Footy: Hawthorn Hawks vs. Collingwood Magpies

My colleague Ken took me to my first Aussie Rules football game, known simply as 'footy' (which goes along with my observation that Aussies have nicknames for *everything*). Quite an exciting Australian cultural experience ... made complete with the drunken Australian heckling .... let's see, the favourite expressions were "the umps on the bottle", "you f-ing cheesedick", "you're a dirty whore", and the list goes on and gets much worse (Mrs. Wong: sorry for the foul language here but trust me this is actually the censored version). Maybe not the ideal family entertainment, but I was also in general admission where alcohol was allowed (and therefore prominent).

A quick primer on footy. As you can see in the following picture, there are 4 posts at the end. The field is an oval and about 160-180 metres long and ~100 metres wide. 6 points for a goal which is a kicked/thrown ball between the middle 2 posts, or 1 point for a "behind" which is between the outside posts. As you can see, the Hawks have just scored a goal. The crowd doesn't cheer for a behind.

The rules: You're not allowed to carry the ball for more than 15m without either passing, dribbling or kicking it away. If you get tackled with the ball, it's a free kick to the other team. If a kicked ball travels more than 15 metres and is caught untouched, its called a 'mark' and the receiver gets a free kick. 18 players a side so one doesn't often get much room to run ... which makes for something always happening. From what I saw, most scoring occurs after a 'mark' within 50 metres of the goal. If one misses a kick from this area, they get heckled in a big way, with such kind words as those above. This goes on for 4 quarters of 25 minutes each.

The crowd is fanatical. You can usually identify what team a fan is cheering for simply from their scarf or hat. Some more pictures and a movie below.

A Hawk clearing the zone:


A Magpie attempting a long goal kick (you can see the 50m line)


Check this out. Here is a 16 second long video of the action. Umm, turn the volume down or off if you are sensitive to foul language ...

Hetti would like the hot boys ...

So, Lynn made the observation that I am the *only* male swimmer not in a speedo.

100k and back by 10am

Yup, did the first long ride with the tri club on Saturday.

So, there I am at 7:10am hanging on the back of the peloton of ~50 riders with Mitch Anderson at the helm doin 44kph thinkin, "boy ... i'm in big trouble". After about 40k of this and finally getting dropped (badly) on a moderate climb, I bail and head for home.

Exhausted after 100k at 10am.

I'm out of my league here.

Swimming with Pros

Just a clarification on the title. It's not so much swimming "with" pros as it is showing up to the same workout. Apparently, Mitch Anderson (10th at IM Hawaii 2004, 3rd at IM Oz 2005) is a member of the Melbourne Uni tri club. By my estimation, Mitch and I swim at the same speed ... when he is doing 1-arm drill.

Hetti, I haven't heard the term "cozzie" before .. they usually call them "bathers".

And now Belinda is a Liberal ...

Wow, what is the world coming to?

Can parliament work? Let's see. If the budget gets voted down, we'll vote in June. It'll be another minority. More squabbling for the next year. Another election. More squabbling. This could go on for awhile, no? Tomorrow will tell. Maybe Belinda will encourage some others to do the same.

Not that it really affects me. We're goin right-wing here ... and, despite a near 100% voter turnout, no one still seems to care.

Me and the butterfly stroke

OK, an update on swimming with the triathlon club at Melbourne Uni. My arms ache as I write this.

First of all, the swims are all at 6:30am - 8:00am, Monday-Wednesday-Friday. You can all imagine what this feels like. At first I thought it would be impossible, but, it actually isn't that bad. Of course, I haven't made 3 workouts in a single week yet.

So, from what I can tell, Monday is IM day (or at least not full on freestyle), Wednesday is the big distance freestyle day and Friday is drill day. The good (or maybe bad) thing about being the "new guy" is that you don't have the luxury of complaining to the coach to give you an easier workout, or to not give so much kicking, etc.

To give you an example, last Monday's workout was {8x100 free, 8x100 kick, 8xIM, 6x200 free} .... can you imagine the flack that Kevin/Frances/Irene would get for such a workout? Last Wednesday was epic for me, but it seems like it was just another week here. It was 500 free, 500 non-free as warmup, 3x{800 free, 4x25 hard}, 6x100 cruise [4300] ... this morning was 800 free, 800 non-free as warmup (bloody hell, this was warmup!), 6x400 free, 100 cool down [4100]. I hope this all makes me a better swimmer.

Do keep in mind the stark contrast to U of T. I must remember to photograph this pool. Rumour has it, it was the pool used for the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne, but somehow I just don't believe it. We're all crammed into 3 or 4 lanes of a 25 metre pool (think ~20 people in a 4m longer Benson with skinnier lanes) and we actually use lane ropes (this morning, there were 7 people in the lane beside me -- thankfully they were a touch faster than me, so we only had 4 in our lane). Oh do I miss the 50m pool.

So, when you're skulking around Tuesday night after Kevin's High Park workout, or wherever you might be, just think that Lynn and I will be dragging our sore arms into work after a solid Melbourne Uni tri club workout. And, when you're relaxing late on a Sunday afternoon in North America, just be contented that Mark and Lynn are probably about to attempt the butterfly. It's not pretty, but they are loving it!

Do you reckon?

So, I think Aussies are obsessed with shortening words or at least expressing words with -ie and -o ... Below are some examples I have come across in the past week.

Presents == presies
Sunglasses == sunnies
Wetsuits == wetties
Tasmania == Tassie

And, in reading the newpaper the other day, a lot of people are given catchy names like:
Robinson == Robbo (there is a football writer named Mark Robinson!)
Dave = Dave-o

etc.

When driving actually requires your full attention ...

... you're probably a North American driving on the left side of the road in a rather large van.

As you can see from this picture, my concentration is intensely focused on keeping to the left and trying to think somewhat in reverse (rear view mirror is to the left of you, right hand turns require waiting for a break in oncoming traffic, shift with your left hand, etc).


Thankfully, I didn't have to pull any chicken rights.

It's actually not that bad ... after awhile. I don't think Lynn was too impressed with my (in)ability to manouver through roundabouts, mostly because we were driving a 1.8-tonne van and I was trying to keep up with Frederic. Nonetheless, no hydro poles were struck, only minor amounts of rubber were laid at IKEA (it's a steep entrance) and ... we now have some furniture.

This is ... umm ... IKEA ... which is no different from IKEA anywhere else in the world.


More later!