Anotherblog

I should be…

working on a patent,
reviewing a different patent,
writing a technology report,
making storyboards for the cars short film,
planning the Star Wars Uncut short film,
cutting code on carddraft,
cutting code on Kung Fu Masters,
cutting code on state machine game,
cleaning the pool,
practicing guitar,
unconcerned about pedants,
less stressed,
fitter,
happier,
more productive,
but I’m writing this.

Actually, I’m pretty happy. If there was ever a time when a big TODO list bothered me a lot, it was a long time ago.

Scary, eh?

This is what we did on Friday. One of the reasons my work is awesome.

10 minutes

…is how much time I manged to do on the Cars short film yesterday, despite also running “Horror on the Orient Express”. More storyboards.

Regarding the adventure – I ended up getting quite irritated when I couldn’t adequately explain (let alone control)l the game state. I didn’t have a good mental picture about what was happening, and the players were distracted a lot throughout the session, and they went far into the realm of “unrecoverable error: press ok to reboot”. The module is not well-written. It appears to have very little insight into likely player actions, which is unhelpful for a module that is, quite literally, railroading the players. I’m looking forward to being a player again.

Part of the problem, I think, is that the Cthulhu combat system is story-telling based, while the players (including myself) are more used to tactical position-based combat. As such, I need to stop talking about rounds, de-emphasise distances, and more explicitly encourage improvisation and dramatic moments. I should also use dice rolls as a *general* guideline for success, not specific cutoff numbers. I recovered from my general annoyance and malease a bit by the end of the session, but then one of the players used the expression “double tap”.

Procrastination

I have been doing less than an hour a day for the last several days. I managed an hour on Sunday – drawing up storyboards – but otherwise it’s been more like an average of half an hour a day. The problem is mainly that my procrastination is in overdrive.

Part of the other reason for the problem is that I’m not very good at obeying what my past-self has ordered me to do. The “x minutes a day” vow can work – somewhat, sometimes – if I’ve set up a good history and don’t want to break the trend, but that requires that I get to that point *and* it’s tremendously fragile. As soon as the trend is broken, it’s broken for good. But I persist in this method, just because it’s the best of a bad lot of techniques.

Bribing myself with rewards, I’ve discovered, is even worse.

The best technique is, of course, sitting down, not allowing myself any distractions, and doing it. That almost always works. It’s just getting *to* that point that’s difficult (it’s generally a sub-technique for when I’ve already built up enough determination/guilt/stubbornness to acknowledge that yes, it is now time to do the thing that I ‘want’ to do).

Anyone got any additional techniques that are doing them any good? Alternately, does anyone know how to suck the lifeforce out of Mr Morgan-Mar and transplant it into living human subjects without destroying them?

On the bright side, I have been sticking to my “1 litre of water a day” thing. That one’s easy.

Days 4 and 5

Yesterday and the day before had little progress on the Cars short film, as expected: about half an hour in total. This leaves two hours to make up on the weekend, but any filming/editing is going to be time-consuming enough to make up the difference. There’s only so much I can do towards the film without actually filming.

I’ve now got a breakdown of the remaining shots, and I’ve talked it through with the lunchtime gang so I can get their help during lunchtimes next week. I’ll also try to snaffle some help this weekend. I hope the weather holds up. Overcast is fine. Most of the existing footage has overcast conditions.

My procrastination efforts are fantastic, though. I’ve been playing heaps of guitar, and I’ve signed the Irregulars up for another Star Wars Uncut scene.

Day 3

We went to Von’s parent’s place yesterday evening, so I only managed half an hour of Cars short film work. This is OK. I expect that on the weekend I’ll be spending more than an hour each day. It ought to even out. I’m also planning to involve the lunchtime gang for some of the filming.

By the way, on Friday before last, I shot 15 seconds of “Star Wars” footage for the “Star Wars Uncut” project, with the lunchtime gang. I directed; Mr Irrgang, Mr McLeish and Mr Morgan-Mar starred, with Mr Coker as Remote Droid Wrangler.

Water drinking: check.

Further CARS progress

I decided it’d be a good idea to buy the film “Cars”, since it was the only Pixar film I hadn’t seen and was possibly relevent to the Cars video clip. Von and I watched it on the weekend. I think the reason I found it underwhelming was just that the main character was a Jerk Who Found Love And Friends and a Meaning to Life in a Small Town, and it’s a rare one of those that manages to transcend the annoyance that accumulates during the “main character is a jerk” phase.

One litre of water: check.
One hour of Cars work: check.
Von also did an hour of piano practice, though she’s only committed to one or two hours a week. Lovely to hear her play. Even the way she plays scales expresses her character.

Eastern Water Dragons

So, it turns out there are quite a few of them. Rudder (for so he/she is named) is the largest, but there is another one almost as large, and two smaller ones – about 40cm – are cheekier, and sometimes like to sit on the rock outside our front door. It seems like a good, sunny place for them. Even Rudder was sitting there yesterday.

Von and I had our first year wedding anniversary the weekend before last, and it was very pleasant indeed – we had dinner out at Ocean Room on Saturday (which seems to have become a bit of a Japanese fusion restaurant while we weren’t looking) and at Cantina Tapas on Sunday.

Meanwhile, the bathroom renovations are finished, but for the (late) toilet seat installation, which would be more of a pain if we hadn’t kept the old toilet seat. Seems the seat was delivered without the connecting screws. The bathroom is nice. We are enjoying it.

Also, I have dedicated November to two simple tasks. One: in the wake of last week’s cold (I took Tuesday and Wednesday off work) during which Veronica’s mum suggested that I was not drinking enough water, I have decided to try drinking at least one litre of water a day. Two: I will work one hour each day on the Cars short film. Yesterday was my first Cars short film day. I worked on the script, and gave myself a lot more work to do. The amount left to do is currently: daunting.