Category: Waffle

Mini-Update

Batch 3 of Project B is complete — so those affirmations might be worth something.
Since they appear to be yielding results for me, I’m afraid you will be getting more of them. Don’t worry because there will be other content. Or perhaps that is a reason to worry. I don’t know.

Technically batch 3 isn’t ready to ship, so to speak. I’ve finished writing and editing them (5 stories). The follow steps are still required, but they aren’t inhibited by the powers of procrastination and avoidance to the same extent that actually writing them is.

  1. Quality Assurance — i.e. Angie to read and comment
  2. Implement suggestions from QA, above.
  3. Final QA
  4. Typeset stories
  5. Buy paper (and ink, since my printer is running low now)
  6. Buy frames
  7. Print, cut paper to size, place in frame
  8. Package and post — except Stuart’s, since he’s coming up to Joburg quite soon.

Danger Danger, Neil Robinson!

So this plan of mine to avoid aimlessly drifting around on the internet, and to actually Get Things Done TM has been working quite well so far.
Except for today. Today I thought I’d bend the rules a little. Today I said, “I can read the headlines on the Mail & Guardian news feed, as long as I don’t follow them, because otherwise I’ll lose track with what is going on in the world.”

But then a particularly interesting headline jumps out at me and says, in its sultry, seductive voice, “Click…” A pause as it draws breath in slowly between its teeth, making a gentle hissing sound. “Me…”

So I’m not allowed to do that now either.

Affirmation

I will follow useful links.

Ergo, I will avoid useless, pointless, and superfluous links — and that’s most of them.

By the way. I couldn’t just affirm that I would “not follow superfluous links” because that affirms a negatively phrased assertion. Since one is trying to be positive with affirmations, the end result (psychologically) is that one ignores the “not” and ultimately affirms the assertion to follow superfluous links.
Not really the intended result.

Project Update

Last project update happened in March. It should be relatively easy to tell that no updates on progress will tend to indicate no progress.
Considering the time that has lapsed since the last update, progress per unit time has been dismal. Fortunately, progress hasn’t been negligible, and I’m hoping that by writing about the small amount of progress I have achieved, I will be spurred into action.

To recap:
I’ve dropped office and work related things from this whole structured procrastination strategy. These are personal projects, for my own benefit. Not for the benefit of any other entity.
This leaves me with the following items in the structured procrastination list:

  1. Project A — Write the novel, “The Adventures of Commitment Man”
  2. Project B — Write 100 word stories for family and friends, and present them as gifts
  3. Play chess online
  4. Blog every day
  5. Take camera everywhere, and pretend to be a Japanese tourist

How are things going then? Since the last update on 9 March, some progress has been made, but not a hell of a lot:

  1. 903 new words were written, bringing the total number of words to 20,043. Appalling.
    So that you can get a full understanding of how appalling it is, consider that this is on average, 15.84 words per day — even though I wrote all of those words during one of the days since the last update.
    The average number of words per day, since I started NaNoWriMo, back in November, is 100.34.
    The shame of it.

    1. I also mentioned the creation of a handy mind-map plot and character diagram affair. Added nothing to it. At least it didn’t waste more time.
  2. One story completed. One. This is just not good enough. How am I ever going to make something of myself if I carry on in this fashion? The answer, naturally, is I’m not. Perseverance is key.
    It seems, at this rate, that some recipients really will get their gifts at Christmas — or worse — not at all.
    However, although only one has been completed, there are two stories waiting for editing (which in practise is hacking off up to third of the story, so that it meets the 100-words-long criterion).
    There is also 1 half-written story, and another waiting in the conceptual phase.
    In summary: 1 complete, 2 waiting for post-production, 1 in production, 1 at proof-of-concept phase. All this, over just 59 days. Bah!

