Opinion Dump for late December 2008

Here are my opinions, take them or leave them.

Books (in order of finishing)

Anathem by Neal Stephenson - very good read, in my opinion. However, I wouldn't generally recommend it. Unless you're interested in extended dialogues about philosophy, science, and the geometry of cake-cutting, then I suggest you stay very far away from this book. I, however, enjoyed it, so this book is actually one of the best books I've read in years.

Coruscant Nights II - Street of Shadows by Michael Reaves - meh. Recycles a lot that was good about the first book but with a less interesting plot that builds to an anticlimax. Falls into the traps of Star Wars novel mediocrity that the first one managed to avoid. And it seems like it's just marking time before the third book, which will have the good stuff, hopefully. But hey, someone from the movies dies!

The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil by George Saunders - Having read his three short story collections and enjoyed them, I decided that this novella might be worth my while. And it was pretty interesting, but I don't think it was as good as his other novellas.

Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card - I've been urged to read this for years, and I felt it had been hyped so much that I wouldn't enjoy it. But I was wrong, this was really rather enjoyable. There are certainly problems, including OSC's obnoxious tendency to tell rather than show, but nevertheless it was a good book. I might check out the sequels some time.

Once Upon a Time in the North by Philip Pullman - Pullman's prose didn't bother me when I was 14. Now it does. But my fondness for Lee Scoresby and Iorek Byrnison persists, and so this novella was enjoyable.

In the foreseeable future, I'll be reading House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski, Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson, and Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor by Matthew Woodring Stover (squeee!).

TV (in no particular order)

Lost - CANNOT WAIT for it to start up again.

Doctor Who - The Christmas special was.... less than satisfactory. I shall post a scathing review on Behind the Sofa shortly.

The Sarah Jane Adventures - Season Two was fun. Some of the show's appeal is wearing off as the wide-eyed wonder thing wears thin.

Pushing Daisies - ABC hasn't announced the air date of the three remaining episodes. This frightens me. I want to see them quite badly.

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles - Continues to kick ass, take names. When it comes back in February it'll be paired with Dollhouse on Friday nights. Not a good slot, but there's still hope for both shows.

Battlestar Galactica - I started watching it but I've honestly got no desire to continue. I don't see what's so special about it.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer - Season Five actually maintained a pretty high quality level, despite what I'd been led to expect by THE INTERNETS. Just starting season six.

Angel - Starting Season Two. It's definitely more solid than Season One. Time will tell whether I come to love it like I love Buffy.

Why Reading Comic Books is Better than Having a Job

Yesterday was an all right day. I didn't end up going to the gym, like I probably could have done, but I did manage to get all of the work done that I needed to in a relatively short amount of time, and also get groceries bought to keep me alive through the exam period. I spent about two hours of free time reading comic books that I had missed over the past few months and not all of it was exactly time well spent, but I also managed to obtain and organize into folders all the comic books that I feel like reading over the next couple of weeks. That would be Batman RIP as well as the tie-ins, lead-up, and aftermath, the Superman New Krypton arc, Final Crisis along with all related tie-ins, and everything Green Lantern related since Sinestro Corps War Anyway.

Today I had to get up at 7:30 to be at work from 8:30 to 4:30, which will get me a lot of money but also wiped me out so that by the time I got out of work I was completely unwilling to address the rather large pile of work that I had designated for the day. I wound up going to the gym and relaxing but I never got even a bit of work done.

Basically, the bottom line is this: the day I goofed off and read comic books, I got a lot of work done, but on the day I worked my job, I had no energy left to do the things that were really important. Tomorrow I'm working a half day so maybe it will be better.

Homework or Buffy? Why not both?

Attention management wasn't really a big problem yesterday because there wasn't a lot I needed to accomplish. I sort of deliberately gave myself the day off. I woke up on time, made (mostly) sane health choices went to my classes, and spent the afternoon/evening relaxing and being with friends.

Today didn't go quite as well, but it wasn't a total failure either. I intended to get up at 9:30 and to some work before heading off to brunch at around 12:00, but I turned off the alarm and crawled off into bed not emerging until 11:30. After that I went to brunch and then I did get some work done, from about 2:30 to 6:00, and then it was dinner time. I might have eaten a bit too much at dinner, but I didn't get hungry later despite working out and I'm still not particularly hungry even seven hours later. Afterwards I didn't really do much work, but I did go to the gym and it felt great. After that I watched Buffy (I'm very slowly making my way through all the seasons, currently on the fifth) and eventually I sat down to write this post.

I got done as much work as I needed to, but not as much as I wanted to. I could stay up and do more work now, but I think it would be smarter to go to bed so I can do work in the morning. Staying up would not only require me to eat something now to propel me forward, but it would also wear me out so that tomorrow I'd be likely to waste the morning again. My main stumbling block with regard to time and attention is still my poor use of mornings. If I can get up at 9:30 tomorrow morning, and get some quality work done by brunch at 12:00, then I should be on track for making excellent use of the day.

