Indiana Jones is Returning!

Two years ago? Batman. Last year? James Bond. This Year? Indiana Jones!

This is my Graceland!

How Much of a Boozehound Are You?

Labels can be so nasty sometimes...


95%ALCOHOLIC

Workout Tips!

Yeah, that's right, here I am to share with you a workout tip that I have been running with since the beginning of the year. It's really simple, but it's a tip that I've used to build an exercise habit that I actually feel the NEED to continue with.

Too often we take on exercise routines as a New Year's Resolution and it's too much to do all at once. We get sore, we take a day off, and then we lose the habit of exercise. This tip removes a lot of that.

What I did: on January 1st I did one pushup. I kid you not.

On January 2nd? 2 pushups.

January 3rd? You guessed it: 3 pushups.

And every day, I've added a pushup. So here it is, March 14, and last night before going to bed I did 73 pushups. I don't do them all at once, but I try to do them in no more than four sets. Usually I do them in three, right now.

If I miss a day? Yep, you guessed it. Make them up at some point. I missed a couple days somewhere in the 60s and did 100 a day for a few days to catch up. It wasn't easy, but I did it.

What are the benefits of this? Well, obviously, pushups are good for you. That's one. The gradual progression helped me not get sore and demoralized early on. That's two. And the consensus I've heard from many self-improvement experts is that it takes 21 days to make something a real habit. So without the soreness and need to rest a day early on to remove the habit, I've kept going almost nonstop for 2 1/2 months. It helped me create a habit, and now I get antsy if I don't do my pushups before going to bed.

It's worked so well that at the beginning of March I started doing Hindu Squats (adding two a day) and Situps (adding one a day) as well. That means that by the beginning of March, 2009, I'll be doing 730 Hindu Squats a day and 365 situps, as well as whatever number of pushups I'm up to by that point. My goal is to get to 500 pushups per day before I stop adding so much.

Next month I want to add pullups to the mix as well. As they're a little harder, my goal will be to add a pullup every week - doing one a day for the first week, two a day for the second week, etc. till I'm doing 52 a week.

And I mix up the types of pushups I do from day to day. Some days I do all Hindu Pushups. Some days I do a set of 20 narrow armed pushups, 20 wide-armed pushups, 20 diamond pushups, etc. Some days I just do regular drop-and-give-me-20 pushups! The variety is endless.

I've put together a spreadsheet for myself to keep track, too - keeping records of your workouts is another great motivational tool.

I list:

• the day
• the number of exercises I'm supposed to do that day
• the number that I should have done thus far for the year
• the number I've actually done per day
• the number I HAVE done thus far for the year
• the number I am behind (to remind me to keep going)
• Any notes I want to make (# of sets, how many per set, what kinds of pushups I've done, etc.)
  

It's a pretty easy spreadsheet to put together, but if you'd like a copy I've published it to Google Documents and you should be able to download a copy.

Let me know how this works for you! It's working great for me so far...

Spider-Man if I'm a Good Guy, But...

Your results:
You are The Joker

The Joker 46% Venom 46% Juggernaut 45% Dark Phoenix 44% Dr. Doom 43% Riddler 40% Apocalypse 40% Lex Luthor 38% Catwoman 37% Kingpin 34% Mr. Freeze 33% Poison Ivy 32% Magneto 31% Mystique 21% Green Goblin 9% Two-Face 9%

The Clown Prince of Crime. You are a brilliant mastermind but are criminally insane. You love to joke around while accomplishing the task at hand.

Click here to take the Supervillain Personality Quiz

McCain '08: Like Hope, But Different

This cracked me up... and scared the living bejeesus out of me. I do not want my children having to fight in a war that we're in because of Bush and McCain being too stubborn to realize when it's time to stop.

I Kind of Figured This

Your results:
You are Spider-Man

Spider-Man 75% Superman 70% Robin 65% The Flash 65% Hulk 60% Iron Man 45% Catwoman 45% Supergirl 45% Green Lantern 30% Batman 30% Wonder Woman 20%

You are intelligent, witty, a bit geeky and have great power and responsibility.

Click here to take the Superhero Personality Test

Today in History: Miracle on Ice

There are a number of events in our lives when you remember exactly where you were and what you were doing when you heard about it. For our parents, it was the assassination of President Kennedy, for our grandparents it might be the attack on Pearl Harbor.

