2.11.40

So this morning I ran a half marathon that I impulsively told everyone I was going to do after doing the City to Bay last year.

It went OK, but it's safe to say I wasn't making any more bold predictions after this one.

I did pretty much all of my training on a treadmill, which is obviously a little easier than running on the road. What I didn't really factor in though was that the race wasn't on flat ground - it was along Linear Park, which is pretty much all up and down. The down wasn't so bad (although it was messing with my knees by the end) but the up wasn't fun at all.

I ran with my Dad, who as you can see, came in just behind me. This isn't really accurate though, since he slowed his pace to allow me to keep up, and at one point, stopped off to use some public toilets and just told me "I'll catch up". It took him about five minutes. So I'm guessing without me he probaby would have finished the course half an hour or so quicker.

Anyway, I didn't really have any goals in terms of time, just finishing it was enough for me. I did pretty much match my treadmill speed though, even with the tougher conditions, so I was happy with that.

I can't see myself doing a run like this again. I'm glad I did it, but once was enough . . . it just gets so boring running for that long. I'm thinking my next challenge will be something a little easier on the joints - perhaps completing a video game, something like that. Or perhaps cook a three course meal, I don't think I've ever done that. Sounds more up my alley.

Music from the good old days

Update

It's been a while since I last updated this thing, so I guess all three of my readers are getting a little impatient. Or not, who knows. Anyway, here's what's been going on lately . . .

Movies
I caught two movies over the last weekend - saw Michael Clayton on DVD, and Before The Devil Knows You're Dead on DVD. I didn't love either one. I thought I'd like Michael Clayton, seeing as it had good reviews, was nominated for awards, and starred Seth Gecko. Not sure if I just wasn't in the mood but I found it a little boring, and unnecessarily confusing.

Before The Devil Knows You're Dead was a little better, but I still didn't love that. It did star the talent and always-watchable Philip Seymour Hoffmann, although it did also feature him prominently in a graphic sex scene. I think there should be some kind of warning for those types of situations. Anyway this was OK, but I didn't really see what all of the fuss was about.

I've been thinking about this quite a bit lately, the decline in movies from the mid-nineties to now. In the last year or so I've seen two movies that I thought were really good - Knocked Up and Superbad. And then a couple more I enjoyed to varying degrees - 30 Days of Night, Smokin Aces, I suppose the Grindhouse movies. A quick search of movies from 1995 though on Wikipedia revealed the following films were released at the midway point of the last decade - The Usual Suspects, Heat, Mallrats, Higher Learning, Casino, Dead Man Walking, Dead Presidents, Desperado, Seven, Get Shorty, Leaving Las Vegas, Strange Days, Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead, and Twelve Monkeys. What happened?

Fine dining
Sunday lunchtime I took the girl to Cafe Primo (yeah I'm a classy guy). I discovered though that they have abandoned their "9.90 menus" for regular prices. Meaning a simple pasta dish now costs $15, and they have a steak menu which ranges from about $20-28. This is, I think, ridiculous, and reminds me of the time a few months ago when the Vietnamese bakery round the corner from my work started charging white people prices. The best thing about these places were they were cheap, now that they cost the same as everywhere else, you may as well go somewhere nice right?

Grand Theft Auto IV
So the biggest game of the year was released yesterday and I am currently sans Playstation (thanks AAMI!). I toyed with the idea of buying it anyway, figuring my PS3 will be replaced in a few weeks time, and JB had a good opening week price on it. But when I went back today they were all sold out. This thing looks amazing though, I can't wait to get into it.

Running
The last month or two I've been training for a half marathon. Now all of a sudden it's upon me. Well, this Sunday to be exact. I'm not really sure how I'll go - I did my last long run a few days ago on the treadmill and got to 21km (the length of Sunday's run) but that was in optimal conditions. The funny thing is that the run starts at 8am, with the winners presentations starting at 10am. By my calculations, I'll be crossing the finish line around 10.15am, most likely while everyone's attention will be diverted to a podium somewhere.

