The Man with No Time

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE! 2018 was a bit disappointing as far as my personal goals for the year are concerned. After a slight improvement in 2017 (after years of fairly constant performance), 2018 saw me slide back below 50% completion. I want to get above that magical boundary again this year, and I see two possibly ways to do that. 1) Keep broadly the same goals and try a bit harder this year 2) Make some radical changes to the goals - delete some, make some easier, etc. I think I'll be taking a mixed approach - some goals will definitely go the way of the dodo, and may or may not be replaced, but on the whole I'm not too keen on making things easier for myself just to pad my stats. I like having goals that push me to continue doing the things I enjoy, but which can easily fall by the wayside because of work or laziness (for example my books target). I just have to face up to the fact that although in years past I could have completed many of the goals in multiple h...

2018 has been a strange year. I think I did reasonably well at changing up my list of goals to reflect the changes that happened in 2017, but there has definitely been some delayed reaction to those changes.  I'll say up front that I'm cautiously optimistic about my list of goals for the year, but I also know that there have been some big failures. Let's see how this goes.

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE! 2017 saw another improvement in the number of my personal goals that I achieved, but I'm still some way below where I would like to be. As I mentioned in my review of the year though, there were some big changes in my life in 2017 that weren't necessarily reflected in my success rate, and that will require some adjustments in how I set goals for myself moving forwards.

2017 has been an interesting year for me. There are a couple of big things that I achieved this year, but that didn't necessarily help with my stated goals. On the other hand, some of those stated goals now seem ridiculous, even though I tried to be more realistic this year!

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE! It's part three of my traditional end of year set of posts. I've done my review of 2016, and had a look at how well I did with my goals (lets not call them resolutions) for the year. This time around I'll be setting a new set of goals for the coming year. After several years of poor success, 2016 saw an upturn in my completion rate for these goals. There was still a certain amount of over-ambition going on though I feel, so I'll be reining in some of the particularly unsuccessful categories a little in an effort to gain some more.

Every year I set myself a set of goals for my work and hobbies. Things that I want to achieve, ideals for the amount of hobby time I'll set aside for each pastime, etc. Traditionally I've not had much success, whether from lack of time or excess of ambition, but 2016 has seen more success than the previous couple of years. Let's take a look at how well I did.

What a year! I don't think I'm alone in being glad to see the back of 2016. It's been a pretty rubbish year on many fronts; several high profile deaths, and a lot of controversial politics on both sides of the Atlantic. Unfortunately, a lot of what was wrong with this year is only the beginning of what will almost certainly end up being long-term changes to the wider world. The New Year won't be a magical cure-all, but probably just the harbinger of even more unsettled times. But enough moping around. Let's do the traditional year's-end review for the blog, starting with a look back at the year just passed. (Credit: http://thanksgiving2016day.blogspot.co.uk/)

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE! Rather than making 'traditional' New Year's resolutions, I like to set myself a few goals to try and meet each year. The number of goals I set seems to increase every year, and covers the gamut of my activities, from work to gaming via TV, books, and sport. I find that doing this helps my balance my various hobbies, and maintain a healthy work-life balance. Over the last few years my success at meeting these goals has seen a rather precipitous decline! But still I persevere. At the very least it's entertaining to see how badly I do each year. As per usual, I'll be trying to make my goals relatively achievable. In some cases I'll be building on experience from the last couple of years (a '*' marks those carried over from 2015).

As part of my traditional New Year restrospective, I set myself a series of personal goals for 2015. These covered a range of hobbies, my work, sport, etc., and were designed to be at least vaguely achievable. In 2013 I did pretty well, but 2014 was a bit of failure. So how did 2015 go? Well........in a word, poorly.

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE! I don't tend to go in for 'normal' New Year's resolutions. Instead, I like to set myself a few targets and goals to try and meet over the coming year. These range from work-related to hobby-related, and I find them a good way of balancing up my various hobbies, and of maintaining a decent work-life balance. My success has been pretty mixed over the last couple of years; in 2013 I met about half of my goals, but 2014 was a bit of a failure on many fronts. Still, I'm going to persevere. As per usual, I'll be trying to make my goals relatively achievable. In some cases I'll be building on experience from the last couple of years (a '*' marks those carried over or repeated from 2014).