For us, I can think of three: 9/11 (duh) and the Challenger explosion are two of them. But the third is the only one that's a GOOD thing: the US win in hockey over the Soviet Union at the 1980 Lake Placid Olympics.

Today is the 28th anniversary of that event. We were at the Otsego ski club in Gaylord, MI, on a week-long skiing vacation. The Olympics were going on at the same time, and we were all marveling at the accomplishments of Eric Heiden and his race toward all five speed skating medals.

But the night of February 22, 1980, we were at dinner with friends at the club's dining room. I finished early, and like most 11 year olds, I wanted to get up and go out to the lobby to play video games. While we were out there (my brother and I), we were watching the US/USSR game on the TV. The US won! I walked in to the table where my parents, grandparents, and some friends were eating and told Mom that the US beat the Soviets, 4-3. Mom stood up and announced it to the ENTIRE DINING ROOM!

Anyway, here's the History Channel's recounting of the event:

February 22: General Interest
1980 : U.S. hockey team makes miracle on ice

In one of the most dramatic upsets in Olympic history, the underdog U.S. hockey team, made up of college players, defeats the four-time defending gold-medal winning Soviet team at the XIII Olympic Winter Games in Lake Placid, New York. The Soviet squad, previously regarded as the finest in the world, fell to the youthful American team 4-3 before a frenzied crowd of 10,000 spectators. Two days later, the Americans defeated Finland 4-2 to clinch the hockey gold.

The Soviet team had captured the previous four Olympic hockey golds, going back to 1964, and had not lost an Olympic hockey game since 1968. Three days before the Lake Placid Games began, the Soviets routed the U.S. team 10-3 in an exhibition game at Madison Square Garden in New York City. The Americans looked scrappy, but few blamed them for it--their average age, after all, was only 22, and their team captain, Mike Eruzione, was recruited from the obscurity of the Toledo Blades of the International League.

Few had high hopes for the seventh-seeded U.S. team entering the Olympic tournament, but the team soon silenced its detractors, making it through the opening round of play undefeated, with four victories and one tie, thus advancing to the four-team medal round. The Soviets, however, were seeded No. 1 and as expected went undefeated, with five victories in the first round.

On Friday afternoon, February 22, the American amateurs and the Soviet dream team met before a sold-out crowd at Lake Placid. The Soviets broke through first, with their new young star, Valery Krotov, deflecting a slap shot beyond American goalie Jim Craig's reach in the first period. Midway through the period, Buzz Schneider, the only American who had previously been an Olympian, answered the Soviet goal with a high shot over the shoulder of Vladislav Tretiak, the Soviet goalie.

The relentless Soviet attack continued as the period progressed, with Sergei Makarov giving his team a 2-1 lead. With just a few seconds left in the first period, American Ken Morrow shot the puck down the ice in desperation. Mark Johnson picked it up and sent it into the Soviet goal with one second remaining. After a brief Soviet protest, the goal was deemed good, and the game was tied.

In the second period, the irritated Soviets came out with a new goalie, Vladimir Myshkin, and turned up the attack. The Soviets dominated play in the second period, outshooting the United States 12-2, and taking a 3-2 lead with a goal by Alesandr Maltsev just over two minutes into the period. If not for several remarkable saves by
Jim Craig, the Soviet lead would surely have been higher than 3-2 as the third and final 20-minute period began.

Nearly nine minutes into the period, Johnson took advantage of a Soviet penalty and knocked home a wild shot by David Silk to tie the contest again at 3-3. About a minute and a half later, Mike Eruzione, whose last name means "eruption" in Italian, picked up a loose puck in the Soviet zone and slammed it past Myshkin with a 25-foot wrist shot.

For the first time in the game, the Americans had the lead, and the crowd erupted in celebration.

There were still 10 minutes of play to go, but the Americans held on, with Craig making a few more fabulous saves. With five seconds remaining, the Americans finally managed to get the puck out of their zone, and the crowd began counting down the final seconds. When the final horn sounded, the players, coaches, and team officials poured onto the ice in raucous celebration. The Soviet players, as awestruck as everyone else, waited patiently to shake their opponents' hands.

