feel connected?

I was going to call today’s post “up before the dawn yet again” but, after three days, frankly it’s getting boring. Anyway, it doesn’t really describe the full magnitude of the situation: I’ve been up since 6am yesterday. That’s a lot of hours. I’d tell you exactly how many but my brain no longer stretches to such amazing feats of arithmetic. (Strangely, blogging is okay).

Despite the sleep sitch, I thought I should post as, according to the Age, blogging makes you feel “more connected’:

Psychologist James Baker said this suggested that blogging could actually be good for people – helping them to feel part of a community.

“It makes people feel closer and more connected,” Mr Baker said.

I suppose no-one’s thought to actually join a community, or go out and “connect” with those flesh and blood sorts cluttering up the houses and streets around us. God forbid.

Running
None, this morning. I have a tentative plan for a bit of a leg turn-over session tonight, but that’s contingent on factors beyond my control: my ability to remain vertical.

new blog

Hello to those of you who have managed to discover this new blog, via the link from my blogspot blog. I salute you and your implacable determination, not to say muleheadishness.

I trust you will enjoy the new improved version. Have a look around, feel the quality, test the features. Knock yourselves out. Yes, a lot of the content will seem familiar to you, but that’s because it was all gold, and simply couldn’t be discarded. If you notice any errors, it’s all the fault of wordpress, who don’t yet fully understand the depth and breadth of my blogging genius.

If, on the other hand, you’ve managed to crawl or stagger upon this journal via other means, (hi there), any errors or other deficiencies are completely and utterly the fault of blogger. I can’t take responsibility, I’m afraid.

So, a new blog. I’ve spent today clicking around the new software/site/whatever you call it. It seems a bit better – a nice search function “out of the box” and some more flexibility with tags and categories. WordPress does have an alarming tendency to have text saying “hey there” all over the place which makes me want to vomit, punch the screen then have a lie down. I guess I’ll have to get used to it.

straya day, gloomy

Last night, Andrew asked whether I read other blogs before I post, or post first. To be completely honest, he didn’t ask me specifically; it was more of a rhetorical thing. For the purposes of this post I’ll pretend he was speaking to yours truly.

I usually chatter along to myself on the morning run, and whatever I remember gets typed down hastily when I make it back to the PC. That’s most days. On the days when I don’t run I have to engage in some crude plagiarism or, as I like to call it, seeking inspiration.

Which brings me to the “gloomy” from today’s title. My favourite source of blogging inspiration, Frankie Valley, seems to have abruptly ceased blogging.

And One Final Thing That Really Gets My Goat

That’s it. Done. Not even room for a comment.

I feel stunned, aghast, completely lost for words, inarticulate. So, nothing new there.

Running
I’m away for the weekend, sunning myself somewhere sandy and wet. I do have a run planned – along the Great Southern Rail Trail. It looks good, aside from an alarming 3k section near Koonwarra where the trail drops out for some god-awful reason.

That being said, all the maps online were made in 2004 and promise the trail will be fixed “soon”, “in the future” or “some time in 2005″. That means the powers that be have had 4 years to fix three bridges and a bit of gravel, which should be more than enough. Shouldn’t it?

I’m not holding my breath.

Shoelaces
My shoelace hypothesis of plantar fascitis seems to have some experimental support. Ever since I stopped the whiz-bang shoe-tying technique my feet have resumed their normal, if slightly whiffy state. Here’s what got me into trouble:

Note the loops on either side. You tie a normal bow and the loops pull it nice and tight. Like a noose.

Avoid this…

blogging: how to

I read some time ago there are something like 100 million blogs in the world. That’s a heck of a lot of zeroes. What that means is, there’s a pretty good chance as you sit in your train carriage or traffic jam of a morning, some of the people around you might be secretly sizing you up, looking for something to write about.

That quiet looking woman with the red scarf you see every morning might be secretly composing her daily post: “I saw a guy on the train this morning with the most ridiculous (insert your least favourite body part here)”.

Alarming, I know.

If the shoe’s on the other foot, so to speak, and you’re the secret blogger: don’t ever admit to it. That’s my advice.

If people know you’re the guy, for example, who wrote this: long krispy kremy run, they look at you oddly, as if they’re secretly picturing your nipples bleeding. It makes for a strange conversation, let me tell you.

Plausible deniability: that’s the trick. Yes, that is my picture, but it wasn’t me. It was someone else impersonating me. That’s what I say.

Toilets
I wrote recently about Americans (queue eyeballs rolling skyward) and how their vegetables have a habit of talking to them. My general jist was that sort of thing doesn’t go down too well over here in Orstralia. They’ve now taken this one step further, as is their wont, and introduced a talking toilet.

I often hear voices on the toilet, but usually they’re from the next room saying stuff like “make sure you leave the seat down” at high volume. I don’t particularly appreciate those voices, and frankly any more would be undesirable.

Thankfully, even the Americans realise this. One guy at that link above said:

If the urinals started talking to me Id just start using the stalls and if the toilets in them started talking to me, well I seriously expect a baseball bat would be involved.

Time to up the medication, methinks.

Running
A couple of lap of Princess Park yesterday. 12k or thereabouts.

the big day

Lately I’ve been a bit of a mysterious hinter, both here and on other forums. It’s been pretty clear something’s going on, and it has something to do with this weekend, but I’ve kept more or less mum.

The whole mysterious hinting thing has been part of my plan to appear enigmatic, mysterious and devilishly attractive. It worked didn’t it?

No, I thought not. I can’t have that picture on my profile and be devilishly attractive. It’s an either/or thing.

The other side of it is that the big secret, such as it is, involves members of my family, who have some right to privacy.

So what’s the big story then? Oh, didn’t I mention that?

I’m getting married this weekend. Saturday, to be precise. At an undisclosed location near the beach. The location has been disclosed, obviously, but only to invitees, and I suppose the celebrant.

The whole shebang has been a while in the planning. The engagement was over 12 months ago, but other events (another m. hint) prevented any serious planning being done until a bit before last christmas.

As is, I believe, traditional, we started out “only wanting a small wedding” and ended up with something more elaborate than I thought possible. We haven’t gone as far as making guests sign oaths of secrecy, and we haven’t sold the picture rights to New Idea, Bec and ‘lil Leyton style. But, do me a favour, don’t mention it to my other half or any members of her family.

The whole thing is like a finely-tuned machine, except without the “finely-tuned” bit. “Machine” probably isn’t completely accurate either.

It should be okay but just in case, cross your fingers and toes, throw salt over your shoulder like it’s going out of fashion and touch anything wooden you may have at hand. If you’ve come to this site via a porn site, ignore that last bit about wood. That’s probably not good luck.

So anyway, as of 2:55 saturday arvo, all things going to plan, the other half will be promoted to “missus” and I will become “hubby”. Sounds good eh?

Running
13 steady ks this morning, including 6 downhill strides at the end. I’m starting to get back to mid-season form after the recent bout with dog-flu (bigger and hairier than bird-flu).

I have a fairly heavy couple of weeks scheduled next, training wise. I may have to be a touch creative with the scheduling – moving the long run to Monday etc. as the missus and I have slightly differing opinions on what constitutes a relaxing honeymoon.

Blogging
I may have mentioned earlier – I’m getting married this weekend. There’s a chance I’ll be a little sporadic with my blogging the next couple of weeks. If you want to know how it all goes check back every couple of days or so or add this blog to your bloglines, or RSS reader.