Generalism

I’m not into product placement in a big way. Heck, it’s not as if this is prime time or anything. But I do want to mention Starbucks. For some reason, when I have a Starbucks coffee, the taste and the feeling I get is just plain better than other coffees. So why mention them? Well, because I want things to change. Y’see something is happening to their stores. We have at least four in our city that I know of, and they’ve all been around a couple of years. When they were fresh and new, they were a pleasure to visit, grab a comfy chair, chill out, and just drink coffee to the tune of the world going by.

BUT

Now that they’re a couple of years old, they’re not so fresh any more. Stock seating has been added to up capacity and get a better ROI (I suppose), to the detriment of large comfy, inviting chairs and airy open spaces. The comfy chairs that still exist are turning tatty and tarnished with spillage, and the mood is starting to become more dull, dreary and closed-in than comfortable, airy and inviting. And things are starting to break and wobble. For the first time in my Starbucks life, when I’m out, and coffee calls, I’m thinking two things:

1. Should I drink outside? (I still love the coffee after all)
2. Should I try someplace new?

But of course if I’m thinking this, then someone else is. And if I start influencing my friends to go elsewhere, and they start influencing their friends, pretty soon those shops are gonna be empty. And close. And not sell me coffee any more.

So please Mr Starbuck, keep as close an eye on your perfect coffee-drinking environments as you do on your coffee; after all, you wouldn’t let the taste slip, would you…?

I’ve often wondered why I do my wide variety of things in life, why I get good at something then move on to something else before I give myself the chance to excel. I guess it has a lot do with the law of diminishing returns; how 10 years of perspiration gives only the same gains as the first 6 months learning something new (and boy do I enjoy those first 6 months). But of course they only last 6 months and only too soon wear off under realisations of just how far remains to be travelled.

But I don’t think that’s the whole story. I love learning new things; my viola in particular is something special, and I love playing it (albeit in a rough and ready kinda way), and I get a lot out of the lesson I have most weeks. But, lessons appear to be, by their very nature, an opportunity to point out problems, issues, missing knowledge or understanding. To cut a long diatribe short, they are a negative experience. And actually, as time goes on and “fun” viola playing (as it starts off) becomes “serious” playing (for exams), the negativity only increases.

Now this is good for the playing – I learned a couple of bits tonight that have yet again changed how I play, and increased my understanding of music as a whole. But that does not get away from the fact that it was still a negative experience, and I can’t help but feel that this is the start of a rubber band stretching; at some point on the event horizon of learning, the rubber band reaches its limit, and learning just stops being fun. The negatives associated with the lessons outweigh the enjoyment had by learning, and everything comes to a halt. And the learning stops to be replaced by the start of another learning curve elsewhere.

Only, I really don’t want it to happen this time, but I feel kinda powerless to do anything about it. I just get the feeling that it is only a matter of time. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m going to do my damndest to find a way around this learner’s block, and who knows, maybe I will excel at something in my life, but I have a feeling that I am going to run into that rubber band all too often over the coming years.

I was disheartened recently. I caught an inciteful entry in a blog by a guy called Robert Cenek, but on subscribing to his RSS feed noted his final entry in July 07 was to be his last. Apparently for him the thrill had gone, and he no longer had the energy to create the original content he had always planned.

He listed 3 different types of Bloggers in his final post, Aggregators (pull together pieces from elsewhere with little personal commentary), Originators (composers of original pieces), and Entertainers (sage-like on personal and professional matters non-evidence based), and tried to be all three wherever possible. A tough call for anyone with a day job.

Regardless of his thoughts however, I think he missed a couple.

Diarists – composers of personal information for personal gain, logging things of interest to look back on in the future. If other people read it and find it interesting, then purely an added bonus.

Writers – a blogging compatriot once said that he continued to write his blog to “keep up his writing chops”. These bloggers write because they want to, they enjoy it, it keeps their writing skills honed, and maybe somebody somewhere will appreciate some of the content.

I fall squarely into these two categories (and maybe “Entertainer” on a good day with lots of coffee). The thrill will indeed go if the primary reason for blogging is outside the four walls of the writer. If I get a comment, I shall fall off my chair, but I blog for me, for fun, for a diary, and for writing practice (and boy do I need writing practice!). And for me, these reasons are enough.

So Robert, if you do come back, just chill. We enjoy your blog. It doesn’t have to be long, inciteful, entertaining, original. I’m sure we’ll continue to read it and enjoy it regardless.

Okay, I’m no scientist, but when someone turns round and says that there’s now real evidence that terran life began in space, I just hold my head in my hands and sigh. Oh, and wonder what these guys are being paid. I bet it’s more than me.

Please please please get out of your dark windowless labs and look up into the clear sky on the odd occasion. You’ll notice we are _in_ space! We are _made out_ of spacestuff! Everything is bits of space and from space and of space!!!

