1. I am from Worcester, MA.
2. I don’t like women’s pointy shoes.
3. An article in the WSJ about a fashion designer from Worcester, MA who also dislikes pointy shoes.

Ms. Randall is very particular about the shape of the toes of her shoes. For years, she bought footwear only if it was vintage, compiling a collection of nearly 100 pairs of pumps featuring toes with what she calls a “perfectly rounded point.” The pointy shoes she saw in stores were “too aggressive, too over-the-top sexy,” says Ms. Randall. At the same time, she found shoes that were too round-toed “clunky and not sexy at all.” 

I wonder if this is a Worcester thing?

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I had to post a picture of the Christmas Eve feast I prepared tonight.  Please note the color choices:

I should add that I almost didn’t eat the Red [”Red Hot Beef”] and Green [”Beef and Bean/Green Chili”] burritos because these are actually my favorite Tina’s frozen burrito flavors, and I usually try to spread them amongst the lesser Brown [”Beef and Bean”] and Yellow [”Bean and Cheese”] flavors.  But I splurged tonight in the spirit of the holidays.

In full disclosure: I’m flying home for a nice family holiday and was mainly trying to use up some salsa and sour cream that might go bad in the interim.  Don’t feel bad for me; laugh with me.

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Most that know me probably already heard about this … but I thought I’d re-post for posterity in case anyone was interested.

Check out the missed connection for the story.

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There was an article in Best Life Magazine entitled Is Your Workout Wasting Your Time? that caught my eye:

On a recent afternoon, it [the health club] thrummed with activity: Men and women logged obedient noiseless reps on a range of machines; runners banged out the miles on treadmills; and one gal raced away on an elliptical machine, legs neither running nor swinging, but doing something inexplicable in a feverish Road Runner–like blur. It’s a vision of exercise utopia that is mirrored in gyms across the country. Except that a growing chorus of critics find fault with it: The man jackknifed into the leg-extension machine could be risking knee injury; the exercisers slaving away on other stationary machines are building individual muscles in place of whole-body strength; the people slogging away on the treadmills with their eyes glued to TV screens seem like automatons.

I go to the gym everyday and get everything done in about 30 minutes: just pull-ups, sit-ups, push-ups.  Done.  No fancy-electric-cardio machines, no complex weight machines with instructions.  I had been doing some bench-press and leg-press recently, but I’m cutting it out and adding squats and dumb-bell exercises. (p.s. Cardio is either outdoor runs or team-sports.)

The Best Life article warning against fitness club machines confirms what I’ve been experiencing recently: I get a better workout doing thoughtful, simple things.

I am a little frustrated that I pay $24/mo for the gym membership (the cheapest I could find) and don’t use any of the fancy equipment … but it’s still cheaper than trying to buy even a few weights, bars, and benches. 

The article does mentions that some gyms are getting rid of the fancy equipment and charging less:

…exercisers are looking for salvation outside the proverbial box. To build Revolution Defense and Fitness, a small commercial gym tucked away in a light industry business park in suburban Minneapolis, Damian Hirtz spent about as much on gear as the typical health club spends on its pec deck. Hirtz’s low-tech fitness center is an affiliate of CrossFit and has a climbing rope, kettlebells, medicine balls, jump ropes, a set of heavy bags, a set of big plates, and a chin-up station made from galvanized pipe he admits he bought in the plumbing aisle at Home Depot. That’s about it. No machines, no mirrors, no benches.

Although such a simple gym can’t charge as much on memberships, it would also require less capital (no fancy stuff to buy) and more personal trainers (to explain different free-weight exercises) with nice personal training margins.  Could be nicely profitable (in addition to more effective for the customer).

This post reminded me of a gym in my hometown called ‘The Next Big Thing’ based completely around using kettleballs (unevenly-weighted-dumb-bells):

Shaped like a cannon ball with a handle, Kettlebells at first seem more cumbersome than dumbbells. The weight of dumbbells is evenly distributed and doesn’t force grip strength, but the bottom-heavy Kettlebells are designed to hang down and move ‘ballistically,’ requiring the use of more stabilizing muscles, the way the body was meant to move.

Prediction: the no-machines-necessary mentality will be catching and no-machine gyms will indeed be the next big thing. Whichever chain figures out the best model of teaching will win.

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“A daemon is the physical manifestation of the soul of a conscious person in the Phillip Pullman His Dark Materials trilogy.  … a daemon takes the form of an animal and has a separate identity from its respective human.” — daemon on wikipedia.

A friend recommended I try out the daemon-creator-thingie at the Golden Compass movie website.  You answer a bunch of questions and the site tells you what animal represents you.  Ok, sorta fun.

What’s really clever, though, is that the site lets my friends answer questions about me, and those answers affect what animal I end up getting.  After 12 days, based on my answers and my friends, my daemon is decided. (sidenote, this is viral marketing at its best!)

