I'm woefully behind on my Onion News Network. Watched this today and I was laughing my ass off. Even has a nice (and sad) dig at Yahoo at the end.

The new Oakland shuttle just pulled up at the stop by my office. Pretty darn convenient. Only had to wait about 5 minutes (it runs every 10 minutes or so during peak hours and 15 minutes every other time). As you can see, it looks like a standard bus and is serviced by AC Transit. Hopefully this catches on and serves its purpose of spurring more business in Downtown Oakland. Otherwise it'll be a pretty short lived experiment.

This is great news. The current issue with Downtown Oakland is that there are pockets of cool places but they aren't necessarily next to each other. Jack London Square (where Centrro resides) is up and coming while the Uptown area has its own bustling restaurant/bar scene. The free shuttle that will run up and down Broadway from JLS to Uptown (and all points in between) will help get more cross pollination of people between these two areas. Plus, it'll be a great way to move people from BART to their respective destinations. I'm toying with the idea of walking from my place in Rockridge down to Uptown and taking the shuttle the rest of the way to JLS. Would be a great way to exercise and save on gas/pollution/etc.

In my never ending search for a way to exercise without exercising, I recently bought some MBT shoes. The logic behind the concept seems sound but I wasn't sure it would translate in the real world. After wearing them everyday for about a month, I can say that some of the claims are true. First off, you definitely feel your calves getting a workout even after 5-10 minutes of normal walking. Supposedly the shoes are also supposed to exercise your thighs, back, and abs but I don't quite feel it in those areas. Then again, I'm just casually walking over relatively short distances and only for about 10-20 minutes at a time. Perhaps with a good hour walk over a couple of miles or so might yield different results. Second, I do find myself walking taller as the curved sole kind of forces you to walk that way. I don't know if this makes my posture better when I'm not wearing the shoes but it's better than nothing.

Skechers has a competing product called Shape-ups which has the same benefits. Not sure if they're accurate or not but MBT was the original so I put more trust in them. Plus, MBT seems to have much better styles to choose from versus the bland cheap tennis shoe styles that Skechers has. If you're looking to take the plunge, head over to Endless.com. I bought my shoes there and the service was great. Prices were much cheaper than buying at a retail store and they have a great return policy and free shipping. I bought the Tembea style which look good both as a hiking or casual wear shoe.