Stretching is not so great afterall

Research suggests that stretching does not affect soreness or risk of injury during exercise.

~NY Times

According to at least two studies reported on in by the New York Times, stretching is not as beneficial as it has been thought. It does not lesson the chance of injury during activity. Stretching does not decrease the amount of soreness one might feel after a difficult workout.

The reason I am so happy about this is I never stretch, and I always get yelled at for it, whether by my boyfriend, my roommate, or my mother I always get told: "If you had stretched you wouldn't be sore right now." Well HA! I would be sore anyways!

Pictures

The signature piece of pottery from the Jomon of Japan. This was the first culture to develope fired pottery (based on current dates).



In homage of the worst holliday hallmark has ever invented (see earlier post for more details)




Since television is currently lacking any interesting sports (I do not consider basketball interesting, it's just a personal preference) here are some pictures of the most exciting contest currently underway. Who will win for the Democrates?? Obama? Clinton?



Gorrillas do it face to face! Apparently scientist had not witnessed gorrillas have sex in the missionary position, until now! Isn't this exciting!?!?



Mr. Thaci talks to the press as the announcement for Kosovo's independence becomes ever closer. The announcement is expected to happen any day now, with the U.S. stating that they will recognize Kosovo when the time comes.



A Pterodactyl fossil has been found in China. "We have this really amazing creature, sparrow sized, which lived essentially in the trees, showing us a very new, very interesting side of the evolutionary history of those animals," said Alexander W. A. Kellner of the National Museum of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Valentines Day

I am not a fan of this so called holiday. This probubly stems from listening to my father talk about it as a conspiracy created by halmark and other corporations to increase sales. However, the idea of it being a "Hallmark Holiday" doesn't bother me too much, after all what holiday isn't one now a days. There are two main reasons I dislike the holiday.

1. The Expectations. Every man knows that he is expected to do something great. Each guy then either tries to reach those expectations or not, in either case he fails. Why does he fail? Because women create these crazy ideas of what they "expect" their significant others to do on this loathsome holiday. These expectations are usually above and beyond what any normal person would think on any other day, thus dooming the men because they can't possibly meet these expectations. Then when expectations are met the girl either has to pretend like they were, even though there is dissapointment or be out right disappointed (hopefully she chooses the former).

2. A years worth of romance and thoughtfulness is cramed into one day. It's too confining. If someone thinks of something really sweet to do for their significant other they are far more likely to save it for valentines day than to just act upon their inspiration. These means instead of a romantic day on November 6 or July 23 the couple get one day, with the rest of America on February 14. I personally would much rather smaller romantic things throughout the year than one out of proportion day.

So those are my thoughts on February 14.

$1 Paperback!

I LOVE books! I like to read them. I like to have them site on my shelf and look pretty. I love books.

Yesterday a group had a book sale. It was a fundraiser, where all of the proceeds would go to the winner of the "Outstanding Student Award" given by the Alumni Association. There were over 1,000 books on sale. All of the books were donated by one professor. What's crazy about this, besides the fact that one guy has over 1,000 books available to donate, is that he only donated the books that were in his attic because they couldn't fit in his library. THE MAN HAS A LIBRARY!

How many books do you need to have before you can call something a library? How does one person collect that many books? How many books do you have to have to donate over 1,000 without blinking?

This man amazies me.

I, of course, bought some books. I purchased 7 books for $8. Each paperback was $1 (5 for $4) and each hardcover was $3. (Can you figure out how many paperbacks and hardcovers I bought?) The 7 books includded:

Michangelo and the Pope's Ceiling
Journey to Portugal
Lost Cities and Ancient Mysteries of South America
The Complete Writings of Thucydides
Chocolat
The Creators
The Chrysanthemum and the Sword

Lazer Tag is not Cool

Apparently Lazer Tag is only for little kids and dorks. I learned this when John and I tried to get some people together to play Lazer Tag this weekend. John was inspired to suggest the game and I was overwhelmingly enthusiastic for the idea. So we called a few people up seeing if we could get a group of us together to play.

No one wanted to play!

