The seven signs of aging.....

I guess this post is in honour of the Lo'Real TV commercial explaining to women what the seven signs of aging are. But to me, the seven signs of aging can be summed up thus: 1: Radio. As mentioned previously I have become a big fan of AM radio. So much so, that I don't think I have had the car radio on the FM dial for quite some time. The lack of ads, intelligent conversations, and no more of..."RING NOW WIN CASH RIGHT AFTER WE PLAY ANOTHER BOGAN COLD CHISEL SONG YEAH....". 2: General aches and pains. I have, up until recently thought of myself as an 18 year old trapped in a 34 year old's body. However, what with my feet starting to feel the effects of 34 years of bipedal walking things aint what they used to be. On top of this is some intense muscle soreness in my back which came about due to us letting Merlin the greyhound sleep on our bed the other night. Normally I have been used to things like this becoming progressively better over the course of a day or two, but this has been going on now for a good 5 days. Not a good sign. 3: Weekends. During my younger, and lets face it, much less responsible years, I would while away the entire weekend sleeping in. But now, Fridays nights I'm going to bed well before midnight and waking up before 8am. And I don't mean to do this, it's just that I literally cannot keep my eyes open late at night anymore. Gone are my mis-spent days of university cramming before exams until, well, the next day when they opened the exam room doors. 4: Housework. If you saw my bedroom when I was a teenager...no, let's re-phrase that....if you SMELT my bedroom when I was a teenager, many of you would have been calling for a HAZMAT suit and a de-contamination shower. This did not improve during the formative years outside the parental nest living at university. However, at some point, and I can't for the life of me pin point when, that all changed. I have mentioned previously that I just cannot relax when the house is in a state of ill repute. Dishes to clean, floor to mop, tables to dust. It never ends, but when the house is clean, I feel at peace. Maybe doing housework is my personal Zen...who knows. 5: Technology. I was one of those kids that my parents would turn to to set the timer on the VCR. I was bang up to date with the latest technology of the day. But now things are moving at a pace I am finding I cannot keep track of. I have just mastered the art of MP3 and MP4 players, P2P streaming and wireless internet routing. But I feel like I am being left behind by things like Bluetooth, video messaging, VoIP etc. Maybe I should just go a live in the forest somewhere?? 6: Music. In particular that R and B hip hop shit they play on Video Hits every Saturday morning, or that emo depression inducing crap. Oh my god. No wonder kids either want to "pop a cap is your ass" or else "kill myself and my little kitten because nobody loves me for me boo hoo". For crying out loud, get over yourselves honestly. 7: Fashion. Heading into my mid 30s I think I can still get away with wearing jeans, a t-shirt and a nice pair of trainers. But what is the go with teen-age fashion these days? My main bone of contention is skin tight jeans. Skin tight jeans didn't look good in the 80s and they certainly do not look good now. They make the wearer look like they have no arse to shit out of and when combined with one of those hideous. oversized t-shirts, the knob wearing it looks like a shopping bag with chopstick chicken legs. Skin tight jeans are not flattering in the slightest, even anorexic girls who assume they have a body for them just look all kinds of wrong on so many levels. What's worse is that they choose to wear either a)ugg boots b)Big leather boots or c)Pixie boots with them. They are not elegant, nor are they timeless, think about it.

And now for the weather.....

Ahhh the weather, like it or not, it affects us all in some way or other. Some people tend to ignore it and some people become meteorologists. I have to admit that I'm a bit of a closet meteorologist, and have confessed to Miss R in sheepish overtones that, yes, I have taken part in a storm chase, and yes, it fully exemplifies my inner geekishness. To this day I take more than a passing interest in the weather, and living in Melbourne things are never quite dull....except maybe these past 10 years of prolonged drought. So, on Wednesday my fair old city was hit with the remnants of ex-tropical cyclone Pancho (who decided on 'Pancho' for crying out loud??). The day dawned with nothing much to suggest the day that lay ahead, except that the sky was, in the words of Jimi Hendrix "...a hell fire red yeah!" I did also notice that my ride to work from the illustrious northern suburbs only required the most minimal amount of effort thanks to a tonking tail wind. And then the wind got worse.....much worse. Luckily by this time I had arrived at work and was safely cocooned in my office. Within three hours the wind had gone from a stiff breeze to strengths normally associated with category 2 cyclones. The windows actually buckled and I had to pop my ears on numerous occasions. Unfortunately I had to brave the elements and head out to get some lunch. THree buildings in the immediate vicinity had had their windows blown out and glass was all over the street. Trees were losing branches all over the show and the dust in the air made the whole scene apocalyptic. By home time things hadn't gotten any better, and that lovely tail wind in the morning had turned into the mother of all headwinds. To make matters even better for riding, it has started to rain. So with that I thought the only solution was to ride to a train station and get a train home. Alas, such an idea was fruitless; every train had been cancelled due to fallen trees and lightning strikes. I guess the number of people waiting haplessly at the station would've told me that. So it was time to buckle down, turn into the wind and pedal my arse off. The traffic has horrendous to say the least. Every traffic light had been knocked out and the entire city had become choked in dust, rain and peak hour traffic. The sky glowed an eerie red colour suggesting that Judgment Day was nigh. And yet, on I rode, by passing all the traffic, slowly, but surely, and in the end, I managed to get home. How I managed it I'll never know. Riding head first into 100kph winds is not much fun, but I count myself lucky that I could get home. I would hazard a guess and say that if I was in a car it would've taken another hour or two. Just awful.

