Fact or Fiction: The Five Fingered Shoe

Hello my adorably adoring fans!
I have realized that the majority of my blog posts have been rants about something that (let's be honest) the few of you reading probably don't care about =L   So in THIS post, I am going to talk about something that will hopefully be helpful and enlightening =)

The topic of today's helpful little snippet is the infamous FIVE FINGERED SHOE!!!!!

Though this seemingly silly product is still relatively new, it has taken the world by storm! And why is that? Let's be serious...it's not necessarily fashionable and they kind of look like some gadget out of a really bad spy movie. To be completely honest, I thought that these shoes seemed rather pointless when I first heard of them.  Well...until I started to hear more about them.

From what I can gather from some of the websites that sell this shoe, the main advantage of using the shoe is that you have the sensation of running barefoot, but with the protection of a shoe.  That may sound silly, but there has been a LOT of research that suggests that running/walking/standing barefoot is better on your joints than wearing some $250 custom shoe. If you have time, I would really recommend that you watch THIS video which explains some of what I just mentioned.
NOTE: That video came out BEFORE the five fingered shoes became popular.
THIS is another video about the five fingered shoe.

When I first started to get interested in this product, I thought, "Well, that's nice for people who run a lot." WRONG! There are SO many other applications that I found for the five fingered shoe.
Think of it like this: The shoe is meant to help relieve the strain and pain in people's joints, right? So by that standard, the five fingered shoe can help in any task where people might feel strain in their joints from standing, Like: weightlifting, running, walking, hiking, cleaning the house, jumping, playing tennis, playing basketball, and loads of other things that I'm too lazy to type out!

Actually, one of the first applications of this product that I thought of was for my dad. Yes, he has a lot of back pain that these shoes might help out a little bit, but that's not the first thing that I thought of.
I love my dad, but there are some things about him that I will never understand. For instance, he has these old, nasty, torn up, and falling apart swimming clogs that he wears when he's diving, or when he's going to be swimming through and standing on brush in the river.  I immediately thought of those nasty clogs when I saw the five fingered running shoes.
 And the best part is, he doesn't have to own a pair for swimming and a pair for walking because....

THEY'RE WATERPROOF AND MACHINE WASHABLE!

Now...if by some random chance, I have already sold you on these shoes and you're looking for a place to buy them, then you can get them at most outdoor suppliers like REI (rei.com).  And HERE, you will be able to see all of the different kinds they have as far as lace up, velcro, buckle, slip on, etc.  You should also check this out because it'll answer a lot of other questions about the shoe.

Well I hope that you've enjoyed this post. I'm going to go look for a pair of my own =)

Peace

Overprotection

Hello my adorably adoring fans!  I am truly sorry that it has taken me so long to write another blog post.  Unless of course you hate being subjected to reading my mumblings and rants, in which case I will say: "you are most welcome for the delay."

Today I would like to address an issue that has been plaguing me since I was 15 years old.  It all started this one fine summer's day when my little brother, Isaac, and I were walking around the local dollar store in Pierre.  I had twenty dollars in my pocket, and when you have twenty dollars in a dollar store...you are royalty.  Anyway, I was wandering around the store and i happened upon a rubber band gun; not the cheapy little plastic ones that you used to get in a kid's meal.  I'm talking about a LEGIT rubber band gun. It was made out of wood, probably a foot long and it could hold 8 rubber bands at one time. EIGHT!!!!!!  The best part is that it was only two dollars (being in a dollar store, I thought it somewhat ironic, but I didn't care).  Needless to say, I was flipping out.  I thought that it was the best thing that had ever happened to me.  Being the awesome big brother that I am, I decided to buy one for Isaac, too so that we could have killer awesome rubber band shoot outs that inevitably would have ended in me getting in trouble.

I stepped up to the counter to pay just as my father was walking in.  The lady rang it up and a heard the long beep that no under age shopper wants to hear.  The evil troll behind the counter looked at me with her drool dripping from her massive fangs and she oh so snobbishly asked me, "Are you 18, kid?"  As I saw my long anticipated future of snapping Isaac in the face with rubber bands slowly fall apart, I innocently said, "No, but it's only a rubber band gun."
"'Gun' is the key word, Toots," said the troll. "You have to be 18."
Just then, in a lightning fast flash of bravery and overall fatherly goodness, my dad stepped in and said, "I'll buy them, Mam."  I was a little confused as to why my father would refer to the evil troll as "Mam," but I quickly dismissed it.  I was too happy to worry about anything because I was about to get my rubber band guns! However, my dreams were once again crushed when the evil, green troll bellowed and said, "Oh, I can't allow that. You'd just give the guns to them."
We walked out of the store...empty handed.
Defeated.
I had never dealt with something so ridiculous, and I haven't since then...until a couple days ago.

