't think he ever met the President.
For several years straight he maintained a streak of running every day. By the time he was done nobody had any idea where he was (ba-dum bum!).
Meanwhile, my personal attitude toward jogging could be described as such: If it was done in course of another, otherwise enjoyable activity — say a game of basketball or soccer — I was OK with it. In the rare instances I needed to be somewhere faster than a brisk walk would allow, I could tolerate it. If someone was chasing me, well, I figure I'd better run. But if I'd ever said, "Gosh, I think I'll go for a quick three-mile jog?" Well, I'm pretty sure that would have been a sign some vital spring in my brain had finally come uncoiled.
I was a cross country skiier in high school, and by the time I'd graduated I figured I'd done enough running to last a lifetime.
I almost caved a few years ago. Back before biking became my exercise of choice I decided I wanted to get into better shape, and I decided running was the way to do it. So, I bought new running shoes. I bought shorts and t-shirts. I even bought an MP3 player so I wouldn't have something in my head besides my own thoughts. And I ran. Once. Maybe twice. And then I came to my senses. I eventually gave the shoes to my brother, who feels the same way I do about running but presumably found some other use for them.
I thought I was done after that. I really did. But around the time the outdoor biking season was winding down last year (say, early December) I decided I needed to find a way to keep from ballooning out of shape over the winter. That meant either riding a stationary bike, which I decided a few years ago is almost as pointless as jogging, or finding something else. I decided to give running another try, and I discovered something that surprised me: running on a treadmill is somehow less awful than running outside.
For the record, then: love biking outside, can't stand it inside; despise running outside, yet actually enjoy it when I do it in a situation that makes me feel a little like a hamster on an exercise wheel.
I have no idea why that is. Maybe it has something to do with the fact running on a treadmill doesn't require me to know where I'm going. Or maybe it's because I can watch TV while I do it. Maybe I just have something against the sun. Or maybe I just like the feedback I get running on a treadmill. On my bike I have a computer that tells me how far I've gone and how fast. Same on a treadmill.
Then again, maybe I've just managed to stick with it long enough that I can finally go more than 100 yards without collapsing in a heap. That wasn't always the case. The runs I went on a couple of years ago could probably be more accurately described as lurching staggers interrupted by frequent periods of walking — you know, to recover. When I ran last Sunday I averaged about eight minutes per mile and ran just over five miles in 40 minutes.
I was feeling pretty good about myself until later that day. Flipping through the channels I stumbled onto some kind of indoor track championships. I tuned in just in time to watch an Ethiopian woman set a world record by running 3.1 miles at a pace of just under 4:40 a mile. I never had any delusions I would ever be a world-class runner, but getting your butt kicked hurts all the same.
But let's see her write a column.
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