    1. I’ve decided to break the family batch into two, in order to make it a little less intimidating. Thus, there will be a 5 story and a 4 story batch.
  3. Chess. There have been some games. I am bad at chess on-line, generally because the games are too fast-paced.
    How do I quantify my progress, in terms of actually playing chess on the server? I suppose I can post my rated games stats. Then, the next time I arbitrarily feel like giving you all an update, I’ll post them again. Then my loyal readers can see for themselves how apathetic I’ve been. Apologies for the icky formatting. I’ll look into it. Perhaps a screenshot will be easiest.On for: 9 mins Idle: 0 secsrating RD win loss draw total best
    Blitz 1069 141.5 15 39 3 57 1508 (28-Nov-1998)
    Standard 1998 350.0 2 2 0 4
    Lightning 1225 196.3 9 28 0 37
    Wild 1859 271.9 3 6 0 9
    Crazyhouse 1341 345.4 0 5 0 5
    Suicide 1346 350.0 2 12 0 14
    Atomic 1562 198.0 1 3 0 4

    Total time online: 2 days, 1 hr, 32 mins
    % of life online: 0.1 (since Thu Jul 2, 17:00 ??? 1998)

  4. Blog every day. Success rate on that has been 26.32%, although this doesn’t take into account multiple posts on a single day.
    Is just over a quarter any good? If 26% BEE ownership is good enough for the Department of Minerals and Energy, then it’s good enough for me.
    Aren’t logical fallacies great?
    And isn’t it great when I use the term, “logical fallacy,” but in all honesty am not completely certain of it’s definition.
  5. I am not a Japanese tourist, although I do have a minor guilt complex about the camera, and do tend to take it to more places than I may have taken my previous camera.
    764 pictures taken. That’s 12.95 pictures per day. Not sure how many photos the stereotypical Japanese tourist takes in a day. Google is no help on this. I assume it’s probably quite a young research field.

When I started writing this, it was meant to be a motivational piece for myself. It seems a little self-deprecating, when I look at it now.

Some focus is required as to which project is most important. Is the structured procrastination strategy really effective, in the long run? Am I really achieving a great deal of useful, meaningful things.
Honestly — no. I’m not getting anything done.
The question that follows is: what do I want to get done? Is there an end goal for each task? Yes. There is.

At this point I should probably apologise for the excessive waffle (although it is waffle group, and you knew that when you bought the tickets). Feel free to give up at this point, and go about your business (as if you were somehow restrained before). I usually try to remain at least somewhat coherent in what I write. I offer no such guarantees from this point on, at least today. What I write now is information I need to keep a record of for myself, and that I can refer to. By putting it out on the intertubes, I can try to make it binding. It’s in writing. I’m committed. I have to stick to it.

Right — back to the end goals of each task. What do I want to achieve? Let’s use those handy numbered lists again.

  1. I want to write a novel. I know that I can. I know there’s a market for the kind of thing that I like to write. Look at the internet. The geeky, fanboy, in-joke, population of the internet is just waiting for me to finish commitment man, so that they can ingest it ravenously, and be somewhat amused. And hey, if amongst all that quirky entertainment, I can also make some sort of point, that’ll be great.
    And if it makes me a little money, that’ll be even better. For myself, I just need to finish writing the damned thing. I passed Chemical Engineering Design — I can do frigging anything, and that includes writing a full-length book.
    Desired end-product: A complete, unedited novel. I’ll worry about making it publishable once it actually exists.
  2. Show my friends and family that I care about them by giving them gifts that I created, and not just bought, pre-packaged, just-add-water.
    This one is actually quite easy. By making the stories short, it isn’t a huge mountain to climb to achieve the end result. The most difficult part is figuring out what to write. What topic to choose. What event in our shared past to focus on? What aspect of the person’s personality to celebrate? And then, having chosen that thing the story is to highlight, condensing all of the details of those shared experiences into something so brief. That’s the hard part. 100 words just isn’t enough, but if I let myself write more then I’d probably never have finished one of the stories.
    Desired end-product: A gift for each of the people I hold dear. This is tricky though. As I get to know certain people better, it becomes clear to me that I need to write these previously unknown, but now well-known people a short story. Have I got myself into an endless cycle, out of which I can only break by refusing to get to know anyone else? Will anyone really be offended if they don’t get their story, but that other person did? Do people really care that much about me that they’d get offended over something like that?
    Desired end-product — revised: A written gift for each of the people I held dear at the time I devised the project, and whose names I placed on The List. If you weren’t on The List at the outset, you may have to cope with not receiving a 100 word story.
  3. Nothing to achieve here. I don’t take chess as seriously as I used to. It’s fun to play, but I don’t feel the urge to set quantifiable goals, like rating improvements, or number of games played, or any of the other stuff I could set. This one is truly a structured procrastination device. I’ll play chess, when I’m avoiding the Project A and B — which I should try not to avoid.
    Desired end product: None
  4. Blogging every day? What for? I’ll blog when I feel the need, or have a compulsion. The only reason I can think of blogging every day is to make statements of affirmation.
    Desired end product: Blog when I feel like it, otherwise make an affirmation every day (although this might begin to annoy my readers, I suspect it will get me to work on Projects A and B with more vigour)
  5. Take photos. This means getting away from the damned, cursed, evil, computer machine and its collection of tubes to other places that suck away the time and leave a would be project completer without completed projects.
    Desired end product: Take photos of the real world. Get away from the virtual one.

