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Posted on

Weird spam of the day

Weird enough to get through my gmail spam filter.

From: Pearlie Horn
Date: Fri, 27 Nov 2006 22:45:38 0000
Subject: ostrich-egg nitrogen balance
To: info@gleeson.net

employed in agreeing to everything her ladyship said, thanking her for every fish he won, and

Yes, that’s the whole email. No attachments, no hyperlinks, nothing else.

The body of the message is a fragment from Pride and Prejudice: “Mr. Collins was employed in agreeing to everything her Ladyship said, thanking her for every fish he won, and apologising if he thought he won too many.”

The only purpose I can imagine for this is a spammer checking through a mailing list and sending these messages to track bounces to cleanse incorrect/inactive addresses from the list. At least they have an interest in classical literature.

Posted on

Reunion

I’m off to Sydney this weekend for my 20 year school reunion. Should be a lot of fun to catch up with the guys and find out what they’ve all been doing. Sometimes I think it’s a shame that I live so far away from where I grew up, but then again, I’ve kept in regular contact with my best friend from school and he lives in Los Angeles, so who knows what that all means?

One of my classmates has just recently started a high-profile blog, and I’d love to have a chat with him – he’s been discussing some really fascinating issues.

See if you can match up the 38-year-old with the 18-year-old.

Posted on

I did it! Mara-DONE.

Today, I ran the Melbourne Marathon. My time was 5hrs 10min, which was a bit slower than I expected. But the goal was to complete it, and that I did. It was really, really, REALLY hard. I was going fine until about the 32km mark feeling strong and cruising, when muscles in my legs started to cramp and had to switch to alternating between walking and running for the remaining 10km. I can still walk, but it’s a bit like The Mummy, all stiff-legged and slow. (Update: looks like I listened to too much well-intentioned advice and drank far too much water, resulting in a classic case of hyponatremia.)
Last year when I ran the half marathon, I said that I wanted to lose another 20kg before the full marathon. Unfortunately I only lost 5 of those 20, and really felt it in the latter stages. Looking on the bright side, I lost a shade over 3kg during the race 🙂

It feels really good to have achieved such a huge personal goal. But I don’t think I’ll do it again. I may run more marathons, but with more preparation, and definitely not until I’ve reached my goal weight of 83kg or less. What I won’t do again is run for five hours, the last two in serious pain. That’s just nuts.

Martin and Daniel at the Starting LineDaniel with me at the start.

Footnote: The weather was absolutely perfect! A bit of drizzle at the start, 10 deg C, bright and sunny with a max of 17 by the time I got to the city, and a howling (20-30kt) cool southerly the whole way. I only caught a bit of a headwind after turning at the Beach Rd-Nepean Hwy roundabout, and then only for a couple of minutes. The rest of the time the wind was at my back and constantly cooling me down. A runner could not ask for more! Especially after a week of high-20s and more 25-30 days forecast for the coming week.

Stats from the heart-rate monitor:

Km Time Av HR Notes
1 5.25 152 Too Fast! Slow down!
2 5:33 142 Still a bit fast, but the HR is settling
3 5:58 143 That’s more like it!
4 5:54 145  
5 6:07 146  
6 6:08 147  
7 6:06 145  
8 6:09 148 HR still a little high
9 6:09 147 nice and steady
10 6:19 147  
11 6:35 148 drinky
12 6:09 147  
13 6:11 147  
14 6:15 152  
15 6:23 152  
16 7:06 149 toilet break 🙂
17 6:35 150  
18 6:37 151  
19 6:39 152 still feeling great
20 6:54 158 getting into the hills
21 6:58 159 hills
22 7:03 158 more hills
23 6:46 157 a few downhills 🙂
24 7:41 159 I’m really sick of these hills
25 7:07 159 still more hills
26 6:48 167 need to slow down again
27 7:44 157 better
28 6:42 165 too fast again
29 7:36 154 much better, feeling great
30 9:35 153 stopped to see Deb and the kids at South Rd
31 7:53 155 slowing a little, starting to feel sore
32 9:28 145 had to start walking halfway through this one. The cramps have hit.
33 8:39 138 cramps marginally better
34 8:51 137 well, at least I’m not going too fast anymore!
35 9:37 127 really struggling
36 9:50 134 more walking than running now
37 9:07 139 a bit more running
38 8:53 145 able to do a bit more running. Hi Bobby!
39 8:58 143 still doing a bit more running, but it’s barely faster than walking…
40 8:54 140  
41 9:23 134 cramps are bad, just walked this one
42 + 0.2 11:21 135 managed to run the last 200m! glad that’s over
Total: 5:10.06 149