I'm trying to catch up a little bit. This bit of shopping actually took place last week, but I seem to be too busy to mention it.

When I was out for coffee with Adele last week, I happened to be armed with a coupon for $10 at Borders. We never made it to coffee, but we had dessert, which was just as good. And on the way back up the hill, we stopped back to pick up a copy of the second installment of Clive Barker's Abarat series, Days Of Magic, Nights Of War.

I really can't comment much on this yet. I absolutely loved the first book. After reading a library copy, I ended up buying it. I didn't hesitate to pick this up when I saw that it was released. Now to just find time to start in on it. Luckily, it's close to the top of the reading pile.

Finding new music isn't always easy. At least, not if you want something that's really new to you. If you want something that's similar to something else you listen to, it's not too hard to find. But if you don't know what you like, it's hard to find it on the shelf. Thankfully, most stores allow album previews. As I was stopped off at Real Groovy, I was searching for an album that I may have heard a bit of when I was having lunch with Ryan down in Christchurch. I didn't find it, but I did find something else, which might even be similar. The Now Sound Of Brazil is a cross section of modern Brazilian music. Of the artists featured, I am familiar with only Suba. Everything else is new to me. New, and good. I was happy from the moment that I stood at the listening station at the store. I've had a few good listens already, and I'm still impressed. And it's fueled my shopping list a bit further.

Hot on the heels of Saturday's performance, I've surprised myself with my rowing distance again today. After reaching 5000 meters with ease, I had punched up another 3000 meters immediately following.

With that in mind, I hesitantly entered 8000 meters on the controls and focused on keeping an even pace for the duration. People came and went around me, stopping by for a blink or two and then wandering off to complete their workout. One of the trainers stopped by at one point and asked how long I'd been going, or if I'd gone and come back. But that was already after I had finished the 8km and had asked for another 2000 meters to round out the day.

I probably could have gone further. I'm imagining that I'll probably have a try at a continuous 10,000 meters. The hard part is hydration. Outside of that, it's only about 45 minutes. If I can run that time, or rollerblade for that long, why can't I row that long?

The interesting side effect is the trend on my rowing club totals. The first 100,000 meters took me just over 2 months to complete. But in the past 10 days, I've accumulated about a third of that. It's about double the rate compared to the first milestone.

I really need to get around to setting up that graphing software to map my progress to 1 million meters.