I’m now waiting for the sure-to-follow announcement that they are fairly certain that there’s real evidence that the planet Earth was in fact formed IN SPACE!!! Oh the BEDLAM!!!!

And relax…

I laughed ’til I cried…

http://www.savagechickens.com/blog/2007/08/eight-steps.html

Yikes, more science fiction on the horizon.

But maybe, just maybe, if we all concentrate, cross our fingers, hope and prey, all together, all at the same time, we will indeed see Back to the Future hoverboards in our lifetimes…

I like a spot of Science Fiction reading (just started Air by Geoff Ryman - looking good so far). I like the creativity, the new ideas, new thoughts, new ways of looking at things, new inventions. It all just tickles me in the right places, in the same way as horror does to some and crime does to others. I’m no sci-fi geek (I shower daily and have short hair), but do love the genre like no other.

I caught an interesting interview with William Gibson this morning over breakfast. I’ve read a few bits and bobs by him and like his style. Pattern Recognition was a good, fun jaunt, if not totally mind blowing (catch some Peter F. Hamilton for that kind of experience). But he does mention the difficulties he’s now presented with when trying to predict the future. And in fact his latest book is actively avoiding this just because it has gotten to be so difficult to see where things are going.

I’m not sure he hasn’t missed the point slightly though; I see Science Fiction as a forum for the ultimate in creativity, the conjuring of something never before seen or heard into being. I would never be looking to sci-fi to predict the future, but only to give a window on one of an infinite number of possible futures, each as plausible as the rest. I would encourage him to go back to what he does best; Neuromancer was an iconic release, and I have no doubt that anyone that wrote that book has more than enough left in him to do it again.

Eee I do come across some interesting bits and pieces sometimes. What’s that you say? You want a study showing that smart folk have less sex? Well who am I to turn down such a fascinating request for information?

Voila.

Now don’t read it all at once children.

I like the Zen Habits blog. There’s something about reading its enlightening content that makes me feel like I’m improving myself in mystical and mysterious ways. Even having it on my RSS feed make me feel like I’m bordering on a higher plane. I like blogs like that.

Anyhoo, I read a rather more down-to-earth post today about a slightly less mystical matter, money, something I’m strangely anal about, despite a) not spending much, and b) being happy just to be able to pay the bills. There’s a whole ton of stuff in there, but it all just makes so much sense I can’t do anything but post about it. For those who want to be as anal as I (you know who you are <ahem>), have a mooch around. If it gives you an extra few quid in yer back pocket, then it’s done its job (once you’ve sent me my cut).

Public service announcement over.

… a song to sing… tum te tum…

I went to see Mamma Mia at the weekend at London’s Prince of Wales theatre. Just amazing. Go, laugh, be merry, stand, and sing/dance your heart out. Just brilliant. But, on the subject of dreams…

I happen to dream a lot when asleep. Not perhaps the more usual flying/running/chasing/insert-random-action dreams, but more often than not fully-fledged stories that take place over a period of time, and either repeat or follow on during subsequent nights. Perhaps I read too much. Perhaps I watch too much tv, play too many video games. Who knows. I thought I’d share one from last night though, as it was particularly vivid, and I just happened to get up and write the pertinent points down. Jackanory hat on, and remember, this was just a dream…

…

Red and Blue didn’t have a problem with each other, right up to the point where Red found a way of doubling their production capabilities. Then the shit hit the fan.

I was on a crappy trawler mid-atlantic when it happened. I can’t remember now how I translated the screams and shouting into something as big as a Red/Blue imbalance; perhaps I’d grown up with even-stevens so long that it struck my subconscious as the only likely scenario. But I knew straight away what the consequences would be, and the Blues running up the stairs towards me toting what looked like typically efficient machine guns told me that the only ways off this boat for a Red were going to be by bullet or liferaft. I didn’t fancy singing my final song quite yet, so forgive me for taking the easy way out.

I woke up wet and cold in an inflatable that had seen better days and less bullets, the last night a blur. I couldn’t quite believe the possibilities; a Red-Blue imbalance. The ramifications didn’t come to me until later, at which point imagination was unnecessary anyway.

I could feel the crappy, leaking dinghy had hit land, and looking out was bumping up against what looked like a foreign coastline of washed up discarded hulls, covered in unintelligible white writing clearly in a rush to be somewhere else. The significance of the graveyard was funny in hindsight, but then isn’t it always. I heard shouting; a man and a woman running in my direction, gesturing and making no sense whatsoever, eventually dragging my sorry ass out of the even sorrier remains of my saviour. As they pulled me out and I staggered inland towards a nearby stream, their jabber still scratching the insides of my ears, it was then that I realised that the possibilities had become fact; Red ran from my feet to the horizon, clogging the stream, killing the animals, filling everything with its delicate and deadly filth.

The balance had shifted, and the world was gonna take a beating…