I should clarify in my last post that by facial hair I mean a full beard. I would like to point out that those people with goatees need to question their need to identify with 1990s slacker chic. Time to move on me thinks. So I'm not entirely sure what cutting edge facial hair is nowadays. There are a few options I guess....the Abraham Lincoln jawline beard comes to mind, super old skool for sure, or the handlebar moustache, which is so 1970s porn that it is unfathomably hip. Not a big fan of the Bin beard though, those people who think that they're Osama is just wrong, like seriously the upkeep just to keep the thing clean would be extraordinary.

There are two kinds of people in this world....

....... Those that move out of people's way on a footpath, and those that don't. Toilet paper over or behind the holder. Toilet paper folders or scrunchers. People that walk across a busy road on the green and those that cross on the red. Cave dwellers or tree dwellers (ie: those that like lots of light in their house and those that would rather live in a basement). Creationists or scientists. Tab or Diet Coke. Those that like cabbage and those that don't. Talkers or do-ers. Another thing I thought about today is that guys who are under 30 years old who grow facial hair seriously look dodgy. Like I'm talking sitting at home alone stroking a 12 gauge shotgun talking to the walls kinda dodgy. Last time I checked it was 2008 not 1972.

It has been far too long since I have posted anything noteworthy here, and today is probably no exception. In all honesty, thinking up a blog post has been taking up much of my precious thinking time, normally as I am hurtling down St George's Road at 40kph on my bike. My thought pattern goes something like.. ."Look at all the poor traffic....ha ha, beat you to the lights.....why would you drive?....there's alot of glass on the road...how did that rock get there?...man this headwind, the ride home will be sweet as....what should I post on my blog?....mention the brain surgeons who frequent the gym?...why does my weight fluctuate 2kg from one day to the next??....shit my legs hurt...come on green light....yes, little win for me!.....haven't I passed this car like three times already?....hey I'm even beating the tram...according to the annoying girl on the AAMI ad I am saving 75c per kilometer riding a bike...so that's....$15 a day....$75 a week....I wouldn't spend $75 a week on petrol surely....what is this moron doing for Christ's sake!?....why do you people take left hand turns at 2kph! Argh!...I reckon I could've slept another hour this morning..." So you get the idea. I'm sure we all have a little voice in our head (like where else would it be??) and to listen to it sometimes is quite amusing. Where did all the anxiety come from? I don't think I'm an anxious person, but man, that voice in my head is like the fun police sometimes..."Don't go there...don't do that...what if..." you get the idea. I'm sure the voice in the head of a base jumper wouldn't be quite so up tight, it would sound more like that kid in Primary School who convinced you that jumping over the creek on a BMX would be okay. Then they stand back and laugh as your front wheel digs into the opposite bank and you end up covered in mud and yabbies....maybe that's just my experience...I dunno.

Dog beach.....

The one thing I should point out about greyhounds is that you really shouldn't let them off the lead, especially around other dogs. We had a fantastic day down at the dog beach with about 30 other greyhound owners and it was nice to meet other people and ask questions and stuff. It is pleasing to know that ours is not the only greyhound that lunges at little dogs (which, may I add is happening far less often now) and wants to eat them for lunch. However, I would say about 8 people had their greyhounds off the leash, running around playing in the water etc. It was heartening to watch and made me dead jealous that I couldn't let mine off. But a couple of things I noticed; 1) greyhounds are frighteningly fast, their running gait is totally different to your average Labrador and their acceleration compared to other breeds of dogs is just staggering. 2) Greyhounds are pack hunters. Hands down. All nice and good to have one running around, but if there are more, then they will run together, in a pack, and they were all picking on one dog...a little Kelpie. They didn't hurt it in any way, but they kept chasing it down, and standing over it like the doggy police saying "Sorry, only WE'RE allowed to run on this beach." And of course, it couldn't get away. Anyway, it all got a bit tense there at one stage and the worst thing is, the greyhound owners just stood around laughing and saying how good their dogs were. Oh my god, I'm sure you'd be saying that if it ripped the throat out of that poor Kelpie!

A Few Thoughts.....

Have you ever been driving late a night, like I'm talking 1-2am or something. And you drive past a strip of shops that are obviously all closed, and yet there are a dozen cars parked out the front. What's going on there then? Have you noticed the proliferation of American ads on telly with Australian voices dubbed over them? Do they think we're stupid or something?? Like, aren't we good enough for our own ads? I would like to post two links here: gap.grv.org.au www.greyhoundsafetynet.org I would like to point out that the plight of greyhounds in today's society is quite sad. There are thousands of greyhounds in racing kennels across the country, and only a small percentage of them get adopted out to homes once their brief racing careers are over. So what happens to the rest? The mind boggles. some stay on as breeding stock, which is nice, but I know a good many of them just get put down, or worse, get sent to universities for 'experimentation' which quite frankly, just breaks my heart. Our gorgeous boy Merlin, thank goodness we saved him. The story of Savannah here is one of many heartbreaking stories of neglected dogs. And yes, there are just as many dogs out there in the Lost Dogs Home or whatever, but the thousands and thousands of greyhounds out there that just 'disappear' it's just sad. I urge anyone reading this, who is after a dog, to please please consider a retired greyhound.