Begging your pardon for putting first things (from the narrow point of view of self-interest) first: I was tickled to learn that Pandora's Sisters is now available for the Kindle:

http://www.amazon.com/
Pandoras-Sisters-ebook/
dp/B004E9T0WW

So you Kindle owners – and I'm looking at you, Fifers – might, you know, decide it might be worth picking up. I still think it's a pretty fun and interesting book.

Oh, and while I'm on the topic: By the time it came out, I was way too exhausted and disillusioned to sort of go around and beg people to post reviews on Amazon. Partially as a result, there's, like, one single review of the book there. (Thanks, Uncle Bill!) So, now that my strength's up a bit, and my dignity long gone: if you happened to read the book, and happened to like it, I'd be awfully obliged if you saw fit to post a review (on Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk, as appropriate). That would be really nice. Thanks awfully.

In what has not quite yet become a semi-regular feature, here's a song so great that I think we should all be singing it for 1000 years. It's, perhaps inevitably, Damone again.

Get the Flash Player to hear this rockn' track.

    

The above song is not out of the blue – it was pretty much the last thing I heard on my totally spectacular run today. I don't want to complain too much, and of course it takes very little to get me down, but I was just having a really crap first half of Friday. Sparing you the details, but then on my walk to the health club, the weather was, well, basically:

(*)

Now, I actually like to run in the cold; but there's cold and then there's cold. Also, with water in the wild freezing solid, the surfaces were, let's call them, treacherous. So after stretching, and lifting, and nearly coming to blows with the club manager over of the &^%$ing music volume in there, I had basically decided to punk out and climb on one of the cross-country medieval torture device gerbil trainers.

At the last second, feeling I think mainly cantankerous and ornery, I think maybe doing it mainly to spite myself, I kitted up and headed outside.

And it was, if not my most glorious run of the entire year, a really strong contender. It was just sublime outside – the air and sky all a hazy off-white, the surface of the whole world coated in fluff, breath magically made visible. And I just took off, and had a ton of energy (not a taker-for-granter anymore these days), and waved to the more than a couple of other running maniacs I passed, and was bouncily and happily front-striking, and doing quite a lot of exuberant air-drumming, to boot.

Including to the wonderful song I'm not taking any chances on you listening to right now. ;^)

Mindful that it is Friday, here's a Fun Break for you. God love American soldiers (and sailors, and Marines, and airmen, and coast guardsmen, and women of all military flavours).

That's pretty good fire discipline, actually. (I also like that he used the M-240 (7.62mm), rather than a SAW (5.56), but that's just the military geek in me.)

This one's pretty damned hilarious, too.

Happy Friday.