The so-called Miracle on Ice was more than just an Olympic upset; to many Americans, it was an ideological victory in the Cold War as meaningful as the Berlin Airlift or the Apollo moon landing. The upset came at an auspicious time: President Jimmy Carter had just announced that the United States was going to boycott the 1980 Summer Games in Moscow because of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and Americans, faced with a major recession and the Iran hostage crisis, were in dire need of something to celebrate. After the game, President Carter called the players to congratulate them, and millions of Americans spent that Friday night in revelry over the triumph of "our boys" over the Russian pros.

As the U.S. team demonstrated in their victory over Finland two days later, it was disparaging to call the U.S. team amateurs. Three-quarters of the squad were top college players who were on their way to the National Hockey League (NHL), and coach Herb Brooks had trained the team long and hard in a manner that would have made the most authoritative Soviet coach proud. The 1980 U.S. hockey team was probably the best-conditioned American Olympic hockey team of all time--the result of countless hours running skating exercises in preparation for Lake Placid.

In their play, the U.S. players adopted passing techniques developed by the Soviets for the larger international hockey rinks, while preserving the rough checking style that was known to throw the Soviets off-guard. It was these factors, combined with an exceptional afternoon of play by Craig, Johnson, Eruzione, and others, that resulted in the miracle at Lake Placid.

This improbable victory was later memorialized in a 2004 film, Miracle, starring Kurt Russell.

The Mind of a Baby's Father

No better way to say it!

Herron Back to Chicago.... Is Something Else in the Works?

According to USSoccerPlayers.com, the Crew just traded forward Andy Herron back to Chicago. Herron was good here, when he was healthy. But he didn't make much of an impact. Still, on a team that has a dearth of talented forwards (in fact, I can only name one, Ale Moreno), a backup is good.

So... does this mean that we're still in the running for Lars Ricken or Roman Friedli? I realize they're middies, but I recall Ricken scoring a goal in the Champions League final for Dortmund against Juventus about a decade ago. I don't know anything about Friedli, but any Euro attacking midfielder would be a benefit to us, as attacking mid isn't a real strong position for the Crew.

Be Still My Heart... Jeff Bradley Waxes Nostalgic About Something Involving Columbus. Postively.

I don't think much of Jeff Bradley's First XI column for MLSNet. He's a raving DC/New York/LA fanboy, in other words, exactly what the league wants him to be. And they're the ones paying him to write for them, so it makes sense to kiss up to the boss. But he's positively negative most of the time about the Crew.

So when I read his latest column for MLSNet, I was shocked. The subject, about things he misses in MLS, included this:

3. Stern John in Columbus. Stern John's time in MLS was brief but memorable. I put him on this list because, when it comes to MLS strikers, he's the guy who immediately pops into my mind. Strong and quick with a hunger to score goals. I imagine we'll see him again some day in the league, but it won't be the same. I also think of Damani Ralph when I think of Stern. These are the kind of strikers I like to watch.

Be still my soccer loving heart! Of course, he still had this tidbit with which to kick the Crew a bit:

7. Eddie Gaven in New Jersey. He was traded away from his home state for Edson Buddle, who lasted about a month with the Red Bulls. Sad, really, that this kid who showed so much promise as a teenager, who grew up watching the MetroStars at Giants Stadium, didn't get to hang around longer. He's still a youngster, but I can't help but get choked up when I watch some of his dribbling exhibitions from 2004 and 2005, when he was considered the Next Big Thing. And I hope he finds his way back home some day.

Though I suppose I can't blame him for being upset at losing him to Columbus for Edson Buddle...

Crew Releases 2008 Schedule

The Columbus Crew released their 2008 schedule today.

I took the step of setting up a Google Calendar for the Crew's schedule. I'll keep it updated with changes, etc.

If you want to link to the schedule I made, just click here (I believe this requires a Google Account):



Here's their press release if you like that sort of thing:

COLUMBUS CREW PRESS RELEASE

CREW ANNOUNCES 2008 REGULAR SEASON SCHEDULE, WHICH FEATURES 12 SATURDAY HOME GAMES
Single-game tickets scheduled to go on sale Friday, Feb. 15, at Noon;
Crew to appear on national TV 14 times, local TV info to be released later
For Immediate Release: Thursday, Feb. 8, 2008
Contact: Dave Stephany, 614-447-4190, or Jason Smith, 614-447-4176

COLUMBUS, Ohio – The Columbus Crew today announced its schedule for the 2008 Major League Soccer season, which it opens at home on March 29 vs. Toronto FC and features a home date against the Los Angeles Galaxy on Oct. 4.

