I Don’t Follow Celebrities’ Lives

Tagged as: Entertainment, Read-It Apr 30

How many people do you know who are more interested and involved in the lives of celebrities than in the lives of those around them? Too many? Yeah, me too.

Who Are They?

In the realm of entertainment, there are actors, musicians, athletes, and people who are nothing else except somehow rich. They all come together at events, walk around the same streets that we do, and have lives that occasionally defy soap operas in their outrageousness. But why are there people who don’t personally know the celebrities interested in them at all? Is it because they seem to belong to a higher social caste than we? Is it because they are prettier, richer, and more talented than us? Is it because they do things that we wouldn’t even dream of doing?

My Thoughts

Really I just don’t know why us common folk are interested in them. All I know is that I see people all over the place who are far more interested in celebrities (who they do not know) than in their friends and family (who they do know). Something doesn’t seem right about that does it?

I really don’t think that celebrities are that interesting. I respect their talent, and I’m definitely not opposed to entertainment. But I don’t care what kind of a drink they ordered at Starbucks last Wednesday or who was seen schmoozing with who at the hot club in Las Vegas. Nor do I care to use any of my brain to remember any other unnecessarily small fact about them. What kind of a world do we live in where we know the favorite candy of a star and don’t even know what is really going on with the guy right next to us?

It’s time to stop immersing ourselves in others’ lives and time to start living our own! (Or at least immerse yourself in someone’s life who knows that you exist. Who knows, something worthwhile might even come out of it.)

Running In Tempo

Tagged as: Activities, Exercise, Idea, Life, Read-It Sep 28

In Runner’s World Magazine, I recently read an article about tempo running that made me want to get back into the groove of running. Tempo running (also known as lactate-threshold or threshold running)

Until college, I always despised any running that I did. Whether for P.E. or for sports, it was always a chore that was done with little enjoyment. A necessary evil that we a prerequisite for the fun of something else.

And then in college something changed. My fitness level was probably about the same so that wasn’t it. My location and life were obviously different. Whatever the reason was, though, I started to realize that running allowed me to:

1. Stay fit
2. Get some fresh air
3. Explore the area on foot rather than in a car
4. Spend some time alone in my thoughts

I would run the loop around campus on a fairly regular basis. I even started to enter into a few races. What a turnaround from only a year or two before! In any case by the time that I left college I was fairly comfortable going out for runs for recreation and fitness purposes. In fact, I was even going out with other people occasionally for a little bit of socializing (in addition to the fitness benefit)!

So enough about the history of me and running. I started to recently run a little bit (only once or twice a week, mind you). However, after reading the article I was for some strange reason under an incorrect impression about tempo runs. I thought that they were run faster than they really are. I mean, “an 8 on a 1-to-10 scale” sounds pretty fast to me! But reading the rest of the article as well as another article on tempo runs made me realize that it’s simply more of a steady consistent pace, albeit a pace faster than one might normally jog.

What I have been doing is running at a consistent pace but for only much shorter intervals. This week I ran 4 sets of 3:30 runs at probably about an 8 minutes/mile pace with a 60 second jog between sets. Let me tell you that it’s not easy! But I rather enjoy the challenge and am once again starting to enjoy the time alone, outside, and not in front of a computer (now that I’m in front of one the entire day for work).

I’m not sure whether I’m going to continue this regime of running at a fairly brisk pace (but definitely NOT sprinting) for longer periods of time or whether I’m actually going to try a tempo run for 20 minutes. Whatever the case, I will continue the running as it is affording me benefits that I value.

Running is even more than just exercise, though. Have you thought of that? You can learn a lot about life from running. You can learn about yourself: are you persevering, are you stronger in mind than in body, are you even in shape? You can teach yourself to be independent and strong in mind. Running a race has been used as an analogy to life, and that’s because it is so true. How better to understand the analogy (and correspondingly life) than by running yourself?

So go. Do it. Just do it. (Does anyone remember Nike’s once ubiquitous slogan? Whatever happened to that? They went from simple to complex marketing in my opinion.)

And…That’s A Wrap

Tagged as: Life, Read-It Aug 18

Reading never gets old. Well not to me at least. It’s something that I’ve enjoyed during my life, and it’s something that I make a point out of continuing to do.

In any case, I just finished The Foundaction Trilogy by Isaac Asimov.