Two more things that suck

Australia Post

I got a note in my letterbox earlier in the week saying they had tried to deliver a parcel to me but couldn't. I rang the local post office and got them to transfer it into the city, where I could pick it up during business hours. I go in today to pick it up, wondering what exciting package I have waiting for me, and find that it is . . . the new copy of "Rolling Stone" magazine. Since when is that a parcel? And why can't they just leave it in my letterbox, like they do the other 11 months of the year?

Jack Johnson

For some reason he's on the cover of the aforementioned magazine. What year is it again? It was bad enough when people inexplicably liked him and his monotone tunes a few years back, but I thought we'd moved on from that. Obviously not.

Things that suck

The Aviator

A friend whom I respect very much recommended this film. He said it was better than "The Departed" and Scorcese should have won an Oscar for "The Aviator" instead of this. He was way off.

I watched this over the course of two sittings, and found it increasingly boring. Maybe I'm biased against longer movies, although generally Scorcese's movies are long, and I like most of those. Let's just say this was no "Goodfellas". I had no interest in the main character, and all the women in it annoyed me. On the other hand, it wasn't as bad as "There Will Be Blood" so it's got that going for it.

Getting robbed

Last Friday my house got broken into again. For those of you keeping score at home, that's twice in three months. They took my new PS3 and all the games, which was especially annoying as I had mentally prepared myself to unwind on Saturday with a marathon gaming session. Now I get to wait two months for the insurance company to replace my stuff (missing the launch of Grand Theft Auto 4), which should give me time to figure out where I'm going to hide it when I get it.

The Biggest Loser

So Cosi got voted off on Monday, and I realised I couldn't care less about any of the people left (Sam, Gary, Alison and Kirsten). Especially Sam. For some reason that kid annoys me. I tried watching it Tuesday night but turned off after a couple of minutes, if you don't care about the people in that show, it's kind of a waste of time. I don't think I'll be back until the finale, I was to find out what that punk lesbian chick looks like by now.

Kobe jumps over an Aston Martin

Pictionary

Last night Mike and Jess and Ash and Ange came round for pizza and a few drinks, and we ended up breaking out the Pictionary.

For a while there Michella didn't want to play this with me because of my desire to cheat, but now that she's my team mate, she doesn't seem to care so much. Anyway we started strong, and I had a feeling we were going to take out the game, but Mike and Jess staged an improbably comeback, and even Ash and Ange made things interesting.

Ultimately Mike and Jess ended up with the win, proving to be the most in-sync couple in the room.

Afterwards, we took group pictures, in recognition of the fact that it will possibly be another two years before we're all in a room together again, with Mike and Jess living in London and all.

Weekend update

Being young, free, and (relatively) healthy, I spent most of my weekend watching movies and playing video games. Here are some of the highlights . . .

Saturday night I rewatched "Blood Diamond", but on Blu-ray. Since getting the PS3 a couple of weeks ago I'd been wanting to check out the Blu-ray thing, but I found most video stores in my area don't have these. Michella would say it's because I live in the ghetto, and her local video store has a ton because she lives in the eastern suburbs (defined as being east of South Road). Whatever.

Anyway, the quality of picture on the Blu-ray discs is just amazing. So clear and crisp and bright. The scene towards the end of the film where the helicopters bomb the mining field is particularly spectacular. From now on I'm going to try and search out movies on Blu-ray whenever I can, even if it means driving to the other side of town.

Sunday afternoon we saw "What's Eating Gilbert Grape", which Michella suggested I watch because of Leo's performance. Even though I don't normally like these types of films (eg Shine), I have to admit he was pretty convincing in his portrayal of a mentally handicapped kid, especially since he was practically a kid himself at the time. I didn't love the storyline, but I was intrigued by the obese woman who played the mother. After the movie was over I got on the internet and found out she was cast after the producer of the film saw her on Sally Jessy Raphael talking about her weight, and she went on to appear in other movies after this one. Then I found that there were a number of websites dedicated to her, with pics, and one that had the story of her life. You can find it here . . .

http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Heights/1787/direction.html

It blew me away that there are pages like this scattered across the internet, often years after they've last been updated. When I told Mirjana about it this morning she suggested they need to have a clean up day for the internet like we have at our office. It sounded like a good idea to me.

