March 2012
58 posts
Article: Who Is the Route 29 Batman? This Guy. →
More people like this, please.
But in light of him going viral — “Gotham City is on the verge of chaos,” Anderson Cooper informed CNN viewers — I asked him whether I could unveil the man behind the mask. He acquiesced but suggested I do so by accompanying him to the cancer ward at Children’s National Medical Center in Northwest Washington for a superhero party thrown by the Hope for Henry...
CrossFit Games Open Redux
The CrossFit Games Open WODs have come to an end. I’m pretty disappointed in my overall performance. Overall, I finished 770th in the North Central, out of something like 2000. I expected to be in the middle of the pack, but I would have liked to have made it into the top 25%. My weaknesses as a CrossFitter became very apparent as the weeks went on. The first WOD was 7 minutes of max...
Top 100 Things to Do in Milwaukee →
I like this. And I think I’ve done about 85 or 90 of them.
You guys. Opening Day is only 10 days away!
I went to the Mike Doughty concert at Turner Hall last night. It was billed as a “concert, book reading, and Q&A.” It was awesome, albeit a little weird. The venue is super small, so it made for a pretty intimate setting with a fairly big name artist. He started the show off with 5 or 6 great songs, a few of which were from his best and most underplayed album Skittish. Between...
I like reading James Altucher’s weblog from time to time. Altucher is a hedge fund manager that has made and lost millions several times over. He’s also a big nerd and a pretty funny writer. He writes about his theories on life, success and happiness. He’s sort of a lunatic, but I sort of connect with him, which is somewhat troubling. I really liked this post.
I think...
“I’ve never heard of half of these guys and the ones I do know are way past their prime.”
-Some board member in Major League.
-Also, me commenting on the headliners at the Marcus Amphitheater at Summerfest
“That is my principal objection to life, I think: It’s too easy, when alive, to make perfectly horrible mistakes.”
-Kurt Vonnegut. From Deadeye Dick
This is one of the many things that Kurt Vonnegut said better than anyone else, and why I’ve reread almost all of his books more than once over the past 20 years or so. One of the underlying themes in a lof of his books...
Watchpitchfork:
Watch the Shins play an hour-long set on “Live at Letterman”.
Today’s workout is Five rounds of 10 burpees, 7 deadlifts @ 275# and 1 rope climb, with 2 minutes rest between rounds. I’m DYING to do it. For one thing, I’ve been a complete sloth for the last three days. Between hosting a party on Saturday and having to fly to Philly for work for a couple days right after (and possibly from adding a new but completely familiar source of...
Dutch Engineer Flies Like a Bird →
Gizmodo has a video of a Dutch mechanical engineer that built a contraption that allows him to fly by flapping his arms. It looks pretty awesome, and also somewhat fake. Seriously, follow the linke and watch it. When I first saw it I thought it had to be fake. The comments are flooded with opinions from pilots, hang-gliders, engineers and the dude from Mythbusters. This generation’s...
Why isn’t “The Hunger Games” billed as a horror story? I haven’t read the book, but based on some reviews I’ve read and the movie previews, my understanding is that it’s about a dystopian world in which the most powerful country/government/tribe/corporation/whatever forces each of the less powerful tribes to offer two teenagers to participate in an annual fight...
Sleep
I’m totally reminded of the importance of sleep right now. Friday night I was up late getting ready for my St. Pat’s day party, then got up at around 5am to climb the US Bank Building steps a few times. Saturday was obviously debaucherous, whihc led to bad sleep. I was working late Sunday night and also had a screwed up clock from the previous two nights, so getting to sleep was...
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/03... →
In the US the top 5% of medical spenders spend an average of $40,682 a year each, and account for 49.5% of all spending. (The bottom half spend an average of $236.) Not too surprisingly, 60.3% of these people are age 55 or older. Perhaps more surprising, on their health self-rating, 28.9% of these folks say they are “good”, 19.9% “very good” and 7.5% “excellent”, for a total of 56.3% with...
Caveman Diet Fast Food in Copenhagen →
I want to open one of these here.
UWEC Professor Tabbed to Map Olympic Marathon... →
Coach Hartnett knows more than anyone about running and maps. It’s pretty cool that he really has seemed to have become known as the best in the world at the rather niche art of running course mapping.
Hartnett, a former marathoner himself, is a geography professor at UW-Eau Claire.
He has used his expertise to build a name for himself in the international marathon community by creating...
One of my favorite CrossFit cliches is that we train for life. We don’t specialize, but the training we do prepares us for a broad range of physical challenges. This weekend I did this race where you climb the stairs of the 48 stories US Bank building as many times as you can in an hour. I made it up 5 1/2 times. Not bad considering I didn’t climb a single step in preparation....
