There are a few people I’d like to thank, first off.  Everyone who came out to Bushtukah on Saturday was great, and we had an amazing time in an amazing store.  In previous years, I haven’t really paid much attention to the place.  After all, it was a store full of fit people, and I was fat people.  Not that I’m “fit” now, exactly.  But I am running this half-marathon soon, so I’m paying attention to fitness-related things a lot more at this point.  And Bushtukah was great.  They analyzed my walking and running style, and then asked me if the shoes I was currently wearing hurt my knees when I ran.  I said they did.  This is apparently because of “pronation” or something to that effect.

     Anyway, they helped me find a pair of shoes that allow me to run comfortably and no longer make my knees scream with every step.  Then they helped me find a no-chafe stick that will prevent me from making my thighs-rubbing-together rash worse.  And they helped me find some really, really pink clothes that breathe nicely and feel good and will help me be more comfortable, if not any faster.  (In fact, it was Esther our promo guy who picked out the pink clothes – I’m running with Esther, her twin sister, and two other tiny girls in this half-marathon at the end of May, and we were planning to have matching outfits, all five of us.)  Anyway, terrific store, great advice, wonderful products.

     I would also like to thank the fine gentleman who thought it would help me in my weight-loss challenge if he brought me some delicious donuts all the way from Kemptville.  I need to really buckle down and be perfect this week if I hope to win this weight-loss contest.  The way I see it, I need to lose about eight pounds this week if I hope to win.  The donuts were delicious.  Also big thanks to Janet and Kenny for the Marathon Training book.  I have begun to fill out the daily training logs, and I have even read some of it.  No thanks for the article on Rush that was included with the book.  (Janet was very jealous of my pink outfit, and I think she went around to pick out many of the same clothes.  They’re probably meant for women.)

     Also thanks to John and the rest of the CHEZ nation members who explained the Toys For Boys contest to newbies and casual passers-by.  Having changed the system for this particular Toys For Boys event, and using ballots and bonus codes instead of bonus codes alone, there was much explaining to do.  And I was so busy that not only could I not explain this to everyone, I also could not find time to eat my very healthy wraps.  And donuts.  So thanks, everyone, for the assistance!

     Now, what’s the opposite of thanks?  “Boo”, maybe?  OK.  BOO to Esther our promo guy.  Major boo.  GIANT BOO!  Esther came around with me and we tried on all kinds of pink sports bras and pink women’s tops together.  Most of them made me look like an effeminate Slovenian weightlifter.  But at least we matched, and she looks good in a pink sports bra.  Which should take at least a little of the attention off me.  Ridiculous though I may look.  In the end, we decided on a shirt for me that was a bit of a compromise.  It was still crazy-pink, bright as hell, but it wasn’t a sports bra and at least had sleeves.  I could live with it, as long as we were all a matching team.

     Also – one more plus – when I go for a run at 2:00 in the morning, I will not likely be hit by any cars with something that bright on.  That’s good too. 

     So with MY shopping done, it was now Esther’s turn.  She needed new shoes as well.  She found a pair that were totally comfortable and really really cute, so she was pleased.  I was pleased for her – after all, I like people to be comfortable.  An hour later, she came to find me.  She said “don’t be mad at me”.  But I was mad at her.  Her shoes, you see, were now white with red trim.  And white with red trim would clash with pink!  So she decided that she (and the rest of the girls) would be wearing black instead.  I already had all my pink stuff!  The tags had come off!  There was no turning back!  And now I’m the one wearing pink, and they will be wearing black, and why?  Because of a really really cute pair of red-trimmed shoes.

     So now, when we hit the streets on May 30th for this half marathon, I will be outfitted in my comfortable yet gaudy clothes from Bushtukah.  And the four small women running with me will be all in black.  We’re going to look like four tiny ninjas escorting a teletubby.  Or four of those “gnap” smurfs running from Festive Gargamel.  In other words, ridiculous.

     The right wing has been making noise for a long, long time about how ill-advised it is for Barack Obama to meet with foreign heads of state with whom the United States disagrees.  And how he shouldn’t be bowing to other leaders or observing the customs of other countries and so forth.  The prevailing opinion, of course, being that he should be snubbing everyone, behaving as though the U.S. is the only country in the world, and kicking other world leaders in the nuts when the opportunity arises.

     Now these same dummy talking heads are really upset.  Their talking heads are spinning.  Obama snubbed Netanyahu?  Just because the Israelis spit in his eye by announcing more settlements in East Jerusalem while an American delegation that included Joe Biden was over there?  What a jerk!  How dare he snub one of our best friends in the entire, whole, wonderful world!  Shut up FOX News and the rest of you morons.  Obama is supposed to kick everyone else in the sack, but when Israel kicks him square in the bag, he’s supposed to turn the other testicle?  Get real.  If Israel wants the U.S. as an ally in their effort to prevent Iran from getting nukes, they really need to clean up their own backyard first.  Obama did exactly the right thing.  By the way, Canada should be following suit.

