Just for the record, I make great soup.

Lots of bingly beep music at Psyshop. Shame they don’t have Altom’s Groove Control in stock. I really like Hologram. But Alien Project’s Activation Portal should keep me amused on the turbo.

Sitting at East Kilbride train station waiting for a train to take me back to Glasgow and from there back home via another change at Haymarket. This is what the end of the world will look like. Note the local zombie, standing there with typical zombie glaekit vacancy.

How much longer do I have to sit in the cold until a train comes? Bloody ages, that’s how long.

There’s something depressing about the empty track stretching away into a single line of parallax.

Hence I come down on the Italian side in the war of component manufacturers commonly known as the Campag vs Shimano debate.

How can anyone fail to be bowled over by how gob-smackingly beautiful that is?

I love my bikes.

Yesterday I rode home from Perth (Gmaps reckon 28 miles – having driven it I can assure you it’s 30 – 32, which means I’ll have to check Fingal’s rollout because he’s reading short too).

This isn’t really very far. I’m used to distances of 50 – 125 miles. Or I was. A series of illnesses and injuries have kept my bike mileage down to pretty much hardly anything for about 6 months now. Plus I’ve been finding that getting evening and weekend rides in now that I’m living in the frozen north is a million times harder. The weekends have been plagued by gales and freezing rain or snow; the nights have had the same, only they’ve been dark as well. It’s amazing how much difference a decent commute can make.

I really miss riding to work. I miss the riding for the sake of doing something: not just pelting round in a loop for “training” or to “keep fit and get the miles in”. Riding for utility purposes. That’s what got me into cycling in the first place and it’s still my first love. The bicycle as a workhorse: performing a function that is useful and contributes to your daily musts while at the same time providing all these other benefits.

Traffic jamming, quite possibly my favourite sport, is only a real pleasure when it’s for utility. If the ride is being done for the sake of the ride alone, one might as well avoid the serious traffic because it will only hinder progress and lead to inadequate time in the appropriate heart rate training zones. Traffic jamming is a by-product of finding the most efficient route from A to B and sticking to it. It’s like playing Rez or Wipeout for real. Locked in to a single route, girl and bike sweep effortlessly around the hazards: the inert obstacles, the herbivores, the carnivores and the occasional domesticated beast. I don’t have the option of shooting down the hazards (we can dream). The principle is there, though. They’re out to get you, whether by intent or ignorance, and it’s only by your own prescience, skill, lightning-quick reactions and agility that you’ll make it through with the Hi-Score. It’s skating the thin edge between maximum speed and recklessness.

That just doesn’t happen on training rides or those leisurely Sunday pootles round the coast stopping occasionally for a coffee and a flapjack. There’s nothing that puts a grin on my face quite like running down a congested mass of fuming cars and fuming drivers, baking in their own juices on a hot summer’s day. Traffic-jamming is doing the Kessel Run in twelve parsecs — in the Really Real World where the hatstands live.

There wasn’t any traffic jamming on yesterday’s ride. The levels of traffic in Perth were minimal and by the time I got back to Kirkcaldy the rush hour was over. At the same time, however, I took the most direct route: the same route I would take in the car. And that’s the key thing for me to consider a ride utility cycling. It’s about riding to get from A to B and not being diverted round a 6 mile loop just to avoid a particular junction or make the distance up to a nice round number.

I need to ride to work more. I miss it.

Ever wondered what an Amazon shop actually looks like?

Ghost Rider.

Just forget about the predictable plot and the cheesey, written-by-a-seven-year-old dialogue. Forget about it all having been done before in Warlock. Forget that it’s thin and forgettable even for a Marvel movie.

Dude! What the fuck has Nicholas Cage done to his head? I’m not talking about the flaming skull — that was actually pretty cool, even if it rendered him monosyllabic and lacking in character. I’m talking about his damn head! When did the guy who played Cameron “Put the bunny back in the box” Poe start mutating into Leonard freaking Nimoy? It was scary. I spent the entire film agog at this bizarre apparition, and the bare torso scene… Nick. Oh Nick. People are not going to be fooled by dry-brushing fake tan over your abs. And the hair? Really. I could forgive Christopher Walken in The Prophecy because it was somehow fitting on an archangel who didn’t give a fuck for talking monkeys, but on you it was just bad hair. Really bad hair.

I should say that I’ve never read any Ghost Rider, so was not left ranting about how inaccurate it was and how the character would never do such a thing. This is a good way to watch Marvel on the big screen. And if you’re going to see it, do go to the cinema: the FX make this movie, and it will be desperately disappointing when confined to a corner of your living room.

A few in-jokes for lovers of old Chuck Norris films and I was left with a strong craving to get the old motorbike out again. Being a sad Marvel fan-girl I felt it was worth the price of admission for the trailer for Fantastic Four – Rise of the Silver Surfer. The Silver Surfer looked damn hot. And the trailer for the next Spidey movie revelaed it has Venom in it!

Two sub 17 minute 750m swim sessions last week and a fairly decent cycle run, then today I put in a 16:19 750m. How chuffed am I?

All looking good for Tranent and then tonight I have a stupid fecking accident and kick a door frame wearing only socks. I’ve spent the last three hours with my foot wrapped in ice and elevated, it hurts like bejesus and is swollen like someone attached a bicycle pump to my little toe and inflated to 100psi.

I’d already decided to treat Tranent as a training gig rather than a full race owing to recent back injuries and illness, but this looks like I may end up being a DNS.

Not impressed.

I just managed to get a copy of Hardware on R2 DVD from a very nice man on Ebay.

You know what this means, don’t you?

Avatar frenzy!

Not nearly as much fun as a nice, long bike ride, but it’ll have to do.

So much for my plans to go to Dundee tomorrow and ride home. I have a seized lower back and a nasty cold to add to my still rather misshapen broken finger.

So, to cheer myself up, I ordered the Suunto foot pod for my T3. Kewl. For the even more geeky PT obsessives amongst you out there, I should also point out the Suunto Smart Belt. Now you can get real time HR data IN THE POOL!

Speaking of things that are too cool for words, may I direct the noble reader to these Dutch Eco Homes. They are amphibious. Yes, you read that right: amphibious.

Those crazy Dutch! They’re so hip and happening they’ll do themselves a mischief one of these days.