To Whom it May Concern

Ever since the dawn of time mankind has wondered, "Just how many calories am I burning?" While the first cavemen often decided this debate with blunt objects, modern man has turned to Science. Yes, Science!, the answer to all of man's problems not relational, emotional, or spiritual can show us the way! And with regards to this timeless question we can turn to "How Many Calories Are You Really Burning?" by Amby Burfoot in Runner's World magazine.

Through undoubtedly impeccable research Miss Bigfoot has determined that there are three main determining factors governing how many calories you burn from all that knee bent running about. And they are:

Weight: It's quite simple. The more you weigh the more you gotta carry from point A to point B and the more work you do. The more work you do the more energy you expend. Ta da!

Distance: Surprise, surprise, work and caloric expenditure are also dependent on the distance you travel. Amazing!

Means of Travel: Despite claims by some less informed there actually are significant differences in energy demands between walking and running. At low speeds running burns more calories per a mile as the body's motion and center of gravity changes to a larger degree than through a controlled, well mannered walk. All that hopping means that though you've travelled the same distance in space over land your body as a whole has moved through more space in getting there. At higher speeds, on the other hand, say of > 4 or 5 mph, things change. Your running pattern does not change significantly (though to be exact there are mild differences that can be appreciated), but your walking style becomes much more forced and unnatural requiring the use of considerably more energy. As such, a fast walk burns more calories per a mile than an equally paced run. Surprising? I guess!

All that breath-taking revelation aside, the important part is the numbers. According to a 2004 report by group of researchers at the University of Syracuse the following calculations apply:

Running - Total calories burned/mile = .75 * wt in lbs

Walking - Total calories burned/mile = .53 * wt in lbs

So in conclusion let me make this simple calculation.

A 170 lb man treks 5 miles in snowshoes. Assuming a brisk hike in snowshoes to be equatable to an otherwise normal run, he burns 637.5 calories. Booyah.

Reading Refinement: The Rest

In the spirit of getting this over with I will quickly summarize the remaining webcomics linked.

Dresden Codak: Greatly drawn, interesting, educational, funny, and rarely updated. Sometimes it's also hard to tell what exactly is going on, but, by the standards of the rest of the web it's pretty good. Brief plot summary is the main character, Kimiko, is some sort of introverted yet remarkably curved super genius who, with two friends who seem to have powers from who knows where, have stumbled upon time travelers from the future. That's really it so far. Not much else has happened. It's been kind of slow. So....

Pictures For Sad Children: Initially it seemed to be good, simple, and humorous; then as multiple story lines developed I began to have my reservations, and now finally it has become so confusing that I cannot honestly say what's what. Thankfully most the storylines don't seem to repeat so my inability to explain much of it can be overlooked, but the one plot that does seem to repeat is that the main character, Paul, is recently deceased and has since become a ghost only to wander about his life much as he did before. Like most the mediocre comics I've described so far it does have its moments and up until recently it uploaded daily. Now it's just Mon-Wed-Fri. Apparently it's hard work drawing stick figure based stories incomprehensibly.

Rob and Elliot: A blond-haired guy, Rob, and a brown-haired guy, Elliot, live in an apartment together and wacky hijinks ensue. That's really all you need to know.

Questionable Content: In many ways your stereotypical webcomic as described previously, but done surprisingly well. The story has become rather intricate with time, and so while you may be able to appreciate the joke in a random comic you most likely won't have any idea what's going on. In as short a synopsis as possible the main character, Marten, is an awkward wannabe Indie rocker. He is dating a nondescript girl named Dora who owns a coffee shop where Raven, a flighty girl of mostly little significance to the story, and Faye work. Marten initially wanted some Faye lovin' but Faye has issues related to her father committing suicide when she was a child. And wacky hijinks ensue. There's also an OCD neighbor named Hannelore who seems to be becoming a bigger character, and a couple what seem to be talking iPods to serve as the comic's talking animals, but I think I've said enough.

That's it. Makes you want to read them right? Nah, me neither.

The Story of a Pizza

Christmas is the season of giving. And the season of moralizing. In the spirit of one or the other I offer up this short tale.

