If you're stuck for something to do on a snowy day, here's my top three ideas. All of which worked out very well for me thanks: 1. Have a shave. A proper one in which you take all your facial hair off and start again.
2. Watch Forbydelsen III (The Killing) - all ten episodes of it one after the other with no breaks. I forgot I had this bagged up but watching it in a big block is the only way to go.
3. Commit to finish up a project that was almost there but not quite and apologise profusely to the guy at the other end who has been waiting for it for far too long.
It's snowed for about 10 hours solid here today and I have used my time wisely. After points 1 and 2 above, I un-earthed a bunch of half finished and almost finished drafts of The Ballad of The Goat Faced Boy and actually finished it, laid the script out and deposited it safely into the hands of Mr Poole who has been waiting very patiently for me to do such a thing. Let's see what happens next. I rather suspect very excellent things... I shall strike it from the work list until it comes to back to me later in the year and press on with the next unfinished piece - which according to the plan is wrapping up Raised on Radio. Good. I'm more than in the mood for that sort of thing right now.
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Last week, I was asked to take part in a speaking event in Canterbury called Digibury - details are here. I have to say, if you ever wonder exactly what it is you're trying to say to people in your digital space, work at getting invited to a similar event because it will sharpen your mind in a flash - or at least force you to think about it. Sometimes I suspect I think too much because now I'm sitting here wondering just what it is that I'm saying to people - this is a good thing. I probably should think about it more than I do but in a separate conversation I had with somebody about a year ago, said person suggested that your site (or mine as we were being quite specific about it) should be delivered 'more like a magazine' as this is how my head works.
Which is what I did/am doing/will continue to build. I think.
Only now I look at myself with outside eyes (a skill everybody busy working on themselves should develop immediately), I am wondering if that's really what's happening. Sit yourself in front of the mirror. Give yourself 15 minutes. Tell yourself about what and how you do what you do for the whole 15 minutes and make it interesting. Can you fill 15 minutes? Are you interesting?
Good questions huh? I've confused myself with that, so am choosing to move on - but all the same, let me know if you're coming to the event and say hi. Somewhere along the line, I think I promised to bring sweets...
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Last month, during the birthday/Christmas season, Eleanor bought me what can only be called a "build your own massive dinosaur lamp kit". It came in something that looked like a pizza box and the instructions...
Well, I don't normally look at instructions but there was no question that this particular set were more than worthy of attention. I got so into the build that I tried to remember to document it each step of the way. If you don't want to know the results, look away now. Here's the head:
Then came the body and some arms:
With a bit of a struggle, you attach the two things together and already it's looking like it might be very special when it's finished:
I forgot to take a picture of the big round body because I was too impatient to get to the tail and installing the bulb holder part of things:
I forgot to take pictures of the leg build too - probably because I could see the end was near. Eventually, it looked like this - 1 meter tall and pretty cool:
In the big scheme of things, it's easily the most fun thing I've built in about 30 years. It's hard enough to make it interesting to get on with but not so hard that you want to give up and walk away. If you fancy your chances with the beast, you can get one here - where they also have other great stuff (though obviously, nothing can ever be so great as a metre tall build your own polypropylene dinosaur lamp).
On which note, I'll leave you with this. The return of the mighty Californication (at least over in the US):