Category: Personal Musings

Posts about me

bookmark_borderBy the Power of Will

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Ack, damn attention deficit disorder. My brain has just skipped from the title of the post to a distant childhood memory of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. I had a few of those toys when I was younger including He-Man himself, who had a built-in spring for his “power punch”, and … eh… the bird thing with “lifelike” flappy wings.. and .. yeah that’s about all I can remember. Ohh that wee stocky guy who liked to dive head first into doors, and the lion.. tiger… big cat that He-Man rode when he was in a hurry.

You know I’m sure I had something in mind when I sat down and started typing. I USUALLY start with some vague notion in my head, something that I will train my huge intellect on and reduce to a quivering mass of hypotheses. Or I’ll just ramble on and see what spews forth.

Ahh ha! I remember.

Willpower, and more specifically, the lack of any on my part.

It’s a topic I’ve touched on a few times in the past, and one that I’ve never really been able to nail down. What is it, where does it come from? Strictly speaking, willpower is the ability to extert your will on your self, but it’s more universally recognised as the ability to withstand temptation, the ability to stick to a diet, and I guess the ability to self-motivate one’s self into action (is it just me or is that whole “self” thing bloody hard to word in a sentence? Just me? Right then, as you were).

Yes, that’s right folks, I’m talking diets, jogging and trying, yet again, to develop good habits in those areas.

Or rather, I’m not.

You see one of the tactics I’m currently trying is to ignore these issues altogether. Obviously not completely, or I’d end up stuffing myself solid and developing a Homer-esque butt print in the sofa (actually there is one already there from when I broke my foot and spent a few weeks just sitting there watching TV). No, I’m ignoring them because I’m beginning to believe that if I spend less time pondering these things, and just tackle them as and when they come up, it’ll be easier to handle and therefore more successful.

That’s the theory, at least.

Admittedly this new regime is relying on some rather shakey methods mostly derived from the “ohhh, just get on with it” school of thought. You know the one, it’s practised by the people who believe that anyone who is suffering from depression just needs to be told to “cheer up, it can’t be that bad”. Mind you, thinking about it, it is rather surprising that there are still so many practitioners of this school of thought. Surely, by now, they should all have been stabbed to death with rusty forks? I digress.

Needless to say I’m not entirely convinced that this approach to developing willpower will actually work and was kind of hoping that someone else might have a better suggestion. Or five. I mean, seriously, ANYTHING must be better than this… right?

So, feel free to rush to my comments and proffer forth your willpower related suggestions, techniques and general nuggets of information.

Please.

I’m desperate.

And not just because there’s a Double Decker sitting here, demanding to be eaten!

bookmark_borderDo I REALLY sound like that?

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In an effort to compile a list of what I consider to be the best posts of this blog, and yes such things are highly subjective I know, I spent some time perusing my archives last night.

It’s an odd experience, as I found myself re-living a lot of my past via this strange yet familiar narrator. For, you see, I don’t actually talk like wot I write, y’ken? Hmm I don’t talk like that either mind you… although I do say “och aye” more than I realised, much to the amusement of a colleage of mine from New Zealand.

Of course this isn’t such a surprise as no-one really talks the way they write, nor sings the way they speak, but I did catch myself wondering if I really did write what I was reading. Which is both odd and comfortably flattering at the same time.

I guess this comes down to that old “people don’t see you the way YOU see you” thing, where, as the name suggests, other people don’t see you the way you see yourself, and their opinion of you isn’t swayed by your own internal insecurities, unlike your own.

There are far too many commas in that last sentence, this is another thing I’ve noticed and which litters my archives like dog turds on a cycling path, consistently terrible punctuation. What of the semi-colon? Honestly, as someone who writes for a living I am shamed. Of course there isn’t much call for personal writing in the midst of a technical manual so maybe I have a small get-out clause?

Yes, browsing your own archives is both enlightening and informing in many ways. I recently commented, on another site, about why I leave my entire archives in place rather than removing the nonsense, or starting over completely. The simple reason is that they remind me of how this blog started and how much it has improved. Looking back to the first year or two of this blog I’m still surprised that anyone visited at all, let alone returned more than once. Zip forward to 2007 and the stats continually surprise me. Hundreds of you visit every day, and then come back again, and again. I may not get the most visitors and I may not get the most comments, but I have to admit to a quiet satisfaction that, for the main part, my visitors and their comments are of a consistently high standard. Thanks you guys.

