I frequently love Stephen King novellas — the length seems to let him explore his Americana side without getting bogged down in supernatural bunk and cliches.  One of my favorite books of his is Different Seasons, which includes The Body (which spawned the excellent movie Stand by Me (****), Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption (which spawned the excellent movie The Shawshank Redemption (****), and Apt Pupil.

Full Dark, No Stars is dark — each story has some nastiness of human nature at its core.  Interesting, compelling, and probably the best thing I’ve read of his in years.

Anthropology books seem most interesting when they talk about sex, and this one’s no exception.

Sex at Dawn is dedicated to debunking myths that our species is, at heart, a monogamous one with hypersexual males and reluctant females.  Tons of fun stuff about primates and hunter/gatherer cultures suggest that the human animal likes lots of sex with lots of partners.

Also:  Duh.

It does seem amazing that the idea that there’s anything natural about the nuclear family has gotten any traction at all in the face of our desires and behavior.

Also, gorillas have a one-inch penis.

Fascinating reading.

Will forwarded a comment applying Spaceward Ho! to Obama’s state of the union speech.

It’s nice that somebody’s paying attention.

Is it wrong to check out a book from the library just because the author’s name is Mira?

Feed is set some 30 years after a zombie pandemic that messed up the world without quite wrecking it.  Our heros are a group of bloggers following a presidential campaign.

The most interesting thing is that the zombies aren’t really the focus of the story.  They’ve been around so long that everybody takes them for granted.  That’s not to say that there’s not a fair amount of running and moaning and shooting, but a lot more words are dedicated to setting up network feeds and managing staff.

Overall:  Flabby.  Pass.

Christian Bale steals the show in a supporting role as Marky Mark’s crack addict brother.  Most of the movie is a painful and twisted take on being dragged down by a dysfunctional family.  It kind of leaps into Rocky 2 territory at the end for some reason, but it does it well, so I’m not going to fault it.

I never saw the original Green Hornet series, though I did see Dragon: The Bruce Lee Story (1993, **), which implied that it was all about Lee’s awesomeness as Kato.

Kato’s fight choreography was pretty cool.  Some of the banter between Kato and the Hornet was slightly amusing.  There were a great many jokes about them denying homosexuality — a little funny the first time.

I’m an unfan of Cameron Diaz.  I think she believes that she’s funnier and smarter and cuter than she really is.

Acceptable popcorn flick.

A couple of weeks ago, my router started crashing every couple of hours, bringing my network down with it.  I hate that.  Why do routers seem to wear out after a couple of years?  Solid-state electronics aren’t supposed to get tired.

Anyway, I bought a replacement, but the old one stopped failing on me.  So I took the new one out of the box, and it’s setting next to the old one, waiting.  I’m watching you, old router!  One slip-up, and bam!  You’re out of here.

It knows.  It’s being extra diligent now.

Timmer said a few days ago that running bleachers can burn calories 2-3 times faster than running.

Obviously the calories one burns has a lot more to do with how hard one is exercising than the type of exercise one is doing.

Running, I can sustain a pace of about 9 minutes per mile for an hour, burning around 13 kcal per minute.  Over a single mile, I can probably sustain about 21 kcal per minute.

I could not sustain 26 kcal per minute for an hour, no matter what the exercise is.  Nor could I do 42 kcal per minute for five minutes.  Maybe running bleachers at 6 mph burns twice as many calories as running at 6 mph, though.

I ran 400m in college, and I don’t know how many calories I burned over that minute.  Maybe 33ish?  All I know is that afterwards, I was completely done.  (Also, I tended to barf a few minutes later.)

The calories per minute chart I found claimed that wrestling burned about 7 kcal per minute.  To that, I say, “Ha!” Judging by my exhaustion, I’d say that competitive wrestling is a lot closer to the 30 range than 7.  (Perhaps they’re saying it averages out to 7 if you lump the 9 minutes of wrestling with the hours of rest you’ll need afterward.)

Timmer pointed out that a ladder treadmill wouldn’t have the same exercise value as a real ladder, since one’s body isn’t really increasing elevation.

I’ve often had the same thought about stair machines at the gym — since you’re not actually going up, the net work done from lifting your body should be zero, and you might as well just be walking in place.

It sure doesn’t feel that way, though. I get pooped, even holding still.  Are my legs doing the work of lifting me, just by keeping me from falling?  It feels like it.  Does it have to do with the minor ups and downs that occur during each stride?  I don’t think so.

If I weren’t so old and stiff-brained, I’m pretty sure I’d get out pencil and paper and start sketching monkeys climbing ropes on pulleys, and figure out where the energy is really going.  Anybody?  Physics majors?

A couple of years ago I bought a pair of football pants for a dollar at a sporting goods store that was going out of business.  They’re a pleasure to run in, even if they don’t look especially heterosexual.  Mmmmm, polyester.