Finally, last night I watched about half of "The Aviator", just to continue with the Leo theme for the weekend. It was rather good, but in the end I got tired and had to go to bed. I thought Katherine Hepburn (played by Cate Blanchett) was way too bossy and generally annoying, but Michella said she was awesome and a trailblazer because she wore pants. Or something like that.

When I wasn't watching movies this weekend I spent quality time with "Gran Turismo 5 Prologue" and "NBA 2K8". Both of them look much better since I found out how to adjust the system settings on my PS3 to make it run in HD (shouldn't this be automatic?)

I finished the first group of ten races on GT5P, and started on the first of the next, on a (fictional) race track through the Swiss Alps. It looks stunning, I ended up re-doing the race about ten times even after I'd won it, just to watch the scenery fly past.

In NBA 2k8 I started a playoff series, playing as the Warriors, taking on the Mavericks. I took out game one, so was pretty happy with that, although I was hoping virtual-Dirk would choke, just like in real life. Again this looks amazing running in HD, you really can't put a price on being able to see the minute details in Matt Barnes' neck tattoo.

New purchases

Saturday afternoon I drove down to Harvey Norman at Marion to pick up a few items from my recent insurance claim. I picked up a new home theatre amplifier, and new hard drive/dvd recorder. The third item I had to grab though was a DVD player, and seeing as I already have three of these (and only two TVs in my house), it seemed a little superfluous.

Luckily they let me pick something else from their wide array of electronic goods, and so I chose a copy of the newly released Gran Turismo 5 Prologue, and a new ipod shuffle.

I'm generally not a huge racing games fan, but I've really enjoyed GT5P. I've spent a bit of time on the single player option, and it's pretty cool, competing in a series of increasingly difficult races and time challenges to win money to buy more cars (there are more than 70 different models available, so I could be busy for a while).

Last night for the first time I had the option of playing with a friend so tried out the two player, and found it wasn't quite as good, as there just aren't enough cars on the track - in single player there is between 8 and 16, whereas with two player there are only two cars.



It's only a preview of the upcoming Gran Turismo 5, but with all the cars to choose from, and thirty plus races plus online stuff I think this will keep me busy for a while. And the graphics on it are pretty amazing too.

So onto my second purchase - a new ipod shuffle. This is the second one I've bought, although I'm pretty sure I've lost my original one for good. With the price down to $65 now I couldn't resist picking up another. Already I've found I use it almost exclusively, my old video ipod just sits on my desk at home. It still blows my mind that something so small can contain so many songs, and create such a big noise. Anyway if you don't have one of these already I highly recommend.

Just one month to go . . .

There will be boredom

With Paul back in town, last night we decided to take in a screening of the Academy Award winning "There Will Be Blood" down at Marion.

Paul pre-booked our tickets online, so we could "Jump the Queue". Although, as he pointed out, the fine print on the website suggests that you turn up at least 30 minutes prior to your movie's scheduled time (ie 45 minutes before it actually starts), which makes one consider the benefits of "jumping" the "queue".

None of this really mattered because there were only a few people gathered around the ticket booth, and only two other people in our movie session. Not surprising I suppose for 8.30pm on a Wednesday night.

So . . . on to the movie itself. To begin with, it's probably the worst case of fraudulent advertising in a movie title since "The Neverending Story". True, there was a little blood, but this was brief and sporadic, and mainly at the end of the film. A more accurate title would have been "There will be no dialogue for the first twenty minutes", or "There will be no chance you'll be catching this again on TV or DVD".

