Happy Friday, everyone!  (I have a friend who says Happy Friday every Friday, and it is infectious.  I find myself waiting for Friday so I can say it; in fact, I find myself saying it on Thursday night :) 

Had a great ride today...  I bought some new pedals, which are about 1/2 the weight of my old pedals, and either the actual difference or my mental approach because of the difference was dramatic.  I fairly flew up a couple of climbs.  Kewl!

So tonight we watched the Netherlands defeat the U.S. in women's water polo.  I'm not a water polo fan, definitely not a women's water polo fan, but this was cool; the gold medal match came down to the last 30 seconds, and was decided by a single goal.  Pretty darn exciting.  As much as I root for the U.S. in most things, I found myself pulling for the underdog Dutch; they were not expected to do anything, but overperformed and beat the best team in the world.  That's what the Olympics are all about! 

Another cool sport I knew nothing about until this Olympics: BMX.  You might think as a cyclist I would know about this, but I don't; yeah, I do a lot of road riding, and yeah, I do a lot of mountain biking, but BMX is quite different to both.  And it is fun to watch!  And a guy from Latvia (of all places) is the best in the world (who knew?). 

Here we have the Advertising Olympics, courtesy of Slate.  That is one event I have definitely not been watching (thank you, Tivo); good luck to the competitors, but seriously, who cares... 

The always excellent Inhabitat reveals the Ecotricity wind-powered vehicle.  Hard to park, but beautiful, and excellent for salt flats :)  Not to mention fast... 

Did you know?  2008 is the coldest year in the 21st century (so far).  So much for global warming... 

Shapeways: 3D printing for everyone.  How cool is this?  But Shapeways is outsourced 3D printing for everyone; I'm sure there will come a day when every household has their own 3D printer, and you make all these objects for your own use.  Seriously! 

Amazon are bragging that they still have XP for sale...  Vista: "Give up!"  XP: "Never!"  Ha.  And remember, Amazon pride themselves on knowing their customers...