Andy Gapin

I got myself out of bed for a pre-work run this morning. It was tough getting up, but once I was on my feet, I was good to go. Now that the fiancée is back to being able to run regularly, we’re going to stick to a schedule I made last week. The longer runs will start this weekend, but we’re going to do shorter runs than I’m normally used to during the week. Today was just 4 miles, but I was just happy to not have any pain in my leg. The pace was slow for me, but that’s alright. I’ll probably pick it up to something more normal to me tomorrow morning.

Today was the first run since the pain on the treadmill on Monday. I took the rest of the week off and decided to come back lightly today with a short run at a slower pace. I started out the run feeling like I was running in place, but RunKeeper told me that I was under an 8 minute mile. The second mile was slightly slower than that since it was almost entirely up an incline and with the state of my calf and Achilles earlier in the week, I didn’t want to take any risk. I slowed it down a little. I turned around after the second mile with intentions of stopping at 3 miles, but my pace picked up a little. I didn’t even notice that I was running faster, but the 3rd mile was almost 7:30/mile.

So far, I was feeling really good. I REALLY didn’t want to stop, so I didn’t. I should have, but I didn’t. I ran just under another half mile before I finally could convince myself to stop while I was ahead. I was pain-free the entire time. I’m a little tight now and it’s slightly sore, but I got past that 3.33 mile mark where the pain came on in both of my last runs. I’m going to take tomorrow off and run on Monday and hope for the best.

Blake Schwartzenbach’s new band, forgetters, has a new song posted and it’s pretty solid. This is a lot better than the forgettable forgetters EP from a few months ago, it sounds much more like Jawbreaker too. Nice.

I’m not going to go too much into depth about last night’s Lawrence Arms show at the North Star Bar in Philly, but it was awesome. As with the other four or five times I’ve seen them, they tore through an awesome set that only left something to be desired because the band has too many great songs to fit into a single night.

As usual, Brendan was solidly drunk and had plenty of banter to go around, but about a third of it was slurred and completely unintelligible. Chris was quiet, kind of looked like he could barely stay awake, and his voice sounded a bit off. I couldn’t see much of Neil, but as a whole, the band was on.

I brought my camera, but the North Star Bar is pretty dark inside and I didn’t really have a good spot to take shots from so I kept the camera in my bag until the last few songs. I fired off a bunch of shots towards the end, but I wasn’t really in the position to get anything too spectacular. That and I was too busy enjoying the show to really worry about it, so here are a few photos that all look the same.

I tried to run over the weekend, but had to stop after just over a block because of pain in my leg left over from whatever it is that happened last Wednesday. It sucked, but I felt the pain right away and didn’t want to make anything worse.

So we were supposed to get up this morning and run before work, but we looked out the window at 5:30a and saw roaring winds. We said screw that and went back to sleep. Unfortunately, by the time we left work, it was rainy and cold out so we took a trip to the gym for some treadmill torture. I was still a little weary about my leg still so I started off a little slow, but I was feeling alright after a couple minutes. I could feel a little weirdness, but it seemed okay. It wasn’t really pain, just weirdness. So I bumped it up to a 7:30/mile pace and was feeling pretty good and my leg felt fine by the time I hit a mile. My original goal was 4 miles, but I was feeling like I could squeeze out 6.

Then, I hit 3.33 miles and all of a sudden there was pain in my leg. It was pretty bad. I was able to run out the rest of that mile at a MUCH slower pace…like a 9:30/mile. But even that was rough and awkward. I stopped at 4 and have spent the whole night in pain. I’m not sure what I did, but I’m going to have to take off until at least Saturday and see how it feels. I don’t want to make it worse, but I’ve got to keep the training going too.

Megamind is the second of two CGI movies this year that focus their story around the villain instead of the hero. The first was Despicable Me which didn’t really have a “good guy” per se, but was pretty awesome. Megamind is a little different though in that there is a good guy who is much like Superman. We don’t care about him though. We follow the Lex Luger of the story and are instantly tricked into falling in love with him while being convince that Metro Man, our supposed hero, is actually a bit of a cocky showoff.

