Inside the Mind of Suz

Who else?

Seriously, if you don’t think she’s exciting to watch, then you’re blind. It’s just as simple as that. Now the Big Ten Network wants you to learn a little bit more about Sammy’s back story.

She played tackle football when she was younger and also engaged in a a ton of pick-up hoops games on some of New York’s most notorious courts. Explains a lot!

I love Sammy’s story. I love her boyfriend, Evan Turner’s story. Both wear #21. Both will probably be POY in the Big Ten conference. Makes for a very cute basketball couple, right? That’s what I thought too.

I’m trying to decide which women’s game to go to next!

“The tribe has spoken!”

Ok, the poll for desired Gateway to 8k podcast music has been open a while and I think I have enough data to get started on creating the series.

The majority, 43% of you, want to hear Old School Hip Hop and R&B. Can’t argue with that! I hope y’all are ready for some good tunes from the 90s! I’ve been downloading a lot of SWV, Total, Tony Toni Tone, Biggie, TLC, Janet Jackson, Color Me Badd, Bobby Brown and more! I’ve noticed that this era is what largely makes up my iTunes library, so the more the merrier!

After old school Hip Hop and R&B, you guys want to hear today’s Top 40 hits (23% of your votes). I must admit to not listening to much radio. I can’t stand commercials and I refuse to pay for satellite. However, I do keep up with the Billboard charts, so I know what songs are doing well in the marketplace and airwaves. Ke$ha’s “Tik Tok” is the #1 song in the country, and I will definitely have that song on a playlist. Same for the Black Eyed Peas’ “Imma Be”. But y’all already knew there’d be a healthy dose of BEP. I’m a stan.

Coming in 3rd, with 25% of your votes was 80s, baby! There’s just so much to choose from! So, I’m sure I’ll have lots of fun with that as well. This should be a very fun training program for you runners!

So, I’m gonna get started! Now remember, I’m going to make a few weeks’ worth of podcasts before I debut them. I don’t want to have life happen and then force any of you to fall behind because I can’t keep up with making 1 podcast per week. I’ve got built-in “oh shi*t time”, just in case!

Bob Saget is funny. Yea he was super corny on “Full House”, but everyone was corny on there. Everything he’s done since then has been pretty funny and filthy AKA the best kind of comedian. Remember his cameo in Half Baked? Classic.

But this post is not about the past. It’s about what just went down at the Sundance Film Festival. He stopped by the Twitter House to promote his new project (an A&E reality show tentatively titled “Bob Saget’s Strange Days) with Steve Jones of the Sex Pistols. In 7 one hour episodes, Bob will join in several AMerican sub-cultures such as rushing a fraternity. Don’t even tell me you don’t want to watch that, because if you do, you’re lying! He talks about that and other funny stuff in the interview.

Tune in to Jones Jukebox to watch the interview in full. You won’t be disappointed. ANd for other entertaining interviews, be sure to check out Steve Jones Radio.

This post sponsored by IAmRogue.com

I know I tweeted the hell out of my followers on Thursday from the Cavs/Lakers game in Cleveland, but there was one point in the game where I thought the place would explode. And no, it wasn’t when they showed Lil’ Wayne on the jumbotron.

It was very late in the game, with about 24 seconds left in the 4th quarter. Cavs were up 2 points and coming back from a TV time out. The sound guy put on the Eminem verse from “Forever” — a song by Drake feat. Kanye West, Lil Wayne & Eminem, that appears on LeBron’s movie soundtrack — on the loudspeaker as the teams returned from the timeout. To say King James was fired up was an understatement. He was rapping along to the song and the crowd got on their feet! It was soooo loud! Very cool moment that made its way to YouTube:

Clearly, LeBron wins at life.

I do have a couple of pics I took during the game. They’re coming later…

Well, you guys have talked me into it! I asked for feedback, and you guys have delivered! I now have all the info I need to resume my podcast-creation hobby!

I’ve decided to begin with the Gateway to 8k running plan, as outlined by DJ Steve Boy and will be starting from Week 1. I’ve decided that when the plan requires you to lower your BPM, I’m going to say something to the effect of “slow down your pace”, in the vocal cues. Then, based on however your fitness is, you can decide whether that means just to slow your run down a little (to a job) or walk. For most of the weeks, the slow BPM interval is only for a minute, so I don’t think a walk would throw you off too much.