I was astonished. We were not dettered. John and I headed out to the Lazer Tag arena where we promptly signed up for two games. (While waiting for our first game to start I bet John in a game of air hockey.) The first game we played against eachother. Sadly he shot me more than I shot him, but that is only do to a photo shot in my direction in the last 30 seconds of play. Stupid Photons. What ever happend to simple point and shoot Lazer Tag. (Now they have photo blasters and shields...it's ridiculous.)

The second game had alot more people and we decided to be on the same team. John ended up coming 5th out of 34 people and I was 12th. Not bad.

Lazer tag was lots of fun. It was also, surprisingly exhausting. All the running, climbing, ducking. It really drives up the adrenalline.

After a couple great games I have to say Lazer Tag is awesome. It is definatly not just for kids.

A succesful mix of Umbrella?

Is this really possible? The song Umbrella has been used in a very successful mix. The mix includes 27 different songs, and yes one of them is Umbrella. It could be the best mix I've ever heard. You can download the song at wired965.com for free. It was mixed by DJ Earworm (what a name huh?) and is call State of Pop.

I have pretty much avoided being one of those people who love to buy music and play it all the time. I had a few cd's of tried and true artists and was perfectly content. Plus my best friend always had a vast array of new music for me to dabble in, that was, until recently. Recently I have become addicted to finding new music. While much of this music may not be new to the you and the rest of the musically inclined people of the world it is new to me. Two of my most recent finds are Ugly Cassanova and Vampire Weekend. Which brings me to anouther thing...how do bands come up with these crazy names? Vampire Weekend? What, did they watch a whole weekend of vampire movies and decide to start a band after Dracula finally died on Sunday?

"You have no fear of the underdog. That's why you will not survive." -Underdog by Spoon

Word of the Day!

So I love saying Wahoo! As in an expressions to show delight, but today a very dear friend found out that a wahoo is an actual thing. It's a word not just a sound. So here it is for all of you to bask in the greatness that is the wahoo.

American Heritage Dictionary -

wa·hoo (wä-hōō', wä'hōō) Pronunciation Key
n. pl. wa·hoos
A deciduous shrub or small tree (Euonymus atropurpurea) of eastern North America, having small purplish flowers, pink fruit, and scarlet arillate seeds.

2008 Election...

Now that February 5 has come and gone The Republicans have united behind John McCain. I have to say out of the final three republican candidates, McCain is probubly the best. I haven't been following the Republican race very closely. I've scanned a few headlines, read one or two articles, but nothing serious. Now that there is only one Republican left I am finally sitting down and taking a goos look at the candidate. I visited John McCain's official website today. I have come to the conclusion that I will not be voting for this candidate. He makes some valid points on many issues, but the direction he wants to lead the country in most of the issues just doesn't sit well with me. Can't same I'm very surprised. I've been a libral all my life, and although I consider myself an independant I tend to lean towards the side of the Democrates.

As to which Democrate candidate I prefer...well the ones I liked left the race...so now I'm thinking.

I'll get back to you on that one.

Back to School (Part 2)

So now I have been back in school for almost a week. I've had both of my courses and have started the homework/reading assignments due next week. I'm still excited to be back in school, but after a monday that lasted from 9am to 10pm (this does not include my commute) it's lost a bit of it's euphoria.

I am taking two Master's of Arts Management (MAM) courses at GMU. The first is "Board Members Management." This course explores the realtionship between Board Member volunteers and the staff, specifically the arts director and executive director. It's an interesting course. We are going to be studying various cases throughout the semester. I'm intrigued, as I have never had to deal with a Board. I think I'll learn alot from this, and the reading is also very managable. Thankfully.

The second course is Art's Policy. Now this course has the potential to be great. I couldn't get a real feel for it in the first session, but I'm hoping for the best. So far the reading is a bit repetative, each of the 4 articles are pretty much saying the same thing. Arts are important for a culture, and are protected in our constitutional rights. That's great, but anyone who has ever dealt with the arts and actually sat down to think about it could have figured that out. I'm hoping it'll improve, afterall it is the first week.

The hardest part of this is definatly going to be sitting still and paying attention to a lecture for 3 hours per class.

olympic pictures

The official medals for the Beijing Olymipic games were revealed this week.



China is having difficulties getting ready for the Olympics. They are supposed to clean their air before the arrival of the athlets by going green, but as you can see from this picture taken last Friday, their not having much luck. Hopefully they will clean up their act an the athletes will be aable to breath.