The Crew’s home schedule features a total of 12 Saturday games, two ESPN2 Primetime Thursdays and one Sunday. The two Thursday games, as well as one more to be announced, will be the popular “Bob Evans Buck-A-Brat Nights” at Crew Stadium.

Single-game tickets are scheduled to go on sale to the general public on Friday, Feb. 15, at Noon, at the Crew Stadium Box Office and all central Ohio Ticketmaster retail locations, via Ticketmaster phone at 614-431-3600 and on-line at TheCrew.com and Ticketmaster.com. In the meantime, the both the Home Opener and Oct. 4 game against L.A. are part of all full-season, half-season and 5-pack ticket plans, which are currently available by calling 614-447-CREW (2739) and at TheCrew.com. Both of those matches are also currently available through group packages.

In the league’s 13th season, each of the 14 clubs – including the expansion San Jose Earthquakes, who return after a two-year hiatus – will play 30 Regular Season games over 31 weeks, 15 at home and 15 on the road, between March 29 and Oct. 26. All 14 teams will play each other twice (home and away), for 26 games. The remaining four games will be played against different intra-conference teams (two home and two away), with consideration given to rivalries. The Crew’s additional intra-conference games are against New England and Kansas City at home and at New York and Toronto.

MLS and its national television partners, ABC/ESPN, Univision, Fox Soccer Channel/Fox Sports en Español and HDNet, also unveiled the national TV schedule today. The Crew is currently scheduled to appear on national television 14 times, three times on ESPN2 Primetime Thursday, six times on FSC (with five of those also on FSE), four times on HDNet and once on Univision’s TeleFutura. The Crew’s local TV information will be released at a later date.

The 2008 Sierra Mist MLS All-Star Game is scheduled for Thursday, July 24, at 7 p.m. (ET) on ESPN2 and TeleFutura, when the MLS stars will play host to an international opponent to be announced at BMO Field in Toronto, Canada. MLS Cup 2008 will cap year 13 at The Home Depot Center in Carson, Calif., on Sunday, Nov. 23, at 3:30 p.m. on ABC and TeleFutura.

The complete 2008 Crew regular-season schedule follows, with all national broadcasts noted:

2008 Columbus Crew Schedule
Date Day Opponent Time (ET) TV

3/29 Sat. Toronto FC* 4 p.m.

4/5 Sat. New York Red Bulls* 7:30 p.m. FSC/FSE

4/12 Sat. Chivas USA 7:30 p.m.

4/17 Thurs. D.C. United* 8 p.m. ESPN2

4/26 Sat. Houston Dynamo 7:30 p.m.

5/3 Sat. Kansas City Wizards* 7:30 p.m. FSC

5/10 Sat. San Jose Earthquakes 10 p.m.

5/17 Sat. Toronto FC* 3:30 p.m.

5/24 Sat. New England Revolution* 7:30 p.m. FSC/FSE

5/31 Sat. Chivas USA 10:30 p.m.

6/7 Sat. San Jose Earthquakes 7:30 p.m. HDNet

6/14 Sat. Kansas City Wizards* 8 p.m.

6/21 Sat. Los Angeles Galaxy 10:30 p.m.

6/28 Sat. Colorado Rapids 7:30 p.m. FSC/FSE

7/5 Sat. Chicago Fire* 8 p.m. FSC/FSE

7/12 Sat. Real Salt Lake 9 p.m. HDNet

7/17 Thurs. Kansas City Wizards* 8 p.m. ESPN2

7/27 Sun. Colorado Rapids 9:30 p.m.

8/2 Sat. Houston Dynamo 8:30 p.m.

8/16 Sat. FC Dallas 7:30 p.m. FSC/FSE

8/23 Sat. Real Salt Lake 7:30 p.m.

8/30 Sat. FC Dallas 8:30 p.m.

9/6 Sat. New England Revolution* 7:30 p.m. HDNet

9/13 Sat. Toronto FC* 3:30 p.m.

