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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I bet you didn’t know you had an intrapatella fat pad. Even if you did, did you know what happens if it get’s infringed?

No, I thought not. So, I’m one step ahead of you then.

Basically the IFP (I can’t be bothered typing it out again) is a little bit of veiny fat that sits in the knee and acts as a bit of a cushion. That’s fine unless it gets pinched – or infringed – in which case it hurts a bit.

That accounts for my knee pain in the last week, as well as the last hobbled 2kms of my run on Monday morning.

The bloody physio reckons I’m only allowed to run for 5km every second day. And no hills.

Sometimes I wonder if this is all worthwhile, I tell you.

Rest easy, dear read. Your humble correspondent has not taken up the life of a professional gambler. Also, I do realise the Spring Racing Carnival is sooooo last week (back before Summer came in earnest).

No, the track to which I refer is the red, springy variety, with white lines and a long jump pit running alongside it. In short: an athletics track.

I normally avoid athletics tracks like an extremely boring dose of the plague. And with good reason: they bore me senseless. Perhaps I have a short attention span, but I need something to look at to distract me from my sweaty, fibrillating, shambolic technique.

Anyway, as part of the general project “get back into it”, (“it” being running) I thought I’d better do a quality session every now and then. So today was it: 4.5km to the track in Croydon, 10 x 100m sprints with 100 metre jog between each, and then 3.5km back home.

10km all up almost to the metre, and a good time was had by all.

Well, it was only me at 5:30 at Croydon Athletics track, but I certainly had a good time. I don’t know what all these track people complain about (I’m thinking about you Jojo). Track work is easy!

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.

A fascinating sociological study, as reported today in theage.com.au – Men’s underwear key to fidelity.

Yes, apparently men only buy their own underpants when they are hoping to entice a potential partner into a relationship, according to a new survey.

Boys up to the age of 19 generally let their mothers buy their knickers, and after we get married we’re content to let our wives do the job. It’s only in the in-between period and when we’re thinking about having an affair that we pay any attention to our jocks.

Just in case you were wondering, 31 is the key number. If a man buys more than 31 pairs of underwear in a given year, that’s a sign he’s looking for a shag.

(Just out of interest, who in hell buys 31 pairs of underwear in a year? Bloody hell!)

This story rings true, in my experience.

Yes, it’s partly a feminist issue – why should women have to buy underwear for men?

The thing is, from my perspective, I’d much rather my wife didn’t keep buying me boxers. She won’t stop, no matter how many times I ask.

As far as I’m concerned, underwear is only there to perform a pretty basic function – cover up my unmentionable bits. As long as it does that, I don’t much care about what it looks like, whether it has holes in it or, god forbid, how fashionable it might or might not be.

I’m pretty sure I have renegade boxers at the back of my drawer that must be at least 5 years old. And they’re still going strong. I don’t need a brand new pair with go faster stripes down the side. Who’s going to see it anyway?

Also, I have a pair of sandals I bought in London in 1999 that were pretty daggy then and are worse looking now. But stuff it: they’re really comfortable, have great support and have gotten me around the world at least twice. Why give them up?

Running
None today. My left knee (the “good” one) has been playing up, so I thought I’d have a rest day.

I spent some of today’s lunch break idly thumbing through a recent issue of Runner’s World Australia in the newsagent. They had an article about “The Agony of Non-Running” (I think – I don’t remember it exactly).

I confess to laughing out loud then and there. If you happened to be in a newsagent in Lonsdale street today and heard a bitter, sarcastic sort of laugh, that was me.

I couldn’t bring myself to read the whole article (and the shop owner was looking at me disapprovingly – what? you think I’m gonna buy this?) but I assume the author also wrote about the agony of getting back to running. You realise, despite your best intentions, you’ve lost an awful lot of fitness. Then there’s the frustration of trying desperately, only to fall short of times you used to take for granted.

Sigh.

Never fear, JH: it’ll come back.

Running
I got up early this morning – again, curse this early summer – and did a hill session. It was about 11km, including 16h hill efforts of 1 to 2 minutes. Fun.

My left knee is hurting today, but I’m pointedly ignoring it. I’m not in the mood to take any nonsense from my sad excuse for a body.