So, that’s my plan! But I still need some feedback from y’all. I want to know what type of music to use for these. At the end of the day (don’t you hate when people say that?), I’m picking the songs, but I’m perfectly fine with y’all choosing the genre of the playlists. So, to help decide, I’ve created a little poll. Feel free to vote below! I’ll leave it open for a week or so, and use the results to decide which priority to make the g28k podcasts in.

And don’t even bother writing in Country or Rock, cuz it’s just not going to happen lol. You can write in artist-specific playlist ideas, though. After all, I did do a Britney Spears and Michael Jackson playlist and was thisclose to doing a Janet one.

Now, keep in mind that it’ll be a few weeks before the first week’s podcast gets posted. I want to give some time to vote in the poll, as well as some built in “lazy time” before I start sharing. What if I get distracted, fall behind, and y’all have already started the plan? Then I’m already messing up your training. I don’t want that to happen. So, I’ll probably already have a few weeks finished before I even start posting, so that doesn’t happen!

Also, I’ve received some emails, and a comment, about putting up a donation button on the blog. I’ve always enjoyed this process since I, too, use these podcasts. But, if you really want to, I’ve never been one to turn down donations! I thank you all for spreading the word about my running podcasts and giving me such valuable feedback.

My aunt got me tickets to the Ohio State women’s basketball game vs. Indiana for my birthday. I brought my dad along and we watched the Lady Buckeyes beat up on the Hoosiers, 81-64.

Sammy Prahalis is by far the best women’s point guard I’ve seen. She plays like a dude, for real. So much swagger. And can’t nobody do no-look passes like this girl. She’s a breath of fresh air to the sport and one can only hope there are more like her out there!

It was the first women’s game I’ve been to in I don’t know when, as well as the first time I got to use my new super-zoom digital camera at a sporting event. I wanted to see how it does in a basketball arena before I head up to Cleveland to see LeBron v. Kobe later this week. (I think I’m still going anyway lol). I also plan on using this camera for swimming meet candids as well as when I go into Ohio State football events.

I was quite pleased with my pictures! I wasn’t far away, but I also wasn’t in the nose-bleeds either. And I came away with what I consider to be nice pictures. I had planned to take a shot with no zoom to show where my seats were, but naturally I forgot.

I’d been putting it off for a while, but I had an excuse: I couldn’t find the folder where I kept all my running podcasts!

When I was forced to get a new computer, after my old one crapped out, I needed Spotmau Powersuite 2009 to recover my files. But then I couldn’t remember where I moved them to! Figures, right? I finally located them this weekend and gave the podcasts page a much needed update!

First of all, I finally fixed the Week 3 podcast, since it had one too many interval in it, much like Week 4’s before I fixed it earlier this fall. I updated the playlist for Week 4 as well. Then, I added the Michael Jackson Week 4 podcast to the page. It hadn’t been there yet, but it is now!

If there’s anything else, please let me know and I’ll try to get to it. I am still planning on longer podcasts. Please feel free to give your feedback to my most recent post on the matter.

If you are one of the thousands of peeps who have downloaded my podcasts, this post is for you. Specifically if you are in the group that has requested more podcasts of the longer distance variety. I stopped at 5k, but there are training plans for 8k and 10k and quite a few of you are fiending for podcasts to help in your training. I have said before that I would have no problem creating a new set, and looked for feedback, and never really got any.

So, if you are one of the visitors that is interested in this, I really need you read this entire post and comment below, so I can figure out how to do this for y’all.

About a year ago, I wrote about how after I got to Week 9, I just kept repeating it week after week. That meant I was just doing 30 minute runs, not increasing my workload, and thus, not challenging myself further. I actually did get some feedback in that post and was directed to Gateway to 8k and other similar training programs. So, that’s not the problem.

Thing is, I don’t know where to jump into any of those sets. Also, I don’t monitor BPM. All I deal with is run/walk intervals.

So take the Gateway to 8k program [LINK]. Week 1 looks like this:

5-min. warmup @ 132-137 BPM
7 min. @ 145 BPM
1 min. @ 137 BPM
7 min. @ 145 BPM
1 min. @ 137 BPM
7 min. @ 145 BPM
1 min. @ 137 BPM
7 min. @ 145 BPM
1 min. @ 137 BPM
5-min. cooldown @ 137-132 BPM

The whole BPM thing throws me a little. Is the lower number, 137, supposed to be a walking interval or just a little slower paced run? Also, doesn’t it seem that, after doing a full 30 minute run (Week 9 of c25k), that this run would be taking a step backwards? Should I start a little further into the program instead? These are the questions I ran into last year when I was asked to consider making more podcasts. I figured that since more people are commenting on the site, that now would be a great time to bring this up again.

