heywoodu

Judging by how the average age is rising and - on average - people get older healthier, I fully expect to be able to retire around 75 or so, yes. Of course like everywhere people could stop working earlier, but I highly doubt I have the skills and/or ambition to have become financially safe enough to stop working when I'm 60 Which obviously I'm not too happy about, but don't find unfair at all. Someone has to pay for the retirement, and quite literally the only other solutions (scrap every retirement plan so people will have to make do with their own savings, if they exist, or raise taxes way way more) are pretty likely to result in at least equally massive protests. I am fully aware in news items they are obviously only taking the reactions of people that are so extreme it's basically just hard to not see it as comedy, but some of those included a hairdresser going on about how nobody would have their hair cut by 'some old and frail person who can barely stand up straight anymore'. Like, dude, it's 62 to 64 at the moment, the retirement age isn't going from 62 straight up to 95. Which doesn't mean everyone is super healthy at 64, of course, but it's not like the entire group of 64-year olds is a bunch of demented people in wheelchairs who were in excellent health two years before. I do agree the current system in it's entirety is flawed, my slight laughing was mostly just meant at the absolutely huge outcry of the age being raised to an age that's still considered rather low almost everywhere. Of course I wish everyone a happy early retirement if that were possible...

I honestly have a bit too many that I/we didn't make yet, but once we made most* of those, this one might be a fun one to do *not all, because I have a 9.000 and an 18.000 piece puzzle but we don't have the space for that yet

Next one is already waiting, but I'm slightly afraid I think I'm going to need a whole lot of hours of podcast and TISC listening

Nice Although the former 'Prins Pils' ('Prince Beer', basically) might prefer to skip that and go straight to the bar

Meanwhile, millions of French laying down their work (as is tradition ) to protest against raising the pension age to....well, still one of the lowest in all of Europe (64)

Cool! But.....where's that bread with salted butter or whatever the good folks of Slovakia give their guests upon arriving? (might be bread with just salt? I know it's something with bread and salt!)

It was this one One or two days after Bruna's accident, when she wasn't even here at home yet, the owner of the local liquor store (super super nice old lady) somehow found her way by bike to our home and delivered a bag of peanuts and this puzzle, for Bruna to be able to 'train' her hand/arm Meanwhile we made quite a few puzzles the past year, but this one was still unopened. So we opened it yesterday finished it today, it was quite easy but fun Significantly easier than the one I finished last week....a puzzle with pieces of puzzle pieces on it's puzzle pieces (the pieces on the picture don't add up with the actual pieces, so it's this drawing which is then cut into 1000 pieces), drove me mad

We nearly finished a 500-piece puzzle while listening to the playlist yesterday, hoping to finish both today and then go for another listen tomorrow and vote in time

Wasn't the Olympic 50k last year not 33, but even only 28 kilometer? Not due to a mistake of course though, other than the mistake of granting Beijing the Olympics.

I guess the medium-distance thing didn't work out for them after all. I mean, they decided to live apart in different Swedish places to both focus on their respective training programs better, so one can hardly call it 'long-distance', but surely it can't have been easy. Or of course they decided to go live apart for other reasons and living apart isn't the reason, but the consequence, who knows Edit: did a quick look and...did they just delete everything about each other from each other's Instagram?

Had missed that so far but wow, that's sad news I'm still waiting for all tennis to move into a one-set format in every tournament, so it's more urban.

World Cup podium for Baiba

Ghiotto's 10k was enough to keep me awake for the whole night if I'd wanted, damn One of the best examples of why long distances have so much more potential to be awesome than the short distances where it's over before you get into it. It also helps this was in Heerenveen, and not the rather soulless venues like Calgary and Tomaszow we've seen earlier this season.

It's pretty common for Roest to be totally collapsed after November or so, but he's been pulling it later and later, at least this time he postponed it to March Incredible race for Ghiotto and Schouten today (and the whole women's 5k was fantastic). Ghiotto's race showed why only fools who have no clue about the sport (i.e. important people, sadly) would want to even think about getting rid of the 10k, what a race.

Coach said: "We're going anyway" Club president said: "A final on Sunday is just not possible." So who knows Although a TV program, slightly satirical, made me laugh a bit: "If they win the Cup, they can go into Europe and you might get SV Spakenburg - FC Barcelona. If they win that, they could get into the Champions League, so we'll get SV Spakenburg - Real Madrid. And if they win that, they're going to the Club World Cup and we'll see SV Spakenburg - Boca Juniors." Then he was asked, with some disbelief, "where will this end?!". PEC Zwolle, yeah.... Den Bosch is from the southern part of the Netherlands, where it's more Catholic and so Carnival is somehow a thing (which we, here in the center and north, just find odd), so maybe they partied a bit too hard in Carnival week recently

Emil Persson with a mighty sprint to take the victory as first Swede since 2012 16-year old mega talent Alvar Myhlback, who skipped the junior worlds for ths Ski Classics, finishes in an amazing 8th. To think he needed an exception to even compete today, since you have to be 19 to compete normally - he is the youngest Vasaloppet skier ever.

Astrid Slind, who did the 30k classic in Planica not even 20 hours before the Vasaloppet start, took the lead in the women's race and made a nice gap, but Emilie Fleten has caught her after 40km or so and is now a minute ahead. Fleten has collected 16 (!) podium positions in the big classics in the past few years, but not a single win Today could be the day for the Wendy Holdener of Ski Classics

One would hope so, it's usually not the best look for the overall competitiveness of swimming when a swimmer is in the medal fight in entirely different distances/strokes within an hour or so

Day of Day's in winter sports, it's Vasaloppet Day We're underway for 15 minutes or so, and the epic start was a view to behold once again! Only 87km to go for the leaders!

The main thing is that he wasn't good enough to make it into the Dutch junior teams back in the day, and so he choose the GB way to compete internationally. Excellent choice, because he's been steadily improving season by season and especially this season is really showing his talent. So much that a bronze is a bit of a surprise, sure, but not even a huge sensation anymore, which says quite a lot about how good his development has been! Lives in Heemstede, I believe, for what it's worth

Travel restrictions and testing requirements, did I dream that we had New Year's Eve and entered 2022 and 2023 somewhere in the past 15 months, so secretly we're still in 2021?

He really has a unique style which makes him have not much of a disadvantage from it. Basically he's the only sprinter (ever?) who is somehow able to sort of accelerate after the final turn, which is where he gains a lot of his time, whereas many top sprinters have trouble even holding the inside lane when they're going fast. Shinhama probably being the best example, he often just hits the brakes in that inside turn. One-race 500m of course remains bullshit, but at least with this race Stolz made it fairly clear he'd have won anyway

One wonders if Slind might secretly hold back a bit to avoid having to go to tonight's medal ceremony, since staying in Kranjska Gora until 21.00 or so would make it even more of a rush to get to the Vasaloppet start tomorrow morning in time

Ok catching up a bit and Jordan Stolz's 34,10 might be the next most ridiculous thing I've seen in a very very long time, but this one is ridiculous in the absolutely most positive sense of the word Wow, wow, wow. Without any doubt one of the top performances across all sports in 2023 so far. There are no words to describe how insane this race was.

I've seen speed skating for most of my 32 years, but I don't think I've often seen a more ridiculous situation than this, damn. Nothing against the Canadians of course, but I guess they know they got the gold on a technicality and not because they were the best. Not like the rule in itself is necessarily a bad one, but it's always odd to have situations where there's either no punishment or a straight-up DQ. Rules are rules though.