Whoa. In case you missed the link in the comments from M-H: Heath Ledger is dead. Man. His poor little girl! And I know it’s morbid, but I wonder what this is going to do to the upcoming Batman movie…
Well, this year’s Oscar nominees have been announced… which means that my Sixth Annual Oscar Contest will start this weekend! As usual, the prize will be a fabulous, one-of-a-kind hand-crafted sock monkey. (Have I got a brilliant one for you this year…)
Thing-a-Day. It’s a challenge for the month of February to create some new thing every single day. “knit cook draw paint tape solder write install destroy invent document.” I like that.
Today was the start of my fifth week of training. I’ve now been running regularly (as in, 3 times a week) for more than a month now, and I think I’ve turned a corner.* Running makes me feel good. It made me feel good before, but only in the “I’ve done something I hate and now I’m all tired but at least I feel kinda virtuous” way. But this morning, after another 25 minute non-stop jog with hills, I actually felt MORE energized at the end of the run than I did at the beginning. I felt like I could’ve kept going. I was actually happy, you know, in my head. It was seriously weird.
I finished reading Jeff Galloway’s Women’s Guide to Running last night. Quite a lot of the book is devoted to pointing out WHY you should run, which was wasted on me (since I’m “already there,” so to speak). I bought it for the practical information, and I found a few tips in there that I think are going to make an immediate impact. One of them is the recommendation that you have a cup of coffee about an hour before you run. THIS IS GENIUS. I feel so much more “peppy” and alert with a little caffeine. Another mindblowing idea for me is the admonition to take smaller steps. I’m tall, so my natural inclination is to take bigger strides when I try to speed up. This is a bad idea, and it often leads to injuries. (This is how I hurt my hamstring last year.) But by taking smaller, faster steps, I can speed up without overstriding and hurting myself! I’ve also stopped feeling guilty about not stretching religiously. Galloway says he thinks stretching tends to hurt more than it helps, so unless you’ve got a specific injury that requires it, you don’t really need to do it. I like that.
Oh! And I recorded a new “personal best” in the mile on Saturday. I broke eleven minutes! I know that’s not fast for most of you (and my teenage self would’ve laughed), but I felt really proud of that. I’ve been trying to run a ten-minute mile for more than five years now and I haven’t reached it yet. This time, I really think I’m going to get there.
* This morning’s euphoria may have been partially due to it being a much cooler and less humid run than I’ve had in the past month. I think it’ll only get better as we head into Autumn…
Oooh, the SMH site has a bit of a teaser article about the new flagship Apple Store opening in Sydney soon (about 50 meters from my shop!). I can’t wait to see the glass front start to take shape…
Having a bad day? I was. Then I watched dolphins blowing bubble rings. That is amazing. I gasped when they started manipulating them around like lassos. So pretty.
Would you swear on a first date? I say definitely NO. I can get pretty salty around my close friends, but I’d never swear in front of someone I just met. I think it’s rude and low class. (However, if exceptional circumstances warranted a swear word, then I’d definitely let fly. Sometimes “Golly gee-whillickers!” just doesn’t cut it.)
Hmm. I was reading the SMH this morning at home over breakfast, and I came upon this article about two people who drowned in a storm drain yesterday. I remember being a little surprised that the title on the SMH home page was “Artists drown in drain,” especially as the “artists” in question were spray painting graffiti in a drain. I half-expected the paper to call them vandals. Anyway, it’s two hours later now and it looks like they’ve changed it to “Graffitists drown in drain.” (Archived here for posterity.) I wonder if they had some complaints or something.
Oh, good grief. I was just reading this AskMeFi about South Bend when I nearly did a spit-take. You can apparently buy a entire three-bedroom house there and pay less than $700 a month for your mortgage. I mean, I knew it was cheaper back home… but that’s just ridiculous. (I shouldn’t even post this. Mom’s gonna be all over it.)
My friend Nick (aka “Kenya”) and his wife Sal flew home to Kenya on New Year’s Eve for a long visit. A few days later, the country’s election unrest was all over the news. The Snook and I wondered whether Nick and Sal were safe, and whether we’d hear anything from them while they were over there. This morning Nick posted to his blog. You get a real sense of both his sadness and his anger at seeing what’s happening in his home country. I hope they stay safe!
My name is Kris. I’ve been blogging since the 90’s. I live in Sydney, Australia, and I spent most of my career in the tech industry.
No AI used in writing this blog, ever. 100% human-generated.
Woot, my knee-jerk don’t-overthink-it pub-quiz answer was Iran which seems to be [✓]. I ‘knew’ it was more populous than…
Congrats and to many more 🙌🏽
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