• I’m going to hold off on running until I see a doctor about the splints, which I’ve finally got an appointment to do in 8 days. I just want a clearer picture of what I’ve been doing to myself here, and how to treat it, before I proceed. At this point, it’s probably a non-issue, but I want to be sure of that. Oddly enough, extreme pain from wearing out my legs didn’t bother me, but very slight, nagging pain in one part of my leg even without any further stress on it, that does. To me, that tells me that lasting damage may have been done, and I want to know, one way or the other, and get some more advice on how to continue my training without continuing to fuck myself up too badly.

• Because I’m nuts, because the economy sucks and because the ad slots aren’t exactly flying off the shelves despite my pretty decent traffic, I’ve slashed prices on text ads to an almost negligible amount. If you just wanna buy an ad for the day, it’s still a buck because AdBrite won’t let me charge less, but if you want a week’s worth, it’s $1.75 now (or a quarter a day), and for a month, it’s only $3.00, or a dime a day! If nothing else, you get the benefit of my still-pretty-solid traffic looking at whatever you’d like them to look at, for less than the cost of oral sex from an Alaskan teen mom on the campaign trail! (Oh, stop. The people in your office are going to ask you why you’re booing your monitor, and then you’re gonna have to explain it to them.) Sign up today!

• Sunday is Marathon Day, folks! I’ll be doing my usual live updates for what I believe is the 8th year in a row. Next year, I’d like to be running it rather than covering it, but we’ll see how my training goes, and also how the application process goes. For those who actually keep track of the athletes in the race: on the mens’ side, my man Paul Tergat (see him while you can, folks, as he ain’t gettin’ any younger!), Henrik Ramaala, Abderrahim Goumri (newer to the marathon than the rest, but threatening a lot in the past 2 seasons), and Marilson Gomes dos Santos (who, despite looking as scared as I’ve ever seen a man look, managed to outrun Paul Tergat and Stephen Kiogora to win in 2006) look like your frontrunners (some solid rivalries there, and 3 past winners, to boot); the womens’ field is overflowing with great competitors, including Joyce Chepchumba, Rita Jeptoo, Tegla Loroupe, Catherine Ndereba, Ludmila Petrova, Paula Radcliffe and Gete Wami (a LOT of gold medals in that pack); among the wheelers, expect to see course record holder and professional badass Kurt Fearnley put in a strong showing in his attempt to threepeat against Krige Schabort and the pack, and watch to see if perennial womens’ wheeler champ Edith Hunkeler can recover from her second serious crash in the past 3 years to repeat as NYC champ against a great field that includes Sandra Graf, Diane Roy and 2006 winner Amanda McGrory.

• The archives are (and have been) down at the moment, but I’m working on resolving that today. Bear with me!

• I might be doing a lot more writing here soon. People keep encouraging me to spout off about everything from sports to politics to entertainment industry business models (all very tired subjects being covered ad nauseum elsewhere) much like I do conversationally, and even though I note to them that talking about these things and writing about them can be very different animals, there’s still apparently some appetite for my “voice”, so we’ll see.

5 minutes walking
4 minutes jogging/1 minute walking x 2
2 minutes jogging

*sound of me hitting wall*

18 minutes walking

Total time: 35 minutes
Total mileage: 1.85 miles

First time out in a while, hadn’t felt right prior to this, the time change has been messing with me too, and I’ve been busy as well. Lotta excuses, really.

What I can say about this time out is that while I’m not in a lot of pain, the little bit of pain I am in doesn’t feel right. It’s really mild, but very nagging pain, so I shut it down early. I’m having a doctor look at me on November 8th, so I’m just gonna have to be careful until then.

Onward to Monday. Gonna stay at the same training level until it feels comfortable.

Update: I got a migraine right after I finished running. That’s new, and probably unrelated to the running but the time was interesting.

Here’s a little something I just reluctantly posted on MySpace using my mostly-dormant account, that applies to areas of the ‘net that are not MySpace as well in some ways, so’s I’m reposting it here. I’m not in love with the fact that I wrote it, because I think it makes me feel and sound a little like a whiny baby to some degree, and because I really, really don’t like contributing to the cesspool that is MySpace anymore than I already have, but I think it’s relevant to more than just my little world and theirs.

People do tend to lose track of each other out here unless we’re right in front of each other and make it RIDICULOUSLY easy for others to keep in touch with us, like “spoon-fed” kind of easy, and it’s a shame. I’m guilty of it too, but I try my best to at least keep tabs on where everyone is and what they’re doing, even if I’m quiet at times, and I want the people I connect with to understand that they matter, even if I don’t always want to be where they choose to.