There should be an ap that prevents you from sending text messages after midnight.
I feel like I spent all day yesterday drinking beer and eating starchy foods. Time to get strict with the paleo thing again. No cheats. Except opening day. And Kramer’s bachelor party… And Gregerson’s bachelor party…
Independents Will Decide the 2012 Election →
Yes, this.
Robb Wolf on the newest meat-will-kill-you study. →
Yes, this. Who would have thought that this study that claims meat is bad for you is just as flawed as all of the other studies that claim meat is bad for you?
Rick Santorum’s plan to win the crazy states by being crazy seems to be working.
When “American Pie” first came out, everyone said I looked just like Stiffler. I just saw a preview for a sequel in which the characters go to their 10 year reunion. I’ve aged better than Stiffler. Take that Hollywood.
Dear Reebok, Please feature the word “CrossFit” more prominently in your Reebok CrossFit ads.
Is 2012 going to be 2000 all over again for the...
-UW loses to MSU 3 times, including in the Big 10 Semis.
-The #1 seed in UW’s bracket loses their center.
-Loss to a “mid-major” in previous year’s tourney accompanied by a horrible shooting game
-Badgers thought to have a down year going in due to loss of two key starters from previous year: Calderwood/Mason and Leuer/Nankivil
-Playing at the Pit
-Alliterative...
Here are my suggestions for modifying daylight...
1. STOP HAVING DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME
2. Assuming arguendo that we do continue to have daylight savings time, don’t make the day where you lose an hour on the weekend.
3. Assuming arguendo that we do continue to have daylight savings time, don’t make the day where you lose an hour on a SUPER FUN weekend.
I don’t normally post sappy poetry about death…
but this struck me as being about right:
I read of a man who stood to speak
At the funeral of a friend
He referred to the dates on her tombstone
From the beginning to the end
He noted that first came the date of her birth
And spoke the following date with tears,
But he said what mattered most of all
Was the dash between those...
Super fun, super weird weekend of playing with fire.
“Within the next generation I believe that the world’s rulers will discover that...”
– - A quote from a letter Aldous Huxley sent to George Orwell after he read 1984.
It seems that although Huxley enjoyed the book he wanted Orwell to know that he still believed the future portrayed in Brave New World to be more likely.
Letters of Note: 1984 v. Brave New World (via...
Having some serious workout anxiety (or “franxiety”) right now. See you at noon, 12.3.
I Hate Fancy Beer, and So Do You →
Although I do enjoy the occasional import or micro, really, I couldn’t have said this better:
“Today, you can buy high-end beers that have, like, six or seven percent alcohol and taste like turpentine. That used to be called Schlitz Malt Liquor. But at least The Bull was cold. At my neighborhood’s liquor store, strolling past row after row of lukewarm emetics with cutie-pie labels,...
I loved this book when I was a kid: "A Wrinkle In... →
I always get so irrationally excited for baseball season when I read stories about spring training. I’m like “oooh, Narveson has been working on a cutter! I bet he’s gonna win like 20 games!”
Julian Sanchez: More on the Koch Brothers'... →
As usual, Julian Sanchez gets it right.
“More importantly, I can’t imagine being able to what I do unless I’m confident my work is being judged on the quality of the arguments it makes, not its political utility—or even, ultimately, ideological purity. Obviously Cato has an institutional viewpoint, and I wouldn’t have been hired in the first place if my views on the topics I write about...
You guys, opening day is one month away!
“Every government is a parliament of whores. The trouble is, in a democracy, the...”
– -P.J. O’Rourke
With all this talk of Rush Limbaugh’s recent gaffe, I was reminded of this quote from “Parliament of Whores.”
Why Napolean Offered a Prize For Inventing Canned... →
I love the concept of incentives. Telling people to do something is usually worthless, but if you provide the right incentives, people will get stuff done. This is a very simple lesson that the vast majority of people, and the vast majority of politicians, don’t seem to understand. This article is pretty interesting:
Napoleon offered 12,000 francs to improve upon the prevailing food...
This is Bad New: Cato Goes To War →
The Koch brothers have launched an extraordinary campaign to take control of America’s most respected libertarian think tank.
“Cato is the gold standard of libertarian organizations around the world,” wrote Crane. “We are respected and admired for our commitment to libertarian principles, integrity, independence and non-partisanship. That respect encompasses traditional liberals and...
Stronger or faster?
My training basically consists of standard crossfit WODS 4 or 5 times a week, plus a couple runs and a lifting session or two. I’m not sure why, but I keep contemplating shifting my focus. But here’s the thing: sometimes I think about shifting to a more strength-focused routine, and sometimes I think about upping my miles, cutting more weight and getting fast again. These two things...