Ok, that was helpful. I’ve identified that the writing projects are what i really want to do. Getting away from the computer screen is also recommended, from time to time. Blogging and playing chess are not necessary.
File this under obvious, I suppose, but it has helped me to remind myself of these things.

Further, I think I need to stop reading crap on the internet. If I intend to read something, it must be printed — i.e. a book. If I intend to waste time reading crap on the internet, rather work on project A or B, or play some chess, or blog an affirmation. Or take a photo. or get back to work. Those are now the options.

Ok. Summary of the intended plan:

  1. No random browsing on the internet. Internet reading is to be restricted to information gathering for a particular purpose — and then stop. Stay away from slashdot.
  2. Google Reader will be not quite banned, but will be severely restricted. No more reading all the tech stories. Comic feeds are acceptable (I only have 3). Friends feeds are acceptable (because my friend’s blogs are updated intermittently, not constantly). That’s it.
  3. Email is still allowed. Links that I receive via email will be followed, but that’s it! No other random internet crap will be explored. No links from within linked stories will be followed.
  4. If I feel the urge to explore random crap on the internet at any time, instead I will do one of the following:
    1. Blog
    2. Project A
    3. Project B
    4. Play chess
    5. Take photos
    6. Read a book that I can hold in my hands
  5. Project A and B are going to be completed, and this kind of focus is the only way to get it done. I’m going Nazi on myself

If you’re still reading this, I’m flattered. But seriously, you’ve got better things to do too, so do them already. Procrastination will leave you withered and hollow at the end of your time, with no sense of accomplishment or meaning.
You know exactly what I mean. You know the way you feel when you wasted a whole day doing random crap that achieved nothing, or made no inroads into achieving something that you desperately would like to have edged closer to. You know you don’t want to go on like that any more — so don’t.

The waffle is finally over for today.

Loyal Wafflings

Not really that many of them these days. What with modern technology and everything, wafflings just aren’t looking out for interesting waffle content any longer. It’s clearly not hi-tech enough.

Until now.

The Hoke (a.k.a. Chris) sent me, the Mighty Waffle Master, a waffley link. It’s a geeky waffle, but it is a waffle identified in the wild.

The Waffle Master welcomes your waffley submissions. Photos or links are best.
Keep them coming.

Return to Goblin’s Cove

Easter weekend. Angie and I booked two nights (Saturday and Sunday) at Goblin’s Cove. We’ve been there before. It was weird then. It’s still weird. But we like weird.
(I also note that imageshack has eaten the photos on the page that links to. Stupid imageshack).

This time, however, there was a freaky crazy psycho woman running the psychedelic coffee-shop. She didn’t like bees.
The way she pulled her raven-black hair back made her look very severe.
The way she carried around a can of insecticide and a lighter made her seem a little crazed.
The way she used the flame from the lighter and the spray from the compressed can of insecticide made her seem a little pyromanic.
The way she incinerated the bees dispassionately made her seem evil.

Then she closed in on the table near us, where bees were happily investigating the sticky tablecloth. They weren’t bothering us. Psycho-woman was, especially as she waved the can and lighter about.
Angie asked her to please leave the bees alone. She replied that she wouldn’t possibly think of setting them alight near us. She went away, and at least those bees were spared — for the meantime.
As we sat at the table in the open-air coffee shop, situated in a pleasant, tranquil forest, we were unsettled by the just noticeable, slightly sweet, slightly charcoal smell of heavily crisped bees. That smell, and the occasional sound of localised pressure changes in the distance as the oxygen was sucked from the air to help form a bee-apocalyptic fireball.

