I've come to a long-awaited (at least personally) conclusion :

Performing a hockey-style stop on ice skates really involves nothing more than the techniques we all use everyday to "drift" (powerslide, or "induce excessive oversteer" if you prefer) around tight turns in our automobiles. "Drift? Powerslide,?" you may ask. If you're a car enthusiast (like we in the official Davis, CA carbon fiber domicile are), you'll recall that powersliding a (rear-wheel-drive) car around a corner involves entering a corner at a god forsaken speed, waiting until the midpoint (apex) of the corner, jerking the steering wheel to the direction of the exit of the corner while modulating the "loud" pedal (throttle) in order to induce a loss of traction and throw the rear end of the car sideways, countersteering in the opposite direction when the nose of the car is pointed in the direction you desire while simultaneously easing off the throttle to regain traction, and finally straightening out the wheels when the car is moving in a straight line so you can happily scoot along again.

How is this simliar to stopping on the ice like a hockey player? Well, a hockey style stop requires nothing more than a brief loss of traction between skates and ice so that a hockey player (or occasional ice rink visitor like myself) can turn his skates perpendicular to the direction of his momentum without altering the direction he travels in, followed by a regaining of traction (end analogy) so that the friction between the skates and the ice can stop the hockey player. This is simliar to drifting a car because both involve travelling in a different direction than the front of the car or skate is pointed toward. They involve sideways travel. Ice skates are interesting - their blades actually have two sharp edges - one on each side of the 2 or so millimeter blade. The bottom of the blade is actually dull so that it doesn't bite into the ice. This means that if a skater wants to lose adhesion to the ice for a brief moment (to do a hockey stop, for example), he can manipulate the lateral angle of his skates so that the dull part of the blade touches the ice and lets him slip his skates sideways compared to the direction of his motion, after which he can once again use the sharp part of the blades to regain traction and let the blades scrape against the ice and stop him. Looking cool as you spray ice all over your envious friends is purely a fringe benefit. =)

Happy birthday, Crystie Cakes. March 21 is Crystal's birthday. IM her at isreme and wish her a happy bday =)

A report on my adventures in Vacaville (yes, cow town) coming up tomorrow.

True story:

It's 9:35 pm, yesterday. A huge white and red sign with the good 'ol colonel greets me as I pull up to the local Davis, California Kentucky Fried Chicken drive through.

Girl working drive-through: "Hi, welcome to KFC. Take a look at the menu and let me know when you're ready to order."

Me: "Can I get two breasts, please?"

(Inexplicably long pause)

"Excuse me?"

"Two breasts, please."

"That'll be 3.89 at the window. Thank you."

I slip the clutch a little more than usual so that a nice 2000rpm tenor exhaust grunt'll trail me all the way to the window.

"3.89 please. You know,I thought you were kidding when you asked me for two breasts."

At this point, I'm wondering how common my order must be - two chicken breasts at a fried chicken joint. She hands me a box, and I open it to find two of the largest breasts I've ever seen from KFC.

She smiles. "Would you like some hot sauce with that?"

Since the readership of this little rant lottery is probably pretty low (for now) and localized to people I know pretty well, I'll keep it "spicy." We'll find out just what that means soon enough.

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