Stepping back to take a new view of something is always intriguing, regardless of the subject matter. Everyone has a different viewpoint, a different point of approach, a new angle. Given the recent round of news in the blogosphere regarding “codes of conduct”, self regulation and so on, this is something worth considering. I’m happy to be disagreed with, I’m happy to be proven wrong, I’m happy for people to voice their dissent in the strongest terms but my comment policy stands. I enjoy reading comments from people with a different point of view, no matter how opposed. I’m always willing to learn from others, so if I say Black is White, please feel free to disagree with me (and yes, I know Black and White aren’t colours).

I’m not going to tackle that topic though, others have been before me and most of the ground has been covered. I will point you to the new Blog Advisory System though, it seems to be very accurate.

Whoa, bit off-track (there is another post in this, about how the fact my miniblog refuses to work is effecting how and what I write here in the main posts) now, were was I?

It has, and continues to be, an education to read through my own archives. I don’t have that great a memory, with a lot of the stuff I post here largely being posted as a method of NOT having to remember it, so it’s an excellent way to re-acquaint myself with my own content. I am intrigued to know how everyone else keeps track of such things, are you all as disorganised as I am? Or do you remember what you wrote?

Do you read through your own archives from time to time, or just search them when you have a vague memory of possibly, maybe, posting about a particular topic in the past?

How do YOU use your own archives?

bookmark_borderOhhh, suits you Sir

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Unlike Lyle, I do not, have not and probably will not ever own a three-piece suit. I don’t really see the point in adding an extra layer to a set of clothing that I’ll only wear when under some form of emotional stress and usually in a warm place (unless the air-conditioning is working). Interviews (stress), weddings (mostly in spring/summer so warm), funerals (stress).

That said, I do love wearing a suit. Partly because I don’t do it very often and it’s nice to ‘dress up’ sometimes, and partly because it gives me a sense of importance, a sense of power if you will.

In a small way this is why I recently changed my ‘work’ wardrobe, and now wear shirts everyday (except for Fridays, obv). Of course I didn’t really have a choice in the matter as most of the senior staff I met during the interview were wearing similar attire, and obviously (as I’m also a ‘senior member of staff’) I have to fit in. This is quite a departure from previous jobs where, and this stretches back through my entire career, I’ve always just turned up wearing… whatever the hell I wanted. Jeans, of course, were regulation and coupled with a variety of t-shirts, polo shirts and even a proper shirt if the occasion demanded it. The Queen didn’t visit very often though…

In saying that, just wearing a shirt gives me a sense of professionalism, a sense of importance and pride that has most definitely had an influence on both how I conduct myself and how others relate to me.

It’s little more than cod-psychology of course, but the easiest example is to imagine walking into your local branch to meet the manager who is dressed in scruffy jeans and a paint splattered t-shirt. The clothes don’t have an effect on the amount of knowledge he has, or about how he conducts his business but they will most certainly decrease your trust, and likely have some minor impact on the way the manager treats you as well (he may be more ‘friendly’ because he’s lost his “appearance of power”).

Within that previous paragraph is a small glimpse of why I’ve never really bothered about this stuff before, ultimately I’m a pretty confident guy and what I wear to work has no impact on my abilities to do my job.

Ahhh at last, we get to the dichotomy.

I know that what I wear to work doesn’t change my knowledge nor the way I approach my working day, versus, I know that wearing a shirt to work, and being a little smarter dressed than some, makes me (in MY head) a little more important and a little more authoritive.

It shouldn’t, but it does.

I’m not suggesting that simply whacking on a shirt, a shirt and tie, or even a three-piece suit, makes you smarter, more powerful, or more authoritative than anyone else. In fact there is plenty of evidence, most of sitting within 100 feet from me, that that is not so (most of the developers wear jeans and t-shirts and all of them are pretty darn smart), but without a doubt it does make you feel different and, dare I say “ergo”, it must have SOME effect on how you perform.

Addendum
Cod-psychology – I did a little digging whilst I wrote this post and can find little to no definition of “cod psychology”. I used it to represent what I thought was overly simple or fake psychology (at least it’s so simple it seems fake) but I can find no definition of “cod” that supports this, anyone got any ideas?

bookmark_borderKeeping busy

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Without wanting to harp on about it, but hey, it’s my blog so I’m gonna… as covered the other day, and as the Belbin tests confirmed, I’m the guy who likes starting new things but soon gets bored.

I wish I could argue against this but it’s true. I do. I love the planning and design stages, but the rest of the work is drudgery to me. However, as my mother always said “sometimes you have to do things you don’t like”. Admittedly this was usually uttered shortly before I stomped upstairs and slammed my bedroom door in response, and it was more than likely after I questioned WHY I had to .. wash the kitchen windows, tidy my room, etc etc.

