Light as [an] Air

Ok, so now I'm getting serious about this blogging thing. Well, serious enough to buy a laptop with money I don't have, dedicated strictly to blogging.

To be honest, I've been drooling over Apple's MacBook Air since it came out, but couldn't justify the purchase for my measly, mobile computing needs. So this blogging thing has been on my back like an orangutan on combat maneuvers. Not only is motivation an issue..."Let's see, I just spent 9 hours in front of a computer at work...", but I am easily distracted by less serious matters at home (have you tried Force Unleashed for the Wii?), and my aging PowerBook G4 feels like it weighs slightly less than a Yugo. Of course, my PowerBook isn't the only thing aging ungracefully, I am chagrined to admit.

So, along comes Craigslist and it's tantalizing pages of underpriced goodies...and I was stupid enough to ask the question, "What is a used MacBook Air going for these days?". Well, if you subtract all the goodies that came with it, I got my 4 month old beauty for around $800, which was a hard number to pass up, even though that number was suspiciously larger that the number that appears at the bottom of my bank statement. The only downside is that the poor thing took at least one nasty spill while in the care(less) of it's previous owner. Once I was someone who would be horrified at the prospect of owning a Mac in less than perfect condition, but these days it seems the bottom line ($$) takes precedence. And most people probably wouldn't notice the dented corner anyway.

Now that I have a laptop that I can practically carry with 2 fingers, and presently says I still have 4.5 hours of battery, and the fact I spent the money, I have no excuse for not dashing about from coffee shop to coffee shop, blogging to my hearts content, and hoping some cute geek-lovin' women come over to ask about my shiny MacBook Air.

Well, if it gets me to work, a little fantasy can't hurt right?

Blogging is hard!

Man, I don't know how those guys/gals do it. Writing something pithy and relavant...something people want to read or follow is not easy. Heck, I can't even get my friends to read this blog.

Andy Ihnatko calls his blog "...[verb of the month] Waste of Bandwidth, which seems odd since he has dozens...ok, maybe thousands of followers. A TRUE waste of bandwidth is my sending 1s and 0s across the interweb to record my thoughts that nobody gives a flip about. Now THAT is a waste.

I think he should hand over the domain right now...Andy, how about it...you're pretty much switched to www.andyihnatko.com anyway right?!

Who am I kidding? Even Andy wouldn't waste his time reading this blog.

Weekly Gripe #1

This week's gripe...people who start blogs and then don't write anything!

Oh wait...

The truckload of Windex for my glass house just arrived.

New feature: Weekly Gripe!

So, I'm starting some new post features to help me get more frequent
posts out the door. I've decided that it's better (and easier) to have
one or 2 line blogs unless something really warrants a long diatribe.

Look for it coming soon!

To Hell in a Handbasket

Alternate titles:

How to destroy your planet in just a few generations.
Lazy people burying the World in Trash.
WTF people!
Tourists need a good swift kick in the ass!

And I could go on for a while dictating thoughts that have been spinning in my head during my recent daily commutes. They all seem interconnected, so I thought I'd just spin them all together.

Nothing irritates me quicker than people on public transport dropping trash in the bus, or trying to slyly drop it behind them as they disembark. HELLO! In 9 out of 10 locations, they do this within 5 FEET of a city garbage receptical. Come on, are people REALLY that lazy?!! That is a rhetorical question of course, yes they are. Our society is built around laziness and convenience. Would it kill people to pocket a candy wrapper until they walked by a garbage can?! This is rhetorical too, and the answer is apparently "yes". It is this laziness and, of course, greed and a lack of forethought that will doom our planet to an early demise.

Ug, and tourists are the WORST! Hey, just because it's not your city or country doesn't give you the right to be idiots...or messy!

Oh, and am I going to pick up that wrapper the guy ahead of me dropped?! Hell no. I'm lazy too.

Getting Things Done...eventually.

Anybody out there use that Getting Things Done method to be more productive? I've been trying to use it and any variation I can wrap my head around for about a year, and I think I have spent more time trying to figure out the system rather than Getting Things Done.



It's frustrating I tells ya. (in my best Rodney Dangerfield)



I'm test driving my 6th GTD software package and it still winds up being just an endless list of tasks for me. Maybe I'm just not wired correctly to do anything but create lists on index cards, which would be odd since I am a tech guy who uses computers for everything else. What is it about tasks, and lists, and chores, and responsibilities that gets us so wound up we need "systems" and "methods" and software to be productive??!!



Maybe we just have too much to do, or are just trying to do too much. I expect many of us and our descendants will burn ourselves out completely driving toward that promised Utopian society where all of our time is open for self-education, the betterment of society, and the advancement of theories, science and philosophies.



Personally I'm betting most of it will be spent watching TV.

Figures...

Don't you just hate writer's block?!! I'm basically posting this so I don't get out of the habit of blogging. I figure that writing "nothing" is better than not writing at all. Motivation is hard. Hey, maybe that will be the title of the next posting!!



Um...don't you just hate that it's almost impossible to get in to see The Dark Knight on IMAX?!



Ok, I give up for now.