Why is reading books never old (in comparison to reading things online)?

1. They’re available even if there is no electricity.
2. You can take them anywhere, even if there is no Internet connection there!
3. They’re sometimes more readily accessible than reading things online. Try searching for copies of all of the classics freely available online.
4. You get cultured when you read them. How else will you know where famous sayings and quotes come from if you don’t actually read them? It’ll make you look less ignorant when someone uses a quote from a book and you’ve already read that book.
5. It gives you an aspect of your life that is actually changing. Even if everything around you seems to be droning on in the same old manner, at least you’ll be able to talk about how the book that you’re reading has been exciting (or not) to you.
6. You look more well-balanced to other people. Someone who is reading looks a lot more balanced than someone who is staring at a computer screen all of the time, wouldn’t you say?

Do a lot of people still read? I have no idea. I was also tempted to put something related to decreasing chances for poor eyesight, but I don’t actually know if that’s true or not.

That was a lot longer than I had envisioned that post being.

How Are Magazine Advertisements Worthwhile?

Tagged as: Advertisement, Entertainment, Read-It Jun 05

Do any of you read magazines anymore? Does anyone? Well I do. Sometimes anyways.

I’ve been noticing things about the advertisements in magazines. Well I guess depending on the magazine that you are reading, things are different. However, with some of the magazines that I’ve recently read, the thing that I don’t understand is why advertisers would even want their advertisements placed in the back. Do people even look at them (I know that I don’t)? Is their respective business increased as a result of being placed amongst many other advertisements? I just don’t get it.

Are they scared that if they stop advertising, that their business will decrease? It seems to me that it’s hard to justify the cost of placing such a poorly placed advertisement. Well, the poorly placed is just my opinion. Stuck in the nether pages with other random advertisements is not exactly a place that readers like to peruse carefully if you ask me.

I think that some of the best advertisements are those that give you something simply by looking. Well I am still talking about magazine advertisements so this does not apply to other advertisements. In any case, have you read those advertisements that give you some useful information and/or organize what they’re selling so that it’s very appealing. On the one hand, I like these because they’re useful to me. On the other hand I have to take it all with a grain of salt because it is still an advertisement.

In any case, I don’t think that I’m ever going to be someone who will advertise in a magazine. But then again, I guess that’s why I don’t make my living in the areas of fashion, car parts, or male enhancement gimmicks.

Learn Some English (Part 1)

Tagged as: Learn, Read-It, Useful May 28

I don’t like when people use English words or phrases without knowing how to use them. I started compiling a list after reading some blogs and noticing errors in their English. And these were not blogs started in foreign countries. These were supposedly English language based blogs! In any case, peruse the list and see if you’re guilty of any of these mistakes:

1. maybe/may be - “Maybe” means perhaps while “may be” means could be. Okay okay I know that using “be” in the definition is not good. Nevertheless, there is a definite difference between the phrases. Examples: “Maybe I’ll go tonight” vs “She may be going tonight”
2. they’re/their/there - This difference between words is pretty well-known, and yet it is still often misused. The first is a contraction of “they are” so you have to be able to substitute “they are everywhere you use “they’re.” “Their” is possessive. “There” indicates location. Examples: “They’re going to eat food” vs “I’m going to eat their food” vs “We are going to eat food there”
3. its/it’s - This happens so often it’s sickening. Haha I just used “it’s.” Anyways “its” is a possessive of a previously mentioned inanimate object while “it’s” is a contraction of “it is.” Examples: “Don’t judge a book by its cover” vs “Look around the city in the fall and see how it’s all changing”
4. site/sight - The difference between these words is that “site” means location and “sight” means something that is seen. Examples: “Why don’t we go to the construction site to see how things are going” vs “Boy those fireworks over the water sure are a sight to see.”
5. buy/by/bye - “Buy” means “to purchase”, “by” is a preposition that has a number of meanings including “of or near to” or “through a particular medium”, “bye” is either a shortening of the common greeting “goodbye” or the opportunity for a team to not have to play another team in a sports tournament.

In any case that list is not, by an means, exhaustive. I think that I actually don’t mind it when people know that they are not experts at English. However, I think that I have the most problem with people when they make it seem as if they have a complete idea of what they’re saying. Such is life, huh? So try to learn what you can. Oh and stop by the Word of the Week to learn some good vocabulary.