Marathon Update

I have bad news for myself.....I have shin splints and can't run anymore! Isn't that awful? I now have to take it easy and I will never make it to my September 15th marathon because I am behind schedule on training.

The good news is that before I stopped running, I did get in a full 10 mile run, where I actually ran the entire 10 miles. This was extremely encouraging and good for my self esteem. I won't stop running, just have to slow down and go back to 3 milers for the next few months.....

Review my review!

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Here is my review:

I must start by making a terribly embarrassing admission - I am a 27 year old who loves ridiculously designed and easy to play and beat mini-games. I can't help it. I believe it stems from early childhood memories of the Nintendo NES and hours upon hours spent playing Mario Brothers and being entranced and awed by the fabulous world in which those lovable Nintendo characters lived.

Now that we have 3D graphics (The Wii is incredible) and the user experience of actually being the characters (Wii remotes rock), mixed in with a new breed of Nintendo characters to love (what could be more lovable than rabid rabbits?), I have reverted to acting like a ten year old. My seventeen year reversion is furthered by the fact that Rayman offers delectably funny games like a cow toss, eating contests, bunnies on toilets, and rhythm/time keeping dancing games where bunnies hop around the screen clad in disco balls and flashy lights.

If you were a fan of the first Rayman Raving Rabids like I was, then you are probably already wetting your pants in excitement for number two. If you aren't, you should be. Nintendo promises even more ridiculous, laugh until you cry games in their second installment of Raving Rabids, where you play as the bunnies rather than Rayman, the lovable hero. Reviews are out where players speak of a game in which you help the Rabids scrub their undies in a wash bin until they are clean. Player beware - if you scrub too long, the drawers will disintegrate and you lose, if you don?t scrub long enough, your bunnies will have skid marks left in their shorts.

Aside from offering great new games, Rabids allows for all the original hilarity. You can dress your Rabids as your favorite heroes and characters, or give them outfits that would embarrass your grandma. The game is also multi-player, which creates the perfect scenario for a LAN-party game to play in between intense sessions of Halo 3. If you still aren't convinced that you need to buy this game when it's released, go pick up a copy of the original Rayman Raving Rabids. If you make it through the entire game without laughing, call me so I go over with you what it means to have a personality.

SAVE THE PLANET!

Here are some interesting facts I found regarding our environment:

• If you throw away 2 aluminum cans, you waste more energy than 1,000,000,000 (one billion) of the world's poorest people use a day.

• Making a new can from scratch uses the uses the energy equal to half a can of gasoline.

• About one third of what an average American throws out is packaging.

• More than 1,000,000,000 (one billion) trees are used to make disposable diapers every year.

• In one minute, 50 acres of rainforest are destroyed.

• Some rain has a pH of 3 or 4. (which is pretty acidic, considering 7 is neutral, not acidic, and battery acid has a pH of 1). Some fish, such as lake trout and smallmouth bass, have trouble reproducing at a pH of 6, which is only slightly acidic. Some clams and snails can't survive at all. Most crayfish are dead at a pH of 5. You can see how bad this is for the environment.

• On average, a person in the US uses energy two times more than a person in Japan or West Germany does, and 50 times more than a person in India.

• About 90% of the energy used in lighting a standard (incandescent) light bulb is lost as heat.

• Air conditioning uses 10 times more energy than a fan, therefore, it creates 10 times the pollutants.

• It takes half the output of the Alaskan pipeline to heat the air that escapes from all the homes in the US during a year.

• Cars and pick-up trucks are responsible for about 20% of the carbon dioxide released into the air.

• There are about 500 million automobiles on the planet, burning an average of 2 gallons of fuel a day. Each gallon releases 20 pounds of carbon dioxide into the air.

• About 80% of our trash goes to landfills, 10% is incinerated, and 10% is recycled.

• Since there is little oxygen underground, where we bury our garbage, to help bacteria eat the garbage, almost nothing happens to it. Scientists have dug into landfills and found ears of corn still intact after 20 years, and newspapers still readable after 30.

• The average American makes about 3.5 pounds of trash a day.

• In a year, the average American uses as much wood in the form of paper as the average resident of the developing world burns as fuel.

Want to know how you can help?? Check out this link: http://www.earthshare.org/