My girlfriend had just got a second job and her hours were from 4am to 10am, so I took her to walmart to get some 5-hour energy.  We got a 4-pack and went to the self check out.  I rang it up and that little screen popped up that said "Please wait for assistance."  I was slightly baffled because I've bought 5-hour energy in Pierre before and have never had a problem with it.  The lady came up to me (this one wasn't a troll...she was quite kind) and asked if I was 18. I told her that I was 19 (which is true), but she asked to see my driver's license.  I showed her and then she turned to Nikki and asked to see her I.D. too.  She had it, but it was out in the car, so I told the lady that it was for me and I was the one paying for it.  However, the lady said that she had to check both of our id's because she didn't know if I would turn right around and hand it out to a minor.  Nikki ran out, got her id, and we got the 5-hour energy. Problem solved.

Now... (here comes the rant) I can understand these laws of having to check the I.D's of the entire party in cases involving either alcohol or tobacco because those can actually be harmful and addicting.  There is no proof that 5 hour energy is harmful unless taken in excess (but soda can also be harmful if taken in excess). From the miniscule amount of research that I've done, I've found that most accounts of people being hospitalized are like the story of this guy who had a heart attack and is trying to sue 5-hour energy for millions of dollars even though he can't prove that 5-hour energy was the cause of his heart attack. 

It's stuff like this that REALLY grinds my gears.  "You have to be 18 to buy 5-hour energy because it might cause a heart attack...we're not sure, but it's better to be safe than sorry."  or  "You can't allow smoking in the place of business THAT BELONGS TO YOU because it could give cancer to your customers WHO WANT TO BE THERE."
In summary... the government needs to back off.

Hope you enjoyed...feel free to disagree with me because we're all entitled to our opinions. This was just my opinion.

Mumblings of Nostalgia

Hello, my adoring fans! It is spring break and I am back in my hometown! I trust that all of you are having a good time doing whatever it is you are doing. I'll start this blog post by saying that I'm not sure that it really has much of a point to it. Maybe I'll tie one in towards the end, but just in case I don't, I wanted to warn you so that you don't feel robbed of your weekly “moral of the story.”

So, like I said, I am back in my home town and I have a bit of a confession to make...I was feeling ridiculously nostalgic the other day. I spent the better part of an hour driving around this grungy little town that my high school self loathed so desperately.  I was going to all of my old places–spots around town that meant something to me (side note: I am feeling like I'm a teenage girl writing in her diary right now...so don't make fun of me because I already feel stupid). It all started when I decided to stop by a friend's house (who is in the marines right now) to say hi to his parents. I'm glad that I got to see them, but I almost wish that I hadn't because it started me on this terrible course that I put myself on.

Next, I went to the movie rental store where Isaac and I have spent countless hours arguing over which movie to get, or not finding any movie at all. I just meandered around with no intention of getting anything. Then I drove by zesto (the local ice cream place) and of course, the flavor of sherbet wasn't my favorite =C Then I did something that I should not have done...I went to my old house. I probably wouldn't have, but I have been having dreams about it like every single night this past week. Most of which involve going back and discovering that I have left something important there. What is weird is that in my dreams the house always looks exactly like it used to.

Anyway, I drove by the house, and the outside looked just like it used to except for the fact that the hedge hasn't been cut since the new guy moved in...it looks disgusting. I suddenly felt OOBER depressed. Every single one of my best childhood memories was from that house. As I drove away, I was thinking about why things have to change. I decided to park at this spot by the river where I always used to eat when I picked up fast food.

I started to wonder why I was feeling depressed. It's just a house for goodness sake! Most of my friends still live here and I have made WAY more friends at college. I have a loving family, awesome friends, and an amazing girlfriend who happens to be on a cruise in the bahamas at the moment (That's right...I'm totally jealous. Haha!). This got me thinking about how I could possibly feel depressed with the way that my life is currently going. Even if my life was going terribly wrong and everyone that I know died, then I still wouldn't have the right to feel depressed because of the experiences that I have had.

Well, like I said...I'm not sure that this post really had a point to it, and I am sorry for that, but I just needed to brain dump. Thanks for reading, my adoring fans!!!

_Moses_

Ode To My Wolf Pack

Salutations, my adoring followers!  Still far and few between you are, but our numbers are growing! No, I am not wanting to take over the world...I am merely pleased that more people have subscribed to my blog.

