The Newsroom

Here's my RunKeeper totals for the year - the sum of all my measured walking, running and cycling. For the non-metrically inclined, that's 846 miles. And for the non-calorie converting, that's 15 lbs. So, yeah, I'm pretty happy on the whole. If I have a 2012 new year's resolution, it would be to beat that total - try to get 1,500 km.

It's a rare Friday PPV for UFC, with Lesnar vs. Overeem capping off the year for the fighting group in what should be a fight of Hobbesian proportions: nasty, brutish and short. But in a good way. So if you want to go see it in a bar, here's the link .

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My favorite Christmas song this year:

The "Related Items" section of Amazon.com shows this for Tom Clancy's new book. It's clearly $12.99 for the Kindle edition. Click through and you see this. The price has jumped to $18.04. Anyone want to take a shot as to an explanation?

BlogPress is finally updated! EDIT: Well, maybe I spoke too soon. It still crashes every time I try to use the MANAGE tab. SECOND EDIT: After a delete and reinstall of the app, it appears to be working perfectly now. Huzzah!

It's the Survivor South Pacific finale! Treachery! Betrayal! Long boring walks remembering voted-out Survivors! And, in case you haven't figured it out by now, this review contains SPOILERS. And, frankly, including that word in my title quadruples the number of views I get. So if you don't want to know who wins, you'd better head off here . The final duel between Ozzy and Russell Hantz's Nephew was ... hanging on a pole. Guess the producers ran out of ideas. Russell Hantz's Nephew finally dropped off somewhere past the 40 minute mark. He's on the jury. Ozzy is back in the game. Coach and Ozzy had a chat about the final three. Ozzy doesn't believe that Coach really wants Ozzy in the final three. Coach made a basketball analogy. Obviously, he's been watching Amazing Race. Coach also noted that everyone has promised him a spot in the final three, "So it's my game to lose." Well, he's doomed. The first immunity challenge was...

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It's the penultimate episode of Survivor South Pacific. It's the final five. Which means this close alliance that has stuck together since Day 1 now has to tear itself apart. Muahahahahahah! Indeed, Coach notes "The real game begins tonight." YOU MEAN I'VE BEEN WATCHING THE REST OF THE SEASON FOR NOTHING!? The epic duel between Ozzy and Edna was about a slide puzzle and puzzle cubes. Ozzy jumped out to an early lead, but the peanut gallery went to work helping Edna solve the puzzle cubes. But Ozzy won - despite the creative editing of last week's preview. So Edna is done and on the jury and Ozzy lives to battle another day. Coach and Sophie had a conversation that included the phrase "Ozzy's Pleasure Dome." Yeah. The top half of the show was very Albert-centric. And as someone who has not mentioned Albert in pretty much any of my recaps, I'm not going to start now. Russell Hantz's Nephew won immunity, which threw a big wrench is...

It's the season finale of The Amazing Race, the show where typically the first 56 minutes doesn't matter and it all comes down to who gets the best cab driver at the end. The teams had to fly from Panama City to the final destination of Atlanta, Georgia - where Amani and Marcus live. Marcus made a foot- WAIT!? He made a BASKETBALL metaphor!? Well, that's ... better. ACK! AND THEN IT WAS FOOTBALL METAPHOR AFTER FOOTBALL METAPHOR! WE GET IT! YOU USED TO PLAY FOOTBALL! But, please, English has so much more to offer than football metaphors. Heaven help us if they win. The teams had to use a Lear Jet flight simulator to "land a plane." OK, that's cool. Jeremy and Sandy nailed it on their first try. Ernie and Cindy got it quickly and moved on. Marcus and Amani virtually crashed several times. No football metaphors were to be had, but it's good to know that Marcus does not have a future as an airline pilot. From there, it was off to "the dump" -...

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At least there's now an explanation of what's going on...

It's UFC PPV weekend (again), and my current favorite fighter, Mr. Bones Jones, is defending his light heavyweight title against former champion Lyoto Machida. Sadly, I'm unavailable to watch the show this weekend, but you should! Here's the link to find a bar .

Edna refused to participate in the morning tribe prayer because Russell Hantz's Nephew revealed at Tribal Council that she was the next to go. Russell Hantz's Nephew came back with Tree Mail that contained videos from home via BIG SPONSORSHIP PHONE DEAL. Everyone cried. Except me. And my cats. The duel was Ozzy vs. Cochran. With a twist! The duel was grappling hooks, bags and table mazes. Ozzy won perhaps the closest duel of the season - a real nail biter. Cochran was defeated by his hero and ends up on the jury. Cochran cried but got a nice round of applause. Jeff brought out the Loved Ones (tm) of the remaining survivors. There was much weeping. Rick (whose name may be appearing in my recaps tonight for the first time ALL SEASON) copped a feel on his wife. What a romantic guy. Russell Hantz's Nephew embraced Russell Hantz's Brother while Survivor played weird Lord of the Rings style Shire music. Ozzy had to choose one person to spend with their loved one. He pic...

The penultimate (such a great word) episode of The Amazing Race started with the racers dressing as two characters from The Adventures of Tin-Tin - Johnson and Johnson (or the other names they went by), the detectives (No, I don't know who they are, either). The snowboarders thought it was related to Charlie Chaplin, and fell behind. Nine minutes in, Marcus made a football metaphor. Sigh. Well, I can only hope that if they win it all, he spikes Phil in the end zone. That would make it all worth it. From Belgium, it was off to Panama City, Panama. Everyone were on the same train and plane (I checked on Expedia - it's an 18 hour flight. That's gotta suck.) It was off to a tribal village where they had to get ... tattooed!? Oh, they weren't real. But they were the next clue, sending them to the San Francisco Towers in Panama City to walk a tightrope between buildings. The Detour was a choice between going to a giant fish market and delivering fish to vendors, or maki...

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Two months on, the BlogPress app remains hopelessly broken, rendered pretty much unusable by iOS 5. The developer claims the fix has been submitted and is in review - indeed, he claimed this in an email to me a week ago. But given the speed at which Apple reviews apps, I find I ridiculous to believe that it has taken EIGHT WEEKS for Apple to approve the update. In the meantime, I can only recommend that anyone looking for an iOS blogging app avoid BlogPress until it's fixed. Assuming that ever happens. As far as alternative apps, the official Blogger app is rudimentary but works - and it's free. BlogBooster comes in free and paid flavors and it's OK. This entry is being done with Blogger+. It's also a paid app. But so far I'm liking it an awful lot. Not quite as full featured as BlogPress, but better layout and picture controls than Blogger and BlogBooter. The composing function is a bit counter-intuitive but once you figure it out, it works fine.