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"Procrastination Station"
While “shopping” for new WordPress themes to ease my mild obsession with this site’s design, I came across a site demonstrating a lovely theme called Vikiworks v5. While ultimately I have chosen not to use this theme (it doesn’t currently support widgets, something I can’t really do without), I also started to read some of the creator’s blog and read a post about a game she had come across called Machinarium. Drawn in by its visually stunning screenshots, I went onto the site, and I was hooked.
The game is a basic point-and-click style adventure game, whereby you – a little robot left of the scrap heap – have to journey through the world, using objects and interacting with the scenery in order to get free. While in theory it’s very simple, that’s not to say that the game itself isn’t a challenge. Some of the puzzles just in the demo that I’ve played really had me scratching my head.
I haven’t purchased the full game yet (I have less than £10 to my name at the minute -_- ), but I wholeheartedly recommend you play at least the demo, featuring the full first level of the game, which can be played on the site: Machinarium.
It’s by no means easy, but you can’t die, and there’s no time limit, so if you feel like a bit of puzzling madness, give this game a try!
I appreciate that the time we spend on this Earth is both precious and fleeting. I do, I get that. Any day, life can be ripped away through any number of natural and/or man made causes, and it’s important that if you are capable of producing something that you think is meaningful, something that you want the world to know about — whether it’s a story you want to share or a just something you think others will relate to — you have to work hard to document it. Be productive, be prolific, be profuse! Write whenever and wherever you can, because your story must be told!
Or…procrastinate.
Ensure you keep the Internet open at all times, so that when your mind wanders from the task at hand, you have an easy avenue out. Keep the television on, because you never know when that episode of Friends you’ve seen for about the eighteenth time could be on again. Make sure your computer has some games installed on it, or – failing that – that you have a games console within reach. Make sure your cupboards are stocked with food for culinary adventures and your house is kept in perpetual messiness (because you never know when you will get that uncontrollable urge to clean things). And, most importantly, appreciate the fact that you’re not alone in your desire to basically not do what you’re constantly telling yourself you’re supposed to. We all suffer from bouts of procrastination. It’s about time we embraced it.
You can buy both this mug and this poster, as well as a whole host of other illustrations from Hyperbole and a Half from Allie’s Zazzle site. I know I’m already going to order the mug; once I get my writing room back, I’ll probably get the poster, as well. So go and buy some things, support procrastinating and those who do it now!
P.S. You should also check out Allie’s blog, Hyperbole and a Half, because it’s funny as hell, in particular “How a Fish Almost Destroyed My Childhood” and any of the posts to do with Spaghatta Nadle. I would have done a Procrastination Station for the blog already, but since I’ve been doing very little other than procrastinating for a while, I figured it would be best to space it out a little bit.
P.P.S. I am very aware that the majority of my posts lately are not about writing, and even though I do joke about how this blog is built up in the majority about things that involve avoiding writing, I’m getting slightly conscious of the fact that I haven’t strung a sentence together in any work or other in a good month or so (excluding “The Genesis” synopsis, it’s closer to two, pushing on three!), and while I’m definitely not the type to be making promises I have no intentions of keeping, I do hope that this month and maybe next month, I will be able to force something a bit more productive out.
It’s not technically a one-off procrastination, since I check this site practically every day for new videos, but as I haven’t made mention of its amazingness yet, I think it’s about time I did.
I can’t remember exactly how I came across That Guy With the Glasses. If memory serves, I saw a friend’s link on Facebook for a funny Twilight review and decided to have a gander. Gander, I did. Laugh, I did. Cry laughing, I…probably did. Anyway, after I’d finished laughing, I decided to check out the rest of the guy’s reviews.
The site is generally a review site, focusing on old (and, for the most part, crap) films, with some highly entertaining videos.
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This week, I have mostly been distracted by Second Life.
Second Life and I have a very on-again / off-again relationship; currently, we’re on.
I can’t really explain Second Life in nutshell, because there’s just so much to it. I’ve tried to cover the basic idea of Second Life on another page, but that’s just a general overview. You’re basically a representation of yourself (or whoever you want to be) in a virtual world, granted with the power of creation. You can walk your avatar through a garden one minute and be transported to a post apocalyptic city the next. You can make or buy clothes for your avatar, and you can own land where you can sell your own creations within this virtual world.
It’s not quite as adventurous as it sounds, and for the most part, it’s a fairly lonely experience.
