I just ordered Death Machine. No more the repeat watching of the tired old ex-rental video with the dodgy soundtrack! Woot woot woot woot! If I’m really lucky it’ll arrive before I leave for Exeter and I can force Munky to watch it again before I say goodbye.

And while I was at it I ordered Slipstream. Just for old times’ sake.

I seem to like these quirky little numbers that no one else does.

Can anyone help me with a DVD copy of Hardware? Puhleeeese?

There are a number of films I have seen — really I have — and no one else has. Except Frood in a couple of instances.

One of these is Dead Heat — not a great film, but reasonably amusing. It took us ages to find out what it was called based on some vague memories of a zombie cop film from the late 1980s.

It’s not a good film but I mention it because it proves that sometimes we can find out what these weird-ass films we watch are called. Sometimes. Sometimes we can’t — still don’t know what that weird foreign one with the cow in it was called. But that’s okay because it was foreign and I can’t remember the title.

But sometimes there are films I’ve seen that I just can’t find, no matter what. One of these is the one in which a pair of American fly-boys go to France during WWI to conduct a rescue, aided and abetted by a bunch of RAF nutters who build flying achines out of tractors and assorted farm machinery – and no, it’s not Biggles. That was about the same time as the zombie cops film. It was showing on Sky the same year. It had these enormous floating air mines like spikey barrage balloons. It was fab.

The other is a Transformers movie with a Jimi Hendrix soundtrack. Really.

If anyone out there in LJ/blog land can help me on these, that’d be peachy.

Oh. And can I get Death Machine and Hardware on my region DVD? Anyone? Not from the usual places, as far as I can tell.

I’ve forgotten what the hell it was I fired up this damn thing to say now.

Have just bought a plane ticket down to Exeter on Saturday morning to help Frood pack and move the last of our necessaries up north. I may have a little time free on either Saturday afternoon or Sunday afternoon (we’re driving back up on Monday) if anyone in the area wants to get together for a post-farewell farewell drinkie.

Drop me a line at the usual place if so.

Following Liz’s advice, I was browsing around this site and came across the page From Couch Potato to Distance Runner. Interestingly, he seems to think that running every day is just fine, as long as you don’t feel tired.

Hurm.

In other news, there was a piece in this week’s Sunday Times magazine about Karima Adebibe, the new Lara Croft. It had a picture.

I was reading it while having a cup of tea for breakfast and my dad wanders past and does a double take.

“Oh!” he says. “I thought that was you!”

It must be a fatherly thing. You know, the paternal equivalent of beer goggles or rose-tinted spectacles.

The article was quite funny. This bit made me laugh out loud:

She just embodies everything about a 21st-century girl that I like: she’s smart, independent, tough, polished, attractive and very sexy. I love the fact she’s got curves and the assets of a real woman. It’s a welcome contrast to the modelling industry’s obsession with being skinny.

Dahling, really. Lara’s ‘assets’ are nothing like those of a real woman. A silicone-enhanced one, perhaps. And with legs like those you’re not in a position to complain about the modelling industry’s obsession with being skinny. Especially as you are a model.

And the build up has started for the new X-Men movie. I can’t wait!

Training with a lupus flare.

It’s just not going to happen.

No matter how glorious the weather and how much I want to take Peregrine out again.

Not helped by falling while polishing the car roof yesterday and landing on top of the open door (I was standing on the door sill to reach the middle of the roof). Nasty friction burn/graze and bruising down my left side.

Chiz chiz.

Still, after yesterday’s early morning sprint on Blackbird down to the opticians, I can report that I don’t have any sign of detached retina. Huzzah. Did have to wear dark glasses for the rest of the day, though. Amazing how silly you can feel wearing black iridium Mag M Frames in the house.

The clocks having gone forwards, the roads being dry and his computer having arrived in the post yesterday, last night I took Peregrine out for a spin. Just a quick 20 miles (well, 35km) after work.

I’ve mostly been riding Shackleton pretty much since I got him. The others haven’t had much of a look-in, much to Fingal‘s disgust. Shackleton is a great bike to ride. He’s fantastic fun and I think I’m finally getting the fixie zen thing. Peregrine doesn’t get out during the winter weather, for he am too precious, precious.

This means that when he does get out it’s even more enjoyable.

I keep forgetting just how much fun that bike is to ride. He’s swift, responsive, goes like stink and every single ounce of power I put through those cranks is translated into forward momentum. The stiffness of the frame makes for an incredibly harsh ride — this is not a bike I would recommend for long, lazy mile-eating — but it’s a fierce pleasure nevertheless.

It would be sensible to contemplate selling a bike that has only done 450km in the last 2½ years, but there is no way I am selling something that plasters my face with a grin so big it counts as a front reflector.

It is a little known thing that I have a fondness for perfume.

It’s the synaesthesia, I think. I’m very picky about perfume. I’m very picky about aftershave on a man. A man whose scent is laced with shredded browns and bronzes, all ambers and cedarwood and with that rich, dusky texture like really good quality chocolate — that man has the power to make me swoon. It’s the shape of it.

Myself, I have a fondness for Guerlain’s Mitsouko, which is one of the so-called ‘dark’ perfumes, like Donna Karan’s Chaos. It matches my natural scent well, although it’s a bit heady for daytime use. It has subtle undertones of rotting carrion and wet steel, rounded off by a subtly floral concoction underpinned by a hint of Vetiver.

If I wear a perfume during the day (rarely) it has been Davidoff’s Cool Water for Woman, but I’m after something different.

I know what I want, but can I find it? No. I know what shape I want, and what smell I want. But what I’ve discovered is that perfume departments do not include fragrance notes the way wine shops include tasting notes. So one is faced with a vast array of designer fragrance bottles with no way to tell what’s inside. And, personally at least, one can only sniff about 3 or 4 fragrances before it becomes impossible to get a good idea about what one is smelling. Not only that but a scent changes on the skin, so really one should try it on the skin.

Basically what I want is something as grown-up as the Mitsouko, but with a much more mineral, metallic scent. Sharper, flatter and more subtle. Something that has an almost subconscious effect unless the person smelling it is right up close.

Any suggestions? All the ones I tried yesterday lost their top notes very quickly and became too sweet and floral, although the initial hit of the Escada I tried wasn’t desperately far off. And the new summer Cool Water (not Game, the other one) is just about there but has too much citrus in it. I don’t want fruity. I hate fruity.

So, my particular method of getting used to something is generally just to keep at it, like every day, until my body realises it’s not getting out of it and gives in. This is how I did it with cycling. This is pretty much how I did it with exercise of all sorts before. Just throw myself into it and get used to it.

So is this a good idea with running or would it be utter madness? Is running 2 miles every day just stupid?

I should say at least two miles. This is my latest route, at about 3 miles (the Google pedometer reads short because it can’t take all the bends and wobbles into account). I did the usual route last night because it was getting dark (down to 20 minutes on that, though). I’m planning on working up to about 6 miles two or three times a week. My overall goal is to be down to one full rest day a week — but that’s to be a complete rest day.