The film is about an oil tycoon, Daniel Plainview, who like many tycoons, is a ruthless businessman who screws over a great many people - especially poor people - to build his empire. Him and his son are really the only key characters in the film - with the exception of a crazy preacher guy - and the story follows around 30 years of his life, from his early beginnings (the first twenty minutes are almost silent footage of him working in mines) till the bitter end (when he is a crazed - and yes, bitter - old man living alone in a giant house). If you're thinking "Gee, a three hour long film about a guy mining for oil, with only a few speaking roles, set in the early 1900s - that doesn't sound awesome", well then you would be right. It's not awesome. Not in the slightest. While there were a few parts that held my attention, most of the time I had to work incredibly hard to stay awake.

Daniel Day Lewis won an Academy Award for this performance, and I guess it was good, but I just don't really have that much interest in seeing someone act like a crazed oil tycoon these days, no matter how well they do it. Besides, when it comes down to it, what do these guys know anyway? "Titanic" won 11 Academy Awards, and "Donnie Darko" won none. So yeah, great credibility guys.

In conclusion, if you've got a spare three hours to spare, and are considering watching this movie, I would suggest some of the following experiences might be a better and more enjoyable use of your time.

1) Drive to Murray Bridge, get an ice cream, turn around and come home.
2) Watch an entire week's worth of Home and Away episodes.
3) Pluck all of the hairs from your right arm, one by one. If time allows, do the left as well.

Easter recap

Thursday night

I went to my first AFL game in many years (the last time I went was with Corey and Bec so . . . ), and saw the Power take on Geelong with my Dad and cousin. I have to admit, it wasn't as feral as I thought it would be. Sure, it was probably more feral than any other event outside of a smash up derby, B & S Ball or house party in Salisbury, but it wasn't as bad as I expected. I found it pretty hard to follow the action, since 80% of it seemed to take place on the other side of the field. Still it ended up being reasonably close and was exciting enough.

Friday

Went to church in the morning, then enjoyed a great lunch at Fasta Pasta (open all day in celebration of our Lord's crucifixion) with Paul and Tara. I had the chicken pizza, and finished it all off with Mars Bar cheesecake. Just superb. Afterwards Michella and I spent some quality time together on the PS3 playing The Simpsons. At night we had some dinner with Peter and Karen, then hired "Sicko". I figure you can only believe about 50% of anything you see in a Michael Moore movie, but even if that's true, the stuff in this movie is pretty amazing. Some of the footage of broke hospital patients being dumped outside of homeless shelters was particularly disturbing.

Saturday

Planned a little trip down to McLaren Vale to do a "Cheese and Wine Trail". We picked up our picnic basket (really more of a cooler) from a place called "Blessed Cheese" around lunch time, and visited a number of wineries in the region, who provided tastings of wines matched to the cheeses we had. Apart from the fact that the first cheese we had (a goatsmilk from Udder Delights) tasted like feet, it was quite an enjoyable experience. Because I was the sober one I drove home. Dinner was again with Michella's parents, and we finished the night with a DVD screening of "The Simpsons Movie".

Sunday

Was on Sunday School this morning, and ended up playing guitar for the kiddies. Since I hadn't really played in a few years I was a little concerned, but it all turned out OK. Had a family lunch at Mum and Dad's, followed by a game of Pictionary, where Michella and I were totally robbed. And the one time I decided to play without cheating. There's a life lesson for you. At night we played roughly 100 games of Mario Kart, with me coming last in about 99 of them. Awesome.

Monday

Spent some time in the morning getting my house ready for the auction next weekend, and then went to the gym. I ran for half an hour on the treadmill then exited quickly, as I had the overwhelming urge to throw up (I didn't). We went down to Semaphore in the afternoon to see "Vantage Point". I didn't know a whole lot about it heading in but I was pleasantly surprised - it's about the assasination of an American President, but told from six different perspectives. You don't really figure out everything that's going on until the final chapter of the movie. Afterwards we spent some more time battling The Simpsons Game, until I gave myself a headache and had to get an early night. I'm getting old.

