Category: flubbage

On (Not) Writing and the Frustrations of iTunes to the Professional Procrastinator

Post author By latepaul
Post date 18 February 2012
No Comments on On (Not) Writing and the Frustrations of iTunes to the Professional Procrastinator

The thing about not writing is that sooner or later I get back to thinking that I want to again. I felt so burned by NaNoWriMo that I’d pretty much decided I wasn’t a writer and to stop trying to pretend I could be one. However last night I felt like maybe I wanted to write something, just for me, just because I felt I wanted to.

The thing about me though is I’m a classic procrastinator and I always find a task related to what I’m supposed to be doing to do instead. Oh, it’s not intended to be instead, just before – but somehow it always seems to take all the time available. So I end up re-organising my bookcase/ebook library instead of actually reading, or the usual one for writing is re-organising my writing folders.

This time it was something else, it was music.

I’ve been listening to this a lot:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbFzQ65V-fc]

and it occurred to me that this was the perfect music to write to – calming, pretty and instrumental (lyrics distract me and tend to find their way into what I’m writing). In fact it was as much the fact that this would be perfect to write to as any desire to write per se that made me want to do it.

So I sat down to write. But first I decided I was going to get the album this guy did. I checked and it wasn’t available on Amazon or 7Digital – which was a shame because those are generally easier to use. Instead I had to go to iTunes – which was a frustrating experience. To be fair most of that was not really Apple’s fault.

First in order to run iTunes I needed to boot into Windows and though I have Windows on my main laptop the one with my iTunes account set up is on my netbook. And my netbook is great for certain things, but it’s fiddly to use if you need to do a lot of clicking and it’s worse somehow in Windows. Not really Apple’s fault – except in that they refuse to support Linux.

Second problem was that my credit card details have expired. So I had to go find my wallet and do the necessary.

After that while it was downloading I used the time to… not write, God no, I tried to install an up to date version of Scrivener. Which either means the Windows version under wine (works quite well with a few quirks) or the Linux beta (they’re time-limited and I couldn’t find the download for a version that hadn’t expired).

Finally once the album had downloaded I transferred it from netbook to laptop using… Dropbox. Because I’m stupid and I can I used a method that took ~30mins instead or 3mins using a memory stick.

After I finally had the tracks on my laptop I imported them into Banshee and played whilst I re-read all the stories I’d written for Slingink’s 2011 Story Slam (formerly Eurofiction). Then Melissa rang and that was my evening.

As an aside, the reason I re-read those stories was because I hadn’t looked at them since I wrote them, hadn’t talked about them. The reason for that was that after Nano I was feeling a bit brusied but didn’t want to just give up on Story Slam so I forced myself to finish it but resented the time I spent writing. A couple of them ended up being a bit weird because of that.

Anyway, here’s another track from Acoustic Labs:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJ-FTJhwmuw]

Album available here (warning: iTunes may cause frustration!)

Tags acoustic labs, itunes, music, not writing, procrastination, writing

flubbage

Blogging v Journaling

Something I’ve been thinking about.

I used to write a diary, a journal really. It was sporadic and intermittent – occasionally years would go by unnoticed. The last time I did so was back in 2006. Since then any urges toward self-expression have tended to go here on my blog. So let’s compare and contrast:

Pros of Blogging

More people read it – can reach out and make connections with others
It lives out there, in cyberspace – less prone to being lost, deleted etc.
feedback – it’s nice when someone likes what you’ve written, it’s even nice to argue sometimes

Cons of Blogging

More people read it – people I wouldn’t necessarily want to know my innermost thoughts read it. So those thoughts don’t get written here.
To make a “success” (i.e. get it read) of a blog you have to promote it. That’s work
Feedback – takes a critical mass of readers I think.
It matters whether you’re interesting to just yourself

Pros of Journaling

Complete privacy, complete honesty – say what you like about whatever or whoever you like.
No need to explain. I can write “Sheila upset me over the penguin incident” without having a 500-word (ok a 1000 it’s me) pre-amble so that sentence makes sense
Because I write about stuff maybe only I’m interested in, I have a record of thoughts and feelings that I’ll probably still interested in in years to come. I’ll probably find it cool to look back because I may have forgotten much of it.

Cons of Journaling

Takes as much time and effort as blogging (roughly) but little possibility of feedback unless I actively show it to someone.
Re-reading old entries can lead to an unhealthy nostalgia (the reason I don’t still have my earliest journals)
Repetitive – the same themes come out. My life isn’t that interesting all the time, even to me.

Not sure how that tots up, or how to score it. Just put down some of the thoughts I’ve been having about it. I think I’m going to try keeping a journal again.

