nasty stuff

Today, on the way into Eastland, with wife and kids in tow, I passed a young couple (late teens, at a guess) having a domestic. I’d guess the fight had been going for a while before we got there. There was shouting, screaming, at one point the girl slapped the guy pretty hard, then he grabbed her by the throat and held her against the wall. It was all really rough, really aggressive, out of control and totally out of order.

At that point, I had that classic dilemma: do I walk on by and assume someone else would help, or do I do something and risk getting my head beaten in. The guy was fairly big, had a crazy look in his eye and prison-style tatts on the back of his neck. Also, it’s never a good idea to interfere in a domestic.

In the end I had a bet each way, saying “hey mate, back off”, then pulling out my phone and telling him I was calling the police. He turned to me and said “it’s all-right, it’s my girlfriend”. (Really! That’s a verbatim quote).

At that point the security guards showed up and I shepherded the kids off somewhere else. Presumably everything calmed down.

A few hours later and I still feel quite angry about the whole thing. I can’t believe the guy thinks because she was “his girlfriend”, he’s within his rights physically intimidate her. It’s not right, not at all.

Still, this kind of thing is not uncommon, but I would assume it’s mostly behind closed doors, not out the front of Hoyts.

Running
Another long run down today. I ran 35.9km in 2 hours 44. It was a pretty easy run, despite the wind, the cold and a nasty dash of nipple chafing. It’s probably about as long as I’ll run in this marathon training, so that’s good.

Father’s day
When I got home, it was time to celebrate bunnings father’s day. I don’t really approve of hallmark holidays like this, especially when I have to make breakfast for everyone else. Surely it shouldn’t work like that?

It was decided we should go out for pancakes, so we trooped off to the Pancake Parlour. Who knew it still existed? The last time I went was about 1986. This morning, pancakes had seemed like a good idea, but when I actually looked at the menu (a3 size, laminated for easy wiping) I just couldn’t face the thought of heaps of the things plus ice cream and god-knows what else. My guts rebelled at the thought of all those calories. Probably witnessing the incident I described before didn’t help things.

terribly embarrassing

I have enough of a memory of being a primary school kid to really feel for this boy:

Prep students beat older boy as he lay on ground, hurt

Four preppies have been suspended after ganging up on a student about twice their age, wrestling their victim to the ground and beating him while he lay there.

He’ll never hear the end of this one: not as long as he lives. Beaten up by a bunch of 5 year-olds!

Running
I moved the weekly long run forward a couple of days, just for something different. I ran in to work, taking a longer route via the Eastern freeway. It was 32km or thereabouts.

Here it is on the web: http://www.mapmyrun.com/route/au/Ringwood%20East/867466135646

Because of the change of schedule, I’ve actually run more than 125km in the previous 7 days. Pretty good eh?

Of course, I’m absolutely no use at work today, but that’s nothing new.

more boxing

An update on the boxing contests I referred to yesterday. The guy on the right, who turns out to be Floyd Mayweather Jnr, won handsomely.

Actually, he “boxed the heart out of Ricky Hatton“.

I wouldn’t have thought that was within the rules of boxing but I’m sure it was effective. Hey, if you’re allowed to chew on an ear, ripping your opponent’s still-beating heart out of his chest is the next logical step.

The photo below is very revealing. You can just imagine what’s going through his mind at that point.

Perhaps this wasn’t such a good idea
I hope I’m wearing clean underwear
Where am I?
Why are my teeth blue?

Running
I have a lunch-time run scheduled today with a friend. She, Anne-Marie, says she wants to use me as motivation to get out there running. I must admit to shaking my head rather fiercely at that. She’s obviously not seen the inner thigh-chafing. That’s enough to send Haile Gebrselassie to couch potato-ville.

ultra-violence

These two guys on the right are boxers. One of them’s Hatton and the other is Mayweather. I’m not sure which is which.

I gather they have a big fight coming up, probably in Vegas, probably for some sort of belt. There’s something on the Guardian.com about it.

It’s a bizarre sport, boxing. Grown men (mostly) spend months and months getting incredibly fit only to ruin it all in an hour of brain belting violence. Then they do it all again.

I’m not the first person to point out the homo-eroticism inherent in the thing, and if boxers insist on having their photo taken like that, I won’t be the last.

Hey ho.

Running
Skipped up to Mount Evelyn this morning for a jaunt along the Warby trail. Tiger Boy was there, as was Em, Jojo, Mark and PJ. The two girls turned back a bit early, leaving us blokey types to struggle on gamely until the water bubblers.

On the way back two things appeared as if out of nowhere – a great long hill that I swear wasn’t there earlier, and Mark’s sudden turn of speed. It was a struggle to hang on.

Anger
Morsey had a good question on Friday – how come “It makes me mad” is dying? Why am I not angry?

I’m not sure Sara. I think the anger was just a product of a very specific time this year. I was (not) dealing with the post-marathon blues, and equally failing to deal with severe sleep deprivation brought on by an extremely stubborn, extremely vocal youngster.

Both those things aren’t so much of a problem now. Thank god.

upskirt

I don’t understand people, I really don’t.

First:

Three, count them, three people have been arrested for taking “upskirt” pictures at the tennis this year. See this story on the Age site. I don’t get it. What’s the attraction? What’s the point? Is this some new kind of trend I’ve missed out on?

God I hope “upskirt” doesn’t catch on as a new word, it’s almost as bad as “turkey-slapping”.

The sad thing is for every sicko who’s arrested there are another 10 who aren’t, and another 1500 who’ll pay to see the pictures on the internet.

Second:

A friend of mine was walking home to his place in St Kilda last week when 3 guys jumped him from behind and beat him up, really badly. He has no idea who they were or why they did it. He can only guess they assumed he was gay, as the park he was in is known as a gay area. He’s not gay, not that it makes any difference.

So now he’s battered and bruised, has 4 chipped teeth and has felt like crap ever since. What could possibly motivate anyone to do that?

Running
It’s day 3 of the training program, which means 10k “easy”. I’ve never liked the idea of easy runs, or recovery runs. I’ve always thought if you need to recover, don’t run. Also I struggle to tell exactly how easy I should go.

I tried it this morning, just trying to relax and spend some time looking at the scenery. Seeing as the scenery included Dorset Road Croydon and the Ringwood East IGA, it wasn’t entirely satisfactory. Nevermind, it’s another run down, and a tick in another box.

Training log
I’ve made some minor changes to the online spreadsheet, including setting it to refresh itself every 5 minutes. You can see it at Google spreadsheets.

Blogging
Blogspot seemed to completely freeze up and die this morning. I couldn’t even access it as a public user. (blogger techo people – it was a 502 error, if you’re reading this). The competition is looking better and better every day.