     I just walked by the television, and this bald pompous guy with the moustache was on.  It turns out he has a television show, where he advises people about how to live their lives and get clean from addictions and resolve their marital problems and whether or not to get a boob job.  And so forth.  On the TV machine, I saw a whole family going under the Dr. Phil microscope.  This family was really screwed up.  So screwed up that they managed to get their own show.  In fact, they are apparently a recurring guest-family on Dr. Phil so often that they are now referred to as the “Dr. Phil family”.

     Anyway, I walked by and saw an archived interview with a member of this screwed-up family from six years ago.  Apparently, they have been the “Dr. Phil family” for at least six years.  And they were equally screwed up six years ago, judging by the clip.  Well, they must have been, or this chubby southern fellow wouldn’t have made them his house band.  But I thought – for a guy who’s supposed to be a “doctor” and “therapist” and all that, this guy must not be very good.  He’s had six years to fix these folks.  They appear to have become worse.  What gives?  And why would he continue to have them on his show and label them the “Dr. Phil family”?  If Jared all of a sudden got super-fat again, I don’t think Subway would continue to trot him out on football pre-game shows to represent their company.  McDonalds doesn’t trot out pictures of John Goodman and Roseanne and call them the “McDonalds family”…maybe they should though…

     Another reason for me to dislike Ann Coulter.  My wife flipped on FOX News today because they were talking about Ottawa.  Specifically, Ann Coulter and that whole debacle.  It was the prettiest of all the talking-points-reiteraters on the whole network, the always gorgeously concerned Megan Kelly.  I love the way she always has her brow furrowed, as though what she hears is really troubling to her, no matter what it might be.  Or, like she is vainly trying to understand words bigger than “comma”.  By the way – google “FOX News Megan Kelly” – the top search result is “Megan Kelly legs”.  It pops up before you even get to the “e” in “Megan”.  How very a propos.

     Anyway, Kelly had some poor woman from Ottawa on her program, a woman who was suggesting that the student protesters were excercising their free speech rights as well (with which point, the more I think about it, the more I agree), and that Canada was not the same country as the United States and our rules were different.  This seemed to make the FOX newsmodel very concerned, and her brow furrowed deeper than usual.  She then lit into this woman, because of course this kind of heinous activity could only take place when a conservative speech giver was involved.  Of course.  She suggested that anyone, under any circumstance, should be able to say whatever they liked at a university, which is an institute of higher learning.

     The pretty newstalker then went on to say that they, the superior Americans, had even invited Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to speak at one of their universities.  Of course, she conveniently forgot that long-ago time that FOX News complained bitterly about Ahmadinejad being invited to speak at one of their universities.  Soon, the Coulter stuff was exhausted.  So they moved on to the next topic.

     Now it was one of FOX’s old friends.  The anchormodel’s browfurrow lessened, as the always toadying Bernard Goldberg made an appearance.  Goldberg, you see, has a slobbering love affair with FOX News, and he is the guy they bring on when they want to feel as though their coverage is actually fair and balanced.  He is some self-made “media pundit” who will always tell FOX News that they are the only fair news source, and that the mainstream media is so liberal that it makes him sick to his stomach by comparison.  Then Megan Kelly and her ilk will smile sweetly, question him on nothing, and move on to something else.  It’s a nice little deal they have going there.

     By the way – sidebar – you can’t boast that you are the #1 rated news station and then complain about the “mainstream media”.  If you are #1, then you are the mainstream media.  And FOX does a LOT of BOTH.  Which is kind of like McDonalds posting complaints about “mainstream restaurants” under the sign that says “99 billion served”.

     Anyway, Goldberg is now here to complain, bitterly, about how ONLY FOX can cover the tea partiers impartially.  You see, after all those congressmen had racial epithets, homophobic slurs and other heinous stuff yelled at them on their way to vote for health care on the weekend, the evil liberal mainstream media leapt to the ridiculous conclusion that they were racists.  As Goldberg so rightly pointed out, this was a crowd of thousands of angry regular people.  And in a crowd where there are a thousand people, you are bound to get a few of them yelling racial epithets and homophobic slurs.

     So…let me see if I understand what he was saying.  The seven people who yelled the N-word and other horrible things at the black congressmen.  The two people who yelled anti-Mexican slurs at the Latino congressman.  Then there were three people who yelled homophobic things at Barney Frank.  In a crowd of a thousand, that’s…twelve people.  Maybe more.  So according to Goldberg’s logic, 1.2% of the American population is not only a horrible bigot, they are the type of horrible bigot who would yell racial slurs at passers-by when they were angry about something. 