Tags blog, blogging, journal, journaling

flubbage

A Walk in the Park in the Rain

Post author By latepaul
Post date 10 April 2009
3 Comments on A Walk in the Park in the Rain

I went for my usual walk today (for exercise) but I thought I’d take my camera along. It was nice. It was raining but only lightly and it wasn’t cold. The camera gave me an excuse to keep a more leisurely pace.

Saw a bit of wild-life. Birds and squirrels and obviously lots of ducks.

I tend to walk around the edge of the park – so as to make the walk as long as possible.

There’s hardly anyone around which I like.

Once I’ve done the perimeter, I zig-zag along the paths.

Back through the trees.

Back past the duck-pond

The park is actually in two parts, separated by a road.

And that was my walk in the park. Lots more pictures on my google page.

Tags park, photos, walk, walking

flubbage

Tippy Tippo

Today was also an interesting day for another reason. I got home to a fat envelope. It contained an unsigned card and this little guy:

Now I sort of have a collection of hippos and this is a very welcome addition. But who’s it from? Scrutiny of the envelope and a little deduction and I realised – M.’s sister sent it. I shall have to think of a suitable thank-you for her.

I’ve decided to call him Tippy Tippo the tiny hippo. He really is a little guy – here he is hiding behind a 5p piece. (and that’s one of the new small ones, not the old big ones)

Cute ain’t he?

Tags 5p, five, gift, hippo, pence, tiny

flubbage lesamy

What I did Tonight

So tonight M. sent me two photos she had. This one was taken on Sat 16th Aug 2008 – about 1 month before I started dieting:
before

and then this one was taken on 10th January 2009 – about a month ago:
after

and what I did tonight was make this:
fat_to_thin

OK, it’s a bit crude but I like it 🙂

Tags fat, flubbage, lesamy, pictures, thin

flubbage movie

Why What Works Works

Yesterday I happened upon a list of the top ten cheesiest movie lines, as decided by some site linked to by J. Random Blogger. I was slightly disturbed to see some of my favourite movies up there with what I consider to be reasonable lines. However one I could definitely agree on was from Four Weddings and a Funeral where Andy MacDowell, soaking to the skin but basking in the fact that Old Floppy Hair has just told her he loves her, says:

Is it still raining? I hadn’t noticed

I groaned the first time I saw it and ever since. The film as a whole I quite like (though there’s a story behind that, maybe another time) but that line really doesn’t work.

Then it occurred to me that there’s a similar scene in As Good As It Gets which I think does work. It’s where Jack Nicholson’s grumpy OCD-sufferer has finally woo-ed, so we think, Helen Hunt and they go for an early morning stroll to the bakery. As they’re walking and talking she notices he’s moving away from her, looks down and notices she’s walking on a patch of cobble-stoned pavement, and he’s avoiding the cracks. She tells him it’s not going to work, he ignores her and gives a big romantic speech and then kisses her. The camera then pans down to show that they’re both now standing on the cobbles.

Of course these two moments aren’t exactly the same, but they’re using a similar technique, the idea of being so distracted by being in love that one forgets one’s normal concerns. But the effect, for me anyway, only works with As Good As It Gets. I’ve been thinking about why that might be. What I’ve come up with so far is

The Four Weddings line is on the nose whilst the other isn’t even a line. Four Weddings tells us exactly what the character is thinking whereas As Good As It Gets lets us make the connection ourselves, even if it’s reminded us of what “stepping on the cracks” means a few minutes earlier.
The Four Weddings line is a throw-away. It’s meant to be charming and romantic but it could be any line that achieves that. The As Good As It Gets moment is the culmination of a theme developing through the movie – the idea that he’s so in love with her that he’s willing to try to change for her.
Specifically it recalls one of the most romantic and thematically important moments in the movie – the “You make me wanna be a better man” line. Four Weddings most romantic scene is arguably when he stops her on the street to tell her he loves her. There’s no connection with that, or any of the other key moments of the movie for that matter.
Maybe I just like As Good As It Gets more so I’m more forgiving. I don’t think that’s true but maybe it is.

What do you think?

Tags important questions, movies

Buffy Rewatch flubbage

Son of Flubbage

When I re-(x3)-launched the blog I promised myself that I’d curb the self-indulgence and reduce the ratio of flubbageousness to actual content. However having had a little run of review posts I think I’ve earned a small amount of flubbage-iosity. So here it is.

I guess the first, and main thing is that I’m enjoying my blog more. A big part of that is blog stats. I love blog stats. In the past, in the dim distant free-LJ-account past, the only way I had of tracking whether I was being read was to see how many comments I got. Mostly I got none. But with WordPress I can see how many views I get, where they’re coming from and stuff like that. Which is cool because I can see what works in terms of promoting the blog.

