Runners ruin running

Writing in the Wall Street Journal last week, lawyer Cameron Stracher said,

The demise of the American runner was hastened by the success of the first running boom in the 1970s and the embrace of running as a “pastime” rather than a sport.

Stracher has some impressive finish times in races, but this attitude he’s copping won’t win him any fans. Yes, U.S. runners are pokier than they were in 1979, and that’s because they/we are a lot OLDER than they were in 1979, and there’s no next generation in their teens or twenties that’s catching the running bug. But it makes no sense to blame the recreational and/or average runners who provide the money to support all of the road races, and the running shoe industry.

A month ago I said I’d be looking for a different running shoe, and I’ve found one. It’s the Asics GT-2150.

From Elvis to Hitch to God

I’m scanning through as many episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents as I can before Netflix pulls the series from its Watch Instantly selections tomorrow. Season three includes an installment with Dolores Hart, fresh from appearing with Elvis in Loving You, playing a seductive — and, I infer, pregnant — college coed.

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Elvis must have liked Dolores, because she was also in King Creole. What makes Dolores particularly interesting, and unusual, is that at age 25 she left Hollywood and became a nun, which she remains to this day.

The Revolution will not be colorized

If you’re like me, you’ll think this is the most interesting thing you’ve seen today. Full color photographs, not colorized, taken in Russia between 1910-15, by Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii.

Hey, wait a sec’… the Library of Congress bought those photographic plates back in ’48?? That was only a year before the Soviets had their first atomic bomb test! Some Commie sympathizer in the LoC wasted American post-war taxpayer money on Russian photos?? I’m outraged!

Best Buy at Wal*Mart

I really obsess before purchasing electronics. Eric needs a laptop computer for college, and we agreed that it should have a Blu-ray player with HDMI. The problem was, I had budgeted $600 for the purchase, and Blu-ray laptops are $750 and up. But then I found this Acer Aspire model on Wal*Mart’s web site for $598:

Acer 15.6″ Aspire AS5551-4200 Laptop PC with AMD Turion X2 Dual-Core P520 Processor, Blu-Ray Disc Drive & Windows 7 Home Premium 64-Bit Edition

Over the past month I’ve looked at a lot of laptop computers in Best Buy, Staples, Wal*Mart, and BJ’s Warehouse, and this Acer is a great unit, regardless of price. I’ve been very happy with my Acer Aspire One netbook, and the construction quality of this full-featured laptop is excellent. Blu-ray video discs start up much more quickly than on standalone players, and the playback is perfectly smooth.

FedEx shipping was only $0.97, and after placing the order on Sunday (a sales tax holiday in Massachusetts) it shipped on Monday and arrived on Wednesday. I know that Wal*Mart is thought of as being the Evil Empire, but I couldn’t pass up this deal.

Follow-up: The price has dropped to $578! This is the #1 bargain right now for a Windows laptop.