But, as mothers are wont to be, she was right. Oh god, have I just admitted that in public??

And so I turn to my latest ‘project’, something which has been in the back of my head for a couple of years but that has long since been filed in the “one day” pile. Just to clarify, that’s not “can be done in one day” but “one day I’ll get around to it” (also known as the “roontuit” pile).

We’ve had a scanner for a couple of years, but by and large it hasn’t really been used, and just sat there gathering dust. Since getting the new PC I’ve been pondering whether to bother hooking it up at all or whether is should be relegated to the cupboard.

I was in mid-ponder the other night when Louise interrupted me to ask if the scanner was hooked up yet..

Putting aside the fact that you should never EVER bother a pondering McLean (we have a tendency to fart quite viciously when startled), I confirmed that no it wasn’t and asked why she was wanting it done. Apparently she wasn’t to “scan something, duh”, which was the obvious answer to a rather obvious question

So I spent an hour or so downloading updated drivers, figuring out where to plug it in, and getting the scanner up and running. Ohh and on that topic, a big thanks to HP, it was really kind of you to wrap the drivers for the scanner within a 245MB software pack. Muppets.

Anyway, now that it’s hooked up and working my thoughts drift to the not inconsiderable amount of “old-fashioned” printed photos that are lying in a box in our loft. I’ve got plenty of room on this PC and we ARE in a digital age after all, so surely the obvious thing is to start scanning them all in. To be super-extra productive, whilst I’m doing that I can continue the ongoing “rip all the CDs and get them boxed and into the loft” project, all whilst hacking away at the “getting Movable Type to work with XAMPP” project.

Of course, by now, you’ll have realised that I’ll get partway through box one of the photos and my attention will be diverted. I really must stop doing that and develop some willpower… more on that.. tomorrow.

bookmark_borderEureka!

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Similarly to yesterday I have a few thoughts burbling away in dusty recesses of my brain. They are all sort of maybe might be loosely connected but I can’t seem to coax any of them out to play.

This is doubly annoying as, not only am I certain that if I could tease them out into the light they would reveal a startling, nay revolutionary, insight into the human psyche, but because I’m trying to make up a shopping list and keep veering off topic…


    Razors
    Milk
    Dental Tape
    Apples
    Competitive nature of females
    Bananas
    Cereal
    Superiority complex
    Mixed nuts
    Rolls
    Tomatos

Mind you, I’m pretty sure I’ve seen superiority complexes in the freezer aisle in our local Asda, right next to the peas. Or was it the mange tout…

This isn’t the first time my brain has done this, in fact it’s quite a common occurance and I think the only thing stopping me from being declared a genius is the simple fact that I’m just too lazy to pursue all these various thoughts to their conclusion. I’m certain this is why I’m not a Professor, or an academic toff of some sort, preferring to remain an oik as it takes much much less effort.

Speaking of which, yesterday Louise cut the grass for the first time this year. A sad day indeed as it means it’ll need done regularly between now and … whenever we stop cutting it. I’m sure she’ll cope though, she’s good like that. Stoic. Now, did anyone catch the footie…

Ahhh! Or rather EUREKA!

I think I’ve stumbled across the real reason I can’t ever piece together the various threads of genius that float around my brain. It’s my attention span that is lacking, not my brain power. Phew. I was a little worried there.

Speaking of worried, I have to admit that I’m slightly concerned that I haven’t mentioned my new car today. It’s still lovely, thank you.

bookmark_borderConceited

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There was a fairly massive “UK blog event” last week, which culminated in the publishing of a book called Shaggy Blog Stories (you HAVE ordered your copy, haven’t you?). It was a remarkable undertaking and everyone involved should be, and has been, rightly applauded. Plaudits well earned if you ask me.

Of course, as with anything and everything, there has been a little bit of a backlash which mike has handled with his usual aplomb (I do wish he’d stop making things looks so damn easy). I guess some people always presume the worst in these situations and I think that reflects more on them than they care to realise.

Now, I should point out that I’m not in the book. Nor was I involved in the creation process. Hell, I didn’t even offer a contribution. And I’m not for a minute suggesting that I wasn’t given the opportunity to be involved, and I’m quite sure that had I offered, mike would have found some use of my ‘talents’. This post is most certainly not a “toys out of pram” moan, nor a dig against anyone who was involved.

However the simple fact is that I wasn’t, for a variety of reasons that I’ll mention in a minute, involved with this project at all. On any front.

This irks.

And I’m not sure why.
Continue reading “Conceited”