We Barefootin'!

So, back in June, I bought me a pair of the freakish-looking Vibram FiveFinger KSOs:

I got them in black because I figured that color would be the least noticeable. (And because the other ones looked like they'd been used to run through a field of Smurfs.) Sadly, when contrasted with the blinding white of my calves, these shoes are still pretty hard to miss.


Plus, they make my feet look like Mickey Mouse's, which doesn't help.

Anyway, the main reason I bought them is because I really believe in the benefits of running without shoes. That's why I'm doing this post. (Also, I want to show my younger brother that I'm not making this stuff up.)

Here's an article from the Boulder Daily Camera which, I swear, is an actual news source:

Barefoot running: enthusiasts swear by weird-looking shoes:

"McDougall, who now runs exclusively in Five Fingers and other low-support shoes, shined a light on scientific research that, in his words, shows that “running shoes may be the most destructive force to ever hit the human foot.” In fact, he writes, modern running shoes actually cause all those persistent running injuries, from plantar fasciitis to bum knees. Essentially, they make wimps of runners’ feet."

(updated link here)

Also, aside from all the potential benefits of running essentially barefooted, you'll also often have this song stuck in your head, which I consider a bonus.

Here's a video of McDougall talking about his book "Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen" on The Daily Show:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Christopher McDougall
www.thedailyshow.com
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I really liked "Born to Run" but I'm glad I read it before seeing this interview. Not sure how far I could have gotten if I had to hear Christopher McDougall's pronunciation every time I read the word "Tarahumara".

Now please stop picking on my shoes, Ken.

In the 80s (with DeLorean cameo!)

Top 10 Endearing Habits of a Geeky Spouse

(via Wired.com)

"What is it about us geeks that makes us such great catches for non-geeks? It’s easy to see how geeks would find partners within the world of geekdom, provided they had compatible geek interests. But many of us have managed to find spouses or significant others who are if not completely “normal,” then at least significantly less geeky than ourselves."

The only problem with marrying a geek?

The Back to the Future-themed wedding cakes.

Seattle Finally Gets Something Resembling Proper Public Transportation

All aboard: Light rail service starts Saturday:

"Seattle, can you hear that train a-comin'?

Thirteen year after voters approved the taxes to build it, Sound Transit's Central Link light rail opens for service Saturday. Trains will run every 71/2 minutes from stations along the 14-mile line between Westlake Center in Seattle and the massive, glass-encased station in Tukwila at South 154th Street and Tukwila International Boulevard."

I only hope this encourages similar projects and a larger rail network. I still can't believe how behind the U.S. has been at this for so long.

How Back To The Future Almost Nuked The Fridge

Peter Sciretta over at /Film wrote an interesting post about how the original script of Back to the Future nearly "Nuked The Fridge", a term he explains below:

"After Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was released, a new pop culture term was coined. Nuke The Fridge is a reference to the film’s opening scene (possible spoilers if you haven’t seen it) where Indiana Jones finds himself on a Nuclear test site and hides in a refrigerator to survive the atomic blast. The phrase Nuke The Fridge was joined as an alternative to Jump The Shark, another pop culture term based on a scene in an episode of Happy Days when Fonzie literally jumps over a shark while water skiing. The scene was considered so preposterous, and is considered by many to signify the moment in time when the show became unappealing to its core audience."

Hard to believe that such a term could be used to describe anything related to the Back to the Future movies, but it's true.  Obviously, I loved the first Back to the Future movie but, I will admit that the original script was pretty cringe-worthy.  In fact, I talked about it a bit in this post back in July of last year:

"Now, in the original "Back to the Future" script (which, I'm sorry to say, was rather painful), the climactic scene did not revolve around Marty using lightning to power a DeLorean time machine back to 1985.

Actually, it had Marty leaving the "Enchantment Under the Sea" dance to take a road trip with Doc to Nevada where they snuck onto a restricted military base so Marty could hide out in an empty test house (with a TV playing "Howdy Doody", see a pattern here, folks?) before using a nuclear explosion (and a bottle of "Coke", in an act of really blatant product placement) to power his trip back to 1985... in a refrigerator.

Come on! When I first read that, I thought "Thank God they were smart enough to change that".

Peter gives more of an explanation over why the idea was scrapped:

Director Robert Zemeckis has said in interviews that producer Steven Spielberg was afraid that children would start climbing into refrigerators and getting trapped inside, after replicating the scene in the film. Who would have thought that he would have made a film where the hero climbs into a fridge at a nuclear test site almost 25 years later.

Zemeckis still believed that the time machine should move, and they came up with the idea of using a retrofitted DeLorean because it could lead to the gag of farmer Peabody thinking it was a UFO/Aliens. The concept of the Hill Valley courthouse didn’t come until much later. Even the third draft of the screenplay involved taking the DeLorean time machine to the atomic bomb test site. The idea was scrapped because it was deemed too expensive for the budget. ILM wanted one million dollars to create the bomb effect, and at that time, that was a lot of money. The power source was changed to lightening and the location was changed to the Hill Valley courthouse, which they filmed on the Universal Backlot.

Click over to read the rest. He's even included a video of the storyboards from third-draft ending.