I like myself some pizza. In fact I on average like myself some pizza about two times a week. It would seem that I also like regularity as I tend to alternate between two different pizza topping combos from the same Papa Johns every time I purchase (neither of which involves pineapple). Sometimes, though, things fall apart and the pizza people screw up my order -- but I don't mind because that usually means I get things for free. Just a week or two ago such an event took place and I arrived to find that they had for me a medium ham and green pepper instead of a medium pepperoni and green pepper. The obvious solution? Make a large pepperoni and green pepper and give them both to me for free. Yeah, it didn't make sense to me either, but who am I to repudiate their generosity?

The problem with sixteen slices of pizza was, however, that a typical medium two topping pizza lasts me two days, and although I do like pizza I don't like it for four or five days in a row. So my next task was to desperately try to find anyone I knew who was in town and happened to want a free medium ham and pepper pizza. It turned out that was absolutely no one. The few people I managed to contact quickly lost interest once ham was mentioned, but most people I didn't even get a hold of. So, worrying that I'd be forced to either throw the pizza away or eat it for five days in a row to avoid being especially wasteful, I turned to my neighbors. Thankfully for everyone involved I discovered my neighbors are not particularly picky people. Not only was a ham and green peppers pizza acceptable to them, but judging by their reactions no single act of kindness has ever compared with such a gift. Even a few days later they thanked me again for my charity. I'm pretty sure there's even now a framed picture of me hanging in their foyer. And it all didn't cost me a dime.

Which brings me to the moral of my story. Ask not what your country can do for you -- ask what you can do for your country. Okay so I plagiarized a bit and my plagiarism doesn't necessarily make much sense, but, truthfully, that's the point. My lovely neighbors -- despite my informing them otherwise -- thought I was sharing greatly out of the pure kindness of my heart. I was simply trying to get rid of stuff I felt too guilty to throw away. The pizza guys probably gave me my pizzas for free because it cost them nothing and doing so prevented complaints. I like to think they just appreciated my business. Our perceptions are inaccurate and so our perspectives become misguided. Keeping a ledger of all the rights and wrongs that we perceive are done to us then does not lead to an economical assessment of relationships but only to an excessive attention to self and a blindness to all the blessings already bestowed. As whether others are being selfless or selfish we will probably most of the time never know, it's frequently a whole lot easier and likely happier to not even worry about it. Free, mysterious pizza from family or friends is usually best enjoyed with just a little gratitude.

The end.

And now for a picture of Matt Bonner.



Ho! Ho! Ho! Merry Christmas!

Reading Refinement: Sluggy Freelance & Shortpacked

My two favorite webcomics are Dr. McNinja and Dinosaur Comics. The two that I sometimes question why I still read are Sluggy Freelance and Shortpacked. They used to be good at one time. I think.

Sluggy Freelance is interesting simply because it has been around for more than a decade now. It's really quite ridiculous. Despite this almost all the same characters remain, and almost completely unchanged. Even when they die they are usually somehow not really dead or in some convoluted fashion later reborn. So much so that much of the drama that the author tries to create -- as Sluggy's storylines are as detailed -- and unintelligible -- as you'll get in the webcomic world -- usually falls flat. Back before everything became one big muddled plot involving demons and aliens and evil corporations and talking animals and inept government and alternate dimensions and -- well that should suffice -- the jokes tended to be simple and amusing. Now they're mostly puns. Nevertheless, despite how dreadful the comic can at times now be the stories do have enough pull and an occasional joke is good enough to keep me coming back. That and the fact that this is one of the few webcomics that updates daily. Well actually I guess it doesn't even do that now anymore.... Hmm....

Shortpacked is the That 70's Show of the webcomic world in a "It's not terribly funny and most the characters annoy me, but sometimes it's on when nothing else is, and, seeing as I don't have anything else to do, I guess I'll watch it" sort of way. The plot and characters are pretty straightforward. Ethan, the main character, is a gay toy collector working at a toy shop. His coworkers who's names I generally cannot recall vary from a plain girl with father issues, a neurotic girl for whatever reason madly in love with Ethan, another dude who seems to do nothing but verbally and physically abuse people, and so on and so forth. The most recent addition is an asinine talking car whose only purpose seems to be to fulfill the talking animal requirement common to all webcomics. Much like Sluggy Freelance the jokes and story lines are ok but it updates regularly so, well, I don't have anything else to do; I guess I'll keep reading it.

