new blog

I’ve been playing around with a different blog platform (when I put it like that I feel like a philanderer – just call me Tiger).

Much as I love you, wordpress, there are some things my new blog does that you can never do for me:

• allow readers to submit photos, video, links, and posts themselves
• write proper html in posts
• customise templates
• easily update twitter and facebook
• blog from my phone a lot easier (including pictures)

The new blog understands me.

So what is the new blog, you ask?

runs.tumblr.com

There’s an RSS feed here:

runs.tumblr.com/rss

Check it out, contribute something, play around and change any bookmarks or rss subscriptions you might have, cause this blog may not be around too long.

updates

Something is amiss in the land of “social media” and things “2.0”, or at least the blogosphere. To be perfectly accurate, there is something amiss with that small section of the blogosphere that emanates from the eastern suburbs of Melbourne and concerns itself with distance running of the decidedly amateur standard.

Yes, that icon of the running fraternity, emruns, has threatened to retire from the business (blogging, not running).

I too, have been a touch on the lazy side. I’m not having a crisis, I just have a new job, plenty to do, and with the weather like it is, sitting hunched over a computer screen for hours at a time doesn’t seem an enticing proposition.

Last Saturday we had a barbecue for the grand final replay. It was such a lovely day, I don’t think I saw more than 2 minutes of the match itself. Then Sunday was, if anything, lovelier.

I could learn to like this spring stuff, if it wasn’t for the small matter of a marathon to run this weekend. I have no desire to run 42km in a heatwave, and given I’ve done all my training at sub-antactic temperatures, anything over about 16 degrees counts as a heatwave.

Oh well, I’m sure I’ll cope. At least it gives me an incentive to finish quickly, to get out of the heat.

Must go, I’ve only checked the weatherchannel website 20 times today.

why cousins shouldn’t marry

This is why cousins shouldn’t marry. You end up with sad people like Sarah Ferguson. From the Australian today:

…the main impression is sheer sadness at the progress through life of an exuberant, impetuous, dim, kind-hearted girl who in her 51st year should be safely stashed under some woodwormy beams in the shires, with an amiable lunkhead husband and a houseful of labradors, saddles and hilarious novelty ornaments, blamelessly raising money for the local hospice and cooking hearty lasagnes. Sarah Ferguson was just not born to be looked at and judged by millions of strangers, or to racket around the world like Becky Sharp: to put it kindly, she’s not very sharp at all.

Ouch.

Running
16km this morning in 68 minutes. All good.

Blog
I’m trying a few different templates for the blog. I think this one’s better than the previous option. Lighter.

I would have sacked Catherine Deveny too

I have, in the past, been something of a fan of Catherine Deveny. When she started to write opinion columns, I thought she was about the most interesting writer the Age had. I follow her on Twitter (more of the later) and generally read most things she does.

There is a place for a populist, self-aware, articulate person to write opinion pieces that get people talking, positively or not. The right wing have a bunch of people like that – see Andrew Bolt. The left wing, being an earnest, dour bunch, don’t so much.

The thing is, over the last 12 months she has become less the Age’s answer to Andrew Bolt, and more the Age’s answer to Sam Newman. She’s rude, crude, totally lacking in any empathy for anyone who sits outside her world-view even slightly (see her articles about Chadstone, and others), and her “wit” is vastly over-rated, when compared to similar writers like Marieke Hardy.

Her comments about Bindi Irwin were totally offensive, and her defence about being taken out of context on twitter shows a total lack of understanding of the medium. Twitter is a public medium, not a private chat with her friends.

And no, this is not an issue of freedom of speech. She is perfectly free to say whatever she wants to on twitter or elsewhere, but if she chooses to use that freedom to say offensive, objectionable things then she ought to expect that people will be offended and object.

And she ought to expect that The Age no longer want to be associated with her opinions.

Running
14 point something kms yesterday morning and 16km this morning. This morning’s felt harder, and I thought at the time maybe I was getting tired, but it turns out I was just running a bit faster.

short, sweet

9km run. the tan. fast. happy.

(this is my experiment in nano-blogging – Twitter is too much typing)

very low key

It’s been a pretty low key week, this one just passed, in terms of running and life in general.

The previous week was full-steam ahead, all hands on deck, 75km worth of strong running. This week, life got in the way a bit. Work was busy, in ways I’m not really used to, and home was equally busy. Then when I found time to run, I was really lacking motivation, and form, pace, technique and everything else.