And how does this make my life easier?

So I got a letter from my credit card company yesterday.

It read . . .

Dear DARREN

Your new limit: $0.00

Here it is! Your new credit limit. We hope this makes your life a little easier.

If you've got any questions, please give our Customer Care Team a call on 1800 080 000. We're here for you 24 hours a day and would love to help.

Thanks guys, that's great. One more thing I need to clear up now.

Era Vulgaris

I used to hate it when, as an avid fan of a band, I would buy their album the day it was released. Only to find out in a couple of months time it was being re-released with a special bonus disc of extra songs, live material, or sometimes a DVD. So unless I wanted to buy the same album twice, I missed out on all the extra stuff.

No longer though. These days I can download the album from the internet, as soon as it is released, or perhaps even a few months before. Then wait until the inevitable re-release and spend my money on that.

Today I picked up the special "tour edition" of the latest Queens of the Stone Age record, "Era Vulgaris", with a bonus live CD from Amsterdam (I'm guessing these guys spend a bit of time in that city). It's great - nice deluxe double CD packaging, cool artwork - so glad I didn't just buy the regular CD when it first came out like some loser. Anyway I'm rediscovering my love for QOTSA - lately I've been listening to a lot of quieter, more downbeat music, so it's great to hear something a bit noisier and uglier for a change.

The album itself isn't their best, but who knows, it might grow on me. If you're interested check out "Into the Hollow", featuring the always stunning vocals of Mr Mark Lanegan.

Wow

This is a pretty nice block

Pics from Poker Night

Murray McHuber and his famous yard glass

Corey cutting the deck (and possibly doing that thing Worm does in Rounders where he cheats, who knows?)

Ando showing no emotion, all business.

Me and my poker face (this was after we'd run out of money and decided to give strip poker a try)

Big hand between Ando and Muzz

Darren joins the twenty-first century

No, I didn't get a mobile phone (that would be joining the twentieth century). Last night I finally got a Playstation 3.

This was really the one good thing to come out of getting robbed a month or two ago. I used the insurance payout on my stolen PS2, and put in a bit more cash, to upgrade to the PS3.

First of all though I needed games, so took all my old PS2 games to JB Hi-Fi at lunch time to trade them in. I got $118 in credit, which I thought was pretty good considering how dated some of the games were. I mean, who is going to go and buy a five year old second hand copy of NBA Live 03 for their Playstation? Anyway I used the credit to get a copy of "The Simpsons Game" for PS3, as well as a second controller (since I'm still planning on having some human contact, even with my awesome new gaming system).

So with my new game and extra controller in hand, I went to the games shop as specified by my insurance provider to pick up my new console after work last night. It was the same place they sent me the last time my Playstation got stolen a few years ago - a dark, dingy specialist games store on Payneham Road. Of course, this wasn't terribly convenient for me, since I work in the city and live on the other side of town, but I guess it was cheaper for the insurance company. Anyway, I got there a bit after five, and I swear the place hadn't changed in the last few years. The place was overrun with old games - and I'm talking PS1 and Nintendo 64 - which I can't see them ever selling. Especially since they were all still marked with their original prices. I kind of wanted to pick up a copy of "Golden Eye" and say "I'll take it - $49 right?". The whole place was just horribly depressing. After getting the console sorted out, the guy who worked there tried to convince me to outlay for a game, and when I declined he said "No worries, well you know where we are now" like I'd be back. Short of getting this Playstation stolen, I don't see it happening.

So I got it home and fired it all up last night and was rather happy with the whole thing. My first impressions of The Simpsons Game are that it isn't very challenging, which is good, since I'm not particularly skilled as a video games player. It's quite funny too, all of the comments made by the characters. My favourite was a conversation I heard passing Officer Lou and Martin on the street, with Lou complaining about some chocolates that Martin had sold him, and whether almond was an acceptable subsitute for rice in a "Crunch" chocolate bar. I also liked the cut scenes, which were basically like watching an episode of The Simpsons.

