Same old, same old

Not been feeling too well recently and coupled with the fact that most of my spare time has been taken up doing a lot of freelance work I seem to have neglected posting anything here. Also I am a bit lazy at times and so it is far easier to post to twitter than here.

Went to see the third installment of Pirates of the Caribbean the other night. It wasn't bad but at the same time I didn't enjoy it as much as the previous two. I felt a distinct lack of tension throughout so perhaps it was the fault of the director.

Can't really afford to go to the cinema again in the near future and that is a shame as I'd like to see The Simpsons, Shrek 3, Die Hard 4 and Fantastic Four 2 plus all those numbers are beginning to make my head ache.

Prison Break has almost finished on Five so I'll gain an hour there.

And finally Dr Who, as expected, got into its stride with Human Nature. A superb episode, well written and with a scary feel that was worth waiting for. Can't wait for the second part of the episode.

Oh well, a weird week comes to an end

Spent the week feeling a bit out of it really. Have been struggling with a cold for a couple of weeks but this week it seemed to come to fruition - lots of sneezing, coughing and filling of handerchiefs.

I am also upset that Martin Allen has left the MK Dons to got to Leicester... get ready for lots of tabloid headlines about a Mad Dog amongst the Foxes. However, I'd like to wish him all the best, he managed to halt the slide down the tables of a team that one day will be quite good (yeah, why not).

Going to rest a bit more now. Next week kicks off with a Bank Holiday and then two days of almost solid meetings... deep joy

That's it, I am officially old!

Coming home last week from an event and I was listening to Steve Wright on Radio 2. (No, that's not it, and Radio 2 isn't for old people, with Russel Brand and co they have an eclectic mix of DJs). Still, back to my little narrative. Steve Wright plays a series of oldies, chosen by a listener, each afternoon. As I drove I thought I may switch the station as I didn't really fancy listening to a bunch of old tracks, way before my time. However as the opening beats from the drum machine clicked in I felt as though I had been kicked in the stomach. Oldies? That was the Human League!

I think it may be time for me to hang up the guitar and get out the pipe and slippers.

News Headlines

"Bong!" (that's the sound of Big Ben)

Chris Chibnall writes a reasonably good episode of Dr Who.

"Bong!"

The top two teams in the Premiership play out a boring showpiece FA Cup Final (me bitter with the result? never).

"Bong!"

Howard Moon arrested for signing photo for his fan.

"Bong!"

I must stop procrastinating

Organisation, GTD, life-goals and so forth

I have been striving to organise myself since I was born, or so it seems. A couple of years ago I got into David Allen's Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-free Productivity and that has been very helpful in clearing my desk and keeping my inbox empty.



Whether it is because of my personality (INTP last time I checked) or some other quirk that I have (and I have many), I have found that GTD hasn't provided a complete answer for me. Although GTD talks about reviewing your life in terms of short term goals, longer term goals and life itself, the book itself is a little sparse at this point. In an interview with David Allen he said that this was an area that perhaps needed expanding. While he thinks about doing that I need to crack on with things though.



GTD has been for me a very 'reactive' approach to organisation. Dealing with items as they arrive, sorting them and dealing with them as and when they need to be. This works perfectly well and as a system is great. It is basically a bottom up system. I like to see the big picture, I like to view things a whole and therefore I crave a top down approach. The problem is, when I have tried top down approaches before I don't get anything done, or I get things done way past the deadline.



Therefore I am working on my own hack of GTD (as most people do and as David Allen says use what works for you.) The main mantra of GTD is probably to aim for what is called the 'mind like water'. This is that everything needs to be out of your head and onto lists. If it is in your head, it is on your mind and therefore causing you stress, worry and stopping you from being fully productive. My problem has been that the big things are also on my mind and so I need to deal with them. In this, I have found Stephen Covey's The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Powerful Lessons in Personal Change really helpful.



The next steps I am going to take to move forward in this are the following. I'll keep you all up to date on what I am doing and perhaps you'll find some of the things helpful too.