Megamind follows a bit of a different path than your average superhero movie. Instead of good always winning, we find out what happens when the bad guy wins and there is no longer is a superhero to stop him from running rampant. Much like a spoiled child, Megamind becomes bored and unfulfilled after having everything he’s ever wanted. With no one to fight back, he finds his life almost meaningless. So, he creates a new superhero to replace Metro Man. You can imagine how that quickly goes awry and the tables get turned. As you knew was going to happen all along, Megamind gets shoved across the line over to the good side.

Megamind is solid flick overall that seems to have more to offer adults than it does children as there are references all over the place to superhero movies of yesterday. We’re presented with a solid idea that is executed very well. The film maintains a level of sophistication and depth while still handing out plenty of laughs. The focus is more on story than action, which is awesome.

One of the best things about Megamind is that we get something very solid from Will Ferrell. Dude’s been pretty hit or miss recently, but lending his voice for animated films may be a good route for him to go. Jonah Hill and David Cross are so much themselves that you almost forget they’re playing characters and just kind of start to see them up there on the screen. This is a great thing for David Cross and a pretty okay thing for Jonah Hill.

Rating: A

I got a couple new Threadless shirts in the mail last week, but I haven’t had a chance to post them yet because of the move. “People Like Us” was a random shirt. I’m not really that into it, but it’s alright. Threadless doesn’t do random shirts often (I don’t recall ever seeing them do it before, actually) so I figured it’d be worth a shot since they have so many good shirts.

“The Red” is a shirt I’ve been eyeing for a while, but never got because of how low the graphic goes on the shirt. Shirts like that rarely look good on me. But since they had a sale going for Halloween, I figured it was finally time to pull the trigger. I’m wearing it today and it actually looks pretty good on.

Today was supposed to be an off day and should have stayed that way, but because it’s supposed to rain tomorrow, we felt like running tonight would be better than running in the morning. The temperature wasn’t too bad, I wore shorts and a long sleeve shirt and that was it. It was perfect. I wasn’t cold, I wasn’t hot, I was completely perfect, even three miles in.

I ran with the fiancée for a little bit, but she turned back at 2 miles so she could keep herself to 4 total. I was planning on doing 6 miles. I had a great run going, I was feeling awesome, but I ran out of sidewalk (I’m still trying to figure out the best route here for a 6 mile run around the new place). I started running on the grass on the side of the road for a bit, but I was wearing all black and couldn’t see anything, it was completely dark out and I was on the side of a very busy road. It wasn’t safe so I turned around. Just after getting back to the sidewalk, I got nailed with some show-stopping pain in my left calf. It was bad. It felt like a charley horse, almost, but it was bad. I had to stop instantly. I couldn’t push through at all…and I didn’t want to risk injury anyway. I left RunKeeper going for a couple minutes (hence the 28 minutes for 3.45 miles, I don’t know what the time was when I stopped running). I was hoping to be able to start going again, but I couldn’t. What sucked even more was that this left me stuck 3 miles from home. I had to walk back…in pain. That sucked.

So now, I’m at home in a little bit of pain when sitting and a decent amount when walking or going up/down the stairs. This isn’t good. I’m optimistic that I just need a day or two and this isn’t actually an injury, but I’m slightly scared that I’ll be out for a few days or even a week. I really don’t even know what happened or how I did this. I didn’t feel any awkward steps and I was feeling great.

Yikes.

I generally keep politics-based rants to a minimum here, but…

The results of yesterday’s election aren’t surprising, we all knew the outcome months ago. We knew the Democrats were going to get slammed, we knew many Americans were going to base their vote simply on voting whoever was the incumbant out with little to no other consideration made.

Regardless of what people are saying the reasons for all of this are, what it really comes down to is the fact that Democrats have no balls. Neither individually nor collectively.