9/18 Thurs. New York Red Bulls* 7 p.m. ESPN2

9/28 Sun. New England Revolution* 7:30 p.m.

10/4 Sat. Los Angeles Galaxy 7:30 p.m. HDNet

10/12 Sun. Chicago Fire* 3 p.m. TeleFutura

10/18 Sat. New York Red Bulls* 7:30 p.m.

10/26 Sun. D.C. United* 5 p.m.

HOME GAMES IN BOLD CAPS

* Eastern Conference Opponent

— Eastern Times listed, Schedule is Subject to Change

2008 MLS National Broadcast & Schedule Highlights:
· Four national broadcast partners scheduled to air 113 Regular Season matches.

· Every regular season game will be televised, either through national or regional broadcasts and MLSnet.com.

· ESPN2 is scheduled to air 27 MLS Primetime Thursday Regular Season contests, beginning with a doubleheader on April 3. ESPN2 will also broadcast three playoff games and the MLS All-Star game, all on Thursdays. With the exceptions of the MLS All-Star Game and MLS Cup, all Primetime Thursday games are exclusive telecasts.

• All MLS Primetime Thursday games on ESPN2 will also be broadcast live on ESPN Deportes (save All-Star) and ESPN360.com.
• All games on ABC and ESPN2 will be offered in high definition. · On June 29, ABC is scheduled to broadcast a unique soccer doubleheader: Los Angeles Galaxy at D.C. United at Noon ET, followed by the UEFA European Championship 2008 title match. ABC will also broadcast MLS Cup 2008 on Nov. 23 at 3:30 p.m. ET.
  

· Fox Soccer Channel is scheduled to broadcast its complete slate of 32 Regular Season games with 30-minute pre- and postgame shows for a standard three-hour programming window called “MLS Saturday on FSC.” The same format will be utilized during Fox Soccer Channel’s three playoff match telecasts, also on Saturdays.

· Most Fox Soccer Channel MLS games are also scheduled to air live in Spanish in two-hour programming windows on sister network Fox Sports en Español – the largest Spanish-language all-sports network in the United States – with several airing on a tape-delayed basis. · HDNet is scheduled to air 29 games of its 30-game broadcast schedule on Saturday, and one game on Friday (July 4).

· TeleFutura is scheduled to broadcast 24 Regular Season games live on Sunday afternoon at 3 p.m. ET. TeleFutura’s MLS game will be book-ended with Mexican First Division games, Univision’s successful and popular sports programming.

· The MLS Direct Kick television package will return in 2008. The schedule will be announced at a later date.

About the Crew

Founded by American sports pioneer Lamar Hunt, the Columbus Crew is Ohio's Major League Soccer club, anchoring a diverse sports and entertainment enterprise. One of the league's Charter Members and U.S. Open Cup champion in 2002, it will open its 13th season overall and 10th in first-of-its-kind Columbus Crew Stadium on Saturday, March 29, when it plays host to Eastern Conference-rival Toronto FC.

Could an Increase in Renewable Energy Lead to More Terrorism?

This post is designed as more of a rambling thought process than as any sort of quantifiable or supportable hypothesis. Keep that in mind - the point here is to discuss, not to define or state fact.

Despite the fact that I think the idea of converting as much of our energy in the US (and yes, around the world) to renewable sources such as solar, tidal, wind, etc. is the necessary step for us to take to improve the environment and get out of the quagmire that is the Middle East, I'm also concerned that such a step will open the floodgates to a whole new set of problems. This is a discussion of some of those problems as regards terrorism.

During what is commonly called "the Dark Ages" in Europe (when in fact it was hardly any sort of dark age, from what I've been reading recently), the Middle East and Muslim culture was soaring forward on the academic and cultural fronts. Much of the learning of ancient Greece and Rome was absorbed by Muslim scholars and improved upon, and many new sciences were developed as well. The number system we use today comes directly from that used by Muslim scholars; indeed the number zero was created by the Muslim mathematicians who found need for a placeholder in their system. Truly brilliant work was done during this time, and the Muslim world was the greatest center of learning in the world during that period.

Fast forward to the discovery of oil in the Middle East. Suddenly (or not so suddenly, given the imperialist nature of European powers in the 18th and 19th centuries), the value of the Middle East was no longer in the quality of its scholars and its position as a center of learning, but rather in its location and the black, oozy mess that was under its sands.