Today I went out and got some component video cables so I can use the system in HD, and more importantly, watch Blu-Ray movies on it in full high definition. I'm guessing I won't be leaving the house too much in the next few weeks . . .

You get what you pay for

If you're willing to apply yourself, and have a liberal attitude to copyright laws, you can find just about any kind of music (or movie, or TV show) on the internet for free.

Sometimes though, a band will come out and actually offer their recordings for free through their official website. Last year Radiohead did this with their new album, which surprisingly didn't suck as much as their last few. I think that should somehow be on the promotional material for that record.

This week Trent Reznor followed suit, and released his new recordings for Nine Inch Nails free over the net. Of course, being Trent he didn't limit himself to one album, but released four albums, composed entirely of instrumental music, devoid of track names. Hmm. Doesn't seem like such a great deal anymore.

I was going to download all four albums (hey, it's free, right?), until I realised I may not like it, and should start with just one. It was a good move. I got about half way through the first "album" when I realised it was all boring rubbish. Just a few mechanical noises and bleeps, a bit of distorted guitar, drum loops . . . with vocals they might have been actual songs, but without it's pretty uninspiring stuff.

Now onto something that I have been liking . . .

I picked up the first season of "Dexter" based only on a few good reviews I'd read, and am now three episodes in. The basic idea behind the show is that the protagonist - Dexter - is a forensic expert with the Miami police by day, and a serial killer by night. Except he only kills other serial killers. It's pretty good so far, kind of like a cross between Saw and CSI: Miami (I realise that doesn't sound particularly awesome, but it's not bad).

It airs on Showtime in the States, so there's a bit of violence and language. It doesn't seem to really fit the show though - it's shot like it's on network TV, so it's kind of like watching "Lost" with a whole bunch of "F" words. In "The Wire" or "Sopranos" that stuff fits right in, but on more mainstream fare it would seem out of place, like it does here. Anyway it's holding my attention so far, a few good twists and turns and the guy who plays Dexter is pretty good, so I'll be sticking with it.

Kind of punk but not really

I've come across two albums in the last week I've really liked - "Standing in the Way of Control" by The Gossip, and "Red of Tooth and Claw" by Murder By Death. Both bands are similar in a sense that they kind of get lumped in as punk bands, which is kind of undeserved.

The Gossip, as far as I can tell, are punk because they're fronted by an obese lesbian who claims she never showers, which is pretty punk if you think about it. But listening to the album, aside from the occasional scream, mostly I just hear a combination of Franz Ferdinand, The White Stripes, and a bunch of eighties pop music (on their "Live in Liverpool" record they cover George Michael's "Careless Whisper").

Murder by Death are punk, because they are on a punk record label, and generally tour with bands from that scene. While lyrically they cover some similar ground, musically they're completlely unique. With a mix of guitar, drums, piano and cello, they sound like The National playing a show at Al Swearegen's on a Saturday night in 1876. Most of their songs are set in the old west, but it's a long way from the sanitised version of Clint Eastwood and John Wayne films. I'm guessing these guys are big Cormac McCarthy fans.

I'm really liking both of these CDs, but I know that if you were to ask me in twelve months, it's Murder by Death that will still be in strong rotation on my ipod. The Gossip produce good, disposable tunes, but what Murder by Death do is, without being too pretentious about it, art. "Red of Tooth and Claw" can't quite measure up to their best record "Who Will Survive and What Will Be Left of Them?" - a concept record about the Devil waging war on a small Mexican town - but there are some tremendous moments, from the Pearl Jam-esque "Ash" to "Fuego", which I think is going to be their first single.

I couldn't find anything on youtube from the new album so here's something from one of their old albums which gives you an idea of what they're like.



And from The Gossip, "Jealous Girls".

How freaking awesome does this look?

I can't wait till 29 April.