lay off Croydon

If you needed any convincing that Facebook is evil, then this should do it:

Croydon Facebook quiz sparks ire

Apparently, some wags on the site have set up a quiz with questions like
“what type of Croydon citizen are you?’’ with the results including junkie, teenage mother and pedophile.

Funny.

I have no problem with making fun of suburbs. The thing is – it’s just not even accurate. Croydon’s actually pretty nice place to be, if a little staid. It’s green and leafy, there are parks and things. The bits up in Croydon North are hilly with lots of nice views. I’m told nice people live there…..

Before you say anything, I have been known to make fun of the place myself on occasion, but that was back before I knew better. I still can’t really cope with the roundabout near Aldi, but I’ve come to terms with it.

Running
A long boring run last night. It was so boring I hurried through it, just to get it over and done with. I basically ran from my place in Ringwood East down Maroondah Highway to Middleborough road and back.

It was sooooo scenic. There was McDonalds, Bunnings, Harvey Norman AND JB Hifi. Sadly, all except Maccas were shut. Oh well.

21.4kms in about 90 minutes.

This lunchtime I did a lazy 13km in the city on my lunchbreak.

Training
Because last Sunday’s long run got delayed until Monday, this week is looking set to be some sort of record. If everything goes to plan I’ll run well over 130km this week. I’ve already done 94 since Monday.

Full on.

let this be a lesson to you, facebookers

There are a few lessons to be learnt from the unfortunate case of young Mr. Brendan Sokaluk…

1. If you have a feeling you’re about to be arrested for lighting bushfires that killed dozens of people, make sure you get rid of any child pornography you have lying about the house. People already feel like lynching you – child porn accusations aren’t going to make you more popular.
2. If you know there’s a chance you’ll be arrested for arson (and child porn) don’t post pictures of yourself on Facebook. You’re just making it easy for people

That being said, in all seriousness, the rubbish that’s being put on FB at the moment on this issue isn’t really helpful. The guy’s entitled to a fair trial, no matter how upset everyone is at the moment.

Smoke
I’m feeling very asthmatic and wheezy at the moment, with the city’s air resembling the inside of the Marlboro Man’s lungs. I ran early this morning, and felt okay during the run. Afterwards I was headachy and nauseous. Admittedly, that could have been because I was on the way to work, which never has a good affect on me.

If there were a god, (I’m not saying there is!) and he or she was a benevolent sort of chap, surely it’d be time right about now for a good downpour or two: to put out the remaining fires and clear up the air. That being said, if some divine entity did appear, I’d be pretty interested to know what he/she was thinking the weekend before last up in the hills. Not cool, God, not cool at all.

more most wanted

You’ll be glad to hear I’ve manged some more “research” into the world’s most wanted. Here’s Nai Yin Xue’s Interpol record.

If you’re a Melbourne-based kinda person, you’ll remember him as the guy who, amongst other things, abandoned his 3 year-old daughter “Pumpkin” at Southern Cross station, then skipped the country. As you do.

Apparently he’s wanted for “Crimes against life and health”. They have a nice sense of understatement, those Interpol people.

Running
Melbourne in spring can actually be a wonderful place, at times. If, by chance, you’re reading this on Thursday morning, take my advice.

• turn off the computer
• go outside
• go somewhere green, perhaps a park
• enjoy

I made it into work a touch early this morning, so headed out for a bit of journey to Brunswick and back. Why Brunswick? Not sure. Perhaps because it’s there.

It wasn’t the world’s best ever run, but at least it felt consistent and pain-free.

Facebook
As if there was ever any doubt: Facebook is evil. What seemed at first to be a benign, if insanely irritating, waste of time will now become a vehicle for extremely targeted, personal advertising:

Hey Facebookers, it’s what you signed up for

My blog may be relatively evil in some ways, but at least I’m not going to bombard you with requests to install “applications”, I’m not going to sell data about you to ad companies and I’m not going to ask you to buy anything.

(although, if you wanted to click the Google ad on the right of this page, I won’t complain. I’m still waiting to make my first dollar from Adsense).

sore ribs

A minor technical problem has surfaced with the JRuns body over the past few days. Nothing to worry about, mind you, just an irritation.

Yes, on Saturday night past, as I lay in bed awaiting blissful slumber, my chest started to hurt: not a stabbing pain, just an ache.

I didn’t tell anyone, as in my experience when you tell people you’re having chest pains they’re liable to do embarrassing things like calling ambulances. In fact, I got up the next morning and ran just under 32k with Clarkey.

So it can’t have been too bad.

But it did continue, and was still going yesterday. Irritating. So I went to the GP who assured me:

1. I wasn’t having the world’s slowest heart attack, and
2. I didn’t have avian or equine flu

That was a relief.

It turns out I’ve just pulled one of the muscles between my ribs. I guess my heart is just too big – it’s stretched the rib-cage.

It’ll go away in a while and in the meantime it doesn’t interfere with normal operations; other than breathing.

Facebook
I’ve noticed a steady, inexorable drift from blogging into Facebook. One by one, all or your/my blogging favourites seem to have succumbed to Facebook’s irresistible charms.

I don’t like it.

I don’t want to get to the stage when I communicate with people by writing on their “wall”. Also, while I hold AJH in the highest esteem, I have no desire whatsoever to “poke” him, either on facebook, or in person.

Running
Common sense would suggest a run today is probably not an A-1 wonderful idea. Luckily, common sense isn’t really relevant to me, and hasn’t been for quite some time.

The doctor did say I could run, just not “to exhaustion”. Now, I can run for 2.5 to 3 hours without reaching exhaustion, so a brisk couple of laps of the tan shouldn’t be any problem.

Should it?

I’ll report back this afternoon.

Update
Well, I was right. The run was okay. In fact it was better than that. I should have known, whenever you’re feeling bad, a run will make it better.

Today was a couple of laps of the tan (see route at mapmyrun). 12,75k in total.

William Barrack bridge
If you look closely at the mapmyrun thing, you’ll notice I appear to have taken my lead from Nelly Furtado and flown like a bird over the train tracks towards the MCG.

The truth is, I went over the William Barrack bridge. Now, unless the Melbourne Marathon organisers see sense in the next few weeks and arrange a temporary closure of the train system on the day, I’m going to have to run over that bridge in the last 2k of the marathon.

So what’s it like? After 10k, it’s not too bad. After 40k, I have the feeling it’ll be another story. At least, it’s something to bear in mind when you’re zooming up St Kilda road.