web-goddess: now with new effervescence!

Thursday, March 11, 2010

[3]

RunningBlog: Week 10
I'm still experiencing the after-effects of the Public Nudity Epiphany, I think. For the past 15 months, I've been struggling with the rowing machine at my weekly Spudds session. There's always at least one station on the circuit where you do two 20 second rowing sprints separated by a 10 second rest. The goal is to get 100 meters in 20 seconds. I've done it a few times in the past year, but I've never been able to get two in a row. My form is improving though, and I've been closing in. (Last week I had 101 and 98.) Yesterday I stood before the machine and took a few seconds to visualise myself doing it. Then I sat down and strapped in. The first 20s felt good, and I was well within pace. I got 101m for that one. Spudds came over to congratulate me and told me to "stay loose" during the 10 second rest. "Back yourself!" he yelled. And I was off. My pace was slower, and my technique was definitely sloppier. But he stood over me shouting that I could do it, and I gave it everything I had. As the buzzer sounded, my distance slipped upwards... and stopped on 100m. I gave a shout. It was as satisfying as finishing my first half-marathon. He gave me a high-five and told me that I was the first female to do it. (I'm a little doubtful of that; I'm sure some of the women in his evening classes could do it. Still, it's a big accomplishment.) I tweeted afterwards: "I feel like I can do anything." I really do. This whole "self-confidence" buzz is intoxicating.

But hey, running is what this is all about, right? Because of my continuing issues with my right foot, I've dropped my running back to three days a week (rather than four). With my Sunday distance increasing, I want to give my arch as much rest time as possible.

Mar. 5: 5.27km
Mar. 7: 10.16km
Mar. 9: 5.43km
Total this week: 20.86km
Total in 2010: 191.27km (119.5mi)

To meet my 1000km goal, I should be at 192km. So right on track!

Molasses Coffee Marinated Pork Chops from Alton Brown. Yum. I've got some pork chops in the freezer just begging for this...

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Michael Mobbs has a couple blog posts (and photos) about the failure of the new fancy "rain gardens" in Chippendale. I wondered if they were working. We guessed that they were there more to filter cigarette butts out of the stormwater drain than anything.

RunningBlog: Peter Sagal (of Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me fame) has a column in Runner's World this month and has blogged his "Three G's for Runners". It's got some nice pointers for anybody starting out in running.

Clarification on the tiebreaker
Since someone emailed to ask, I did not include John Hughes in the tiebreaker count for the Oscar Contest. Jenny and I debated it during his tribute, and we hoped the producers would make it easy by including him in the "In Memoriam" reel as well. But they didn't. However, the actual wording on the entry page was: "How many dead people will be featured in the annual Hollywood obituary tribute reel?" I think it's pretty clear that the question is not how many dead people will be honoured at the show, but rather how many people are in the specific tribute montage. So on that basis, we went with the count of 34. Of course, it really sucks for Tom Cassutt, because if they had included Hughes (or Farrah Fawcett! or Bea Arthur!) he would've won the whole shebag. Sorry, Tom!

Monday, March 8, 2010

[2]

And the winner is... Jonathan Wells!
Thanks to everybody (392 of you!) who entered this year's Oscar Contest. The final score tally is here. We ended up with a 14-way tie for first place, all of whom got 12 out of 13 answers correct. It then went to the tiebreaker, which was 34 dead people in the tribute reel. Jonathan Wells guessed 33, and Tom Cassutt guessed 35. So to break the tie between them, I had to go to order of entry. Sorry Tim, Jonathan put in his entry about twenty hours before you did... so Jonathan is the big winner! Congratulations to him, and condolences to all of you who missed out.

The Snook thinks I should offer a "wooden spoon" prize to last place. "Send them a warewolf merkin so they can pet it when they feel sad about their lack of prescience." Hm. I bet I could sell those on Etsy.

Edited to add: I've just checked the history and this was the fifth time Jonathan has entered the contest. (Actually, it may be more than that; I only saved the entries going back to 2006.) So well done to a long-time reader!

[2]

Oscar Contest 2010... Only 90 minutes to go!
You've got til the show starts to get your predictions in for the big contest. We're closing in on 400 entries! Throughout the day, I'll be updating the winners and you'll be able to see your scores update on this page.

As usual, if any of you will be watching the show with a DVR, can you please count the number of dead people in the obituary tribute for me? I have a feeling that we could end up with quite a big tie for first place this year (unless there's a surprise upset).

And just a note: I had a couple people put more than one entry into the contest, and the extras have been deleted. I'm serious; you only get one shot. Your first entry is the one that I saved, so if you changed your mind later, too bad!

Update: And the contest is closed! Here we go...

Update later: Have gotten three independent counts of the dead people montage and all said 34. So that's what we're going with! (Thanks to Jenny, Miftik, and Kel.)

The fifth cake is a Moomin cake! Sweet.

« previous week

» about » archives » photos » contact

welcome

I'm Kris Howard, a thirtyish Hoosier living in Sydney, Australia. I work as a business analyst at an IT company specialising in mobile solutions. I knit and run and have crazy adventures. This is my weblog and personal site.

couchcam