Random Friday!

Pay Attention to Crabby Now, Ya Hear?

(Photo: Shorpy)

Yep, it's indeed a very random Friday this week. (Or should I say a Freaky Friday? For any of you who stopped by earlier and were greeted with a post that made no sense because it was missing the middle half--it's fixed now! Sorry about that! Guess I need to think again about pre-publishing posts to appear first thing in the morning East Coast time, hours before I can see them.)

So anyway, in addition to a tiny bit of research, some blog links, and a fair amount of silliness, we've got a few Official Announcements to make.

I know, you're saying to yourselves, "oh boy, blog announcements, I'm so excited!!!"


Er, maybe not. But you if you see some announcements on the way down to visit the silly videos at the bottom of the post, don't worry! They won't bite, I promise.

First Announcement: Call for Guest Posts!

Yep, it's that time again. Crabby will soon be making her bi-annual cross-country trek. The Crab, the Lobster, and the Moo (she's a cat, not a cow, for those who are new here) will be migrating from the West Coast to the East Coast in a couple of weeks. But fear not, Merry will still be here, thank goodness! And who knows, Crabby may be doing some posting from the road. But it's also a great time for a little variety, and if any of you have a health and fitness-related guest post you'd like to submit, please give us a holler.

I'm not exactly sure of our departure date, or how long we'll be on the road. But mostly likely we'll take off about March 1 and be gone ten days to two weeks or so.

Second Announcement: Random BlogRoll Update!

I have officially given up the fantasy that I will ever keep the random rotating blogroll properly updated without help. We've been fairly picky about not just adding folks with possibly sketchy sites who have no particular relationship with Cranky Fitness (no matter how many times they email us). On the other hand, I've gotten really lazy about noticing when a regular commenter or linker to Cranky Fitness has a cool blog that's not yet on our blogroll. I always think that if I like your blog, it must be listed already, but often I'm wrong!

Since the display is random, you may have to visit fairly often to figure out if your blog is on it. But if you have hoped in vain for your blog to appear one day and it never has, and you are a Friend of Cranky Fitness, please add a comment or send us an email with your blog name and URL and we'll update! Likewise, if anyone notices any defunct blogs on there we can take 'em out.

One Last Announcement: Check Out Acacia, Our Newest Sponsor!

Cranky Fitness really, really appreciates our independent sponsors. There are few companies forward-thinking and open-minded enough to work with individual blogs when they could just go to Google or Blogher and make the process a lot easier. Instead, these guys generously support independent, scrappy little blogs directly and we love them for that! We're also psyched to advertise actual quality health and fitness products instead of crappy diet pill ads. (And we've got a couple more cool independents coming soon too, so stay tuned.)

So we'd like to officially introduce you to Acacia. Some of you may remember them from their awesome DVD giveaways earlier. They have a great selection of fitness titles of all different sorts, from Bollywood Dance Workouts to Keeping Fit in Your Fifties. So if you haven't had a chance to check out their catalog, try visiting to see what they've got! (And by checking them out, you make Cranky Fitness look like an influential sort of blog, rather than an irrelevant, ignorable blog, and we totally, totally appreciate that.)

Now back to our regularly scheduled programming...


Blogging the Deep Stuff:

It's rare that the Crab blogs about anything more emotionally wrenching than finding her favorite machine at the gym occupied when she'd like to use it. Other bloggers out there, however, blog bravely about their emotional journeys and it's always powerful stuff.

Recently, for example, Charlotte at the Great Fitness Experiment wrote about confronting her dark, aggressive side during karate class. And POD talked with frankness and humor about some of her rock-bottom moments in the course of losing weight.

Also contemplative, but a bit lighter... a rumination on "U.M." at Training for a Half. What's, "U.M" you may ask? Well, it's kinda like transcendental meditation, but, well, kinda not!

And the always inspirational MizFit had a great suggestion this week about being open to the "so not me" experience!

Next, a tiny bit of research...


Three-Minute Workouts?

First up, a recent high intensity interval study finds that even as little as three minutes of huffing and puffing a few times a week can actually do some good! Sixteen young sedentary males did 30-second bouts of high intensity exercise, repeated 4-6 times, with recovery breaks in between. In two weeks of training, they significantly increased their bodies' ability to control blood sugar levels and reduced their risk of a bunch of future health problems. Researchers aren't saying 3 minutes is all you need to do for optimal health, but if you crank it up, you can do a LOT in a short period of time.


