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What do you really want out of life? Now what's stopping you?

Monday, April 23, 2007

Trailed!!!

Picked up a tail on the way home last night. Was followed through a red light and some unusual side roads by a white vehicle with rather bright lights that refused to overtake. Lost it by driving up to a police station. Not the most pleasant experience but one that I had run through in my mind a long time ago. The decision to drive to the cops was one I had planned many moons ago when car jacking became a more regular feature in Harare. Consequently I was able to remain relatively calm during the episode and just slipped into the plan, still got the adrenaline pumping though.

Sunday, April 22, 2007

Mallets, balls and influence

Forget any thoughts of a placid game played by refined gentlemen and ladies on a leisurely afternoon, croquet is a violent, vindictive sport that brings out the worst in people. Alright, so I lost; twice. Seeing the ball that you have toiled hard to work around the course smashed into oblivion by another player is about as disheartening as opening a carton of sour icecream. Enough on croquet...

Been thinking, yes it’s a dangerous pastime (but safer than running around a field of crazy mallet wielders). Been thinking about influence. Why do we place hit counters and comment pages on our web sites-for feedback, to know we are influencing others. It seems to me hard to measure the influence one may have in a lifetime, in that to measure who and by how much is really hard. Some can use book sales, students taught, patients treated, lives saved, but for the most part there is so much you can’t tell. I had a client this week-he’s 72 and more computer literate than most 14 year olds, and he isn’t in the IT business. He inspired me to keep up with technology and not fall ‘behind the times’. He influenced me and will probably never know it unless I tell him.

Your feedback and gratitude may be the only measure of influence someone else receives, so find someone this week who has influenced you and tell them. It may be a parent or a mentor, or something as simple as thanking the cashier who smiled at you and brightened your day

Sunday, April 15, 2007

I wonder why?

Abstinence sex education doesn’t work? Ooops now there’s a problem. A recent report studying 2000 teens receiving sex education has found no significant difference in the behaviour of a group receiving ‘abstinence-only’ sex education. Considering the current Bush administration’s focus on such programs this could be a problem for their budget, although according to a report in ‘The Washington Post’ they are denying the relevance of the study. Being pro-abstinence myself, I can only ask the obvious question (the one program designers are probably asking themselves) “why didn’t it work?”.

I can hazard a few guesses though. One is that giving people the pro’s and con’s of sex in the hope that they will ‘do it’ later is not enough. They need to internalise it and make the decision their own-not a government sponsored campaign’s. People often live by differing levels of preference. If your decision not to have sex is based on the preference ‘ I won’t because it’s not safe’, guess what, when you a situation that you perceive as safe comes along (e.g. use a condom) you’ll probably have sex. If you are ‘saving yourself for the true one I love’ is your reason, then when you meet a person you see as your ‘only love’, guess what, you probably will give yourself to them. I’m not arguing levels of morality here-if you choose to sleep with someone that’s your call. I’m merely pointing out, that as with nearly all our decisions in life, our decisions on sex as based on our internal beliefs concerning them.

Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Who you listening too?

At the risk of turning into a Daniel Radcliffe fan site(although if you are a fan check out the two previous posts) I thought it would be prudent to chat about something else tonight. As I sit looking out the fading sunset that colours a vast expanse of African sky, my thoughts are drawn to whom we really listen too. Often it is not what others say about, but what we think others are really saying about us that matters. If someone pays you a compliment and you think they are trying to ‘suck up’ to you then you are not going to receive the compliment, however true it may really be. If you believe the lie that someone has said about a colleague, it will change the way you relate to that colleague the next time you see them.

With the explosion of information on the web in recent years there is a lot of mis-truth about, truth that is filtered through personal perception and partly reported as fact. While that does not mean there is no truth in what is said on the web, I would encourage a healthy degree of scepticism from time to time, and also try track down as much first hand information as possible.

Monday, April 09, 2007

Daniel continued

Following my post yesterday, about Daniel Radcliffe's appearring nude in Equus, the hit meter on my site has recorded a significant rise in activity (I wonder if others experienced the same trend). I also wonder what a difference the show may have recieved in attendance had they chossen a less visible or well followed actor as the lead role. It will be interesting when the show's run is over to see if both the producers and Daniel are happy with the overall outcome, after all he has shed more that just his physical clothes. While it will help to break the 'child-actor' mould off him, it will have also showed other directors what he is capable of, there is always the risk they may not like it.It will have highlighted his acting abilty, but would have also shown any flaws that he needs to work on-especially those that the audience would have been aware of. But without risk we would never get anywhere. It takes a certain amount of guts to take off your clothes in front of a crowd, I hope it was worth the effort.

Sunday, April 08, 2007

Stripping it down.

So Daniel Radcliffe has stepped out of his clothes and into a new role in the play Equus. Judging from the media hype surrounding it, the star of the Harry Potter series caused quite a stir with his decision- even if most of it was centred around the moral issues of having a 17 year old naked on stage. Morality aside, it is a bold step and will probably break the ‘Potter’ character mould that has been created for him (it is difficult to write about him without mentioning the character he is currently best known for). While he will forever be known as the person who played Harry, in the same way Elijah Wood immortalised himself as Frodo in Lord of the Rings, it would be sad if that was all he is ever known for and lost his identity to a fictional character. For the world to continue to try shape and keep him as Harry will only result in disappointment on both sides. One hopes the play has a successful run and that he does it justice with his ability as an actor, and that in the process it grows and develops him both in terms of talent and character. In the very least it can help bring about the instance that if he is stopped in the street by well meaning fans that they call him ‘Daniel’ and not ‘Harry’.

Friday, April 06, 2007

Writing maps

It's Good Friday-in case you hadn't noticed. In the western world this probably means that at the time of writing this you actually havn't got out of bed. I slept at 2 am last night after spending an evening designing maps for the Lord of The Rings: Battle for Middle Earth 2 game. Had a successful evening and managed to create 2 maps. I enjoy the process of planning these-there is much to consider, small details can affect the game play dramatically...just one building 'out of place' can make a huge difference to the result. The idea is to make a map that is beatable, but not too easy, or else noone will play them. I mean really who wants to play a game when you are garaunteed to loose.

Today some friends of mine get back from USA after a five month break, so am expecting another late night!

Just for the record, this blog has been going for a year this week. Honestly didn't think I had it in me to go this long, but mananged to deal with it in bite size chunks. It has only been in the last year that I have realised how much I really enjoy writing.