The Melbourne Hat was on the weekend. It's one of the three big tournaments in Australia, but differs from the two national championships in that drinking beer is the main activity rather than a distant second to playing ultimate frisbee. This year playing was particularly left by the wayside due to the the 50km/hr winds and constant rain on Saturday making it almost more a game of chance than skill.

However, I had intended on being fit for this tournament and playing well. Didn't happen. I'll admit to not keeping up a stringent fitness regime, but only two weeks ago I was feeling faster and more responsive than ever. Last weekend the one day tournament completely broke me for some reason, and I was still tired by the hat. I guess being up until 3am drinking the night before the first day and 4am before the second didn't help, but catches were constantly being put down, running had to be forced out of me, and intelligent decisions were far from the norm.

The difference between the level of play when fit and alert and when physically tired and straight off a big night seems to be getting more noticeable. I've never been a star player, but I'm at a point now where my experience should be showing. I really don't want to reach a point where I'm the chump every time I play, so I'd better pick up my act.

Even so, the Hat was an awesome good time.

I'm not a big fan of corporate lift etiquette for a couple of reasons. It can make exiting the lift a study in inefficiency, and it's all about making people your bitch.

The basics of lift etiquette are fairly simple - allow women to enter and exit the lift first. It seems harmless, but the more full the lift is the harder it is to implement this. Etiquette that demands an unrealistic limit on the number and ratio of men and women in the lift is not sustainable. In a packed lift "good manners" are thrown out the window and people leave in the easiest order they can. It's not rudeness, just a better way to do it.

If there are a bunch of men in the lift, there often seems to be a bit of competition to leave last. The women have all exited and one guy is near the front insisting on being courteous and allowing all others to leave first. This guy is nearly always wearing a suit. It reminds me of Garden State, where Natalie Portman's character insists on sitting on the back of the motorbike, because "Sidecars are for bitches. Anyone who sits in the sidecar is automatically your bitch." Everyone who accepts the dude's offer to leave before him is his bitch, and you can see in his eyes that he knows it. There are usually at least two of these men, but only one of them is the king of the jungle, and the other resigns to be his bitch.
"After you."
"No after you."
"Thanks."
"That's right. You're my bitch."

It pleases me most when the lift is full and some older arrogant looking guy in a suit is holding the lift door so that everyone can get through, all the while being in the way. As I pass him I smile courteously and think "I may be your bitch, but you look like a fool."

It puts the whole politeness to women thing into perspective, but that's a rant for another day.

I'm not much of an athlete but I try to keep fit, both to aid in my ultimate frisbee performance and to offset the amount of beer I drink. Drinking a standard drink a day is healthy, but to drink more you have to pay it off with Beer Credits, which are earned by doing exercise.

I find it hard to find the time, energy and drive to get out for a fitness session, and probably average less than once a week. There are two different sessions I've been doing on my local oval:
- One is two lap warmup and stretch, followed by ten laps which each contain a half with sprints and a half of jogging, broken up by a minute or so of core exercises in the middle of the two halves.
- The other is a warmup and stretch followed by about 5 minutes of intervals - fifteen seconds sprinting, fifteen jogging (5 minutes sounds easy, but try it).

The first takes about 45 minutes and the second about 20. For both I have to get up early and can't be arsed to do after work.

Today I tried something different. When I got home this afternoon I went out for a street run. I did three short, identical laps with no breaks, aiming for a faster time for each - a total of 17.5 minutes. It's good because it's short and I can fit it in before dinner so will hopefully do it more often. If I can continue to do the harder sessions once a week or so I should at least retain the fitness I gained from the mixed nats campaign.

What I learned:
- I don't know my fitness and how hard I can push myself over short distances very well.
- The first lap is the most difficult to push hard.
- A good route.
- A time to beat.

Well the home wine was a bit of a failure. It certainly made alcohol, but it wasn't the most tasty. Maybe if it had been given a few months to age it would have been drinkable.

Anyway, I've moved to something I know I can do - homebrew beer. My second batch has just been brewed, and the first is being consumed as we speak.

For the unitiated in homebrew beer, it's very simple. You spend about $80 at KMart and you get a kit with everything you need for the first brew. You get a kind of concentrate that you add sugar, yeast and water to in a 23 litre sealed bucket, then let it go. The hardest things are making sure everything is sanitised and bottling it at the end. Each batch after the first costs about $20 for 20 or so litres.

It's about three weeks from start to drinking, but I find the longer it's left the tastier it gets.

The first batch was a lager which isn't brilliant, but certainly drinkable and competitive with many a beer. To my second batch I added some strawberries, but probably not enough to make much of a difference to the flavour.

I've just been for a delightful run as the sun was rising. I wouldn't normally be awake at that silly hour, but fire waits for no man.

We woke up at about 4 to find the laundry, which is a shed a few metres from the house, well ablaze. Millerine called 000 and we tried to wake the neighbours but had no luck there. There's no garden hose or anything so we filled up a couple of buckets and soaked the very flamable fence which blocks the view of our flat from the shed. There was no chance of putting it out because, as I said, it was already well ablaze.

Anyway the firemen came and put the thing out, but our laundry is just a shell now. Apparently it was packed full of asbestos so we're to keep away from it until the agent gets it cleaned up. All very exciting.

We didn't have anything of value in there other than a washing machine which was rented anyway, so the only problem is that the electricity in the kitchen isn't working because it was on the same fusebox as the laundry. So the one time I'm awake early enough to make a cup of tea, I can't. Bugger!