Since that discovery, and the sudden wealth that the sheiks and shahs and the like were bringing in based on nothing more than blind luck (that the oil was under their territories), the culture of the Middle East has been in a sharp decline. Instead of centers of learning, we now had centers of power, where those who controlled the flow of oil controlled the politics as well. Learning was taken out of the equation and pure capitalism was embraced in its stead.

So we now have a once-great culture, renowned for repositories of knowledge and institutions of learning, and now simply the distributors of a product. One product - crude oil. And in that time, the Muslim world has gone from a peaceful, mostly tolerant area of the world (and despite traditional views of the Crusades, it was an invasion by the Christian world of the Muslim world) to a very factionalized area, with rampant terrorism and intolerant regimes of all sorts. Let's face it - the globalized world has not been kind to the Middle East, for the most part. Sure, there are great centers of capitalism in the Middle East such as Dubai, but how many of those people are actually benefiting from that money rolling in? That's right: very few.

Now, the primary consumers of that one product, the western world (America and Europe), are trying to move away from an oil-based energy system. A system that our demand for a single product has put in place in the Middle East is now basically going to be abandoned, now that we're increasingly done with the product. What will the outcry of that be in the Middle East?

If I was a resident of that part of the world, and I'd seen my entire country revolve around the sale of oil for decades based on the demand of the western world, only to have that demand vanish over the span of a few years, I wouldn't be a particularly understanding person. In fact, what I'd see is that the West took my country and used it up, then leaving it on its own after it served its use.

What kind of resentment is going to remain in those countries after we leave and take our money with us? And what kind of revenge are they going to seek against us after we leave?

As I see it, the one thing we'd have going for us is that no more money would be flowing out of our coffers and into theirs, so there would be less money for terrorism (and let's face it - terrorism costs money, otherwise they wouldn't need to get oil money from Arabian sheiks).

Other than that, the necessary step we are taking to reduce our use of oil is going to result in a whole new set of problems. Keep your eyes open.

I welcome your comments - please keep it civil. I don't mean to offend anyone with my comments, just to stir up some debate.

Osario Situation - More Conspiracy Thoughts for MLS?

It's no secret to long-time MLS fans that the league is really concerned about putting powerful teams into both New York and Los Angeles, and the relative lack of success (well, not when compared to the Crew, but not what the league would like) that the MetroStars and Galaxy have had (the Metros more than the Galaxy, obviously) obviously frustrates the league.

So when I hear that Chicago coach Juan Carlos Osario resigned from the Fire earlier this off-season and is suddenly hired at New York.... I wonder if the hand of the league isn't in action here. Chicago gives the always questionable "he determined that he needed to leave Chicago for family and personal reasons" explanation for his departure... and then a couple weeks later he's hired in New York. Fishy.

The league has interfered in teams' player acquisitions on many occasions, such as Lothar Matthaeus and Roberto Donadoni playing at New York in the past and Luis Hernandez in his stint at the Galaxy. Osario is a former assistant with the MetroStars, which might explain his comfort at taking over the Cabbies (does anyone still call them that?) at Chicago's expense.

Pushing a coaching change might seem to be a bit much for even MLS, especially to pull a coach away from one team and put him with another, but MLS has done some fishy stuff in the past. Frankly, I wouldn't put it past them. Or, it could just be New York working behind Chicago's back.

It'll be interesting to see what happens in Chicago now.

Get Started Being Green!

Many people would love to be green, but other than changing their incandescent light bulbs for CFL bulbs they have no idea where to begin. Well, the folks at New American Dream have an answer for you: the C³ campaign.

Each month, another challenge is suggested by the folks at New American Dream for you to try out - they've done things like getting bottled water out of your life, stop driving for one day a week, sign up to reduce your junk mail, etc.

This month the challenge is to bring your own reusable bags to the store instead of using paper or plastic bags from the store!

Great program. Click the link below to get started! It's free to join in the fun.

Fight Bush's Fight Against Real Change in Bali

Many of you may know that the UN's Climate Talks are underway in Bali, Indonesia right now. Naturally, the Bush Administration is doing what it can to derail any significant change.

That's why it's important to let the other representatives at that conference know that Bush does NOT speak for us as Americans in this matter.

Let them know here.