It’s no secret that I’m extremely liberal, but the thing is, I think I can’t stand the Democrats more than I can’t stand the Republicans. I disagree with just about everything that the right says and does, but the problem with the left is they don’t stand up to the right. They don’t fight for what they feel is the best course of action for the country. While Bush was in office, the Republicans had control of Washington and they pushed through everything they wanted. They spent eight years screwing up this country so badly that two years wouldn’t have been enough for anyone to fix it. But the thing that the Democrats don’t understand is that the Republicans got things done. They were the wrong things, but they got done.

The joke of a Democrat-controlled Washington started immediately when they gained control and Pelosi and company refused to call Bush on his shit and refused to investigate his administration. The Republicans showed Clinton now mercy and pounced on one of the world’s greatest pleasures, a blowjob, yet Bush (and friends) lied about real shit, was responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocent people, got us into this recession, etc., etc, and the Democrats just turned the other way. I would say this set the tone for the last two years, but it’s nothing new for the Democrats. No mercy should have been shown. An iron fist should have come down on the Bush Administration and the Democrats should have sent a clear message that they were out to undo the wrongs of the previous eight years, that they really were the “change” they campaigned on. They should have come on with guns blazing. They did none of this.

Democrats took complete control of Washington in 2008 and have done what? Unlike when the Republicans had control, they didn’t push through the legislation that needed to be done. Instead, they stayed in the middle and mostly kept the status quo (I’ll say right now that, beyond this sentence, I’m not even going to acknowledge the joke of a health care bill that finally got passed). They worried too much about the Republicans. They should have been pushing through everything that this country needed to get back on track.

In 2008, I was inspired and taken hold of by Obama. His speeches and campaign made me hopeful and showed that there was a bright future ahead of us. I was excited to cast my vote for him. I couldn’t wait for Election Day. Now it’s 2010 and Obama hasn’t done anything to keep that hope and “change” alive. Where is the man that inspired us all? Someone, please tell me.

The past two years have been spent trying to make friends and hanging out in the middle. Where has that gotten the Obama and the Democrats? Take a look at the results from yesterday’s election and you’ll see. It’s gotten a large amount of their party booted.

The Democrats had a chance to fix the wrongs and get us back on the right track, but they stagnated. Obama didn’t take a stance of doing what he knew needed to be done for the sake of this country, what he promised to do, even if it cost him a second term. He had a Congressional majority that he squandered. We spent eight years moving backwards and two years stagnating, now we’ll spend another two stagnating because of this.

As much as I disagree with the right, there’s something to learn from them…quit trying to make friends and just get shit done! Don’t be a spineless turd. Stand up for what you believe in and make it happen, those that oppose you aren’t going to work with you to help you achieve your goals. You can’t play nice in Washington and Republicans know that…because they’re the ones that aren’t playing nice.

The fact that the Tea Party actually got taken somewhat seriously is an embarrassment to the entire left. They spent the last year and half (or whatever it’s been since they started up) constantly on the attack. Did the Dems attack back? Nope. They watched as a movement based solely on pure insanity and misinformation gained media attention and grew in popularity. It’s a shame that finally a large group of Americans got organized and got somewhere, yet turn out to be a bunch of morons. But they’re morons that fought with flamethrowers while against a small group of aimless children armed with squirt-guns. The Dems should have been fighting back with fire-hoses. They should have made it abundantly clear what kinds of lies and misinformation the Tea Party was basing their entire existence on. They didn’t. They could have completely embarrassed the Tea Party. They didn’t.

In the end, what it comes down to is that while most American voters are easily manipulated, uninformed, and not very intelligent, the real blame is on Democrats for not having the balls to actually fight and make things happen. This isn’t a movie where the good guys win simply because they’re the good guys. Real life doesn’t work that way. If you want to win, you need to have a spine and a pair or two of balls. Figurative balls.

And we’re all going to suffer because of it.