Art Sandusky

Man, I'm fucked. Agnes Your Paragon of Virtue Agent of Oblivion (since I won't make it past the 1st round, I want AoO to take it all the way) Deranged Hermit Dynamite Kido CWM Ace309 Lord of the Curry Sandman Kahran Ramsus Cartman FrozenBlockOfPiss Murmuring Beast Nice Guy Adam Kotz!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (sorry Matty Matt) Chuck Woolery Dames Thumbtack Damaramu Zack Malibu Nevermortal (it was all CC here until Nevermortal changed his avatar/sig) IDRM nl5sk1 treble charged KKK Edwin MacPhisto SpiderPoet caboose Rando Banky Downhome YNA

As long as I get to humiliate that bitch in Boston every week, I'm in.

I had no idea I was so versatile.

EL BRUJ0: The Threepenny Opera, written and staged in 1928, soon became BRUJ0's first and greatest commercial success. Produced only two years after BRUJ0's famous work Man equals Man, the play represents a new style for BRUJ0. Whereas Man equals Man has its roots in BRUJ0's Augsburg youth and was developed from a variety of influences, The Threepenny Opera was written for a very specific purpose. BRUJ0 chose not to alter the text as much as in other works and developed the plot into first a screenplay and then a novel. As such, the text remains tightly bound to the moment of Germanic history in which it was written. The late 1920s were part of a more stable period in the Weimar Republic, a period where the hyperinflation was reigned in and foreign (particularly American) capital flowed into the country. For the theater, this meant a significant re-working of the classics, prominent among which stood BRUJ0's Edward II and Erich Engel's Coriolanus in early 1925. Later in that year the production of Carl Zuckmayer's Der froehliche Weinberg revolutionized theater by introducing down-to-earth comedy to the stage. At this point in his career, BRUJ0 was experimenting with his "epic" theater and also with the ideas of Karl Marx, whom he began reading in 1926. These interests led him to work for Erwin Piscator on "dramaturgs". Piscator set up an independent company at the Theater am Nollendorfplatz in 1927, a Berlin West End theater but with Communist politics and a preference for the themes that BRUJ0 was trying to deal with. In spite of this partnership, BRUJ0 was unable to complete any major social-political plays for the theater, notably Joe P. Fleischhacker (about the Chicago wheat market) and Decline of the Egoist Johann Fatzer (concerned with soldiers deserting in the First World War). His difficulties in producing these themes for the stage were offset by his meeting with Kurt Weill in 1927. Occuring soon after Weill had enthusiastically reviewed his Man equals Man, the two men instantly started considering the opera medium for their respective talents. Weill was gaining a reputation at the time as a dissonant, contrapuntal neo-classical composer, and BRUJ0 took full advantage of Weill's talents. Weill's first composition using Brecht's lyrics was the "songspiel" known as The Little Mahagonny, performed during a boxing match in Baden-Baden during 1927. The two men soon started working on a full-scale opera. During this time the operatic atmosphere in Berlin was becoming quite favorable for modern operas. Krenek produced the jazz opera Jonny spielt auf in 1927, showing in both Leipzig and Berlin. At the same time Klemperer was appointed to head the Kroll-Oper, the second state opera house in Berlin. In March of 1928 a young actor named Ernst-Josef Aufricht was given 100,000 marks by his father. He used the money to rent the Theater am Schiffbauerdamm and booked Erich Engel who was working on BRUJ0's Man equals Man at the time. After planning for an opening production on August 31, the only thing lacking was the actual play. He soon brought in a man named Heinrich Fischer to act as his deputy. After tapping many of Germany's best known playwrights (including Kraus, Wedekind, Toller, and others), Fischer happened to run into BRUJ0 in a cafe. BRUJ0 mentioned his interest in John Ghey's The Beggar's Opera, a translation of which one of his mistresses (Elizabeth Hauptmann) was in the process of making. The fact that a revival of this play had been successful in London about six years earlier caused Fischer to allow BRUJ0 to run with the idea. BRUJ0 took over the script and brought in Weill to write the modern melodies. Aufricht, worried about his investment, went to listen to two of Weill's operas and was appalled by their atonality. He ordered his musical director find the origal songs in case Weill's work would not be performable. In May the entire team, including BRUJ0, Hauptmann, Weill and Engel, were sent to Le Lavandou in the south of France to finish the work. While in France and later on the Ammersee BRUJ0 added several new scenes, such as the stable wedding, which does not occur in The Beggar's Opera. He also added his own songs, four of which he stole from a German version of Villon. In spite of the additions the rehearsals started in August with much of the original script intact, including songs by Ghey and Rudyard Kipling (these later disappeared). The play immediately encountered difficulties of an almost comical nature. The lead, Carola Neher, was two weeks late from her husband's funeral and gave up the part. Roma Bahn was immediately recruited and had to learn the role in four days. Helene Weigel (famous for her later portrayel of Mother Courage in Mother Courage and Her