Don't Blow Your Nose When You Have a Cold?

A New York Times article claims that blowing your nose makes cold symptoms worse, not better. Apparently it reverses the flow of mucus into the sinuses and slows the drainage.

Sorry: ain't happening! If I have a stuffed nose, whether from a cold (which is impossible, because I don't get colds) or an allergy, I'm sure as hell gonna blow it! However, the article did say it was OK to blow one nostril at a time or take decongestants. Well thank you, scientists!


Afternoon Slump?

Mark's Daily Apple has some great tips and reminders about how to beat a mid-afternoon slump. (But does anyone else find that even if they were perfectly perky before reading about a mid-afternoon slump, the mere mention of slumpiness will make you sleepy? Yawwwwwnnn... Very sneaky, Mark!)

Also, Mark's site alerted my to this product advertisement spotted by Andrew from Go Healthy Go Fit.



I don't know why, but I just LOVE this photo! I'd be totally happy to give credit to the company whose product this is... but when I tried googling "neck harness" to find the source, the results just got WAY too weird!


And now some VIDEOS!

I don't know if the rifle-toting women pictured above, plus Charlotte's aggression post, plus this next video are adding up to a theme of sorts... but if so: welcome to Random Friday, the Women Happily Kicking Ass edition.

This vintage jujitsu demonstration brought to you via Boing Boing.




Next up, this video (which contains some amazing footage on the theme of "feeling lucky?") was stolen from the always amusing Half Fast.



And our last video is for those of you who really wish you could afford a Romantic Cruise but just can't quite swing it in these tough economic times. You may be feeling pretty lucky yourself that you're not on a cruise by the end.

Via College Humor.

Speaking of Romantic Plans (or not), anyone doing anything fun for Valentines Day? Or hate the holiday on principle? Either way, have a great weekend!

"Valentine from the Dog" by nataliedee

Random Rotating Blogroll: Now It's "Fun-Sized!"

You know how those microscopic candy bars are called "fun sized," even though there's nothing "fun" about getting one measly bite all wrapped up masquerading as a real candy bar? Or how cheap restaurants or hotels with few extras are called "Express" even though they're not particularly fast? Well, in that stellar American Marketing Tradition, Crabby is proud to present her new, "Fun-Sized" "Express" Random Rotating Blogroll!

Could we have a Blogroll Drumroll please...

Ta da!

It's over on the right side bar somewhere. It may be hard to find because there are only 10 blogs on it. But if you refresh, the selection changes. Doesn't it? Please?

At least that's what Crabby hopes. It took her for-freakin'-ever to put it together, despite the Perfectly Clear Instructions. (Apparently missing commas and stray apostrophe's can kill the whole list, and Crabby is terrible about spotting things like that.)

Crabby has been looking for something like this, because she herself finds that when she goes to blogs with huge Blogrolls, she rarely ever clicks on anything. With a small list, the idea of checking something out becomes far more intriguing. On the other hand, one hates to be overly fussy about adding new friends in order to keep a blogroll small and tempting. So where to find a solution?

It seems as though there are many more Widgets around for Wordpress than for Blogger, and most Blogroll widgets wanted Crabby to bring in Content from Other Blogs and involved RSS feeds. Crabby wanted something simpler. So she finally Consulted the Google and found JuliaKM, who has come up with a Fine Solution!

The only problem was that the coding worked just fine when Crabby copied it exactly, but then she had a blogroll full of Chess Blogs. It took so many tries to get her own blogs in there before it worked that Crabby was about to give up and start writing about Chess instead of Health! So please don't tell her its not working or you all are going to be reading soon about Chess, which won't be much fun at all because Crabby can't remember the first thing about how to play it.

Anyway, Crabby in the process of adding some new people to the blogroll and dropping some former blog friendlies that she hasn't seen around in a while. But it may be a while forever before she gets completely up to date.

In the meantime, if you've been visiting regularly and commenting frequently and don't see your blog ever, ever, come up, give Crabby a holler in the comments or email her. She is (a) lazy (b) careless and (c) not necessarily trying to be all-inclusive. Some general guidelines: health-related blogs, incredibly amusing blogs, and frequent commenters are more likely to be given priority. Also, if you want to be on Crabby's blogroll it's a good idea to put her on yours, too. But like most bloggers, she's somewhat arbitrary about this as well as being forgetful.

Hope everyone is having a good weekend!