So, a couple of days ago my new runners arrived, courtesy of the lovely folks on the interweb. Let me tell you, they are something to behold. Words can barely describe how eye-catching they are. They manage to be so bright, I have had complaints from nearby suns. They're also confusing, as that particular shade of green/yellow has up until now only been seen on lycra-clad aerobics-oz-style presenters. 

So, they kinda catch the eye. And today I took them out for a run in the city and around the tan. That's an odd way to describe it - I didn't carry them with me, they had to do the running. 

And there were a whole series of people whose eyes were definitely caught. I must have counted at least 10 people who checked me out in reverse: starting from feet first and then looking upwards. 

Almost to a man (or woman) the thought process seemed to be:

"ooh, look at that! Something shiny!

What's it attached to?

A pair of legs - oh dear, that's not so appealing.

A torso, that's unpleasant.

A head - that's downright disturbing". 

So, that's a bit of a problem. My shoes are writing checks my body can't cash, so to speak. 

Bugger it. If I really cared how I looked, I wouldn't go running in the first place.

Serious music for serious times

If I had a lawyer, and if I cared, I would totally be slapping this guy with injunctions, writs, affidavits and having earnest, expensive conversations with sober gentleman in conservative suits and wigs. 

As it is, I will just muse quietly to myself as to whether the much maliged "white guys who play the blues" genre has now become acceptable.

If it is acceptable to you, I thought I might share a few reflections on movies, prompted no doubt by the Oscars. 

For most of my life, I have judged movies based on the explosion count scale. If a movie has a few explosions, that might give it a one star rating. A whole series of explosions, perhaps involving nuclear or other weapons, might push it further up the scale. If a movie could also include fast cars planes or other vehicles, it's looking like a winner. There are bonus points for aliens, lasers, space-ships, tough guys and pithy one-liners.

On this scale, a movie like Predator does remarkably well, yet something like Citizen Cane fades into insignificance. 

This rating scale has served me well, from the age of 5 when I saw my first movie at the cinema (The Empire Strikes Back) through to this day. 

Over time, the scale was refined as my tastes grew more mature. At some point in my teenage years, I started to favour what was delicately known as "tits 'n arse", which allowed such cinematic triumphs as Porkys and Police Academy into the running.

Shortly afterwards, I discovered the myriad joys of the horror genre. No longer was I satisfied with Arnold Schwarzenegger or Sly Stallone walnutting around a tropical jungle resolutely refusing to be shot. Now I was thrilled to see a bunch of teenage camp counsellors being individually slaughtered by a sub-human creature with an axe.

As you do. 

So, between the age of 12 and 18 I must have watched hundreds of horror movies. Halloween, Friday the 13th, that movie with the murderous toy (Chucky?), A Nightmare on Elm Street: you know the deal. I thought myself unshockable. 

So, what's happened?

Last weekend, having momentarily forgotten about file sharing, bit torrenting and the like, I was in the local DVD shop admiring the new releases section when it occurred to me: I haven't seen any of the horror movies on show. 

Saw, Paranormal Activity, The Human Centipede, the list goes on, but every single one of them was a closed book to me. A closed book that I realised I had absolutely no intention of opening. The whole concept of paying to watch frightening stories with people being tortured, maimed and murdered, it didn't appeal. 

Then, this morning, I saw an ad floating by on the side of a bus for series called The Walking Dead. Now, I know something of this show, namely that Dave Anthony is associated with it somehow and recommends it. 

I respect Dave Anthony immensely. I consider him a prince among comedians, the rightful king of twitter and the beating heart of the best podcast in existence. 

But the thing is, The Walking Dead is about zombies. And zombies - if I understand the genre well, and I think I do - spend most of their screen time either being blown to smithereens or chewing on the necks of unfortunate passers by. 

And this doesn't appeal to me. 

What's happened to me? Have I gotten old? Have I lost my edge? Is this what kids do to you? Five years of watching Spongebob Squarepants has made me scared of the dark? 

I am dismayed. Counsel me, internet....

I am indebted to this article from Running Times:

Pass with authority
In high school, my cross country coach told us to pass with authority. When passing a competitor in any race, don't just ease by them; fly by them! Make them think you're running so well that there's no need to try to stay with you. You'll crush their spirit and thereby gain more advantage than just the distance between the two of you. You even want to sneak up on them by hanging back a few strides to recover before you attack.

Now, Julia (I'm sure you're listening intently to my opinion right now) you made a bit of a problem when you ousted Kevin Rudd. You beat him, but you left him with hope. If this were a relationship breakup, you told him "It's not you, it's me" when you should have told the truth: "Your breath stinks and I faked it".

Rudd has always worked manically, relentlessly, single-mindedly solely for the service of the greater glory of Kevin. It'll take something pretty brutal to stop him.

So, if you beat him in the election tomorrow, take that advice above: make him think you're so in control there's no point trying to keep going. Crush his spirit.

If you do that, I might just vote for you. Also, it's bound to be fun.