As I was sitting backstage at the University of South Dakota's current show, Woman In Black, and listening to some Pavarotti on my iPod, I started thinking about what I was going to use as the topic of my next blog post.  Inspiration came to me as I was talking to my little brother, Isaac, online.  I was talking to Isaac about something personal that I would only talk to maybe 2 other people about.  This got me thinking about my wolf-pack and how fortunate I am because some people are only a one-man wolf-pack (for those of who don't understand the "wolf-pack" reference...never mind).  So in short...this post is about the friends I couldn't get through life without.

First is my Luftwaffe wing-man, creepy ginger brother, sharer of most of my inside jokes, and my all around best friend: Isaac.  Despite the fact that Isaac is a ginger, Isaac is one of maybe 4 people in the world who I would never get tired of spending time with (haha! Right now, the rest of my family is reading this and saying, "Wait! There's 5 of us! Am I one of them?!"  haha!).  Granted, Isaac and I used to hate each others' guts up until probably 2009.  That's when my family was going through something really difficult (which I am not going to talk about in this blog).  Isaac and I had started to hate each others' guts a lot less as the poopy year went on, but what really brought us together, was our trip to Brazil from October 2009 through March 2010.  We agreed the night before we left for the 5 month trip that the trip was going to be long enough even if we didn't fight the entire time, so we mutually agreed to do our best to not fight at all.  I think we got in a slight argument ONCE the entire trip, and that was it.
I don't think that we have fought about something since.

The other two people in my wolf-pack are Matthew and Jonathan.  Have we been friends forever? Yes. Have we had a HUGE falling out in the past? Yes. Are they complete reprobate Marines whose morals are ridiculously few and far between? Yes.  Would they do anything for me without a second of hesitation? Yes. Do I consider them brothers? Yes.  Something that Isaac, Matt, and Jonathan all have in common is the fact that I could tell any of them anything and they would never think less of me for it.  Granted, they might make fun of me to no end, but isn't that what friends are for?

I would talk about the rest of the people who I love, like my family and the friends who I think of as family, but I would never finish this post if I did that.  I just wanted to throw this out there and say that I'm thankful for the friends who are in my life.  
Thanks for reading, my adoring fans!

_Moses_

The Fact That Someone is in College Does NOT Make Them Smart

Greetings my adoring fans!  I am sorry for how long it has taken me between posts.  I just think that it is very important to not write something for fun if I don't want to.  However, I am now inspired!
I know that my last post was about my Introduction to Literature class, but I'm going to talk a little bit about it again...

I was sitting in my Literature class today and we were all numbered off from 1 to 5 (I was number 4...no pun on the upcoming movie). We then got together with our corresponding numbers, were given a poem, and told to discuss it.  The poem that my group discussed was "Sometimes the Words Are So Close" by: Julia Alvarez.  It was written in sonnet form and was all about how Alvarez believed that writing conveyed what she meant to say much better than her spoken words did.  Because I liked it so much, here it is...

"Sometimes the Words Are So Close"

By: Julia Alvarez

Sometimes the words are so close I am
more who I am when I'm down on paper
than anywhere else as if my life were
practicing for the real me I become
unbuttoned from the anecdotal and
unnecessary and unpressed down
to the figure of the poem, line by line,
the real text a child could understand.
Why do I get confused living it through?
Those of you, lost and yearning to be free,
who hear these words, take heart from me.
I was once in as many drafts as you.
But briefly, essentially, here I am...
Who touches this poem touches a woman.

Great, right?  Now, if you do not like poetry, then just bare with me.

Most people with half of a brain could at least say what they "think" the poem is trying to say.  I was paired up with three other people whom I had never worked with before.  I tend to answer all the questions normally, so I figured that I would stay out of the discussion as much as possible and only provide bits of my opinion.  Each group was told to read the poem out loud and I volunteered.  Afterward, I asked, "So what do you guys think?"  For thirty whole seconds, they didn't say ANYTHING.
For those of you who might not appreciate just how long that is (especially during a time of discussion) I want you to stop reading for exactly 30 seconds and imagine that someone is supposed to be saying something, but isn't. Go ahead...

IT IS A RIDICULOUSLY LONG TIME!!!!  I wasn't just going to sit there and look like an idiot, so I tried to get the conversation rolling by saying, "Well, the whole thing is just talking about what writing means to the author.  What do you guys think?"  After another ten seconds or so, the girl who was writing down our–rather MY–discussion points said, "....yeah, that sounds pretty good."  I continued to poke, prod, suggest, and ask each of them questions directly.  They never spoke in our entire 15 minute discussion.  NOT ONCE!!!!!!

