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Archive for August 19th, 2008

strange days

We have confirmation: the Georgia bigfoot was totally fake. From Fox News:

SearchingforBigfoot.com owner Tom Biscardi paid an “undisclosed sum” to Matthew Whitton and Rick Dyer, the two Georgia men who say they found the body, for their frozen corpse and the privilege of trotting them out in front of TV cameras.

At the same time, Biscardi sent self-described “Sasquatch detective” Steve Kulls back to Georgia to check out the body.

Kulls, it’s safe to say, was severely disappointed.

The upshot? The real Bigfoot, once found, is now missing. So are Whitton, Dyer and Biscardi’s money.

Two guys, a rubber suit, and one well-executed scam. Hope Biscardi gets his money back.

And back into the realm of the credulous I go.

August 19th, 2008 by graeme | | 2 comments »

gear

Now you can be as fast as Michael Phelps

In case you were feeling bad about yourself in the wake of Michael Phelps’ record smashing Olympic performance, fear not. Technology comes to the rescue once again, riding a shimmering white horse. That shoots lasers out of its eyes.

Presented for your consideration, the Lunocet Monofin:

This carbon fibre and titanium wonder can take an average swimmer and propel them up to 13kph. Michael Phelps can only go 8kph. And he’s very likely an alien superbeing. In fact, you can generate so much thrust with this thing, it is theoretically possible to get completely out of the water, dolphin-style.

Speaking of which, dolphin-style is all the rage these days, even among dolphins. It was thought only trained dolphins actually do the tail-stand thing. But the trick is gaining popularity among one group of wild dolphins near the Australian coast. Apparently, one of the pod’s members, Billie, spent some time in an aquarium after being rescued from a river lock. While she wasn’t actually trained to do a tail-stand, she did observe others doing them. And, she apparently liked it so much, she introduced it to her family. Clever. A little too clever, in fact.

To conclude: dolphins are smart, and Michael Phelps is fast. But thanks to the monofin, you can continue to be smarter than a dolphin (we hope) and faster than Phelps. Better living through carbon fibre. Via Gizmodo.

August 19th, 2008 by graeme | | 2 comments »

green bin

My road to 100 push ups: week the third

All right, now things are starting to get serious.

I’m now doing 105-120 push ups per session, with about 60-120 seconds of rest time betweem sets. I’m occasionally taking slightly longer rests between the penultimate and final sets, mostly because my arms feel like they’ve been tenderized. Slight cause for concern there, but not too bad overall.

As a wise man once told me, “true strength is balance through the body”. So, to avoid having a massive chest, bad posture and weak legs, I’ve been rolling in a fairly comprehensive back/shoulder and ab workout alongside my push ups. It’s amazing the quality workout you can get with $5 elastics and a Swiss ball. A nice side effect of the 100 push up challenge is that its motivating me to improve my overall fitness, not just my ability to push things.

On to week four. Over halfway there. Will I do it? Damn good question.

August 19th, 2008 by graeme | | 6 comments »