I’ve also been trying to be better about not giving too much of myself to entities like LiveJournal and MySpace that have proven themselves to be wholly unethical and mostly unremorseful about it (Facebook’s blunders like Beacon and the new layout, they at least accept some accountability for, and they make good where they can…), even though doing so comes dangerously close to that whole “pay wall” thing that sites like Techdirt rightfully warn against, so I’m glad that I’ve addressed both that (which will hopefully sway some more folks to my way of thinking on said sites), as well as the fact that I miss the people who still dwell in those places.

(Some folks may mention that I’m still on Second Life, given the fact that Linden Lab is such an ethical trainwreck, but I’ve limited my financial support of their endeavors as much as possible and am not actively creating new content there at the moment. If a more ethically and structurally sound alternative presents itself, I’ll definitely be looking into it. So that’s that.)

Anyway, here’s what I wrote:

“As some of you know, I stopped actively using MySpace to promote, well, anything about four and a half months ago, because the people who own, operate and maintain the site are petty, vindictive snakes who selectively enforce their Terms Of Service to suit their various personal agendas. Just about the only reason I haven’t deleted this profile, much as I love the people I’ve met here, is because I want to keep in touch with George Tabb, who, because of his health and life issues, doesn’t really have the time and energy to maintain more than what he has on MySpace. He’s excused for that, and I don’t ever want him to feel bad for doing what he has to, so if you’re reading this, George, don’t sweat it!

Now, as for the rest of you, at least the ones who haven’t kept in touch elsewhere? I don’t mean to berate y’all or be hostile (no one wants that…it’s kind of a drag…), and I’m not entirely surprised, because it’s easy to lose track of people when they’re not in your face on the ‘net these days (it’s that whole “out of sight, out of mind” thing; the same thing’s happened over on LiveJournal too, where I’ve started phasing out my active use because the ethics of their ownership are also kind of lacking, and my contingent from there has been a little quiet), but I have to say that I’m kind of disappointed that more of you haven’t put an effort into following me to my other destinations.

I am a pretty forgiving person, though, so I’m totally willing to turn the other cheek here, if you’re willing to put in the effort to keep in touch. I’d really love for those of you who I haven’t heard from in a while to reconnect. Help me stay on top of what’s going on in your life, and keep you in the loop about what’s up in mine. I’ll make it really easy for you to do.

I can be emailed at suck at mybigblackcock dot com. My Facebook page is here, and I’ve added a ton of music to it, for those of you who haven’t heard “the catalog” in a while. Or, if you’re so inclined and here more for the friendship than the music, you can find my personal Facebook account here if you’d like to add that (or search for “Scott Crawford”, I’m easy to find). And, of course, my web site is mybigblackcock dot com.

Oh, and you’re curious, I’m writing the address to my web site (and my email address) like that, because MySpace have seen it fit to accuse me of spamming and phishing and have refused to remove my URL from their spam and phishing folder. Not only are their accusations totally untrue (my 12 year presence on the ‘net is very well-documented), but ironically, pop-up ads and spyware are how your best friend Tom got started in “show business”. Do some homework on this place and the people who run it sometime soon, the founders are kinda despicable people (which isn’t even getting into what most of us think of their parent company). I swear, if it weren’t for my friend George (who should be your friend too, if he isn’t yet), I’d be so out of here.

Anyway, thanks for the time you spent reading this, thanks for giving enough of a damn to connect with me in the first place, and thanks in advance to any of you who do choose to migrate with me to my site, Facebook, or “wherever God takes me”, to quote the almighty NPH.

-S”

Guns N’ Roses’ “Chinese Democracy” to be released Sunday, November 23rd

Yep, gave it a go today. If all goes well over the next few days, I’m back. Still gonna have to put the 5K on hold, though. Bah.

5 minutes walking
4 minutes jogging/1 minute walking x 2
8 minutes jogging/2 minutes walking
1 minute jogging

*sound of me hitting wall here*

11 minutes walking

Total time: 37 minutes (supposed to be 33)
Total mileage: 2.05 miles

Went with the last workout level I finished strong on. My lungs gave out before my legs did, which is a good sign. Again, though, we’ll see how I feel over the next few days to a week. Will probably try again Saturday or Sunday if all goes well. Good to be back. Let’s hope it lasts.

Frank Caliendo sucks.

…but I’m pretty bothered by DirecTV’s new commercial, where they revived the late Heather O’Rourke (and dyed Craig T. Nelson’s hair) to hawk their service with a sendup of “Poltergeist”. Now, dead people in commercials, be it Col. Sanders, Orville Redenbacher or the old Coke commercials with Louis Armstrong and the like, are nothing new, but “Poltergeist” was a creepy movie to begin with, and the girl died at a very young age while making a “Poltergeist” sequel. There’s just something that doesn’t sit right with it about me. Maybe her parents beg to differ, I don’t know, but I’m squicked.