Race Review: 2013 Palm Beaches Half Marathon (12/08/2013), or: “Sun sun sun, here it comes…”

Continuing with our 2013-2014 Florida Storm Series coverage… The 2013 Palm Beaches Marathon & Run Fest weekend went down on the weekend of December 6th, 2013. This was a pretty inclusive event, one that hosted 5K, 10K, Half and Full marathons; something for pretty much runners of every stripe. “Every stripe”… what an odd turn…

Buttkickin’ Holiday Songs: “Sleigh Ride” — Debbie Gibson (1992)

Yeah hear me out on this… Boots absolutely adores this holiday classic covered by Ms. Gibson from the 1992 A Very Special Christmas 2. And I wanted to score some Brownie Points with my better half so I’m including it my esteemed list. And I know what you’re thinking: how on EARTH are the words “Debbie…

Buttkickin’ Holiday Songs: “Run Rudolph Run” — Lemmy Kilmister, Billy Gibbons, Dave Grohl (2008)

An exchange from the 1994 movie Airheads: [Chazz and Rex are testing Chris] Chazz: Who’d win in a wrestling match: Lemmy or God? Chris Moore: Lemmy. [Rex imitates a game show buzzer] Chris Moore: … God? Rex: Wrong, dickhead, trick question. Lemmy *IS* God. Well now who can argue with that? Truth be told, there were…

Buttkickin’ Holiday Songs: “Let My Love Open The Door” — Pete Townshend (1980)

OK bear with me on this one… Pete Townshend’s classic 1980 hit Let My Love Open The Door is not, strictly speaking, a “holiday song” by any imagination. It is, however, a deeply spiritual and extremely uplifting one. Ostensibly a love song, this Top 10 hit from his Empty Glass solo album is indeed about love, but not romantic…

Noshing In Wonderland #6: Flying Fish Cafe, or: “All that night and all the next, swam without looking back…”

The Flying Fish Cafe, located at the Boardwalk Resort in Walt Disney World, is categorized (by Disney) as a “signature” dining experience, which means everything is priced with an even more outrageous mark-up than Disney is used to getting away with. That’s to be expected, of course, but the even bigger question remains “Is it…

Buttkickin’ Holiday Songs: “Holly Herald” — Jethro Tull (2003)

Hi and welcome back for another year of festive holiday musical happy-time! No big hurrah here, no major write-ups, I thought I’d jump right into this year’s selections with an instrumental piece from legendary prog-rock band Jethro Tull. Their 2003 release Jethro Tull Christmas Album is one of my favorite seasonal listens. It’s equal parts Pagan…

Running Disney’s Wilderness Trail, or: “I was feeling part of the scenery; I walked right out of the machinery…”

So Boots & I were up at the World on Thanksgiving weekend. There was no one particularly driving reason for us to head there, but we were “in the area” so we decided to make a weekend out of it. And when I say “in the area”, I mean “somewhere on Planet Earth”. Like we…

Film Review: “Backbeat” — Iain Softley (1994)

Rating: 5 / 10 Long before Ringo Starr was a Fab Four fixture, or before Love Me Do became their first hit single… before John Lennon proclaimed that the band was more popular than Jesus, or before they were slumming around India with the Maharishi… before their Magical Mystery Tour debacle of a film and…

My fundraising project for the CCFA and why I’ll run in a tutu for it, or: “Seems that I was busy doing something close 2 nothing…”

Well I’ve been talking about it for a few months, so enough yakkin’ already. Here’s where I start my attempt at doing a tangible bit of good. I’ve started a fundraising page; you can find it at http://www.stayclassy.org/fundraise?fcid=281162. My goal is to raise $5,000 to benefit the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation of America by February…