Check It Out Wednesday

While all the bloggers in blog land are telling you about what they ate today for "What I Ate Wednesday," I thought I would throw a curve ball and bring you something a little different...

Ladies and Gents, the inaugural installment of "Check It Out Wednesday," your chance to get a run down of the big news headlines of the week that you missed out on because you were busy running that tenth mile, crunching your abs for the 100th time, or else scoping out the bajillionth picture of oatmeal on someone else's blog (seriously, people, oatmeal is not photogenic).

Hugo Chavez peaced out
The dude who has been president of Venezuela since 1999 succumbed to cancer on Tuesday and went off to enjoy an eternity with Rousseau, Marx, and his other socialist buddies.

Chavez is famous for nationalizing Venezuela's oil industry, standing alongside Ahmadinejad in opposing "US imperialism," using twitter for communicating with constituents, violating freedom of the press, establishing and enforcing price ceilings for various products (especially food), and inspiring a generation of people to christen their children with names like "Elvis," "Stalin," and even "Hitler"--and then trying to halt this proliferation of crazy names by instituting a list from which parents had to pick out their child's name (spoiler alert: the names bill didn't pass).

Science cured HIV in a toddler
Just when you thought science was so cool that you might just pass out from excitement, it went and one-upped itself.  Scientists were treating a mother and young child who both had HIV--the child was born with the virus--and one day discovered that the toddler no longer exhibited any signs of having HIV.  All tests were negative.  So the kid is cured. And now the world is suddenly a lot better.  But before you get all crazy and actually faint because science is so cool, just remember that it also gave us this:

Rand Paul is currently filibustering John Brennan's appointment as director of the CIA

 Yep, everybody's second favorite crazy ass VP candidate is back in the spotlight. (He's second to Sarah Palin, obviously.)  This time he is taking a stand against the Obama Administration's recent suggestion that it's totally cool (i.e. legal) to kill U.S. citizens on the home turf--well, only so long as it is an agent of the administration doing the deed.  How is Rand Paul speaking out?  By delaying the confirmation of John Brennan as the leader of the Central Intelligence Agency.  The message: It's not okay to kill Americans with drone strikes, even in the "extraordinary circumstances" that the Attorney General believes justifies such killings.

The Olive Garden Lady is writing a book
Yep, Marilyn Hagerty, the queen of non-snobby dining, is going to publish a book at the ripe old age of 86.  The book is called "Grand Forks" is bound to full of mundane descriptions of restaurant decor and food presentation.  Aren't you glad I mentioned this one?  

We still don't have a pope
That's right.  The papal conclave has still not convened and has still not delivered the goods.  The "goods" in this case: another old white man in a funny hat.

Even worse, the only people in the world who are in a position to know when this pope-show is going to get rolling have decided to take a vow of silence. WTF?  What about the people?  <---I guess that's the kind of trauma that Catholics everywhere are going through?  Meanwhile, science is curing HIV.

That's it for this week's edition of Check It Out Wednesday.  Now back to our regularly scheduled programming...

Yep, "regular programming" is just the half-assed recaps of my running workouts.  No need to thank me.

Today's run:
Distance - 8.6 miles
Time - 1:10

I've recently talked about running in perfect conditions.  Well, today was the opposite.  The weather outside was frightful (think 30+ mph gusts of wind), everything was wet, and my rain jacket was dirty from my last run so it stank a little.  Boo.

But despite the negatives, I had a pretty darn good time out there.  If I can love running in this crappy weather, I know it's more than just a temporary fling.  I'm in this for life.

This picture doesn't do justice to the interesting color of the canal today.  It was a murky blue-green.  Very pretty.

 I also finally got a chance to try out the apple cinnamon Hammer gel that I've been meaning to chomp on.

Yo Momma Runs is right... this stuff is delicious!  Granted, it was my very first gel ever (I know, I know), but I'm convinced that this is a good flavor for me.  It's like an apple crisp--but without the crispy texture, obviously. 

What's your favorite during-the-run fuel?  Don't forget to tell me about the flavors!

Did you see any interesting headlines this week?  I really love outrageous headlines.  The more wacky, the better.