A few hours before, Johnny had been struggling inside. Not struggling in the womb, but struggling for a purchase. Johnny was on the marketplace, looking for a seller. He had 73 good deeds, but also quite a few bad ones.

Deeds, as we know, weigh themselves out. In the end he had 5 leverage deeds… Karma. Usually new bodies cost 9 to 10 karma points, so he wasn’t able to purchase a good one.

Robert Davis was about to be a father. He was waiting aside his wife, Johanna, in Carlisle Hospital after 3 hours of intense labour. Johanna was really tense, shock in her face, red eyed, screaming.

Johnny made a decision. He chose a new body, Albert Davis. Albert was going to die in a car crash at 29, however, was going to live an enjoyable stress-free life until then. He was going to have all 4 limbs, a good looking head, blond hair, blue eyes, and a beautiful mother.

Because of Albert’s short life span, the price was only 5 quid so Johnny went for it. And so Albert was born, unknowledgeable, fearful, memories leaving him in exchange of a new life, a new chance.

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Sunset in Cumbernauld at the start of the week. Impressive sunsets around the region as of lately.

I love how the camera captures the motion of the drops of water from the fountain.

This scene reminded me so much of a photo from a jigsaw puzzle that I really had to give it the same name. Honestly, out of this world… almost seems unreal.

Same fountain as previously mentioned. This statue is on the east side of it.

We saw a few squirrels on our day out in a park on the west of the city centre in Glasgow. They really let us get quite close to them, it was rather fun.

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1. Weekly Highlights (03/01/2010)
2. Weekly Highlights (25/01/2010)
3. Weekly Highlights (22/02/2010)

I must say I feel favourable about it. It was a good film, however, I do feel inclined to specify my view about it. It was fast paced, a few things seemed to run by too fast without sufficient explanation… Almost seeming rushed.

Non-withstanding I did enjoy the film, and for it being the first film I watch at the cinema in over 7 months it was very worthwhile. So if you are thinking in going to see it, I would recommend it. Just remember to tell me what you thought about it.

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1. Time flies by…

I think Glasgow looks a bit like San Fransisco in some areas. Specially near this area at the north of the City Centre, just under the M8. In the picture we can see Sauchiehall St. taken from Renfrew St. There is quite a slope, and it was a lot more elevated in some other areas (45º). I have never been to San Fransisco, but it must be beautiful. Troy Holden from the Caliber Group and Thomas Hawk really do an excellent job photographing SF.

So it snowed again, just a few days ago. Everything was covered in white again, and I also caught a really bad cold while running to catch the bus to work through a blizzard. Fortunately the snow has cleared in the city, but while on the bus and train outside town I have seen some pretty impressive scenery.

I was cold as hell in this picture. I don’t generally post pictures however I think the expression in my eyes gives away the whole context of the situation. It’s hard sometimes being at sub zero for 40+ minutes waiting for the bus.

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1. Weekly Highlights (14/02/2010)
2. Weekly Highlights 08/03/2010
3. Weekly Highlights (31/01/2010)

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A photo from Croy Railway Station. One train was waiting on the left rail, one was arriving on the right-hand side. I took it with prolonged exposure to be able to capture the movement. Taken about 3 days ago on my way back from work.

This place reminded me a lot of a Mexican patio. The old fan sitting around, unused. The type of patterned wall. The small storage shed on the left. And specially, the iron grid with spirals used as protection on the window where I took the photo from. Very Mexican indeed.

So I went out for a walk around Glasgow city centre yesterday. I found this sign which caught my attention. Deep fried Mars bars, heheh… Had to give it a try!

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1. Weekly Highlights (25/01/2010)
2. Weekly Highlights (17/01/2010)
3. Weekly Highlights (14/02/2010)

Otherwise, I have a story to tell you…

Once upon a time I was just like you. I had many ideas, some of them quite good, and I tried to carry them out only to realise I couldn’t finish all of them. Sometimes I would get bored halfway through and leave the project incomplete. When it was something socially-related and I did not achieve an immediate response, I would leave it incomplete and/or get frustrated with it. Sometimes I simply couldn’t be arsed to continue with it.

What made matters worse was the sense of guilt I would sometimes build up after a week, a month or a few years after starting a project and not having been able to finish it. A sense of being incompetent. And the more things I left that way, the worse I felt. A constant buzz in the back of my brain telling me that I didn’t finish it, and I could have.

One example was Zyborg, a computer game (Clone of ZZT) I started developing around 10 years ago with Saxxonpike in Qbasic 4.5. We abandoned the project a few months after we started, however, I always felt a tingling sensation of having left it just standing there. I still have the code.