     By this logic, football games are probably crazy times in the states.  If you have fifty thousand people in one building, and there are events taking place that will make them angry, then that means that six hundred people are probably yelling the N-word at the players they don’t like.  I wonder why the mainstream media doesn’t report that?  I assume it’s because they are elitist snobs who are too good for sports and therefore pay no attention.  I’ll have to ask Goldberg the next time I see him at the douchebag club.

     Kelly didn’t question him, of course.  She merely smiled, and nodded, and looked gravely concerned that only FOX was able to see things clearly for what they are.  That the racism displayed by the tea party activists was limited to seven or eight hundred isolated incidents and not indicative of the movement as a whole, and FOX is just the greatest.  How sad.  So – a recap of the two news stories – people at universities should be allowed to say whatever they want to say at all times.  It’s free speech.  AND…loudly yelling racist and bigoted things at civil rights heroes is just fifty or sixty rubes in a crowd that obviously doesn’t subscribe to those views.  They weren’t cheering for the remarks, you see, they were cheering to drown them out.  Probably.  There is NOTHING uncivil about the behaviour of the tea parties.

     Then, the third story I watched.  This time it was legal-ish spokesmodel Kimberly Guilfoyle.  (Google her – the first result is “Guilfoyle divorce” about her breakup with Gavin Newsom, the second is “Kimberly Guilfoyle Victoria’s Secret”.  The third result is FOX News.)  She shows up to yell right-wing things about legal issues.  In this case, it was a young woman who got into a screaming match with a professor at her university, a verbal fight that went on so long that she was eventually taken down hard by the cops.

     Another quick recap of the last two stories, in case you’ve forgotten – anyone should be allowed to say anything at any time on a university campus – and there is nothing uncivil about the racist tea party.  OK.  To continue.  Guilfoyle and Kelly come to the conclusion, eventually, that there is absolutely no way this girl should have been allowed to say what she said to her teacher.  And then, to close the segment, Kelly furrowed her brow again.  Boy, is she ever cute when she does that.  And then she shook her head softly and said…”whatever happened to civility?”

     I really do think it’s unfortunate that Ann Coulter’s speaking engagement at Ottawa U was canceled.  Even though I think she might be the worst person alive, free speech must obviously extend to even that speech that we find reprehensible.  It seems to me the cancelation was a cop-out on behalf of Ottawa U.  There was too much turmoil and controversy, and so when protesters started getting loud and oh-so-scary, it was a convenient excuse to shut the whole thing down.

     I say, let her go ahead and speak.  Let her spew her bile, and just hope that everyone listening has the good sense to realize she’s a wingnut.  We in Ottawa should, one would hope, be smart enough to recognize hyperbole for what it is, racism for what it is, and right-wing hysteric lunacy for what it is.  Especially at one of our institutes of higher learning.  So, for those of you who missed the Big Show, because of this stupidity, here is a sampling of what you may have missed:

     A small sampling.  So…that’s about what we would have got.  As you can see, I’m not as interested as some local folks are in protecting you from yourself.  Go ahead and believe this woman, and end up a raving bearded psychopath in a log cabin in the woods somewhere with your Glenn Beck posters, or laugh at her like the rest of the world does.

     Just so I can ease my conscience a little…here’s a really rare early video featuring Axl Rose and Izzy Stradlin before they became Guns N Roses.  Believed to be the earliest video ever of band members doing music-like things.  Here’s “Anything Goes”.

     Slash says he has been forced to leave this new version of “Paradise City” off his upcoming solo album for “legal reasons”.  Three guesses as to what those “legal reasons” are.  The track features Fergie and Cypress Hill for some reason.

   Which really just makes it a Tuesday for Axl Rose…but this time there’s video!  From a concert in Sao Paolo Brazil, Axl gets annoyed and unleashes a barrage of swear words at the fans after being hit with a water bottle.

     The Metal Den has discovered one of the last known Randy Rhoads performances with Ozzy Osbourne.  On New Year’s Eve, 1981, Rhoads played with Ozzy on the second show of the Diary of a Madman tour, the “New Year’s Evil” performance.  He would be dead less than three months later – his final gig was March 18th, 1982 in Knoxville Tennessee.  There are no known recordings of that performance.  Here is 1981′s New Year’s Evil:

     For some reason, I agreed to run a half marathon May 30th on Ottawa Race Day.  I once ran 10 km every morning, when I was on the high school rowing team.  I thought, I can get back into that kind of shape in three months.  Then I realized that the half-marathon is 13 miles.  Which is not 10 km.  It’s more like 21 km.  If I ran from the station in the southeast end of Ottawa, I would finish in Bells Corners.  It would be almost like running to work from my house in Kanata.  Our promo co-ordinator Esther convinced me to participate in this event.  Her twin sister Judy convinced Esther to participate.  And there will be two other tiny little ladies running with us.  This is now my motivation.  I have to be able to at least complete the 13 mile run on May 30th, if only so I don’t embarrass myself in front of (and alongside) four tiny fitness women.  This video is my training with Esther…day one.