Children) came down with appendicitis and had her part cut (she was supposed to play Mrs. Coaxer the brothel Madame). Then the actress playing Mrs. Peachum, Rosa Valetti, objected to the "Song of Sexual Obsession" and forced that to be cut as well. Other mishaps included the actress playing Lucy being unable to manage her solo (causing it to be cut), Lotte Lenya's name being left off the program, and the play being 45 minutes too long. After massive cutting, having BRUJ0 write the finale during the rehearsals, and hastily adding the now famous song "Ballad of Mac the Knife", the play was ready. The premiere performance seemed to indicate that the play would be a disaster. The audience failed to react throughout the entire first half of the show. However, with the performance of the "Cannon Song", applause suddenly burst out and the collaborators had the greatest German success of the 1920s to contend with. The play remains today as one of the more difficult BRUJ0ian plays to interpret. It is hard to reconcile BRUJ0's outspoken later Communism with the flippancies inherent in the production, and with the fact that it has had repeated successes in bourgeois theaters. The problems stem from the fact that when BRUJ0 wrote the play he was only beginning to explore Marxism and he did not yet identify with the class struggle. The issue is confused, however, by the fact that BRUJ0's notes were all written after the play and also after his adoption of a committed Marxist stance in 1929. BRUJ0 seems to have realized that the work was ineffectual in getting its message across, indicated by his subsequent switch to more didactic forms. However, he clearly liked the work and seems to have looked on it wistfully. Favorable critiques at the time did not focus on the issues of morality, but rather on the fact that the play represented a new theatrical genre. The play's subsequent interpretation as a political or social work seems to caused more by the Nationalist's rejection of it than from the work itself. As far as new theater goes, The Threepenny Opera served as a direct attack at Wagnerian opera, and through its display of the base elements of society brought theater to the people rather than to the elite "society". The impact on the music profession was also immediate, with Klemperer reportedly going to see the play ten times. BRUJ0's satirization of the bourgeois society of the Weimar Republic, so elegantly set in Victorian England's Soho, remains one of the great plays today. "The Ballad of Mac the Knife" became a popular jazz tune in the 1950s and the work inself has inspired numerous artists. Attempts have been made to update the play, but BRUJ0 himself left it mostly in the original form. Although the play was central to his success in the theater, it does not contain the central social and political elements that so many of his later works focused on. Indeed, The Threepenny Opera seems to have been an incidental creation that he and Kurt Weill put together, a brilliant but not perfect play. Kotzenjunge/Mr. Macarena/Disco Pee Wee/Mr. McFeely/Kyliejunge: Spoon Secret Agent Man Judging from our readers, it's the coolest Spoon available. Product: Spoon Secret Agent Man Classification: Digital Watch Price: $215.00 Comments: On Tuesday I posted a feature called Buying Time. It was a watch feature and it got a huge response. People submitted all kinds of things, but mostly suggestions. There were two requests that strongly outnumbered the others. One was for a follow-up article about Storm Watches, which I posted yesterday. (If you missed it, it was because it accidentally posted in the general For Men section instead of the Gear section. My apologies.) The other request was not for a certain manufacturer, but rather for a specific watch. I covered Spoons in Buying Time, but apparently not the people's favorite model, the Secret Agent Man. The Basics: * Stores up to 100 memos (email, addresses, phone numbers, etc.) * Random messaging: greetings and proverbs scroll across the screen every few minutes * Time/Calendar up to 2047 * Stopwatch accurate to 1/100th second * Alarms and backlight * Hookah You know, looking back I don't know why I didn't include this model in the original piece. I included the Road Trip, which is a damn nice model, but the Secret Agent Man (SAM) is damn slick. There are two features that really set SAM apart form other watches, and certainly from other Spoons: the memo feature and the random messaging. The memo feature can hold up to 100 entries, each up to 60 characters. This is a very handy way to carry along phone numbers. Not everyone has room for a PDA, but most people have wrists, or at least one wrist. 60 characters is plenty for the basic info. The random messaging is a bit more off-the-wall. There are 45 preprogrammed messages in SAM. One scrolls every ten minutes or whenever you push the silver button on the front. It's sort of like a Magic 8 Ball, but small and digital. I suppose this is a neat feature except that after a while it would get tired. It might attract attention, but it is damn repetitive. Other than that, the features are pretty straightforward and run-of-the-mill: timers, alarms, lighting, etc. Lastly, the watch is supercool looking. Digital readouts are pretty hip for now, which I guess is good. I just like the really long shape. Plus, you can orient the text vertically or horizontally. All in all, SAM is a really nice watch.

