The Chris Cardé Experience

Ok, Obama's kids are cute.  Really cute.  I'd vote for them, too. 

Curling is the poster child for the bizarrest Winter Olympic sport, and one (seemingly) requiring the least amount of athleticism. People debate the sportiness of many of the Summer subjective sports such as diving (solo and synchronized), gymnastics, and equestrian. However, racewalking has to be the weirdest sport in the Summer Olympics, if not all of the Olympics.

Race walking is a long distance race on foot with one stipulation: you have to walk. How do you define walking? According to Wikipedia:

"There are two rules that govern racewalking. The first dictates that the athlete's back toe cannot leave the ground until the heel of the front foot has touched. Violation of this rule is known as loss of contact. The second rule requires that the supporting leg must straighten from the point of contact with the ground and remain straightened until the body passes over it."

There are three events at the Olympics for racewalking: 20k men's, 20k women's, and 50k men's. While you might imagine a group of men and women gently strolling in the park as a competition, the times say otherwise.

The world record times for (as of 8-22-08):

Men's 20km - 1:16:43 by Sergey Morozov (Russia)
Women's 20km - 1:24:50 by Olimpiada Ivanova (Russia)
Men's 50km - 3:34:13 by Denis Nizhegorodov (Russia)

Just to put it in perspective:
20km (12.5mi) in 1:16:43 is at a 3:50/km pace (6:08/mi) and
50km (31.25mi) in 3:34:13 is at a 4:17/km pace (6:51/mi)

Now consider this. The first ever world record for the Marathon in 1896 (which was slightly shorter at 40km) was 2:58:50 which is at a 4:28/km pace (7:09/mi). Athletes are now walking faster than they ran hundred years ago.

I don't know about you but I can't run an eight minute mile for any reasonable distance much less 20km. I don't know of a single person who ran a marathon under 3 hours 50 minutes or a half marathon under 1 hour 40 minutes.

These guys/girls are seriously fast, and they look funny doing it.



You can hear some people laughing in the background, and I can't blame them (if you are reading this on Facebook, the video doesn't embed unfortunately).

As soon as I put up the previous post, I get connected to another stranger through Salmoning (though the screen names end in Trout now) who quickly reminds me that not everyone out there is nice, caring, or willing to spend the time to make your day:

ChattyTrout: Is freedom a bad thing?
atuti777: man, salmons are really becoming trouts
ChattyTrout: what's your problem?!
ChattyTrout: loser
ChattyTrout: suck a cock
atuti777: you show up as ChattyTrout
atuti777: what do I show up as?
ChattyTrout: a pussy!

I'll spare everyone the vulgarities of the conversation that ensued.

Walking back from Menlo Park today, I found the following worn down message on the ground (click to enlarge):

Front:


Back:


At first I thought it was a card to someone that was accidentally dropped. Upon further inspection, I learned that the card was intended for me. It made my day. Thank you stranger.

In Japan, all-you-can-eat establishments and buffet style restaurants are referred to as "Viking" (phonetically Bai-ki-n-gu). While I never questioned the origins of this term as a kid, especially since I knew the Japanese use of the word Viking before I knew what the Vikings were or English, as Viking turned 50 this week, I came across an article and a Wikipedia entry (both in Japanese) that explained the origins of the word.

In 1957, the manager of the Teikoku Hotel in Tokyo took a trip to Scandinavia where he came across the Smorgasbord. As such concepts did not exist in Japan then, he returned home and instructed the chief chef to replicate the idea. Meanwhile, as Smorgasbord is an incredibly difficult and clumsy word to pronounce for Japanese people, surveys were taken inside the company for a new name for this concept. Inspired by the extravagant dining scene in the movie "The Vikings" (1958), and as the Vikings were from Scandinavia, the all-you-can-eat concept was named as such. The first Viking restaurant was opened in the hotel in August 1st, 1958. The restaurant was overly popular and the term Viking embedded itself in the fabric of Japanese culture.

Vikings are common in Japan for hotel breakfasts and lunches, Korean barbeque, hot pot, and even sometimes sushi. However, almost all restaurants except for the upscale hotels usually have time limits and the all-you-can-eat can be paired with all-you-can-drink.

In a mostly unrelated side note, at Rice University, "Viking-fucking-table" was the term for a group of drunk college students grotesquely devouring dining hall food without using utensils (and sometimes without hands).

... and he has 274 friends already (none mutual).

.... endlich! Obwohl wir letztes Jahr schon einige unglaublich schoene Wanderungen im Yosemite NP in Californien gemacht haben, hatten wit trotzdem das Gefuehl, dass uns noch irgendetwas dort fehlt: naemlich die Besteigung des "Half Dome's" ...

... und herzlich willkommen Anton Philipp (3.8.2008) !!!!!

I have a friend that washes his fruits with dish soap. His rationale is that because fruits are treated with various insecticides, you need something to clean it off, and you already inadvertently consume dish soap off of your plates anyway. Does anyone else find this practice odd and disturbing? I prefer just water washing my apples and strawberries...

Interlaken at Dusk

<<<Previous|Next>>>

*Apparently MySpace hates me, because this is the 10th time I've tried to post this bitch, and after staying up till 1AM to draw the damn comic, I just want this thing up... Hey there faithful readers...

...every year has some "next big thing" female British singer.  Don't believe me?  I present to you People's Exhibit A... Pre-2003 - Beth Orton/Dido 2004 - Jem 2005 - M.I.A. 2006 - Lady Sove...

But it's pouring outside, and I'm slightly bored... 1. WHO WERE YOU NAMED AFTER? Film legend and man's man Steve McQueen.2. WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED? Boys don't cry. 3. DO YOU LIKE YOUR HANDWR...

Over the past few weeks, the buzz around the new monster movie Cloverfield keeps growing and I hear people saying they can't wait to see it...and I'm thinking, seriously WTF?!?!  I'm n...