Everybody lies

I’m not dead, and I haven’t abandoned this blog either. I’m just a bit busy offline at the moment and don’t have much time to sit down and write proper posts. Besides, it’s still bloody hot here (did I mention I hate summer?) and I’m just too lethargic to do anything I don’t exactly have to.

Recently, I have changed my ISP and spent 4 days on the phone last week, discussing my connection problems with several dozen different hotline people (none of whom could help me so far, because the problem is not the connection itself, but the modem - but they are not ready yet to believe that, coming from a mere customer and a woman at that *sigh*).

Last week I have finally listened to David Allen’s “Getting Things Done” (the audio version, obviously), which a friend sent me a while ago. It is not exactly a normal audiobook, but the recording of an actual seminar, hosted by David Allen. It consists of 8 CDs and it runs for approximately ever, but it’s very interesting and Allen himself seems a pretty likeable guy. I still have to get my hands on the original book one day, but at least now I know what all the fuss with this GTD stuff is about. I doubt I will ever be disciplined enough to implement the whole system, but I definitely learned a thing here and there to boost my productivity (which, as the queen of procrastination, I clearly need to do one of these days).

Right now I am doing a complete backup of all my data again (the last one was months ago), burning everything on DVDs. This will probably keep me occupied for the next couple of hours (my DVD writer is not exactly the fastest model). But it is fun and it helps me go through all the stuff on my external harddisk and decide what to keep and what to delete.

I do this backup because I had a little scare last week, when I thought my computer was in the process of self-destructing. It was making really alarming noises when I started it up. I just bought a new harddisk a couple of months ago, so it couldn’t be that. Turns out, the little fan that’s cooling the processor was dying. I guess, if that thing really had died on me while the PC was running, I could have kissed my processor good-bye (and with it pretty much the whole computer). As it was, I bought a new fan (for literally 3,50 €) and everything runs smoothly again.

Funnily, that made me think of the Firefly episode “Out of gas”, where Serenity is stranded in space, because one little part of the engine broke. And when Mal tells that to this guy on another ship, the guy says: “But that’s a nothing part.” To which Mal replies: “Yeah, until you don’t have one. Then it appears to be everything.” — Isn’t it great to see how much of Joss Whedon’s writing applies to everyday life? Oh, and isn’t it strange that I can still quote whole passages of dialogue of this show by heart, even though I haven’t watched it in months? Yes, I am a geek.

And speaking about things I am obsessed with: I have just ordered the DVDs of all 3 “Lord of the Rings” movies from a guy on hitflip. The special extended versions, of course. 12 DVDs to look forward to! Yay! Not only is it high time I owned them, but with this I also blew all my points on hitflip, so that I can finally close this account. I liked the concept of the site in the beginning, but it never worked all that well for me and since I mostly only used it for books (which works much better on Bookmooch anyway) I might as well give up on it completely. One less account to keep track of.