I mentioned in a previous post what it feels like to ice skate when the blades on your skates are dull - there's so much friction between your blades and the ice that you slow down, similar to skating on uncleaned ice which has a lot of snow on it. For a long time, I thought that sharpness was the only thing that made you move smoothly and quickly across the ice. But then I bought a piece synthetic ice and read how it's actually the minute bit of water between your blades and the ice that helps create smooth, fluid motion (the synthetic ice uses liquid from a bottle to mimic the feeling of real ice). Building off this process, Manufacturer Therma Blade Inc. of Verdun, Quebec has invented blades that are heated to 5 degrees Celsius (41 degrees Fahrenheit), thus increasing the amount of water between the blades and the ice just enough to increase the speed without bogging down the skater in water. The skates reportedly cut the friction between the blades and the ice by 50%. 8 NHL players are set to run trials of the skates next month so that the NHL can monitor the results and determine if the blades will be used in future NHL games. I hope they gave some to the Kings - after watching their slow as molasses performance the other night, I think they might need something to speed the team up.

I just started to watch tonight's The Office on Tivo (yay east coast feed!). I thought this show used to be 30 minutes long. Did I miss something? I figured it had gone to an hour for the season premiere, but now they all seem to be an hour long. Tell me I'm not losing my mind - it used to be 30 minutes, right?

The song of the day is "Semi Charmed Life" by Third Eye Blind off band's 1997 self-titled debut album. I can't completely understand all the words, but from the first moment I heard this song, I was completely hooked. If I remember right, this was a decent freshman release, and I wonder why I haven't heard much from the band other than a few hardly hits.