movember clanger

An awkward conversation in the lift this afternoon with a guy in a lift…

Me: Nice mo, mate
Guy: Yeah, thanks (stroking mustache)
Me: It’d take me a lot longer than a month to grow one like that.
Guy: Oh yeah.
Me: And you’ve grown a full-blown porn-star in, what, 3 weeks? How much have you raised?
Guy: Um. It’s not for Movember, I’ve had this for years.
Me: Oh.

Awkward silence….

Tomorrow I’m going to ask random women when they’re expecting.

worst movie ever

I haven’t actually seen 2012, so I suppose I’m not qualified to comment on its artistic merits or otherwise, but going by this review, it doesn’t sound all that good.

The effects are Big Macs of empty visual calories; the stories are stupefying; and the dialogue completely retardo. They should invent a new rating for these spectacles, and catch an extra product placement in the process: iPod-10 (viewers older than 10 are strongly encouraged to bring an iPod).

Even by the popsicle-stick standards of its genre, 2012 is an expensive (though lucrative) failure. Confronted with the task of creating a single believable or sympathetic human being or relationship, Emmerich and his co-writer Harald Kloser are as powerless as their doomed masses. The human story beneath the noise in 2012 is a numbing pastiche of clichés tantalizingly close to a Zuckerman Brothers-style spoof. Towards the end, I remember thinking that the only trope yet to be trotted out was the slow-clap. The moment nearly came after Ejiofor’s expository speech on the need to save the billionaires at the gate. The filmmakers spent vast sums of money fine-tuning scenes of mega-destruction, but for story-mortar relied on weak echoes of dialogue from Kramer Vs. Kramer, The Dukes of Hazard, Daybreak, and Free Willy.

The most absurd example of this comes in the film’s final minutes. Moments after the entire Indian subcontinent is violently subsumed by water, Emmerich expects us to bunch our fists over the fate of a yappy purse dog. But we don’t. Even the best-trained American audience has by then long transferred its allegiance to the side of apocalypse. It is simply not possible to make it into the second hour of this film and not root for the cosmic clusterfuck to hurry up and finish its business with every last member of the species responsible for Roland Emmerich. Nothing makes a catastrophic polar shift seem overdue like a stylized product placement for Bentley Motors, set against the death of a billion Chinese.

John Cusack deserves his reputation as a likable actor. Back in 1985, you wanted him to get the girl more than most teen actors. But 2012 is so dumb you only want to cheer, Die Cusack, Die! Ditto Amanda Peet. And their children. You don’t want this family to reunite, to make good on broken promises, or to carry the American flame forward into the reset future. You don’t want them to do any of that. You just want them to do what they’re supposed to do at the end of the world, and that is experience a brief moment of bone-chilled terror, then die like everyone else.

I don’t think he liked it, do you?

Running
My usual 5km yesterday morning. Much like that movie, it was boring, frustrating and stupid.

I have not had sex with her either

At least, I’m pretty sure. I’ve had some pretty wild nights over the years, many of which are now something of a blur. That being said, it doesn’t seem possible I’d willingly sleep with a woman who described sex as “being intimate”.

I do hope, for Mike Rann’s sake, that he’s being completely honest about his alleged affair with a waitress.

If he came clean and said “Look, I had a bit on the side a while back. I’m sorry and won’t do it again” half the population would forgive him and the other half would secretly applaud the guy for being a lady’s man.

If however it turns out he’s lying or bending the truth at all, he’ll just look a sleazy crook.

Running
Good news, of a kind, at last. I went back to the physio last night and after about $70 worth (yeah right) of massage and ultrasound treatment, he pronounced me as “on the right track”. Even better, he doesn’t need to see me again. I half suspect that’s because I bring my 3 year-old with me, who spent the whole time throwing blocks around and pulling the sheets and pillows from the table.

I have to keep the low mileage up for a while, with runs only on alternate days. After a week or so I can start gradually upping the distance, and then look towards running on consecutive days.

Of course by then I will have lost absolutely ALL of my running fitness, and I may as well be starting from scratch.

Sigh.