Reading Refinement: Dr. McNinja & Dinosaur Comics

Alright. For those further wanting to indulge me on webcomics -- and I really wish you would -- a few brief comments and background on each respective one.

Dr. McNinja is, overall, easily the best of the webcomics that I have encountered. Unusual in that the illustrations are great, the stories are entertaining and the jokes generally pretty funny and original. Dr. McNinja himself comes from a family of ninja and so has natural ninja abilities even though he has chosen the life of a physician. His enemies vary from Ronald McDonald to other ninja to Mexicans on velociraptors to zombies, and he has two main companions: Gordito (a mustached young boy with two revolvers) and Benjamin Franklin (cloned or reborn or undead it's hard to say.) He also has a gorilla receptionist at the clinic.

Dinosaur Comics is my second favorite webcomic and involves absolutely no illustration whatsoever. The guy just reposts the same clip art in the same sequence every comic. What makes him a winner -- and he is a winner -- are the jokes. The comedy is, to me at least, sophisticated and yet surprisingly educational at the same time. Moreover as the dinosaurs and some of the off screen cast (a raccoon and a cephalopod) develop character the jokes get even better. There usually aren't much in the way of stories lines -- so you can usually pick any comic at random at fully enjoy it -- but despite this quite a back story seems to have built up over time. It has seemed recently that he's been resorting less to actual crafted jokes and more on absurd comments from the T-Rex or the inclusion of random one time characters off screen, but perhaps a thousand comics in the same daily setup has finally run its course.

A Webcomic Primer

Now that I've had a collection of links to various webcomics up for at least a few months I feel it's time I paused briefly to explain them. And myself for that matter as webcomics can be a bit... oh... peculiar.

I have always enjoyed comics. Not so much the Cathys and Family Circuses of the comic world -- I truly wish they were never shown in the printed press again -- but as a youngin' I loved to read Garfield and Peanuts, and, now that my tastes have become more refined -- or ridiculous depending on your vantage point -- I enjoy many printed comics like Doonesbury, Boondocks, and others. With the Internet has come access to a whole different world of illustrated joke and story telling with which to pass the time. Without the censorship and needs for broad appeal that comes with massive print subscriptions the humor can be much more creative -- and profane as the case may be. As it seems even many who are quite familiar with the Internet are not terribly familiar with its webcomics, however, I decided to share the ones I like with you all. And also so I could have a convenient set of bookmarks for whenever I am not on my own computer -- but hey let's focus on how considerate I am.

So to get a better appreciation of webcomics I feel certain general characteristics should be known. For example the authors of most webcomics tend to be young males in their mid to late twenties with a few in their early thirties. There are some older writers as well in addition to a few women here and there, but mostly it's young guys. The target audience for these comics is similarly also young males in their mid to late twenties probably because, perhaps obviously, young males tend to be the ones who waste the most time on the Internet. Many comics have significant appeal to women as well, and I imagine most aim for gender neutrality in their appeal, but by and large I would gamble the comedy of webcomics is much the comedy of male computer geeks. With these facts in mind it should probably not come as any great surprise then that the characters in many stories are doofy guys and well endowed ladies. Again these are generalizations and there are certainly many webcomics without an inept but lovable male protagonists or any conveniently large breasted women, but pick one at random and you'll see.

After reading a few you'll probably notice a few other common threads. The actual artistic capabilities of most webcomic artists, for example, tends to be lacking. The humor tends to be based largely on the random and ironic most the time though some puns unfortunately do frequently find their way in. And there for whatever reason tends to be a large volume of webcomics with talking animals or robots in them. Is this because nonhuman characters can voice opinions and provide views of ourselves that we would not easily accept if it were to come from another in our species? Probably not. They mostly seem to pull comic relief duties, but, hey, animals can be introspective too.

Before I close I'd like to share two more things. First is that the webcomics I have listed tend to buck much of the trend I've just gone over mainly because it got old reading the same comic with different names over and over again so the more unique ones had more lasting appeal. As such I feel the amount of comics centered around some sort of ridiculous fantasy, sci-fi, or "normal life" are not very well represented. Thank goodness.

And lastly, if you think these comics suck. Check out this guy. He's got issues. Mental issues.