The Deets

Tim from “View from the Cloud” has an idea for flatulence filtering underwear that use some sort of Shop-Vac technology with charcoal filters for tough jobs.

Interesting concept, but I think I’m going to stick with my charcoal cork for now.

I hate lines.

Here’s what I love about Winecast:

We live in a world where people like love to complain about travel. And what do they complain about?

1. Flight delays after getting to the airport two hours early so they could stand in a mile-long line 6 years after 9/11.

2. Ridiculous security procedures that make us feel more annoyed than safe.

3. Connecting through Phoenix on flights from Minneapolis to Seattle to avoid taking out a home equity loan.

But none of these common complains are what have Tim from Winecast worked up. Nope. What’s his beef?

Why Don’t Airlines Have Better Wine?

I’ve been on more than my share of flights this summer, both domestic and international, and one thing that bugs me is how poor wine service has become on airlines.

Yea, I know, there is some pretty decent juice poured in business and first class, but I’m talking about the bottles served for $5 in coach. In my recent experience none of the wines on offer are worth the money and I tend to drink ice water on flights as a result.

LOL. Tim has a point, and it’s very on point for his Winecast site.

And you know what? He’s right.

The person who picks an airline’s wine isn’t the person responsible for kicking your luggage down the luggage chute, checking your shoes thoroughly for explosive toe jam, or scheduling more flights than can possibly take off on time on any given day. Their job is to make our flights more pleasant by offering a decent mini-bottle of wine to help make at least one part of the flight interesting.

Hopefully Tim will be able to make change on the wine front in the airline industry. Tim, I’ve got your back.

I think I’ve finally recovered from the St. Paul Inline Marathon. Actually, recovery went MUCH faster than from running 26.2 miles. Maybe that had something to do with rolling for 95 minutes rather than pounding the pavement for 240?

A few things I learned:

1. Get into a wave with people of a similar ability. I was seeded in the last open wave, which put me with a bunch of girls wearing tie-dyed t-shirts and recreational skates. This matters because . . .

2. Drafting is HUGE in inline racing. Probably even more-so than biking since you can catch even more of a free ride when you’re inches off someone’s butt than when you’re inches off their wheel. It took me a while to realize that synchronized skating is more efficient than randomly skating behind someone.

3. Climbing hills sucks. Shepherd Road from I-35E going West is a tenacious climb that almost killed me on both laps.

4. Web pavement is kind of slippery, but wet pavement covered with oil that’s dripped from cars at intersections is even worse.

5. Texturized fresh cement isn’t the best surface for skating. Because of this, pacelines often formed on the shoulder. That was find until it came time to switch back to the main road. The crack between the two was approximately the width of inline skate wheels. I saw quite a few people fall prey to those cracks.

6. Don’t get dropped. I thought I was hurting before I was dropped, then things went from bad to worse.

The video below has two clips from around the 19 mile mark at Randolph and Shepherd Road. The first is of an advanced group paceline moving along at a fast and efficient clip. The second part is me flailing after being dropped before the turnaround at US Bank.

One other thing: If it’s raining and you’re wearing glasses, make sure you put them somewhere safe. I dropped mine when they fell out of my jersey. I spotted what was left of them when I passed them on the 2nd lap.

Thanks to Carly for cheering for me in the rain.

And thanks to Paul Jahn for talking me into doing this.

Oh. Results. I finished 38th out of 857 in the Open division with a time of 1:35:40. That’s a 16.4 MPH average. I was 3rd in the 30-34 M category.

Knowing what I know now, I’d sign up for the advanced category next time so I’d have more people of a similar ability around me to work with. That would help a lot.

What’s next on the calendar? Well, there’s one coming up on the Grandma’s course in Duluth. Paul is hyping up a race in Houston in November. And there is an ultra marathon from Athens to Atlanta, Georgia this fall as well.

I’d definitely recommend this to anyone who’s comfortable on rollerblades. The race was well organized and had a great group of participants. Give one a try!

I didn’t fully understand what the heck happened in the MSP bathroom stalls between Republican Idaho Senator Larry Craig and an undercover cop until I saw this reenactment from a news crew in California.

TheOtherMike has uncovered what could easily turn into another Michael Vick type situation if it reaches American shores from Japan: Beetle Sumo Wrestling:

Apparently, this photo comes from a somewhat sanctioned event called the IWBC (Insect World Battle Championships).

Is this the Japanese version of dog fighting? Bull fighting? Or something even more sinister?

Wasn’t Japan’s image already damaged enough by the mechanical arm wrestling story?

Todd Melby from Building Minnesota has announce an upcoming tour of homes on Milwaukee Avenue in Minneapolis. For those of you not familiar with Milwaukee Ave, it’s a short (2-3 block long?) stretch of homes that were almost condemned at one point, but now are some of the coolest homes in the city.

The tour is on September 23rd from noon-5pm. Tickets are $10 in advance. More info can be found on the really cool Milwaukee Avenue Home Tour site that profiles the homes on the street and their residents.

BTW, it’s a little known fact that Carly’s family used to live in one of those houses.

A new news site is about to launch in Minnesota with a big list of names you’re probably familiar with. Basically, dozens of people who’ve taken a buy-out or been fired from the StarTribune or the Pioneer Press are going to be writing for this site.

This is a look at what I see from a technical perspective.

Here’s a link to their press release. Eventually, this link will not take you to the press release since it isn’t a permalink to an individual story, but a link to the news section of their site as it exists today.

There is no RSS feed. Yes, the real site hasn’t launched yet, so I’m being kind of tough on them about that. However, looking at the portfolio of their design company leads me to believe that they could quite possibly not offer RSS feeds for their site’s content. If that really happens it will be a disaster since their best audience for their content will be news hounds who are using RSS readers today. That will make their site’s content close to invisible since people with RSS readers tend to consume what in their reader first, then venture out to non-RSS friendly sites if and when they have the time.

For example, BestBuy.com, another site built by the same design firm, doesn’t seem to offer RSS feeds for shopping or even the press release section of the site. They do offer email alerts for press releases, which is basically serving Bacn.

A powerful online news site needs great writes and a great platform. Hopefully MinnPost.com will have post when it launches.

Teach them well and let them lead the way:

Following up on yesterday’s post about arm breaking arm wrestling video games, I found this arm wrestling kit on Ebay that delivers an electric shock to arm wrestlers:

It includes an excellent product description:

This game takes the traditional Gladiator sport of Arm Wrestling to a whole new level! Strap on the wrist plate and get ready to wrestle. You get a mild electric shock.

NOTE: Not suitable for children or wimps.

What it should also say is, “not available in Japan.”

Ironically, the “not for wimps” game comes with rubberized elbow pads. That seems kind of wimpy to me.

The Science Museum of MN blog has a funny report on an arm wrestling video game in Japan that’s broken the arms of three human opponents.

To me, this is a sad day for video games. Why should they be held accountable for the behavior of idiots who don’t realize an arm wrestling machine is stronger than them? Nobody died. Sure, three arms were broken, but I’m fairly certain that those three people learned a valuable lesson here: you’re not stronger than a machine.