In Melbourne

Initial impressions of Melbourne, Australia:

• Things are expensive here. $8AU for a 6" Subway sandwich? Brutal.
• Things are big here. Hungry Jack's (Burger King) offers a "Quad" that's basically a In-N-Out 4x4, but of course not as good. Metal.
  
• Internet infra sucks. Apparently it takes 2-4 WEEKS to get ADSL hooked up, plans are expensive, and there are data caps on how much you can download. Homicidal.
• Everything opens late and closes early. Breakfast places don't open until like noon on Sundays and stores close at 4-6PM.
• Weather changes frequently from sunny to cold to windy to warm to showers in the space of a couple hours.
• People say "yeah", on average, about 93 times per minute. It sounds like one long "yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeah".

It's not all bad, obviously. I like the look of the city: clean, not too small and not too big, not too diverse but diverse enough, and there's enough influence from Asians that there are good, spicy, Asian foods around here. Also, some downright scary (yet hilarious) mascots for candy. Pictures when I get reliable internet.

On Toys

I've just been told, via email,

"Please don't lube the cubes too much!"

Kinky. OK!

Workin' On It

Been working and running too hard lately.

On the running front, I'm still making the same mistakes I always make (too fast, too far) but I'm slowly unmaking them. People say various things about increasing your total mileage from week to week but I've never paid much attention and I think it's taken a bit out of my already non-existent ass. The general rule seems to be no more than 10% increase in weekly mileage from week to week. I had always thought of it as 10% increase in the long-distance runs from week to week. And then I always break that rule. This time, my weekly mileage has been something like 9, 11, 17, 14, 20, 25. Surely enough, just about 2 weeks ago my knees starting getting a little sore again. Scared me enough for me to take it real easy these 2 weeks and just do light jogging and some leg exercises. Getting back in to it this week but going to try to stay at the low 20s range for a couple weeks. That and run more times but fewer miles each time.

Busy as hell at work and still working too much but it's still fun. Need a reward. Need to be something materialistic. I'm going out of the country for a bit of a vacation near the end of this month so...


Happy...something (Disposable Income Day?) to me! A Glaser 19" duffle. Purty. It's supposed to last 15+ years and 500k+ miles easily, say people who've used these things for that long.

Now all I need is another Glaser A4-sized shoulder bag in calf for daily use and a whole bunch of fake documents, folders, dossiers, and papers so that I can transport them around in a Rocket Bag. Yes. Need.