Everything else was pleasant though.

One of the waiters at the main restaurant (not the coffee-shop) took quite a liking to us. We rather liked him too. There was an instantaneous rapport between us. After lunch (which ended relatively late) he suggested we come visit. After all, he lived on the property, just next door to the restaurant.
So a little later we wandered over and visited our new friend Wikus. He was staying in a house that was designed and built by the same guy who’d put the insane architecture together for the Goblin’s Cove restaurant. We had a look around. Up the spiral stairway. On the creaky, uneven wooden floorboards. Holding onto ropes, because there were no railings where there should’ve been. Incredible place to live.
Wikus told us he was a little paranoid about living there because it had massive windows and no burglar bars, and a not entirely secure front-door. Wikus is originally from Joburg. That should explain it all.
We spent quite a while sitting there, drinking with him, chatting, smoking. Talking politics, talking religion, talking history, talking relationships, talking shit. The restaurant’s cook came over for a little too. Jaco was his name, I think. Wikus and Jaco are both of the age where the big bad old apartheid government conscripted them. Wikus did his national service and then 6 months later, they scrapped it. He never went any place too intense. Nothing too crazy happened. He thinks Afrikaaner nationalism is a little ridiculous, and they kicked him out of F.W. de Klerk’s office (where he was going to be a staff clerk) because he’d been bust possessing marijuana.
Jaco went to Angola. Jaco fought in a war, for something he thought was justified. Jaco seemed like a really pleasant guy (he joined us for about 20 minutes or so, before going to bed). I quite liked him, and I really liked his cooking, but one could see a level of distress underlying the surface. Demons lurking there.
It made me think about who was helping these people. On both sides of the struggle. People who fought in wars and did things they’d never dream of doing today. Who is helping these souls? Or are they just left in torment for the rest of their lives, forgotten by society. The dirty laundry that no-one wants to face up to, let alone clean.

Getting intense. Unintentional. Still, it was an excellent weekend and we met interesting people and experienced interesting things. We exchanged contact details with Wikus. I really hope we don’t let inertia stop us connecting again.

Bring on the Gautrain! (but have it stop in every suburb in Joburg)

There is one major drawback of owning one car — you only have one car. This is, of course, also the major strength of owning one car.

This week, it’s proving to be a weakness.

While driving home via the N1 highway on Tuesday afternoon, the engine stopped working. I don’t really have the full details since Angie was driving. She really should be the one sharing this story, but we all know that is unlikely to happen. I’ll do my best.

The car cut out in the middle lane, and Angie came to a stop. Soon afterwards, I received a frantic phone-call from her, pleading with me to please help her. The car has stopped dead! People are hooting! I can’t get out of the car! Help me!
I wasn’t really sure what I was meant to do, considering that a) I was far from the scene, b) I had no way of easily reaching the scene, c) Even if I could get there quickly, I still wouldn’t be able to do anything.
I should’ve told her to phone the insurance people, but I faltered. Under pressure, I couldn’t really think of what to tell her to do. In the end I told her to phone 112 — the cellphone emergency number.
The problem was further exacerbated by the fact that I couldn’t keep Angie on the phone and try to calm her down because her cellphone battery was almost kaput. This left us with SMS communication. Clumsy and difficult. And confusing at times.

On the bright side, Angie had 15 seconds of fame as she made the 5FM traffic news (and probably other radio stations’ news too) for causing an obstruction on the N1, and slowing traffic.

Ultimately, a tow-truck arrived to transport Angie and the car home. The confusion of the SMSs played a part here. From our texted communication, I thought that the tow-truck had picked up the car and left Angie on the side of the road. Panicked, I phoned Quinn to ask him to give me a lift to fetch Angie (who I believed, was flapping at the side of the road — using words like “desperate” can give that impression).
By the time Quinn arrived, Angie texted me to say that the tow-truck had arrived and would be bringing her home soon.
Why I thought it had already made an appearance isn’t entirely clear to me now.

The truck brought the car home, to my slight dismay. Because we’d need to tow it somewhere else the next day — at additional expense. At which point Quinn brought to my attention that the insurance people should do it. At which point I felt foolish for having paid R500.00 to get it towed home.

The fun of the night was not yet complete.