I also used to start (and not finish) hundreds of songs, paintings, poems, lyrics, books, ideas, scripts, computer programs, drawings and many other things. I even started a company once, and we were really motivated. But after stumbling a few times into problems, we just silently gave up on it. But the tingling sensation must have lasted ages in all of us. The sense of not having been able to accomplish our goal. The feeling of failing.

When and how did things change for me?

When I started adding a little bit of organisation into my life.

I started off by writing task lists and project ideas down on paper. If I couldn’t get through them in one go I learned not to stress about it and leave it for a later date, whenever I felt more confident or motivated about the project. Then all these ideas and tasks stopped being burdens on my mind and were converted to sentences in a notebook (later replaced by Google Docs).

Then I started printing out calendars in Microsoft Publisher, and using them to keep track of future events. I have never liked daily based diaries as I hate the format, I hate carrying too many notebooks, and I hate wasting too many blank pages. But a monthly calendar format suited me, with 30-31 rectangles on a sheet with just the right amount of space to keep track of my main tasks per day.

Further on, seeing the success this brought me in organising my life, I looked for a computer solution for my needs. I needed to be able to view it from any PC where I were at, so Microsoft Outlook was out of the question. I found comfort in Google Calendar which I have been using for over 2 years now. It was great, I could view it in any style I liked! I started out using the monthly style, however, lately I have preferred using the weekly view as I plan and use it on a daily basis.

Google Calendar, however, wasn’t the solution to my problem in storing my project ideas. One day one of my best friends introduced me to Remember the Milk. A pot of gold! Accessible from my iPod touch, updateable from anywhere, it was pure glory!

Since then, I have never had a problem remembering what I have done, what I have to do, and what are my plans and ideas for the future.

So if you have ever had one of these problems I have had, give it a try! I mean, it’s free so you have nothing to lose. And if it’s just not your cup of tea, stick around and give the net a look, there must be something ideal for you! The important thing is not giving up on projects or ideas just because you have no time for them at the moment. And if you started one, but haven’t finished it, just keep track of it and leave it for a later date. Don’t scrap it… Remember it.

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I recently owned a pair of Sony MDR V150 headphones which are at the lower end of “studio quality” sets. I liked those headphones because they lasted quite a long time, but it didn’t have the outer noise cancellation nor the boost that I require to listen in detail to the music I make to make the necessary fine tuning.

So I found this pair sitting in a discount store the other day. It is a used pair which cost 20 GBP, and as far as I have seen they go anywhere from 30 to 55 quid online, new of course.

Despite the cost, this set will not disappoint you. It has an excellent sensitivity, a great solid plug, a beautiful frequency range, they are comfortable to the ear, it lowers external noise by (I would say) at least 6 db or more. So if you are thinking in buying a quality pair of headphones, without going crazy on the price, I dare suggest this pair.

* Disclaimer: In no way was I payed by Sennheiser or Sony to publish this post.

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Why Google Buzz is brilliant and deadly to social media 1.0

From the moment it launched, Google Buzz generated buzz:

• OMG another social network to manage
• OMG there’s too much noise
• OMG this is so redundant

And for the early adopters, it’s exactly that and more. It’s noise. It’s clutter.

It’s brilliant.

Here’s why. Google wants the best of the best data. Remember this. They are a data company. They are a data quality company. They are algorithmic in their approaches to solving problems.

For a lot of the social media crowd, the moment Buzz turned on, our valued inboxes became insanely cluttered as we linked up all our social media sites, networks, and properties. We discovered that frankly, we didn’t want the firehose of social media in our inboxes.

We realized quickly, if we didn’t already know, that most of our “friends” are in fact valueless robots spewing garbage at us all day. On services like Twitter and Facebook, we don’t really notice because it’s bite size garbage that passed by quickly. When it piles up in the inbox, we notice. Fast.

So for the early adopters, those who keep Buzz on, we’re pruning back hard. We’re not following back. We’re dropping auto-follows. We’re down to just a handful of people, close friends, that we REALLY want in our inboxes. How many of the self-proclaimed social media gurus are you actually allowing inside your inbox, in Buzz? Exactly.

Continue reading @ Why Google Buzz is brilliant and deadly to social media 1.0 : Christopher S. Penn’s Awaken Your Superhero.

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Did you know that you can have your 140-character tweets from Twitter also cross-posted into your Facebook status, LinkedIn status and now even into your Google Buzz without doing much of anything besides letting each platform know that you would like this happen? And while that may sound convenient for you to ensure that anybody and everybody who is following you can get your information, it should come as no surprise that we’re quickly all barrelling towards an information and attention crash.

Continue reading… Removing The Noise | Six Pixels of Separation – Marketing and Communications Blog – By Mitch Joel at Twist Image.

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