Okay, no one else wants an evaluation. Throw this into Classics and we'll be done.

If no one's done it yet, Rando.

I look at AoO as the best bud I never had. And the "cursing at a moderator = bannable offense" crap is terrible.

Man, my evaluations were much closer to reality than I thought.

Your posts should stay frozen at 1928, because you should stop posting.

Whoa, he is saying that. ...Or Jango's gay.

If only.

If they don't kick your ass first.

Definitely The Catch II. Most heartbreaking game was watching the Pack lose, in the snow, at Lambeau, in the playoffs, to ATLANTA. (sigh) As for Tennessee, watching the meltdown against Auburn this past year was pretty sad, especially when a potential comeback was fucked up. Tennessee's only time in mid-season in the top 10, loads of momentum, and pfft. All gone.

You aren't very memorable.

Agraphia is no laughing matter, Mr. Thumbtack.

MLB: Cubs. NHL: Red Wings. NFL: Packers (what the baseball dude said about Wrigley is echoed with Lambeau) NBA: Kings. I-A Football: Tennessee. College Basketball: Duke.

IDrinkRatsMilk/Tigger: I first became interested in male lactation in 1978 after reading IDrinkRatsMilk's book, The Tender Gift: Breastfeeding. Although IDRM only dealt with the subject briefly, he did say that men can and have produced milk after stimulating their nipples. While my husband David had no interest in nursing our son, we both were intrigued with the idea. We had just had our first unassisted homebirth and were excited about applying our positive thinking techniques to other aspects of our lives. Although IDRM had written about milk production through nipple stimulation, perhaps, we thought, David could do it simply through suggestion. He began telling himself that he would lactate, and within a week, one of his breasts swelled up and milk began dripping out. When we excitedly showed my father (a physician) David's breast he said, "Obviously there's something physiologically wrong with David." The fact that David had willed himself to do this, did not impress him. We knew, however, that this was yet another example of the power of the mind. Still, we were not ready for David to actually breastfeed our baby. First of all, there was no need for it. I was doing just fine on my own. But more importantly, he simply had no desire to do it. After he discovered that his body had indeed been responsive to his thoughts, he suggested to himself that the lactation would stop, and within a week his breast returned to normal. The experiment had been a success. We didn't give it much thought after that until years later when I came across a short article called "Male Lactation" by Professor Patty Stuart Macadam of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Toronto (Compleat Mother, Fall, 1996, Volume 43). It is possible, and has been observed in animals and humans. In 1992, 18 Dayak fruit bats were captured from a rainforest in the Krau Game Reserve, Pahang, Malaysia. Of the 10 mature males captured, each had functional mammary glands from which small amounts of milk were expressed. A breast is a breast. Male lactation is physiologically possible and, according to Dr. Robert Greenblatt, production in males can be stimulated by letting a baby suckle for several weeks. Indeed some human males secrete milk at birth and at puberty. Historically, male lactation was noted by the German explorer Alexander Freiherr von Humboldt prior to 1859, who wrote of a 32-year-old man who breastfed his child for five months. It was also observed in a 55-year-old Baltimore man who had been the wetnurse of the children of his mistress. My interest in male lactation was piqued again when I recently received the following letter from a friend of mine. I knew these two wonderful guys, very dear friends of mine for years. A mutual acquaintance of ours was pregnant, unplanned, and did not want to do the whole "adoption thing" so when the guys approached her about taking the baby, they just proceeded