5th ugliest in the world

No, I’m not referring to my profile picture – it’s Melbourne’s own Federation Square, which has been named the 5th ugliest building in the world, putting it above even the Ryugyong Hotel in Pyongyang, North Korea and the Arndale Centre in Croydon. Here’s what they had to say:

Billed as “Melbourne’s Meeting Place,” we’re guessing that this is where city residents meet…to go somewhere else. Frenzied and overly complicated, the chaotic feel of the complex is made worse by a web of unsightly wires from which overhead lights dangle.

Ouch.

It’s probably a bit of a controversial thing to say, at least here in Melbourne. Plenty of people I know here in town, mostly the cultured, progressive, inner-city types (who usually wouldn’t be caught dead reading this blog) think it’s pretty fantastic.

I’m not one of them.

I went overseas about the time they were knocking down the old Gas and Fuel buildings and returned some years later to find the thing built and people using it, apparently happily. I confess my first thought was “when are they going to finish it?”.

It might be cool, or funky or whatever (I’m no judge of these things), but it’s no Sydney Opera House. It’s inelegant and clumpy and manages to be both jarring and drab at the same time. Also, it’s not at all easy to use or navigate. The tiles in the courtyard bit seem designed specifically to make life difficult for people on wheelchairs (or probably any kind of wheels).

A few weeks ago I took the kids to an exhibition at ACMI. The exhibition itself was kinda fun, but finding the blasted thing was unnecessarily difficult: you had to know which entrance to use, which lift to use and how the cryptic hieroglyphics on the lift display worked and avoid using the wrong door.

I have a joke I always use when I’m there. The view from the steps at Fed Square looking towards Flinders Street station is the best view in town – solely because you can be sure you won’t be able to see Fed Square.

Incidentally, while we’re talking about the Arndale Centre in Croydon (you weren’t, but I mentioned it above – pay attention!), whenever we go there I have this conversation with my 3 year-old.

3YO – who put that big clock up there? (points to the roof)
JH – I have no idea, probably the architect
3YO – It looks broken. Is it broken?
JH – Well, it’s certainly not telling the right time.
3YO – Did a dinosaur put it up there?
JH – Very possibly. That might be why it’s so big and ugly.
3YO – That’s silly.
JH – Quite.

Running
My pointless little 5km run this morning. It was a beautiful cool, crisp morning – perfect for running. I was sorely tempted to keep on going for another 10km and bugger the knee but reason or laziness restrained me.

speak you’re branes

I’m a touched p@%@ed off with running, fitness, knees and life in general at the moment. Also, it’s wet and grey and gloomy outside. So, I’ve disappeared into cyberspace for a while.

Cyberspace led me, via a maze of articles on the Guardian website to this blog: spEak You’re bRanes – a collection of all the supidest, most ignorant comments left online, mainly on the BBC website.

It’s a blog that had to be done, though I can’t help thinking the effort of producing this sort of stuff day in-day out has left a taken it’s toll on the writer’s bien-etre. There’s a certain sarcastic tone creeping in there. Anyway, check this article out: Falling over.

And after that, I stumbled on this video:

Educational, very.

Running
Bugger all. I’ve done my 5km runs, for what it’s worth and some swimming. Bloody swimming. Don’t talk to me about swimming.

2 bigshot Americans in town

If you haven’t noticed, there are a couple of big American stars in Melbourne at the moment getting everyone excited.

Britney Spears is here doing her Circus tour. It’s mildly controversial, due to her obvious and apparently very poor miming of her “music”. Still, I’ve met many women (it is mostly women) who seem to be almost hyperventilating at the thought of the concert. I talked to a fully grown women on the train last night who was seriously talking about camping out the front of her hotel. I’m not sure what she hoped to see that hasn’t already been splashed over the front of a thousand trashy magazines. God knows, I’ve seen enough.

The second megastar is Tiger Woods, who we’ve paid 3 million bucks US to come here to play in a golf tournament. Thousands of apparently sane people turned up to watch him practice earlier in the week. I assume they’re mainly men. As I write this, theage.com.au has a live leaderboard. For golf! Golf, for christsakes!!

