23-Feb-2007 - Half marathon preparation

One of my new years resolutions is to run a half marathon. According to wikipedia a half marathon is 21.0975km. I have discovered that coincidentally a certain route around Sydney Harbour is almost the same distance.

This route starts at pyrmont, crosses the Anzac bridge, through Rozelle then across the Iron Cove bridge, through Drummoyne then across the Gladesville and Tarban Creek bridges, through Hunters Hill and across the Fig Tree bridge, through a number of north shore suburbs then back across the Harbour bridge and finally Pyrmont bridge. Its a very similar course to the "7 bridges walk" which was an event which took place a few months ago in Sydney.

Here is a map of the route:

Click for a detailed look

The path I am considering is marked in red. According to a little tool I have, the total distance along this path is 20.46km. Add another half a km or so to jog from my place to where I will start on Pyrmont Bridge road and back again at the end, and you have around 21km. And of course along the way things arent going to be in such a straight line since there will be road crossings, going around the ramp at Anzac bridge etc.. so all up it will probably be closer to 21.5km.

The idea is to jog the entire distance non-stop. I will have to make one or two very brief drink stops along the way in order to rehydrate, so I will need to find a couple of conveniently located shops along the path.

The longest I have ever jogged in my life non-stop is in the city to surf which is 14km long. So this is going to be far harder than anything I have ever done. My guess is that it will take 2.5 or 3 hours to complete.

I am trying to do a 10km non-stop jog every week now to get me up to a reasonable level of fitness to prepare for this. I will drive the route before I go so I can make sure I know where to go on the day, and so I can know where I can buy drinks etc..

It will probably be a couple of months before I do it - I need to wait for cooler weather I think, and train myself up for it a bit. Its gonna kill me! I'm scared already!

On a completely separate topic, I want to be the first person in the world to mention the word befooned on the internet. At my work a 'foon' is another word for a fool (or a buffoon). I think it is derived from an incorrect pronunciation of the word 'fool'. If you have befooned yourself then you have made a foon of yourself. If you defoon something you are removing the foonness nature of that thing. For example, today at my work I have defooned a chunk of code (which was foonish code previously written by a foon). Get it? Oh never mind..

14-Feb-2007 - Neverland

A couple of weeks ago I went to a rave called "Neverland". It was on the 3rd Feb, and there were no sightings of Michael Jackson. Lucky for that!

Neverland flyer

The venue was a little community centre at 11 Church st, Lidcombe. It was the same venue that was used for Prophecy - a rave I went to wayyy back in 1996.

The room

It was pretty much promoted as a "candy rave" so to speak and had anti-lad policies such as "no striped polos" and "no white caps" hahaha. Although a few lads turned up, but nowhere near the numbers that were at Dream Universe.

Me and Jules accidentally turned up to this other dodgy party in the same area. There was some guy there who was also looking for the rave and needed directions. By now I knew where we were meant to go and me and Jules ended up getting in his car to direct him where to drive. That was a mistake!

After he started driving off he mentioned how he had taken pills.. and we thought oh oh.. then he mentioned how he had just received his P-plates today... oh oh again.. and to top it off he had a completely flat tyre! He started sticking his head out the window looking at the tyre and not looking at the road. At this point me and Julian made him pull over and we got out of the car damn quick!

Happy to be alive we continued to the party, which was a lot further now because he was driving in the wrong direction. When we got inside it was really really hot and humid. The air conditioner was broken and we were sweating profusely just by standing there doing nothing. Yuck.

DJ

In the end the party was not bad.. music was reasonably good and the crowd was quite friendly. Nothing spectacular but we had a good time nevertheless. And I wore my new rave phat pants hahahaha. Looking forward to Manic! Yeah!!!

Lights. No laser photos this time!

9-Feb-2007 - New years resolutions update

I have slowly and steadily been working on some of my new years resolutions. I have now officially begun 5 out of the 7. The latest news..