I started out as a Tiger named Anera … here’s the widget … go ahead and answer the questions to see if I change …

Note: the widget is really slow to load when I first posted this … maybe the site’s getting hammered. Hopefully it’ll work sometime.

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I believe that people should decide for themselves and allow others to do the same.  That’s pretty much respect and freedom.

But how to apply this ideal to children is tough; children can’t logically decide for themselves and, further, their upbringing greatly influences their eventual choice.  How do you balance a child’s ability to freely choose while still letting parents bring up their children as they see fit?

I stumbled across three pieces of media that orbit this issue and provide some interesting viewpoints:

1. Jesus Camp, a documentary about an evangelical summer camp.
   A quote from Pastor Becky:
   “Where should we be putting our focus?  I’ll tell you where are enemies are putting their focus. They’re putting it on the kids. You go into Palestine, and they’re taking kids to camps like we take our kids to bible camps, and they’re putting hand grenades in their hands.”

2. Atheist Sunday School, a brief Time article about Sunday school for children of atheist parents.
   From the article:
   “The Palo Alto Sunday family program uses music, art and discussion to encourage personal expression, intellectual curiosity and collaboration. One Sunday this fall found a dozen children up to age 6 and several parents playing percussion instruments and singing empowering anthems like I’m Unique and Unrepeatable, set to the tune of Ten Little Indians, instead of traditional Sunday-school songs like Jesus Loves Me. Rather than listen to a Bible story, the class read Stone Soup, a secular parable of a traveler who feeds a village by making a stew using one ingredient from each home.”

3. How Hollywood Saved God, a long article about the upcoming movie The Golden Compass, its deeply anti-religous origins in three Phillip Pullman novels, and the process that transformed the books.
   Two quotes from Pullman:
   “If they allowed the religious meaning of the book to be fully explicit, it would be a huge hit.  Suddenly they’d have letters of appreciation from people who felt this but never dared say it.  They would be heroes of liberal thought, of freedom of thought … And it would be the greatest pity if that didn’t happen.”
   “‘Thou shalt not’ might reach the head, but it takes ‘Once upon a time’ to reach the heart.”
   

My brief commentary:

1. I predict big things for Levi from Jesus Camp.  He was articulate, good with metaphors, and had a great presence as a speaker.  Levi said he plans to be a preacher, and I can easily see this documentary propelling him forward.  He’s the next Joel Osteen.
2. Regarding the Atheist Sunday School article, I was reminded of the story of atheist parents that try to ‘inoculate’ their children against religion by exposing their children to many different religions early in life.  Just like inoculating against a real virus, exposing a child to moderate amounts of religion early in life builds a defense system to protect them from becoming susceptible later.
3. I don’t really fault New Line Cinema for making the movie-version less religious than the books; it is a for-profit company and it needs to make decisions that will get the film to the largest audience possible to recoup their $150M investment.  On the bright side: although movies may be expensive and require profit-driven-lending to finance projects, large-scale distribution of amateur writing and music are possible on a personal budget.  That’s a good thing.

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T-shirts are such a great medium for art and jokes.  I saw this one at shirt.woot.com a couple days ago and *loved* it.  I even tried to order it when it went on sale … but their servers weren’t working so I missed the initial $10 price and I refuse to pay $15 for it — it is just a shirt, after all. 

Anyway, hope it makes you laugh…

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My friend Ken strongly recommended I check out Paste, a magazine about indie/alternative/lesser-known music/movies/stuff.  I did, and while it’s not the greatest-magazine-ever-or-anything, it’s still pretty good.  I always find new artists … and the free CD of music with each issue is always interesting.

In line with the Radiohead release, Paste is letting people name-your-own-price for a year subscription to the magazine.  It normally costs $19.99, but you can get it for as little as $1 (no free option available).

Check it out here.

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I downloaded Radiohead’s In Rainbows the day it came out.  I didn’t pay anything for it then, instead deciding that I’d listen to it first and pay what I felt it was worth later.  After the initial listen, I was thoroughly underwhelmed and happy that I hadn’t paid anything.

Now that I’ve given it a second/third/fourth shot (my roommate’s recommendation and the WSJ’s glowing review convinced me to try again), the album’s growing on me.  It’s pretty good music to work to.

I haven’t quite decided how much to pay … but I was thinking that it’d be cool if I could buy a t-shirt from Radiohead that said (in a plain font) “I didn’t pay for In Rainbows but I bought this tshirt to support Radiohead”.  I’d pay $20 for that.

I could elaborate about why I’d rather pay for a physical good/service (tshirt, concert) rather than a near-zero-cost-to-reproduce digital good … and I could talk more about why paying for digital goods is obviously necessary … and why in some cases I don’t mind and in some I do … and how such a tshirt might not fit with Radiohead’s true aim … and why some fans might not like it … but whatever.  I think the shirt would be fun.

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Just added a links section that points to a couple friends’ blogs.  Enjoy.

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