Caption: Alma Smith, 34, was jailed for five years for an illegal abortion on a young woman who died from the procedure. Picture: NSW Police Forensic Photography Archive, Justice & Police Museum, Historic Houses Trust of NSW

34 years old! Holy shit, she had a hard life. Now I don't feel so bad about my decrepit excuse for a face.

At one point in the not-so distant past I actually quite liked supermarkets. I even went so far as to volunteer to do the family's weekly shop. This had two benefits:

1. I got out of doing the vaccuuming
2. I could ensure the family's diet contained sufficient barbecue shapes, tim tams and beer. 

For a while, I even enjoyed it. I got the weekly shop down to a fine art - my lists would be in order of the aisles at my local <insert mega-supermarket chain here> and my shopping trips were run with military precision, pausing only for a jaunty conversation with the helpful checkout professional.

But something's changed. I feel like they've changed the game somehow, but it could just be me. 

The first crack in the relationship was probably internet shopping. It seemed so logical: I could save time, save money (due to fewer impulse buys) and everything would be hunky-dorey. So why was it such a horrible experience? It's 2012 people! (or rather, it was 2011, but you get the point) So why does the website have to be so difficult and slow? And why do all the groceries arrived individually wrapped in their own plastic bag that has been tied up/throttled shut?

So, that never happened again.

Then they brought in self-service aisles. I leapt at that. Surely I could increase my already superhuman efficiency without the happy to and fro with the formerly mentioned checkout professionals! The thing is: you can't use it if you have more than 10 items. Or rather, you can, but only if you're bat-shit crazy with no pride or sense of personal space. And when they say "self-service", what they really mean is "stand there looking blank waiting for the one checkout professional who still works in the shop to come over and scan her pass to fix whatever jam I've got into". Not a fan.

The last thing was a subtle change I only noticed recently, and it's not strictly the supermarket's fault. I don't know if you've noticed this, but if you use your credit card for a purchase of under about $30, they don't ask for a signature. They don't ask for a pin. They don't ask for your mother's maiden name. As far as I'm concerned they've basically given every pickpocket in town free access to my money in $29.95 lots.

I don't remember agreeing to that. Did I miss something?

I'm not even going to mention the ads.

It's still not as bad as vaccumming, but it's getting close. Lift your game <insert mega-supermarket chain here>!

Despite what you may have read today about Whitney Houston, riots in Greece etc. the big news of the day is actually about second-rate celebrity and third-rate actress, Brooke Satchwell:

BROOKE Satchwell has emerged from the darkness of her relationship with Matthew Newton and being caught up in the Mumbai terrorist attack to announce that she has never been happier.

Satchwell - so distressed by the end of her relationship with Newton in 2006 and the trauma of Mumbai that she felt little desire to pursue acting jobs that would place her in the public spotlight - returns to TV with a role on Packed to the Rafters.

She is also so happy in a relationship with film editor David Gross that she's even discussing marriage and babies.
Source:  www.heraldsun.com.au/entertainment/brooke-satchwells-packed-with-happiness

It's great that these days people get to publicly announce their state of mind. And I'm glad that Australia's most popular newspaper sees this sort of stuff as news-worthy.

I aspire to be, one day, one of the rare people so esteemed in our society that my every mood change becomes worthy of discussion.

My press release: I had a bad night's sleep last night, so I'm a little tired and grumpy. 

I'm happy to supply appropriately moody photographs on request.

I do so enjoy a bracing discussion of matters liturgical, a discourse on theology or even an analysis of Vatican philosophy. It really brightens my day. So I was dead chuffed to read this in the Age's letters section yesterday:

Archbishop Hart ... is correct in stating the Pope did not act against canon law because he is the legislator and therefore decides what is canonical. However, he omits to acknowledge that while the Pope is the Vicar of Christ for the Universal Church, Vatican II clearly taught that each diocesan bishop is the Vicar of Christ in and for his diocese. William Morris, Bishop Emeritus of Toowoomba
Read more: theage.com.au

This amuses me in many ways. The first sentence is so wonderfully circular and illogical. Who gets to make up the law? The pope. Who decided the Pope could make up the law? It's the canonical law. Who wrote the canonical law? The Pope. And on it goes.

I also like the idea that Vatican II decided each bishop is the local Vicar of Christ. So, a bunch of bishops back in the 60s got together for a conference and jointly decided they had some sort of special access to god, some special diocesan super powers.

Christianity has form in this respect. Think back to the first Council of Nicea in AD 325, if you will, in which a bunch of big-wigs in the Roman Empire got together to decide whether Jesus Christ was literally the son of God, or merely a "figurative son". Now, I would have thought this was something pretty fundamental to the whole religion, and I find it fascinating that this was only decided on 325 years after the fact.

If an organisation wants to structure itself like a bizarre dictatorship, and change the rules based on the whim of the moment, I personally have no problem with it except when the organisation claims to have a direct line to some higher being, and some sort of moral authority over a vast proportion of the world's population.