Learn surfing:

I have now been surfing twice, and plan to go again soon. I still cant do much, and can rarely even stand up on the board. Practise makes perfect as they say.. but I have a while to go before I can tick this one off. Its lots of fun though!

Lose 5kg / 5% body fat:

I have started on this one. Nothing major at the moment, but just basically eating better and doing more exercise. I will have to get more serious soon and start ramping it up.

Read two classic books:

I have finished the first book and i'm almost halfway through the second. This is probably one of the easiest of the resolutions and I should complete this one soon.

Swim a total of 50km:

Finally I have begun this one. I have a pool in my apartment complex but I havent been able to use it during the school holidays because it was always packed with kids and families. Now that schools back on its much less crowded. I have only done 1km so far.. still a long way to go!

Run a half marathon:

This is the resolution that worries me most. Running 20km in one go is a long way, and I am going to have to plan it well. I will soon map out the course I am going to do (around sydney harbour) and make sure I know all the back streets and everything I will be taking in advance. It will probably require me to drive the course first and make sure there is nothing that will cause problems along the way (such as dead end streets or whatever), and so I can know exactly where I will be jogging on the day. Hydration will be a major issue and I havent yet decided whether I will be taking all my drinks with me or whether I will allow myself one or two quick drink stops along the way. I am going to have to start jogging more to train myself up for this - but I dont think I will do it until the weather cools down. Maybe in a few months time.

7-Feb-2007 - Dream Universe

Went to another rave a few weeks ago. Dream Universe "The Third Dimension" was on the 20th January and was at 100 Marrickville rd, Marrickville. It was a very interesting venue situated in a little "island" (not the water type..) between two railway tracks. The perfect venue for a loud party, with no houses in sight.

The flyer

To enter this area there is an entrance which goes underneath one of the railway lines, and there is road next to a huge railway wall covered in graffiti along part of the perimeter of the area.

I went with Julian as usual, and we parked in a car park next to the venue. There were two "rooms" in the party. The main one being a large hall decked out with lighting, lasers, and a big visuals screen. The other being the outside chillout area with a DJ deck set up in a gazebo and a temporary dancefloor made of fibro set up in front of it on the grass.

The outdoor gazebo

The rave scene has been changing quite a bit over the last year. Just a few months ago I saw the first fight (and a number of them that night) that I have seen at a rave in 12 years! And this night there were many more fights. It was very obvious at this party that there were 2 distinct main subcultures in attendance: standard ravers (the candy, happy type), and "lads". In just over a year, raves have undergone a massive change in culture with lads effectively now making up around half of the numbers.

What is a lad? Well with any group of people everyone is different of course, but there will be no political correctness on this site, so lets start making a lot of generalisations hehehe..

Lads..

• Wear striped polo tops or Nautica tops
• Have caps, often white caps
• Wear shorts, no matter what the season or what the temperature
• Are often white and skinny
• Are often from the western suburbs of Sydney
• Like to graffitti
• Are aggressive and often look for fights
• Hang out in gangs and support each other if a fight begins
• Dance in a "gabber" style
• Like gabber music

Lads

Its not only raves where the lad culture has taken off. If you ever go past Sydney Town Hall on a saturday night you are probably likely to see a large bunch of lads hanging out.

A number of fights broke out on the night all of them involving lads. And a number of lads were thrown out.

Despite this, on the whole the night was great.. the venue was perfect, it was a good vibe outside and inside the music and lighting were great.

Interestingly dressed

Mandatory laser photo

Unfortunately when I got back to my car I discovered that my car, along with 10-15 other cars in a row, had been keyed by someone. The back window, both left windows, the left hand side of the front window, the front bonnet and other bits and pieces of the car had huge scratches all over them. I think that pretty much wrote off the value of my uninsured car. Bloody hell. And I have a good idea which subculture the perpetrator belongs to!

Oh well.. i'm glad I didnt buy an expensive car now!