And what seems to work is all the stuff I knew – posting on other blogs (where I’ve got something genuinely relevant to say. I’m not a spammer), putting a link in my sigs for where I already post, posting regularly. Also one thing I didn’t know worked, but does, is tagging. I used to think of tagging as organisational stuff for me, but it’s also fodder for the search engines and for WordPress blogs at least it puts you in the tag surfing system.

Tag surfing is my new favourite hobby. Basically WordPress gives you a page of recent posts with the same tags, or related ones, in other blogs. It’s a kind of random way to find other blogs you might be interested in and it’s already swelled my Google Reader subscriptions a little.

Speaking of posting more regularly, I am, as you’ll have seen, doing the Buffy Re-Watch posts again. I’ve decided the best way to do this is to do compilation posts for multiple episodes and single posts for the standout eps. When we hit Season 2/3 there’ll be long runs of stand-out eps but until then it’ll save some space and keep the momentum up. The idea for this came from this post.

Anyway speaking of Buffy Re-Watch…

Tags blog, Buffy, flubbage

flubbage

Yeah, I had a blog once…

So last night, I came home from work inspired (sort of) to write in my blog. I was going to talk about how long it’s been since I’ve written[1] and probably I still will, but what happened was that I started reading my blog. I went back to last summer’s Harry Potter read-a-thon and read all the posts through to present from there. And you know what? it’s really inspired me.

To blog.

What I was going to (and still am intending to) blog about was how much I enjoyed writing writing. But what I realised is I really like blogging. I just like giving my opinion on stuff and you know what, on a good day, with a fair wind, I think I’m halfway decent at making it entertaining.

So if nothing else I want to re-re-re-re-RE-launch this blog. Which is to say I want to do a bunch of simple stuff to promote it (like actually having it in my sig for online stuff) and I want to try to update it more often.

Random thoughts so far on the new new new NEW Cheese Never Sleeps[2] –

* actually put it in my sig for the two places I post most online – AFO and SoF.

* post on other blogs – not in a blatant, pseudo-spam, hey-please-please-read-my-blog kind of way but I already read certain blogs on topics I’m interested in. Since I’m interested in reading about them I may well blog about them. So it’s not horribly impossible that these other bloggers might want to discuss the same types of stuff on my blog too.

* post mainly about non-personal stuff. Ruminating on my inner feelings about the lint I found in my sock this morning isn’t, it appears that fascinating to others. I’ve had over 5 years (5 YEARS!) of blogging behind me to build up a loyal following of, er, one regular reader. There is a fighting chance that people will read about stuff they’re already into – films, TV programs, books – see previous point. Maybe, once I’ve snared them, they may just become interested in what makes me tick. But until I do, I think it’s safe to say I’m just talking to M.

*so I’ll write reviews. I’ve discovered that whilst I hate some things about it, I actually do love to write. And of course I love fiction and I think/hope/dream that I’ve got some readable fiction in me. But what I really really love is writing reviews for stuff. I mean going on and on about my opinions – what’s not to love?[3]

* what’ll I review? Well anything I feel like. Probably not the Buffy re-watch thing. Not right now anyway. It’s just too huge a commitment and it’s still too close to the time that I discussed every single episode from every angle imaginable. There are always movies, books (if I ever finish any! lately that’s an issue) and other TV shows. Joss Whedon’s new one, Dollhouse, will arrive in the autumn and I’m sure I’ll want to comment. Last year, when I was pondering the last re-re-re-launch of the blog, I considered a gimmick: review everything I watch/read/view for a week or a month. I may do that for a laugh some time.

So anyway, that’s all on that for now. This is probably ridiculously long given that it basically just says the blog is back. And I’ve probably got another couple of posts in me tonight.

Now where’s the post button again…

[1]written written not written in my blog written.

[2]I think I’m keeping the name. Can’t think of a better one right now.

[3]OK, for me nothing, for the reader, lots, but I promise I’ll try to rein it in a little

Tags reading, reviews, writing

flubbage

To be the Dogman

… which of course means ‘good man’.

Am I good?

I know I’m lazy, scared, insecure and have low self-esteem.

I’m not trying to change the world and I’m certainly not trying to change myself.

But at least I try not to hurt anyone. That doesn’t seem like much but I think maybe it is.

flubbage

First Post

So this is the inaugural post.

Cool! Wonder what it’ll be about. ‘s dead exciting innit?

eh? What? You mean I have to think of something?

Errrm….

Can I get back to you on that one?