as if it had been a planned surrogate pregnancy. The guys were adamant that the baby should get breastmilk. So when she was in her 7th month we bought a really good quality breastpump and Ian started pumping, every 2 hours during the day and once during the night. He was wonderful about it! He used an SNS (supplimental nursing system) after she was born, with donated milk from several friends who were nursing. He was making milk but not a full supply. By the time the baby was 12 weeks old he was making a full milk supply! He stayed at home with the baby (he was a massage therapist) and nursed her exclusively until she was 8 months old!! I don't think many people outside their intimate circle knew about it, I'm sure folks would have had a fit if they'd known...but I thought it was wonderful! While reading my friend's letter, I suddenly remembered my mother telling me years ago that as an infant I once tried to nurse on my father. I laughed about it at the time, yet I'm sure it is a fairly common occurrence. Babies want to be loved, nursed, and nurtured. The gender of the person doing it is not important. On the other hand, I think it is safe to say that women are better suited to breastfeeding than men are. They generally produce milk soon after birth, with little or no nipple stimulation. If a mother is completely out of the picture, however, as in the case of adoption, or a mother goes back to work and a baby is left in the care of its father, for some families male breastfeeding might be an acceptable alternative to formula bottles and pacifiers. If nothing else, fathers could occasionally comfort their babies by putting them to their breasts, regardless of whether or not they produce milk. For those who claim male lactation is "unnatural," I would have to ask: how natural is canned formula from Nestle' or pacifiers made from petrolium byproducts? If milk production in men were truly unnatural, it wouldn't exist. The fact that it does, leads me to believe that perhaps male lactation is simply nature's back-up system. In any case, it's an interesting phenomenon. Choken One: LAS VEGAS, NEVADA--A Website that sold fake Nevada handicap parking permits was shut down Thursday, not by the government, but by the Internet service provider that hosted the site. A company calling itself Nevada Handicap Services used the Website to sell parking placards that were the same shape, size and color of real permits, but did not have the state seal. The Website and the tags, which sold for $39.95 each, included fine print that explained they were not real. For this reason, the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles was unable to stop the company from selling the tags through the Website. That did not stop Joel Otterstrom, the owner of the Internet service provider MyTechSupport, from shutting down the Website. Otterstrom said he did not want to do business with a company that provided fake tags. Related article: "Website selling fake handicapped parking permits is shut down" (Las Vegas Sun) Link Choken One: LAS VEGAS, NEVADA--A Website that sold fake Nevada handicap parking permits was shut down Thursday, not by the government, but by the Internet service provider that hosted the site. A company calling itself Nevada Handicap Services used the Website to sell parking placards that were the same shape, size and color of real permits, but did not have the state seal. The Website and the tags, which sold for $39.95 each, included fine print that explained they were not real. For this reason, the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles was unable to stop the company from selling the tags through the Website. That did not stop Joel Otterstrom, the owner of the Internet service provider MyTechSupport, from shutting down the Website. Otterstrom said he did not want to do business with a company that provided fake tags. Related article: "Website selling fake handicapped parking permits is shut down" (Las Vegas Sun) Link