What I spend most of my time doing is wandering around the locations in first-person perpective, trying to get some decent screenshots of backgrounds, then I’ll wander around the various shops looking for animations and poses for my avatars, then I will log into each character (I have 5) and shoot them posing against green screens. Then I mash it all together outside of the world and create something akin to the image to the right.
Is it a productive use of my time? No.
But then if it was, it wouldn’t be procrastination, would it!
I have always skirted around my opinions on the Stephenie Meyer’s “Twilight” series on my blog, (with the exception of the post from a few weeks back remarking on the–quite frankly–terrifying lengths of the series’ merchandising) and of course the big reason for this is that I want to maintain diplomacy towards other writers. Besides, with the success Meyer has had, any mud flung at her will most likely roll of the gold-plated umbrella she could afford to hire someone to hold up for her.
Also, the last thing I would want to do is rile up a horde of Twi-hard (Twi-Hard = Twilight + Die Hard — Bruce Willis would be rolling in his grave, if he was dead.) fans. And they will call me jealous. Not that I could argue that; of course I’m freaking jealous. Do they not realise how difficult getting a book, any book, published is? And Meyer has swooped down and just plucked it right out of thin air. I’ve read her bio about the first book’s journey to publication, and even she herself admits it is largely down to luck. I am jealous of Stephenie Meyer’s luck. There, I said it.
So I don’t comment on the quality of the book because everyone is entitled to their own opinion, everyone has different tastes, and no, Twilight is not to everyone’s (Yes, I have read it. No, I didn’t like it). Before Meyer’s work came under scrutiny, the big one that came under attack was Rowling with Harry Potter. At least no one is trying to claim that Twilight is a book for everyone, like they did with Harry Potter.
So what’s all this “commenting” worth?
Well, this week, I have mostly been distracted by the YouTube video series, simply called “Alex Reads Twilight”:
Alex Day, a musician and one of these “YouTube Sensations” has decided to provide us, the viewer, a running commentary on his experiences reading Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight. Before I even started watching them, I had a feeling they would be good. I did not imagine they would be head-in-your-hands-while-simultaneously-crying-and-choking kind of good.
Suffice to say, I have watched all those that are available (takes about half an hour), and he’s not even finished yet. I would suggest you not only watch them, but also check out the whole series, and don’t forget to subscribe, so you can catch the rest when they’re out.
Also check out his other videos. He’s a series vlogger, and his editing style is choppy in the way that is very easy to entertain even those with the shortest attention span.
His music’s not bad, either.
(I intend to update these weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, or whenever-I-remember-ly)
This week, I have been mostly distracted by Adult Swim’s Robot Unicorn Attack flash game.
While simple in essence, this game becomes more frustrating the further along you progress.
It is ridiculously addictive, so…go get addicted!
So…what’ve I been up to since my pledge to work hard in 2008 on making these books a reality?
Naff all, is probably the most accurate way of putting it.
I’ve gotten over my Second Life infatuation, simply because (a) the network connection failures and constant down time makes it hard to enjoy; and (b) there’s only so many times you can have someone walk up to you with a conversation starter of “your hot” (note the your, not you’re) before it starts to get tedious.
Catrina in-world, with new blonde hairdo
The shop’s still open though, and gets a fair bit of traffic. I’ve been selling a fair few Second Life Editions of the book, although whether they’re actually reading them is anybody’s guess.
Books & Skins & Chairs, all at the VAMPYR SNYPER Store!
So yeah, I’ve managed to haul myself away…just long enough for my dear friend Miss Derbyshire to entice me into the World of Warcraft. That’s right, I have become one of them. I have been totally and utterly hooked since joining about a month ago. I won’t bore you with details, but on the off chance you WoW, e-mail me and let’s fight the horde (or the alliance; I have characters on both sides) together!
Geek moment over, onto writing…
Of which there is little, to be frank. Since around Christmas/New Year time, I have started and restarted “Divided They Fall” til I was blue in the face. I have been frustrated, agitated, confused and annoyed, all at once with this story. Unlike the others, I do not have a plan in mind already. I’ve despised it so much, in fact, that I have now scrapped it completely, thrown it into a corner and left it there to die. While I imagine eventually I will have to approach it again, for now I am leaving it there, far in the recesses of my subconscious. I have been working on a plan to book 5, Blood of Ages, which I appreciate will not be released until all the others are finished. I hope that the very act of writing this plan will re-energise me into going back to that monster in the corner and getting back on track…
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