As has become my tradition, I set myself a series of personal goals for 2014. These covered a variety of my hobbies, my work, sport, etc., and were designed to be at least vaguely achievable. In 2013 I did pretty well, so how did I do in 2014?

2014 has almost come to an end, so it's time for my three-part, end-of-year review. In the first instalment I'll be looking back on 2014, and what I made of it. (Credit: 123rf.com)

Marvel have become something of a cinematic giant in the last five years or so. First there were the X-Men and Spiderman films, then Daredevil, then Hulk, then the Fantastic Four. Then they took matters into their own hands with Iron Man, Captain America, Incredible Hulk, Thor, and Avengers Assemble. After building the 'Marvel Cinematic Universe' they carried on at full speed, and the second round of releases is by now well established. We've had Iron Man 3, Thor 2, and Captain America: Winter Soldier. That's not mentioning the Amazing Spiderman and X-Men: First Class series, which although Marvel properties aren't controlled directly by Marvel. So far it's all been established characters and franchises. Stories that the general audience will at least have a vague idea about. But there are increasing signs that Marvel is starting to branch out from this set of 'core' properties. The first of which is the release of Guardians of the Galaxy. ...

The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come, and Age long past, a wind rose in the great forest called Braem Wood. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning. " A Crown of Swords " marks the halfway point in my journey through the story of " The Wheel of Time ". But it doesn't feel that way at all, either in terms of the story itself, or my enjoyment of it. After brief slowdown with the previous volume (occasioned by my going on holiday for two weeks, without space to takes giant books), I'm back to rattling through roughly 50-75 pages a night. A measure of my enjoyment can be found in the fact that I've re-established a bad reading habit, namely jumping ahead...

From the very first time that I saw a trailer for the LEGO movie I knew that I wanted to see it. I had to see it. The trailer was very, very funny, and the film was clearly going to make the adaptability and creativity inherent in LEGO a central part of the story. I was sold. Sadly, in a familiar story, I missed it at the cinema. My old fallback, the Student Cinema, looked like it would come to the rescue once again, but I ended up being busy on the night that they showed it, so it looked as though I would miss out. Then I decided I wanted to see a film over the bank holiday weekend, and to my surprise saw that the Odeon had a couple of showing in the morning. So off I went. Even the poster is awesome. (Credit: en.wikipedia.org)

The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one age, called the Third Age by some, and Age yet to come, and Age long past, a wind rose on the great plain called the Caralain Grass. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was a  beginning. The Wheel of Time continues to turn, and it's starting to get serious. Book 4, ' The Shadow Rising ', is an extra 50% longer than longest of the volumes that precede it.  Not only that, but Robert Jordan once again ups the stakes with some astonishing revelations, whole new areas of the world explored, and some events that could (and probably will) have massive implications. 

The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the Third Age by some, and Age yet to come, and Age long past, a wind rose in the Mountains of Mist. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was a beginning. It seems that my read-through of ' The Wheel of Time ' is accelerating as I get into it! This third volume in the series proper took me only a couple of weeks to finish, and marks a bit of a change for the series. The 'epicness' of the series seems to have ramped up, and the scope and scale, not to mention the stakes, and becoming bigger and bigger.

This year there's been one film that I really wanted to see, and that everyone told me I had to see, that I just haven't been able to. That film is ' Gravity ', and yesterday I finally managed to see it thanks to Warwick Arts Centre . They put on a few extra showings as part of their viewer's choice feature, and I gladly took the chance to finally catch the film on the big screen. The film poster. Don't. Let. Go. (Credit: en.wikipedia.org)

The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the Third Age by some, and Age yet to come, and Age long past, a wind rose in the Mountains of Mist. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. But it was a  beginning. And thus my journey through the Wheel of Time really begins.

The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. As I've already talked about, one of my personal goals for this year is to read my way through the entirety of the Wheel of Time series. The natural place to start seemed to be the prequel novel, 'New Spring' . Published in 2004 between the 10th and 11th books in the main series, it's one that I've never read. What better way to start.