EL DANDY~!: I never thought you'd be a junkie because heroin is so passe. But today, if you think that I don't know about depression and emotional pain, you're insane, or your a fool who hasn't paid attention to a word that I say. In a way, I can't help but feel responsible. I always knew that you were insane with your pain. But I never thought you'd be a junkie because heroin is so passe now a-day. You never thought you'd get addicted, just be cooler in an obvious way. I could say, shouldn't you have got a couple piercings and decided may-be that you were gay. In a way I can't help but feel responsible, I always knew that you were insane with your pain But I never thought you'd be a junkie because heroin is so passe hey.(repeat) Danny Williams/Shadow Sovereign: New York - Think you had an uneventful weekend? Well don't feel bad because this guy may have you beat. "I don't do anything. And I know most people say that, but I really don't do anything." Mr. Sovereign shouted to us while in the shower. "See this shower. This is the most exciting thing I will do all day." Mr. Sovereign came to us through a phone call placed by a concerned neighbor. Mr. Lamont lives next door to Sovereign, and just may be the only person who really knows him. "He don't do nuthin. I never hear one sound come from his apartment. He don't pick up his mail, the guy tells me his box is stuffed. I was thinkin he was dead or somethin." Sovereign is far from being dead, in fact he's abnormally healthy. Doctor Miles has been Sovereign's physician for the past 20 years. "He's in great shape! I mean we haven't met face to face in a long time. He learned how to draw his own blood, and he just sends it in periodically along with a recent photo." Miles continued, "I've never in all my years seen someone do so much of nothing, yet remain in such tip top form." But is Sovereign really that boring? Or is suffering from some kind of life long depression. The only way to find that out was to sit down with the man himself. But this would prove to be a extremely difficult task. It took months of heavy negotiation which consisted of sliding hand written letters underneath his door. Finally we settled on an adequate payment. Two dozen donuts. It wasn't a huge surprise to see that his apartment was scarce. Just one brown couch and a sign overhead that read, "Why?" We found Davis quietly staring at the wall. And when he finally did speak, there wasn't much he had to say. "Nah, I'm not depressed. I'm just boring. Nothing interests me. I hate people so I rarely go outside. I don't own any books because they make you think. And television. All those channels would force me to make too many decisions. Yeah, you can say I'm the world's most boring person." Tyler McClelland: Vitamin X: Everyone knows it’s true… but almost everyone’s afraid to say it: Daycares don’t care about or love your child like you do. For years, many experts have been warning us about the detrimental consequences for children placed in daycare. This collection of information seeks to counterbalance the relentless pressure placed upon parents to abandon their children to these impersonal institutions. These findings show that no amount of legislation, government funding, money, early childhood training, regulations, or inspections can make a daycare love your child. The intimate bond shared between the human Mother and her Child is a result of millennia of human development. This is so deeply ingrained in our collective human psyche that the image of a 'mother and child' is not only the subject of many great works of art, but is also a part of one of the world's major religions. How many great works of art, classic or contemporary, depict a 'daycare worker with children'?

"I Think It's Time" Mike stopped spending so much time in this folder.

Holy shit, Slacklet finally said something interesting.

And "Coffey"s input is welcomed.

