Ninety nine

99 cents cup noodles!!! So appealing, right?
Right. Psychological pricing at its best. Two problems here:
1. Consumer enticement. Apparently, we've got a thing for looking at the digits in the front... only. I guess this isn't really a problem for the industries though.
2. Pennies. They're inefficient... like nickels. I applaud Canada for their abolishing of the penny.

Now, of all things, coin minting is not something I really care about, but I do have complaints about labels that end with 9. Today, I ran a 7:00 mile. Its a pretty good time and a 47 second drop from my time last year, but I'm not really happy at all. My throat has running bubbles inside and my stomach is on the usual runner's good dry air, so really, I should be happy. I haven't run very hard for a long, long time. But I wish I ran a 6:59. What a fantastic time. Its in the 6 minute zone, the cutoff between athletes and normal kids. The minute the word "six-" comes out, people stop hearing the "fifty-nine." If they hear it, they don't care. 6 minute zone! I could have had a cool kid label.

On the other hand, the 7:00 flat goes nicely with my 77 pacers. Maybe its a mischievous trick of my body.

On the penny and nickle: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QY07skX1vCk&list=UUGaVdbSav8xWuFWTadK6loA&index=3&feature=plcp

Fitness test results, 2007 to present:
2007: Mile: 9:20. Pacers: 24. Pushups: 3. Lol.
2008: Mile: 9:00. Pacers: 26. Pushups: 15.
2009: Mile: 8:31. Pacers: 42. Pushups: 15.
2010: Mile: 7:47. Pacers: 67. Pushups: 11.
2012: Mile: 7:00. Pacers: 77. Pushups: 20.

You may have wondered (you probably didn't) why I didn't include curl-ups or sit and reach. I think curl-ups and any crunch activities are stupid because they're usually done improperly with atrocious form, and they're bad for the back. I'm also inflexible, so I choose not to consider flexibility any sort of athletic feat until the extremes.