After I realized that they weren't going to say anything, I started offering my full dissection of the poem with the occasional direct question to one of them to ask what they thought.  Only the girl did more than shrug her shoulders.  We had about 2 minutes left for our discussion and I finally looked at them and said, "Really?  Are you guys serious right now?"  They didn't say anything.

They should have just stayed at home and slept.  Not even offering a, "Yeah, that's what I was thinking" proved to me that they lacked the brain capacity to do much more than drink booze and walk back and forth between classes.  It actually baffles me that they had the brain power to know how to breathe.

Well, that's my rant for the day.  I hope you guys enjoyed it and thanks for reading!

_Moses_

Stupid Stories They Make Us Read in College

Hello, my adoring fans!
Though few and far between you are, I want to tell you that I appreciate your support and feedback, so lemme have it!  ha!

Alrighty...originally I was just going to talk about this one particular story that was really stupid that I had to read in Introduction to Literature, but lucky for all of you, they gave a ANOTHER stupid story that I had to read, so I'll rant about both of them =D

The first story is called "The Call of Cthulhu" (Kuh-thoo-loo) written by H. P. Lovecraft.  I strongly urge you to NEVER read this story unless it is required of you for a class or if someone is threatening you at knife point (even then, I'm not convinced that it'd be worth it!)  Sure, the story is about monsters and the fate of the entire world, but it is like reading a 30 page court transcript of a custody battle...but with no dialogue.  That's right, there isn't a single quotation mark in the whole story.  I feel a little awful for saying this, but I think that Stephenie Meyer could have done a better job writing this story than Lovecraft did.  He made the story almost impossible to understand and there was NEVER an "aha!" moment for me.  I learned more about the story looking up videos on youtube and story summaries online.  If you want the story in a nut shell, check out THIS VIDEO.

The second story (which we discussed today in class) was called "The Last Days of Mohamed Atta" written by: Martin Amis.  This is a fictional story about one of the men who crashed into one of the towers on September 11th, 2001.  Let me just say... Martin Amis is a SICK individual.  He actually put himself into the mind of this murderer and made up the contents of his day from 4 A.M. till his eventual suicide/mass murder.  In this story, he talks a lot about his blatant disregard for women and compares one man's wife and daughter to "owning a truck."

Now keep in mind...THIS WAS A FICTIONAL STORY. Nothing except the actual plane crash happened.  The rest was made up.  This begs the question: what would compel a writer to want to know what they guy was thinking?  In my opinion, it doesn't matter what his motives were, or where his mind was at.  All that matters was what he did.  Oh, and here's the real kicker:  This story...was published in the New Yorker...yeah.  Amis also wrote a story from the mindset of a German doctor from World War II who experimented on Jews.  Yup...Amis is one sick puppy.

This brings up a couple questions in my mind: Who decides what "literature" is?  And who decides that college students should read it?  Whether the story is about a mass murderer, written by a man with a fascination for evil figures, or a story that has made secret cults, grizzly murders, and a squid-like demon king boring.  Why do they even bother making us read these things when EVEN THE TEACHER seems less than enthused by the whole notion?

As I looked around my literature class this week, I saw 3 people falling asleep and the girl next to me was practicing all of the different ways that she could scribble the word "boring" into her spiral notebook.
Something has gotta change.

My Frist Blog!!!! WOOT!

Helloooo you people who are strange enough to follow me and read my scribblings!  This being my first blog, I will attempt to lure you in by sparing you from the typical "I don't know how this is supposed to go, so I'll speak from my heart" stuff that I've seen people have as their first posts.  Rather, I will just tell you what you are in for if you decide to follow this blog for any length of time...

I am really into just saying what I think is what, so there will more than likely be a LOT of that.  Yet, I will try to remain as politically correct as possible because I don't want to put anybody down with anything but actual facts =D  haha!  On that note, I'll never write anything about someone that I wouldn't say to their face, so there isn't going to be a whole lot of backstabbing comments (no guarantees though).

Secondly, I don't like people feeling sorry for me, so on the rare occasion that I post something that sounds like whining...it's just a brain dump...I'm NOT looking for sympathy.
 I am also probably going to be putting up some of my poetry.  A lot of it (the majority) is either very hokey or pathetic, but I'll avoid posting anything that i view embarrassing.  I am quite self conscious about my poetry, so don't be hatin!

OH!!! Also, I've been working on a secret project for quite a while which I might reveal on my blog, but no promises there!

So...that's pretty much it.  I would love to get some feedback/opinions/suggestions/whatever on stuff, so by all means, talk to me.  I hope that you guys enjoy my blog!!!!

_Moses_