Famous Fridays

My wife often says things that make me laugh so hard that I can't breathe. Just last night, as we were talking about seeing shows on our upcoming trip to Las Vegas she said "You should take me to see the Chipmunks!". It took me a minute to understand what I heard, and laughing hard I asked her "You sure you want to see the Chipmunks? Wouldnt you rather see the Chippendales?"

While that was unintentional, she often says hilarious things by choice such as "I think I'm Freddie Mercury's long lost love child" or "I would do drugs just to go to rehab. Look at that guy, he's living the life!". The one I want to share specifically today was "Not many people know you yet. But stick with me and I'll make you famous, Benny". I've taken to putting these quotes on my facebook profile so I don't forget them.

That last quote prompted Rach to start thinking about how people get famous and posting a humorous guide on how to do it on her blog. Since she's been busy with school and hasn't had a chance to do it on her blog, I decided I'd do a little bit on the topic here. Each Friday, I'll highlight some aspect of this and how it applies to my life and cycling/triathlon. Today's topic is focused primarily on Twitter, which seems to be the easiest way to interact with an honest to goodness famous person.

Since starting this blog I've become world famous. Well, ok, maybe not world famous in a Kentucky Fried Chicken way, but I've become a household name if just in my own house (finally!). I've had my name in a magazine, I've gotten way more readers than I deserve (and am grateful for every single one of them), and I've mingled with sports glitterati. Maybe mingled isn't the right word. More like had deep meaningful discussions on the meaning of life, and how we all fit into this crazy universe. One such example is this tweet from world renown triathlete Juan Pelota:

He only uses as many syllables as he has pelotas.

So now you're saying to yourself "I've heard of TechknowGN, but who the heck is Juan Pelota?" Well, when you spend your days fighting cancer and cycling for a living, sometimes it helps to have an alter ego (as if his first ego isnt big enough). Yep, @juanpelota is none other than Lance Armstrong. He started a second twitter account so he could tweet about his triathlon training and racing without flooding the million plus followers with the details of preparing for his first multisport season in many years. In his primary account he references Juan Pelota as a different person which makes it even funnier. When I recently asked "Juan" what it was like having Lance's Ranch named after him, he responded:

It takes some "ball" to post so humbly

Now if the depth of conversation with Lance doesn't impress you, perhaps my conversations with his chief lieutenant Levi Leipheimer might. In world full of danger and intrigue, you have to protect your pets. And while I made the point that pets can be implanted with microchips for identification, Levi counterpointed with the following:

A word to the wise. Don't let your pets leave home without it

In a world this dangerous, Levi's right; your pet should never leave home without at least 2 forms of ID. Now you may ask, where did Levi come up with such a profound piece of knowledge. Well I'm happy to say he got it where we men get all of our valuable information the back page of Playboy magazine his wife:

So much knowledge in just 140 characters

I actually knew the breakable collar part, but it's good to see that professional athletes worry about such things too. Now, I just need to find a breakable collar small enough for Rachelle's hamster, Lil' Wengels (aka Puffball).

Notes:

- Last night I did 5 miles on the rollers. It's the longest total distance I've done in a day. The more I use them the more I'm finding how tough the rollers really are. I had to break the distance up into 1-1.5 mile increments. I'm hoping to be able to gut through 5 consecutive miles soon.

- Tonight is another swim, as I want to really see how much I can contribute to the teams swim mileage this month.

- 21.4 pounds, 29 days. Too much salt yesterday. I need to take a recovery day this weekend while watching my intake and I should drop a couple/few pounds.