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes!

You (yes! you! the purely hypothetical reader to whom these metablog posts are always addressed!) may have noticed some changes.

First, I've gotten rid of the vast majority of my old content. And it ain't coming back. Some of the things I really didn't want to delete because they were actually driving traffic to the site via google, but I figured if I wanted a clean break then I ought to throw it out. Most content prior to August 2008 is now invisible. However, you'll note that there are four entries from August 2007 that I kept, for various reasons.

Second, I've gotten rid of the Adsense ads. I always felt a little dirty having them on my site (even though my use of Adblock Plus prevents me from even seeing them) and they weren't actually generating even the slightest bit of income. But income isn't why I'm blogging. The ads may return in the future, but for now they're gone.

Finally, and most obviously, the blog's layout has changed for the first time since I started it in 2005. I figure with the winds of change blowing, might as well start new with a fresh face. It's probably only temporary. I would prefer to design my own layout rather than using Blogger's templates.

Or maybe you didn't notice the changes. Well, you know about them now. And knowing is half the battle.

On Attention Management

There are certain things I'm obsessed with at different times. Right now these two things are (1) television and (2) time/attention management.

I try to tell people (ie, my parents) that I am having difficulty managing my attention but they see this as contradictory to the fact that I make time to watch Pushing Daisies, 30 Rock, and Terminator. This is wrong, wrong, wrong. The things that should have my attention are the things that I value. If I value television then watching television is not a poor use of my time and attention. And I do value television, and one of my many career aspirations is to be a television writer (another is to be a television journalist, and another is to be a football-playing king in space, with a moustache). Pouring my energy into a Shakespeare paper that I will not get a particularly good grade on and that will only cause more stress is a poor use of my time and attention. However, what must be done must be done.

In any case, I'm not claiming to be an attention-management guru of any sort. There are certain problems with my attention management. I have a tendency to fall into the following pattern:

(1) know that a thing is bad
(2) do that thing anyway, and feel no remorse as I do it
(3) immediately after I have done it, realize what a poor choice it has been, and feel tremendously ashamed of myself
(4) resolve not to do it again, repeat from step one

This applies to two main areas in my life. One is nutrition. There's right now an empty Dr. Pepper bottle on my desk. Right now I have 250 calories, 64 grams of sugar, 68 mg of caffeine, and -1 dollar and a much lower level of self esteem. What the hell drove me to want that Dr. Pepper? I don't even like Dr. Pepper that much.

The other area, of course, is time/attention management. I made some really stupid decisions today. Last night I gave up on the paper and decided to work on it in the morning, setting the alarm for 7:30. The alarm went off and then I decided to give myself another half hour in bed, despite the fact that I knew I would not get any useful sleep in that period. 8:00 rolled around and I still did not want to get up. I gave myself another 45 minutes in bed! And then I woke up at 8:45 and realized that if I was going to finish the paper, I would need to skip work that afternoon. I cost myself the opportunity to earn money! What on earth is wrong with me? At this stage, what I should have done was resolved to work through lunch (I wasn't hungry, I had a big breakfast) but instead I hung out at lunch and made more poor nutritional choices. Eventually I got the paper done, but at the cost of the other work I needed to do today, but still haven't done because I've been dicking around on Twitter and watching Fringe (which deserves my attention and is finally starting to reach the potential I saw in the pilot, but isn't urgent) and now I'm blogging about my poor attention management today.

I want to get back into the blogging habit. Seriously. Over the past day I have had a craving to blog about things and it's resulted in an increase in the number of posts on my livejournal. And so what I'm going to be doing, hopefully every day or every couple of days until I decide I don't need to anymore, is making time to blog about the poor choices I've made in terms of time and attention management. I am hoping that will help me to more easily identify what I'm consistently doing wrong. I'm also probably going to blog about particularly horrendous nutritional choices that I make but that's not going to be the primary focus.

Bottom line is here. What were the poor choices I made today? I chose to lay around in bed when I knew that my early morning time was too precious to spend lying around in bed when I wasn't going to sleep. I chose the ability to goof around in Ray over the money I could have earned by going to work. I chose to watch two episodes of Fringe rather than read Measure for Measure. What will I do better in the next couple of days? I'm going to set my alarm clock and get my ass out of bed. I'm going to take it easy tomorrow afternoon so that I'm ready to get things done on Saturday. And I am going to report back with my progress.

If I don't write a follow-up post about this tomorrow night, then poke me. Because I'm either misdirecting my attention or lying dead somewhere. And frankly, I'm beginning to think that the one isn't so different from the other.

(By the by, I want to apologize for how raw this post is. I promise not to make it a habit. I could have polished it, but... well, I really felt like my attention would be better used elsewhere.)