By this point, it was about 18h30. Angie and I had intended to have pizza that night, and we were not intending on changing our plans. Kindly, Quinn dropped us off at the pizza place in our suburb. We ate the pizza, cursed our dismal luck with automobiles, and drank wine.
Then we walked home. At night. In Johannesburg. That’s right kids. It’s not really that scary. The pizza place is only about 1.5 kilometres from home.
Except…
As we got to the last corner before turning into our town-house complex, we encountered many agitated people on the road outside a house. And then one of the ADT security vehicles came flying by. We overheard the word “hijack.” The people looked at us as if we were strange circus beasts, or a rare species of bird — a breeding pair of the lesser-known white-skinned nocturnal pedestrian.

The fun of the night concluded there, but the fun of the car continues! Read on!

The truck was towed on Wednesday morning to a service station, where I was cheerfully informed that the cam-belt had snapped, bending all valves.
People with cars dread this happening. Fixing it involves replacing a bunch of stuff, and taking engines apart and so on. It apparently costs a lot because it takes a while to get everything done. I don’t really know for sure because I’m more of a geek than a mechanic. Which is why I get ripped-off by mechanics and not by PC sales-people. In hindsight, given the relative expense of purchasing and maintaining PCs versus motorcars, I should’ve taken more interest in mechanical operating systems, than in computer operating systems. At least from a financial perspective.
Further adding to my grief is the fact that the service station couldn’t source one of the spare parts before the end of today. It’s now the Easter weekend, which means I have no car until Tuesday.
We booked two nights at Goblin’s cove over the weekend.
Fortunately, Angie can abuse her position at her NGO and borrow the organisation’s car for the weekend. So, at least we are vaguely mobile once again.

These, and other unmentioned things, led me to return to get my hit of Buddhism on Wednesday. Something I’d been missing lately. One needs to attend classes regularly otherwise one forgets to keep doing those useful things that keeps one calm.

I’m keeping calm again, which is much better than the grumpiness I had been returning to.

Enough waffle — for now.

Translation Iteration — Super Special Edition

Do I have a treat for you! Not sure why I didn’t think of this before, but geeky people will understand.

English/Japanese Translation Iteration. Make your time.

All your base are belong to us. You have no chance to survive. Make your time

あなたの基盤はすべて私達に属するある。 存続するチャンスを有しない。 あなたの時間を作りなさい

Your basis belongs to us entirely, it is. The chance which continues the possession is not done. Make your time

あなたの基礎は私達に、それある完全に属する。 所有物を続けるチャンスは終らなかった。 あなたの時間を作りなさい

Your foundation belongs in us, completely that is. It did not end the chance which continues possession ones. Make your time

あなたの基礎は私達それで完全に、ある属する。 それは所有物を物続けるチャンスを終えなかった。 あなたの時間を作りなさい

Completely, there is your foundation with our that, it belongs. That did not finish the chance which possession ones the thing is continued. Make your time

完全に、私達ののあなたの基礎がそれのそれ属するある。 それは所有物が物事続くチャンスを終えなかった。 あなたの時間を作りなさい

Completely, your foundation our that of that belongs, it is. As for that possession ones phenomenon did not finish the chance which continues. Make your time

完全に、私達のそれの属するあなたの基礎、それはある。 その所有物に関しては物は現象続くチャンスを終えなかった。 あなたの時間を作りなさい

Completely, your foundation to which our that belongs, it is that. The thing phenomenon did not finish the chance which continues in regard to the possession ones. Make your time

完全に、私達のあなたの基礎属する、それをそれがある。 事現象は所有物に関して物を続けるチャンスを終えなかった。 あなたの時間を作りなさい

Completely, our your foundations it belongs, that it is that. Thing phenomenon did not finish the chance which continues the thing in regard to possession ones. Make your time

完全に、私達のあなたの基礎それはそれであること、属する。 事現象は所有物に関して事を物続けるチャンスを終えなかった。 あなたの時間を作りなさい

Completely, our your fundamental that belongs that being. Thing phenomenon did not finish the chance which thing the thing is continued in regard to possession ones. Make your time

Did Not Converge After 7 iterations, and is becoming less and less amusing, and more and more incoherent. At least “Make your time” translates perfectly.

As an extra treat for my readers, I think I’m finally bored of this so we’ll be returning to our usual programming.

Thank you for your patience.