I’m a bit underwhelmed by all of this. I’m sure Tiger Woods is a decent guy, and he can certainly play golf. I’m not much of a fan of Britney’s work, but I do have some sympathy for her: she’s obviously had a difficult couple of years in her personal life.

But it’s not very interesting. I have a better idea: let’s do a switcheroo. Britney can enter the Australian Masters this morning and Tiger can turn up in fishnet stockings and writhe around in a cage onstage at Rod Laver Arena tonight.

I’d pay to see that.

Running
None yesterday. I did get to the pool for a quick km of my special brand of unco-swimming. With any luck I’ll get to run tonight or tomorrow morning.

old and slow

I’ve been reading just now, a piece on the Punch about photoshopping pictures to make yourself look younger and more beautiful. For example, here’s a “real”, unaltered picture of a 50 year-old woman:

Quite a nice picture eh? She’s pretty attractive.

Here she is after photoshop:

Odd eh?

I’m beginning to think I need of photoshopping these days. In real life I can sort of wonder around in a blissful daze, providing I avoid mirrors, totally unaware of how I look. In pictures, however, it’s hard to avoid the awful truth. I take very few pictures for just this reason.

Here’s my most recent picture, also my new facebook profile shot, taken on Monday afternoon at the docks in Hobart:

Scary eh? Admittedly, I had was pretty grumpy and cold, hadn’t slept much and was feeling less than enthusiastic about going to some conference dinner.

Here’s an older profile shot, taken a few years back at Venus bay, when I was relatively young and fresh-faced:

It’s all going south rather quickly isn’t it? I blame years of hard living, destroying my skin’s youthful elasticity and dampening my joie de vivre.

Running
My joie de vivre is not the only thing a bit damp this morning. Some bright spark (me) thought it would be a good idea to go for a run early this morning. I was up at 5:20 and out the door quick-smart. Even at that time, it was warm and humid. I sweated around my usual 12.5km course in pretty much right on an hour. That’s 5 minutes faster than 10 days ago, but still 8 minutes slower than my PB.

When I finished, I was so sweaty there were complaints. Actually, the complaints were about the smell, but it’s the same general idea.

I use this morning’s course as a measure of my overall fitness. (here is is on mapmyrun.com) It’s 12.5km, but not at all easy. I could run that distance in a race at under 4 minute/km pace pretty easily, but I’ve never got close on this course. There are 3 sharp hills and a couple of long slow ones. They hills are all in the first 8km, so the trick is to keep it strong and steady through them, leaving enough energy to fang it over the relatively flat last 3km.

So that’s my goal (for the moment): pick up enough fitness and speed to be able to give 52 minutes a shot. I’d like to do it in under 50 minutes one day, but that’s a way off.

Passports

We’re taking a little family trip in a few months time. It’s out of the country (Vietnam, thanks for asking) so we’ve all had to get new passports. The kids because they’ve never had one before, and the adults because ours have expired.

Hoo-eee, has it been a difficult process.

Firstly, you have a go at getting 2 kids under 3 to stay still, not smile, not cry, have their mouth shut, hold their chin up etc. for a picture. It can’t be done, I’m telling you. Or at least it can be, but not without crying at such a pitch and volume that the whole shopping centre turns around at once to stare at you. And that’s just the adults!

Anyway, we got some pictures eventually, and I went down to my friendly local post office for the interview. It turns out one of the kids’ photos wasn’t right – the distance between the top of the head and the chin was less than 2 millimetres out. 2 mils! So we had to do it again.

Then there’s the form itself, which is available online. You can’t download it and fill it out by hand in your own time. No, you have to go through an extremely tedious wizard thing. At every second step it turns out you need some piece of information you don’t have at hand, so you have to do the whole thing again (because you forgot to write down the code they gave you at the start of the process).

I’m a little cheezed off with the whole thing, let me tell you. It might just be easier to stay home.

Running
A 10km run this morning, with AM. I’m not sure she (AM) was quite at her fleet-footed best, I know I wasn’t. So it was a pretty gently stroll along the river, but in lovely weather.

I’m tossing up doing the Maroondah Hospital fun run this Sunday morning. It pretty much goes past my house, so I should enter. I’m thinking about taking one of the kids in the pram. That might be fun???