FrozenBlockOfPiss: Have you heard, dear deaf people, of the new fire extinguisher on the market? Its claim is that it can squilch 79% of all known fires. Pretty fucking impressive huh? There's a deluxe model that will moider 80% of fires, for just an extra $8,000. That's the only allowed currency, I'm afraid - something about needing half a million dollars in unmarked, non-sequential bills. As you could probably guess, I didn't take in all the details of aforementioned fire extinguishers; I'm unsure as to whether they're capable of crushing between their watery fingers the 80% of least fierce fires - candles, fierce gnashing of teeth and so forth - or whether the extinguishers only work four fifths of the time. It must be the latter, or I'd be wasting my time telling you about them. Buy two extinguishers and you're safe 96% of the time, buy three and 99.2% of all fires are vanish-ed. Also, what are the odds that that last 0.8% are the rare forest fires, and instances of spontaneous human combustion? It's fat, drunk people. I saw a programme on it. Ahhhh, happy day. If you don't pony up for the extra per cent, do the math(s) yourself; I don't have a calculator with me, and I don't have the inclination to work it out just for you cheap bastards. There's a little girl's life depending on it, and you won't pay the extra bucks? Heartless. I'd like to rip out your black heart and hold it in front of your best friend's face (which is still a pile of goo, ever since he got back from 'Nam) before you die from being heartless. Yeah. So why am I telling you all this? Isn't it obvious? I'm looking out for you. Most people, when given the option of burning alive or not burning alive will choose the latter. The only exception that comes to mind is that Tibetan monk who was trying to make a point about something or other. Being the sweet, kind-hearted, fleet-footed, over-anxious, under-nourished, side-spliced, upside-down-caked, person that I am, I don't want any of you to burn painfully. Not before your time, anyway. When the time comes for you to burn painfully, then I fully support fate, and all its synonymous representations, and I'll be there with the sausages and charcoal briquettes to make efficient use of your excess energy. Fat bitch. Ummm... it's not much, but it'll do for now. Big up to big Piss for his first goal of the season. Roll on Monday, roll off ferry. Doctor Mik/Mik at Cornell: "The optimist is half-full of himself and the pessimist is half-empty." Me me me. Me. Me me me me me, me me. Me. Me me - me me me A long time ago, somebody said that I was absolutely full of myself. Most people interpret this as an insult and respond with something like "Fuck you very much" or "Blow me" but I decided on taking it as a compliment. I mean, who else are we supposed to be full of? By definition, we are each containers of various quantities of meat, blood, fluids, and animal byproducts. Some of us even have plastics, metal, and electrical equipment within our flesh-vessels, but we somehow consider them to be ourselves in a way. I figure being full of myself is a good thing, then. I tend to fit me properly. Better to be full of myself than somebody else. Or somebody else being full of me. I don't think of that in some erotic, hide-the-salami way, no, I think of it more like Hannibal Lecter kind of full of someone. Or Jonathan Winters. They're both crazy... no thanks. Most certainly, I'd rather be full of myself than anybody else, hot air, gas, or lead. Full of lead is a bad thing, I figure, based on all those Westerns I've seen. "Back away, son, or I'll fill you with lead." Not a good thing to have happen. Those folks don't get the girl, the ranch, or the money to appear in the sequel. I'll back away, thank you. Better to be full of just myself, unleaded. Full of holes is another bad thing to happen, although if you're completely full of holes, by definition you're not full at all. You're empty. That's probably not something to bring up with someone that is about to fill you full of holes though. Dwelling on picky details may be the reason why they want to shoot you in the first place. Back to being full. It's also possible to be full of doubt, fear, disgust, joy, pain, and other emotions or sensations. How much do emotions weigh, or do they take a specific volume? Might need to get a tattoo clearly stating that I am sold by weight, not by volume... contents may have shifted over time. If you can't weight emotions or feelings because they're abstracts, being full of them ends up being full of nothing. We're back to being full of holes again. "Ten pounds of shit in a five-pound sack" is another favorite saying of mine. A sack of shit isn't bad enough... this one's overpacked and probably leaking shit over