(Likewise, the Freeway to 10k outline can be found here.)

If someone could chime in and “break it down” for me, that’d go a long way towards me figuring out how to hook everyone up! I know I’ve already said I would create a new set of podcasts, to train for the longer races, and I will. I just need a little direction! Please?

One of the big knocks on Apple was that they knew their 3G iPhone was capable of capturing video, but has refused to approve any apps that used this capability…until now!

It used to be that, in order to record video on an iPhone 3G, one would have to jailbreak their phone and use iPhone Video Recorder or Cycorder. I think that was the driving force behind my initial jailbreak. Shortly thereafter, though, I found many other bonuses to having a jailbroken phone.

Having said that, I’ve been having a great time with video capture since February. 3G users not willing to join the jailbreak nation have essentially been deprived until Apple finally approved the Ustream.tv Broadcaster app earlier this week. They’re late to the party, but can at least play now!

Broadcast live to your Ustream Show from your iPhone, Nokia or Android phone with the Ustream Broadcaster Application. Easily stream live moments from your phone and share with your friends, family, fans, followers and others — and have the recording of your video afterward! Interact with your viewers during your broadcast using chat or Ustream’s Social Stream, which integrates a live feed of Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and AIM messages and send status updates to Twitter and Ustream.

I’ve been checking out the Broadcaster app and, for the most part, it does what it says. Best part is that it’s free. Taking that into account, the video quality is ok. As others have noted, it does lag a little.

I like the option to save and share later, but I’m having a little trouble with that. I want to enable the option to upload to YouTube, but the app tells me to do so on the website and then restart the app. I haven’t been able to find where to do that on the Ustream site, so this review will be “To be continued…” until I can get that sorted out. (Directions would be greatly appreciated ) Nevermind, found it!

Here’s a video I recorded with the Broadcaster app:

Judging from the quality of the uploaded YouTube video, I might have to stick with Cycorder and/or iPhone Video Recorder as their vids look much better. Although I love the interface of the Ustream app, and the ease with which one can share/upload video, I’ll sacrifice all that for a better quality video.

I went to see The Blind Side over the weekend (loved it!) and actually got there early enough to see the previews. Most of them were forgettable, but one stuck out immediately as a “must-see” flick. It’s called Grown Ups.

Let me tell you who the headliners of this movie are: Chris Rock, Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Rob Schneider, & David Spade. That’s just for starters! Then I went to the movie’s IMDB page and saw the additional casting of Salma Hayek, Maya Rudolph, Tim Meadow, and Norm MacDonald and got even more excited. Those SNL alums really look out for each other, don’t they?

I was so excited about the cast that I didn’t even remember what the movie was about after I got home. I just knew that I had to see it. Then I looked it up, watched the trailer, and reaffirmed that impulse decision.

See for yourself:

My movie genre of choice are the dumb/stupid comedies. In particular, I love me some Kevin James. He can do no wrong in my eyes. I religiously watched “King of Queens” for damn near 10 years because of him. I love his physical comedy.

And anyone who knows me knows I stan for Chris Rock. I quote his comedy specials on a daily basis (“I’m not saying he should have killed her, but I understand”) and I’ll never stop being pissed at the CW for canceling “Everybody Hates Chris”.

Adam Sandler is cool with me, except for his movie Click. I’ll never forgive him for tricking me into going to see that movie, and then making me spend the last 30 minutes crying. *shakes fist*. It’s nice to see Adam continue to give his buddy Rob Schneider work. He’s had quite a few duds as the big name of a movie. You know, like the Deuce Bigalow franchise. I think he’s in his element when he plays a supporting/sidekick role. “YOU CAN DOOOOO IT!” Ya know?

David Spade needs to be on TV more. Period. I know he’s on “Rules of Engagement”, but “The Showbiz Show” on Comedy Central was my crack. Naturally they canceled it early on. Spade is the king of snark and I love him for that. Also, if you haven’t seen PCU, you’re missing out.

Anyway, I think I’ve rambled enough about why I love the lead actors. Expect to see me catch Grown Ups in its opening weekend of release, June 25.