I ran three times during the week, and a long run today. All of which say on my running log comments column “sluggish”. Ah well, it’s done, I suppose. We took the kids down to Venus Bay on Friday night, and I was relishing a good long run down there. Sadly, I forgot my running shoes, and I wasn’t about to run 27km in Dunlop Volleys. So the long run had to be back in Melbourne, this afternoon, after a long drive home.

Ah well. Tomorrow brings a new week. Here’s hoping my mojo returns in the morning.

Running
That run I did today is here on mapmyrun.com. It was about 25km in 2 hours, which isn’t so bad considering some of the run was over hilly conditions on the side of Mount Dandenong. Still, definitely filed under “sluggish”.

Blog
I’m becoming more and more convinced as the days go on, that a move from this WordPress blog to a similar one on Tumblr is a good idea. On Tumblr, you can blog really easily, and it automatically updates Facebook and Twitter. Also, you can mess with the html and css quickly and easily, and I think it’s possible to have correctly marked-up blog posts in their WYSIWYG editor.

I already have one set up, in pretty basic form, (http://runs.tumblr.com) but I can’t get the comments to work properly. I think as soon as that happens, I’ll be moving. I’ll give you warning…

effing social media

I’m struggling with social media at the moment. It’s getting me down.

Not because I can’t figure out how to use the thing, it’s just that there is too much of it. I have accounts at twitter, facebook, wordpress, I still have a google blogger login, a Wave account, SMS, youtube, google reader, google docs, myspace, linkedIn and logins to god knows how many forums and online communities.

I just about got used to all of this. I’d write a blog post, then use a thing called Tweetdeck to put a little pointer on twitter and facebook. And that would be that. Anything else would depend on the whim of the moment, and how much work I had to do.

Now there’s a thing called Buzz, which has appeared magically in my gmail which seems to be Twitter’s feral cousin. Much like a rampant weed, it sprouted above the sent items folder and has now taken upon itself to hook into google reader and most of my contacts. I’ve even managed to acquire a couple of dozen “followers” with little or no intervention on my behalf. Perhaps they liked the look of my Google profile. Somehow I doubt it.

All of this is deeply ironic, really. Despite all this relentless communication, I’m about as anti-social as it’s possible to be. In real life, I go a LONG way to avoid human interaction – hence the long solo distance running malarkey. I quite being a librarian because there was too much chatter. As far as I’m concerned, those guys you read about who lock themselves in cages and don’t speak to a soul for 50 years are on the right track.

My wife has stopped taking me to parties. If there are people there I have to talk to or, even worse, people I don’t know, I’ll be extremely uncomfortable and either get stupidly drunk or leave really early.

So…. what to do?

What I really want is one tool I can use that then feeds all the other screaming mouths of social media. I’m considering moving this blog to a thing called Tumblr. I think that might do the trick.

Has anyone else had experience of Tumblr?

Running
An easy 13km yesterday lunch-time. This morning I did another 13km, this time including a tempo section – just a lap of Albert Park lake done at a reasonable pace.

6 degrees of perving

At some point in the recent past, somewhere in the world, someone (probably a man) managed to take some pictures of a naked lady or two. That’s a little pervy.

He (again, assuming it’s a man) put the pictures on his computer and loaded it onto a website and/or emailed it some of his friends. His friends and/or random website visitors had a bit of a look at the pictures. That’s perving at one degree of separation.

Yesterday, someone working at a financial services firm in Australia opened an email and had a click through the pictures while pretending to listen to his boss talking. That’s perving at two degrees of separation.

Unfortunately for that banker (yes, if you like, that can be rhyming slang), his desk, and computer screen happened to be highly visible in the background of a nightly news finance report. Finance news viewers, if so inclined could perve at three degrees of separation.

This story was picked up on the 7pm project, who put it on their show, which makes four degrees.

I read about the story on theage.com.au – five degrees.

You’re reading it on my blog, so you’re the 6th degree of perving separation. Congratulations.

And if you read about this on an RSS feed or something similarly new-fangled and web 2.0-ish you’re lucky 7.

And the original naked lady, she is famous beyond all imagining. She – or at least, her naked form – is having her 15 minutes as we speak. I hope she enjoys it.

What a wonderful world we live in!

Edit: it turns out the young woman is none other than Miranda Kerr, well-known “supermodel”. That still doesn’t make it right.

Running
I’ve run 3 times this week. All three have been fairly uninspiring efforts. I’ve been tired and just generally blah. Oh well.

Blog
This blog has been feeling a bit down-at-heel lately, needing a bit of a pick-me up. So, I’ve lashed out for a bit of plastic surgery, some judiciously applied makeup and a bit of primping and plumping. Also, I applied a new theme – Monochrome. I’m not sure I like it, but I’m sure it will grow on me.

You like?