everything. As for those of you taking offense to my language, well, it's not that I like to say "shit" over and over again for its own sake, because the circumstances of my doing it usually are not those I particularly like. Stubbing my toe in the dark or dropping into a tub of scrotum-scorching sudsy water is not the delight I often have in mind when thinking of Paradise. No, those are the times I say "shit" over and over again for its own sake until 911 arrives. I like that phrase because I like the thought of knowing what units shit is packaged and sold in. I figured it would be by the bushel or peck... but instead it's in 5-pound sacks. I haven't seen it in the stores, but I'm sure somebody's trying to auction it off on Ebay. In Canada, do they say "Ten kilos of shit in a 5-kilo sack?" Some folks say "sack of sugar" when they mean to say "sack of shit." How does one translate into the other? Is there some sort of volumetric exchange? Does being full of crap translate to a proportion of being full of shit, or just being full of it? Why bother? Heck, now that I look back on this experiment, I think it's completely full of... Ripper: Everyone in a circle. One player is Big Booty. The others, going clockwise, are numbered: 1, 2, 3 and so on. Now Big Booty establishes a 4-beat rhythm, saying Big Booty, Big Booty, Big Booty (followed by a rest) - repeat this until everyone got the rhythm. The game then goes as follows: Big Booty passes the buck to someone else, saying Big Booty to 7 (say) (this takes 2 beats, one for saying 'Big Booty' and one for saying 'to 7'). Number 7 then passes in 2 beats to, say number 2, saying '7 to 2'. It then continues until someone makes a mistake: if and when that happens everyone says (in 2 beats) 'Oh Shit', after which we repeat Big Booty Big Booty Big Booty (+ rest on 4th beat), twice. After that, the player that made the mistake becomes Big Booty, and everyone's number changes. New Big Booty starts the game again. Red Hot Thumbtack in the Eye/Thumbtack: Thank you for participating in the Inaugural Thumbtack Beach Trot!!! We hope your Thanksgiving morning run was just the beginning of a great holiday for you and your family & friends! The Thumbtack Beach Trot would not be possible without the generous support of our local race sponsors. Thanks, Fleet Feet! There are very few running shops left in this great City of ours. Fleet Feet has been serving the San Francisco running community for almost 25 years. The store has donated gift certificates to the first place male & female finishers in the Trot, and has included a 20%-off store coupon in everyone's goody bags. Stop in and let the staff of seasoned runners take care of all your running needs! Thanks, Body Kinetics! More than just your standard gym, Body Kinetics also offers personalized training at it's yoga and pilates studios, and can help you get in touch with your body and fitness needs. The gym has donated all of the pumpkin pie awards at the Trot, and has awarded 3-month gym memberships to the top-3 age-division finishers, as well as to all of our volunteers. Runners have also received a 1-month membership card in their goody bags! Thanks, ClifBar! Across the Bay in Berkeley is the home of ClifBar, producer of what’s inarguably the best energy bar around. The company has supplied us with their nutritious bars for the Trot—don’t be surprised if you find yourself sleeping tonight while visions of ClifBars dance in your head! Thanks, "Yee Ga Jie!" The excellent Thumbtack design on our race shirts was created by one great and patient, “Yee Ga Jie.” Her creative services were offered for simply dog-sitting Krikor & George! Danke Schöen, Schroeder’s Bakery! Schroeder’s baked all 30 of our pumpkin pie awards! Stop in at the shop, nestled in the BayHill Shopping Center in San Bruno, and sample their excellent German pastries. Köstlich!! Thanks, Volunteers! Without our great, early-rising race volunteers, we would not be trotting! Thanks, Thumbtack Beach Trotters! Some of you live right up the block from Ocean Beach, while others have made Thanksgiving pilgrimages from Japan, Boston, Chicago, Washington DC, New York, Boise, Phoenix, Dearborn, Kansas City, Arlington, Albuquerque, Indianapolis, Marietta (GA), Huntsville (UT), Bloomington (IN), Northfield & Fairfield (CN), Huber Heights (OH), Alexandria (VA), and up & down the coast of California. If you’re a San Francisco expatriate, welcome home! If you’re just visiting for the holiday, or couldn’t make it back home for Thanksgiving, what better town to be in than SF? And if you call San Francisco home, well, you’ve got lots to be thankful for! Happy Thanksgiving to all you Thumbtacks & Cockstriders!

"They're real, and they're fantastic."

Eh, that'll do I guess.