Allow me to talk about me.

So, thanks to the magic of inhaled steroids (Advair), I'm now able to run pretty much any distance I want, without complaint from my lungs, before my legs give out. Right now, that's somewhere around 6 miles. Hooray for modern medicine! And in two weeks I'm going to run a 5K (3.2mi) race. It'll be my first 5K race since 1987. I'm not exactly fast anymore, so I won't be competitive to other runners; I'm really doing this to see if I can finish without stopping to walk.

"But, I thought you said you can run 6 miles?" Yeah, that's the tricky part - I can run 3.2 miles, any day of the week, no problem. But when I get into a race situation, or even a self-timed situation, the clock (and even more, the desire to not get passed by people who don't look like they should be faster than I am) takes over my brain, I forget all about pacing, restraint and discipline, and I turn into a rabbit - I run far too fast too soon, trying to stay with people I shouldn't, and end up exhausted before I'm anywhere near the end. It happened in the majority of my high-school 5Ks, and is the reason I always hated distance running - give me a nice 400 meters where I can throw everything I have at it all at once, don't make me restrain myself and pace myself and run "my own race"; that's for wimps. It even happened the first time I timed myself on a training run - the first mile was far too fast, the second was right on, but the last was far too slow, because I was exhausted - and that was just because I had a watch on - gotta run faster! this isn't fast enough! the clock is ticking! For me, the very hardest part of this 5K is going to be all about shutting out the other runners and keeping myself at a reasonable pace. So, I've been training, doing timed repeats and long distance runs, trying to get used to a pace I think I can maintain for the race. I'm even following a training schedule.

Looking at the results of the race from last year, I think I can expect to come in somewhere in the top 90, and will probably be beaten by two girls under 14, three men over 60, and two women over 45. See, not content with running my own race, I'm competing with people two weeks before the race even starts. Ugh.

Now, down at the bottom of this page is a list of sites that have linked here in the past 24 hours. Usually it's a handful of regulars. Today, it's a relatively long list of other blogs that I've never heard of - I probably wrote something recently that showed up on a bunch of searches (American Idiot! American Idol! Green Day!). But, there's also a link from a blog by someone who's training to run the London Marathon, First Time Marathon. He's talking about all the stuff he's doing to get ready for the marathon, and he's posting all his training times (reading them makes me feel really slow, FYI). He's also having daily worries about getting sick before the race - all the people around him are sick - something with which I can identify completely. It seems like everyone at work, and my wife, has a cold or the flu - exactly what I don't want right now.

Because I'd hate to miss a week of training so close to the race, and I'd really hate to miss the race itself, I'm doing my damndest to stay healthy these next two weeks - eating better, drinking less beer, drinking more water, taking vitamin C, washing my hands frequently, getting enough sleep, Positive Mental Attitude, avoid being sneezed upon - whatever I can think of. And this morning I thought of something else I could do to stay healthy : I could stop wearing myself out with all this running! Sigh. Logic has failed me.

This is pretty cool: Fonts designed in the style of various metal bands' logos and cover art.

We were watching the second round of the latest American Idol last night. By the end, I noticed that I could count the number of singers who actually tried to sing a melody on my thumbs - maybe on just one thumb. Everyone else produced overwrought outbursts of yodeling and pointless melisma. I felt like grabbing each of them and shouting "pick a fucking note ! Carry a tune ! "

Is a loathing of popular culture part of growing old?

A while ago, I put together my Top 100 Favorite Records list, to be included in a survey of a group of Queensbury High School alums (even though I went to Hudson Falls). Well, the final results have been processed, and here they are.

There's a saying in the west, that the Chinese character for 'crisis' is itself composed of the characters for 'danger' and 'opportunity'. And so, you should view a crisis as an opportunity to make changes, etc..

Unfortunately, this is untrue.

I don't know how else you can explain a single nuclear plant being in both Iran and North Korea.

If this isn't a natural phenomenon, I hope the US posesses the same technology that the Iranians/Koreans do. Not having it would leave us at a huge disadvantage!

W and his cohort say
There is no Trust.
And I believe him.
For he is an honorable man.
So are they all,
All honorable men.

I've only made baby back ribs twice in my life, but each time people have told me that they are the "best ribs they've ever had". Possibly it's polite flattery, likely it's more to do with the fact that both times I've served them late at night, when only the hard-core partiers are still around, and everyone is up for a snack of any kind. Either way...

Here's the process I use. Note that the preparation takes a long time. You can't just whip these up on a whim. You've gotta plan a little here.

Ingredients:
One rack of baby back ribs (you can usually find them vacuum sealed in the supermarket)
Bottle of BBQ sauce^*
Grill
Oven
Foil

1. Day one, peel and chop. Remove the membrane from the back side of the ribs. This is a thin, tough sheet of something that the pig found necessary to grow, but that we don't want to eat. Some rib places will leave it on, I don't like it. So, get a good hold on one end and peel it off; it should come off in one piece. Cut the ribs into four pieces (roughly, 5 ribs each section).

2. Marinade. Put the ribs in a glass or ceramic dish (or even plastic bags). Cover with BBQ sauce, but be sure to save some BBQ sauce for later. If you can't cover the ribs, don't worry - just come by and mix them up a couple of times to ensure that all the meat gets some sauce time. Refrigerate overnight (8 hours or so). If time is a concern, you might be able to skip this step, or cut it down to just a few hours.

3. Day two, low and slow. After they've marinated. Wrap each section of ribs in foil, fairly tightly - with a little of the BBQ sauce from the marinade in each. I wrap them two or three times each - don't want them leaking all over the oven. Put them on a foil-lined cookie sheet (because they'll leak no matter what), and into a 225 degree oven for three hours. Low and slow is the key to that fall-off-the-bone texture. Remove from oven and refrigerate until needed.

4. When you're ready to eat them, heat a grill to medium-high. Take each section of ribs out of its foil, clean off any blobs of fat that might be sticking to it (most of the fat will have cooked out of the meat and congealed in the foil). Put a little BBQ sauce on the ribs and grill for a few minutes each side - just enough to give them some color, some grill marks, and to heat through.

5. Serve to hungry drunkards.

That's it.

* - I prefer Bone Suckin Sauce.