Walkabout

I frightened myself off the other day. I was just a little bit too ranty. Spending too much time reading new and information at this day and age's rapid, instantaneous pace had caused my to just plain pissed off.

So I went on walkabout yesterday.

Really odd, needing to get away from doing...nothing. I think that doing nothing has gone to my head. I had worried that about a month into this whole business I would start to go crazy. I think that's true, to some extent.

Things I've become obsessed with:

• Number of views of my flickr account^[1]
  
• Email^[2]
• Writing about nothing^[3]
  
• Downloads of various TV comedies that I would prefer to watch on my own time^[4]
  

What I needed was to force myself away from these mild OCD tendencies and go walkabout.

It was an absolutely fantastic January day yesterday, another good reason to get out side. Forty-odd degrees, sunny, spring-like, half expecting to see roller-bladers come round every corner.

It was refreshing, really. No TV. No Internet. Admittedly, no packing, but I needed a break from that, anyway. Long walk, though. I hiked on up to downtown from my apartment. Twenty-eight blocks of pavement-pounding goodness.

It did remind me that I need few things. First, I need to get back in the habit of carrying a little notebook and pen. More often than not my best ideas come along when I'm walking around, looking at buildings, people, parks, and what not. When I used to have a little notebook, I'd be able to pull the notebook out and see the idea for the crap it really was. Occasionally, there'd be a gem in there.

Another thing I noticed, is that I really need to write by hand more. I did bring a journal with me (I know, why not use that for ideas? Not really convenient to pull out the larger book-sized writing pad when I just want to write down something like "Is the grass greener due to a lighting effect?"). My hand cramped up after about a paragraph. The rest of whatever it was I wrote looks like it was writing by a three year old^[5].

Finally, I learned one more thing on my walkabout: After twenty-eight blocks of pavement-pounding goodness, take the bus home.

[1] Please, please go look. I need the view count higher. Need it.

[2] I should really check that. The three different mail alert tools might be wrong.

[3] You're reading it.

[4]Which, by the way, The Office on NBC is actually rather good. Steve Carell is no Ricky Gervais, but who is? They play too very different characters. Once you can get past that, it's a pretty enjoyable show.

The structure is also a little different due to the port to American TV. There is more character development, even with the boss. I think American viewers, these days, seem to need even the worst characters to grow and change. In the original series, the only way that David Brent could grow as a character was to have major change happen - i.e. be made redundant.

Other than that, it has a pretty decent cast, and keeps some of the best parts of the original (the awkward looks at the camera, keeping the majority of the action in the office or at office functions, people so odd, that they're normal).

[5] Which, in fact, it was. I hired the first person I could find that I could dictate to. It happened to be little Timmy Jones, who would probably be upset that I said he was three. For the record he's three and a half.