• Write a Personal Mission Statement
• Create my 3 to 5 year goals
• Create my 1 to 2 year goals
• Note my areas of responsibility (this will provide me with things that need to be regularly done)
• Keep a list of projects
• Keep contextual next action lists handy

Although GTD advocates the above I want to be more proactive in putting things into my own 'inbox', for GTD purists I suppose it is making sure I do a weekly review and regular 'mindsweep, but for me it is more about making sure my top down relates to my bottom up, and no that isn't a euphemism.

A funny old week

Well this week has been and has almost gone, and it has been a strange one. It started off with me feeling very much under the weather, a mixture of sore throat, headache and hay fever. Yesterday I was out of the office but working and today I am back at work trying to catch up. The week will end with me watching the FA Cup final and then Dr Who, although I will also be doing a fair bit of writing on Saturday too. I'm not holding out too much hope for Dr Who this week as it is written by the head writer of Torchwood, as Stan Lee would say... 'nuff said'.

Talking about Stan Lee I just realised I hadn't written anymore about Spider-Man 3. Well I liked it. I didn't think it was too busy and as a 'comic book' film it was most enjoyable. I did find I started to dislike Mary Jane through the film and have subsequently thought that she is perhaps the one actor who was wrongly cast, but time will tell. Sam Raimi has done a good job with these films and as someone who read Spider-man from its very beginnings, when realeased in the UK, I give it the thumbs up.

So to sign off I wish the lads of Manchester Utd all the best for tomorrow and now back to the inbox.

Arthur becomes all-powerful? (rated 4 stars)

Lady Friday (The Keys To The Kingdom)

by Garth Nix

This is book five in the seven book series. From the first book I was engrosed in the concept and the ideas that it contained. Young Arthur, by chance (?), becomes the rightful heir to the House, and over seven days he faces the trustees whom he must overcome, collect the keys and free the seven parts of the will of the architect – who has simply gone away.

This is all well and good and so far the books have each had clever ideas that have kept interest as the series moves forward. My only criticism is that by now, Arthur’s confidence and power has grown so much that there is little that seems to pose a problem to him.

Hopefully this will be a lull before the storm as he gets ready to face Superior Saturday in the next instalment.

See more about Lady Friday (The Keys To The Kingdom)

Spider-man 3

Oh and yeah I went to see the above. A more substantial review when I get the chance, but in short I liked it.

Oh and I finally got to see Kill Bill Vol I - fantastic

A long weekend and a lot happened

And so the Bank Holiday weekend comes to an end, and what a weekend it was.

For the first time in ages we managed to get out and about, beyond the local high street, in our new car. I also managed to pull a muscle, or strain a tendon, or something in my left hand. It is between the first and second finger. While this doesn't hurt too much, apart from a dull ache, while the hand is still it does mean that whenever I try and grip anything it hurts quite considerably.

In other news Manchester United are once again Premiership Champions, nine times in fifteen years.

Dr Who was OK, although I am not liking this series as much so far, even though it has been slightly better - OK, I know that sounds weird but I know what I mean. Still the best stories are yet to come and the end of the series promises to be good - no spoilers here :-)

I did a lot more this weekend but at the moment can't remember, if I do I'll post.

Where will my photos end up? Microsoft to buy Yahoo?

I feel like a free-thinking Christian the day before Constantine unites the Roman Empire...

http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/05/04/microsoft-pursues-yahoo-takeover/

Yahoo photos, Flickr and what should I do?

I am quite interested in what plays out with the following link. Apparently Yahoo will be shutting down their photos bit and encouraging peeps to use Flickr instead. Why am I so interested? Well, I use Flickr and I also use Yahoo Photos. Flickr is mainly for public stuff and Yahoo as an online storage facility. As part of my ISP subscription I get unlimited storage on Yahoo but I don't on Flickr as I am not a pro account.

Even my nice warm cup of tea isn't helping me worrying about this one.

http://www.webware.com/8301-1_109-9715882-2.html?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=Webware

Worried for a minute

For those outside the UK the following will make little sense. But it seems we almost came very close to losing one of the living comedy gods of our generation. Read on...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/newsid_6600000/newsid_6601300/6601395.stm

Cold Tea Again

Well it is a new name for the blog I was thinking about. I simply deleted an old blog and used the title from that. Therefore, note to self… sometimes the simple solution is the best one.
http://dazzer67.blogspot.com

See more progress on: think of a new name for my blogger diary/blog