Chris

Apparently there's loads of free beer and a dip in the ocean waiting at the finish line so i'm hoping the prospect of that will keep me ticking in the latter stages. I'm doing it with 2 other people, one of whom is an experienced runner and the other who is in the same boat as me (threatening to tip over into being in shape but still not fully equipped to deal with long distances). I'm hoping we keep each other going.

Free Beer! 

If you can find someone of a similar pace to you to chat to and help pull you round it'll definitely help.  At my first half I caught up with a clubmate after two miles and we did the rest of the race side by side.  She basically dragged me through the last mile as all I wanted to do was sit down for five minutes.

Half marathon is Saturday. Pooping my breeks but i'm sure it'll be fine.

 

I did a trial run of just over half the route last weekend and the remaining half is a straight line slightly downhill. I still don't think i'll be able to comfortably run the whole way, will probably need to take a few walk breaks towards the end, more because my feet get numb after about 6 miles than anything else. We had a long winter which made running outside a bit difficult so i'm not as prepared as i'd have liked but fuck it.

Good luck!

Try and enjoy it as much as possible. Best tip I can give you is to slow down, especially in the first half. You will be amazed how good you feel and you will bomb off a lot faster than you intended and then wonder why you're fucked for the last 3 miles.  

I need to get some races entered for later in the summer. Really struggling to get back into a routine at the mo with family commitments.

I've started reading Joyland by Stephen King. I've always been put off of King because he looks like a massive creepy paedo and I generally don't go for the horror genre.

 

This seems OK so far, it's pretty simple reading so it's easily absorbed when loads of other cunts are watching football really loud in the same room as me.

I read that one a few weeks ago. It's pretty good. Bit lighter than some of his other books. It was basically my re-introduction to King after I read his biography/writing how to On Writing. Started it the same week I watched Adventureland so I had a really good visual cue for what the park in King's book looked like.

The only King book which has defeated me in the past was Dolores Claiborne. So boring.

I'm a huge King fan, but I've never read that one. Coincidentally one of my friends on Twitter is reading that one at the moment as well. Is there a new adaption coming out or something which has got people interested in it again?

 

I don't think so. I just went back to it as it was one I had heard of but never read before.  I've got The Stand loaded on the kindle to go next and The Gunslinger is ready as well to start me on The Dark Tower series.

The Guardian are doing a series at the moment where they re-read all of King's books chronologically. 

http://www.theguardian.com/books/series/rereading-stephen-king

Just finishing off Salem's Lot by Stephen King.  Going back and reading a few of his books I missed during my teenage King phase.  This is a good one. It's very hard to produce a story about vampires now with any real sense of fear or jeopardy in it as all the tropes are so well known. However throughout the book there's a sense that everything is up for grabs and anyone could die at any time (and they do).  It's also got a few genuinely uncomfortable blood curdling sections which I found quite hard to get through, but a fair few of those involved very young children and I have a 4 month old daughter so I think we can put that down to my own projections and anxieties.  But that's what a good horror writer should do I guess, build on those anxieties and fears that everyone has and construct an enjoyable scary narrative from them.

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/arts-entertainment/football-manager-not-real-2015050698032

Started watching Daredevil. It's weird. The dialogue is total cheese. I think you'd hear better written scripts in Hollyoaks.

 

The fight scenes are pretty underwhelming too, with the standard dynamic of total domination from the off, bad guy gets the upper hand, bit of a struggle, then Daredevil wins. It's a bit WWE in that respect, but with a bit more blood.

 

Nearly everything about it is bad and kind of annoying. But I can't stop watching it.

There's a fight in a corridor in ep 2 which is pretty epic. I might watch ep 3 tonight, I'm really enjoying it. Light years ahead of the awful Gotham in terms of quality.

People liking my work anniversary on LinkedIn. Stop it. It's depressing.

Argh, could a mod please change "Laura" to Laika in the title? Worst autocorrect.

Done! 

On Newcastle, what are the fans' main beefs with Ashley?

I always got the impression it was mostly because he's not Rangers Newcastle minded.

Just finished Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy. The story is epic, brutal and horrifying but it's also fucking hard to read. Someone needs to teach that guy about correct punctuation and grammar!

Oh fucking hell, don't get me started on that shit. The latest one about coughing really hard to stop a heart attack had be screaming at my fucking computer.

 

IF STOPPING A HEART ATTACK WAS AS EASY AS COUGHING, YOU'D HAVE FUCKING HEARD ABOUT IT SOMEHWERE OTHER THAN FACEBOOK YOU FUCKING STUPID CUNT.

 

xx

I actually had that one sent round a workplace by the fucking Occupational Health department once. Followed swiftly by an apology for sending out utter bollocks.

as I'm aware the ending is incredibly underwhelming

It's not underwhelming as such, just jarring.  Over time I've come to hugely admire the ending. People are still talking and speculating about it years after (though for me it's a pretty clear ending if you look at the overall context of the last season).

Basically you just need to get them watched.

I miss having a dishwasher

My dishwasher is acting the cunt, it seems to wash everything fine and gets the food off, but when I take the dishes out they're all covered in this sort of gritty residue and I have to wash it all again by hand. Anyone know what's causing this?

Google suggests the holes in your spray arms might be blocked or not turning correctly (any tall plates etc. which prevents them moving freely?).  You should be able to remove them to give them a clean out.

We spent all day yesterday ripping up our back garden.  Now instead of a wild overgrown garden we have 4 or 5 large piles of waste sitting in the middle of the grass. Burning it isn't an option and would probably need a couple of skips to get rid of everything.  At the moment we're thinking of getting a big trailer and doing shuttle runs to the recycling centre.

Aside from the recycling centre, what's the easiest way to get rid of it all?

Anyone watching/watched Bloodline on Netflix? It's fucking amazing. One of the best shows I've watched in a while actually. Really well fleshed-out characters.

My list is pretty packed, but what's it about?

At the moment my wife fucks off to bed quite early to grab some sleep before the wee one gets hungry so I've been getting through a lot of stuff.  Currently watching Sons of Anarchy (just finishing S1), Daredevil, Battlestar Galactica (just finishing S1), Community, Kimmy Schmidt, Better Call Saul and rewatching Farscape. Plus outside of Netflix there's Agents of Shield improving all the time.

Was watching Gotham but gave up. It feels like pre-HBO TV. If the 90s did a superhero weekly. Doesn't stack up well against modern production values.

even the ending to How I Met Your Mother and Roseanne was better than that shite!

I've never watched two and a half men but come on, the ending to HIMYM was the epitome of gash.  

Watched the first 2 episodes of The West Wing.

 

I think Leo is my favourite so far.  His slap down of the vice pres was great.

Such a good series (though it does have a definite dip towards the end, picking up again for the last season).  I bet you hate Mandy already. Everyone hates her.

The sad thing is there'll be bands that fall for this pish.

Some of those seem a bit harsh but I don't have a problem with McNamara's inclusion. Never had a good game or looked committed to the club. Rarely has the term wage thief been more appropriately applied to a player.

Out of that list I think Jerel Ifil is probably the most hard done by. A limited defender I'd say, not a terrible one and certainly not one of the worst 11 of all time if you consider the absolute toss that's worn red in the last 20 years. 

Who was the big striker McInnes signed in his first season (having a mental blank just now)?  He's certainly the least competent footballer I've ever seen play for Aberdeen