Training Day -at work

Practically all of today at my work was for a course on Time Management, and it did have some useful things to offer: refresher on some classic strategies, group and individual exercises, and the presenter was lively, which always helps a lot. I expect the manual we were all given will be a handy reference in coming weeks.

It didn't take long (maybe after first half-hour of first session) for it to become clear to me that I did need this chance to step away from daily tasks and see if I could improve some processes. It was handy to get hints and tales of experience from others in the group, not only from the presenter.

Doing the full-day course was also a useful holiday from screen-based work, though not so much of a holiday from being at a desk. Outdoors, the weather was so fine I made sure I had lunch in a local park, and made the most of walks to and from work.

So, tomorrow it's clean-off-desk time and dusting off the neglected diary.

Good night, and good blogging. :)

Adding to my blog, 1 or 2 features at a time

My technical blogging session this evening was dedicated to learning how to add a new feature or two and/or connect to a bigger part of the on-line community. I decided to try linking my blog to a big search engine/directory, so gave Technorati a go.

Success! The logo showed up as claimed, and is sitting neatly in the sidebar to the right. I chose this one as it was a bit easier to read than the little green button and looked snazzier than the third choice. I also liked Technorati's options to get updates, news and tips and on-going searches for blogs matching some of my key interests.

I know, I know - it's be a good plan to add some sort of graphic content very soon, even if just an avatar or single scene from a site that has freebie thumb-print-sized downloads. Watch this space. :)

Good night, and good blogging.

Men's brains, women's brains...or just watch 'Frasier'

Earlier this evening I started watching a weekly talk show, SBS's "Insight", that had a special theme issue: "are men's brains different to women's brains and why does it matter?" It had plenty of interesting comments, some info, plus a few different guest speakers on satellite tv, some audience members became stirred up etc etc...but after a day at work I decided it was all becoming just a little too serious so I switched to the Season 7 DD of 'Frasier' which I'd started last night (see yesterday's posts) and saw the theme played out between the cast. It was just the kind of change I needed.

This evening's two episodes (so far) were: "There's Something about Dr Mary" and "Hot Pursuit".

1. "There's Something about Dr Mary" Frasier decides to sign up for a community self-improvement program called Second Start, aimed at giving new job opportunities to people who come from marginalised groups and/or need to re-start their lives. He chooses a woman called Mary to be a stand-in producer for his radio show while Roz is on holiday. He feels good about being a mentor and Roz is impressed to hear he's sounding committed to making it work.

Sadly for Frasier, Mary turns out to be a faster and louder talker than him (and he's no slouch about getting words out) once he assures her she doesn't have to stay silent for each show...so a clash of wills and style becomes imminent as they compete for the caller's attention. It gets worse for Dr Crane when a second woman - Louise- comes in and loudly disagrees with both of them; poor Frasier is sidelined on air. :)

At the apartment, Frasier isn't getting much help from his family, especially his straight-talking dad. It just makes it harder that Mary proudly describes herself as Black American, has a style uncannily similar to Queen Latifah and Frasier is in agonies about getting himself into a minefield of gender correctness issues vs needing to tell her they just aren't working as a duo. His capacity for over-analysis is limitless, and this episode shows it more than most. Eventually, he manages to blurt out some lines in his trusty Cafe Nervosa coffee house, 'the air is cleared' and she's happy to get her own show.

2. "Hot Pursuit" Frasier and Roz are both hoping to 'catch' a new love interest at a regional conference for radio station staff, and Marty Crane, their dad the ex-cop, is happy to get a chance to revive his enjoyment of surveillance work. Each situations starts to look promising: while Frasier and Roz are quickly becoming closer as they play a game about Roz wearing a blonde wig, Marty is really loving his work with a pair of strong binoculars.

Then it all goes pear-shaped, for all the pursuers. Thanks to a storm, Kenny the amiable station manager shows up at the door and asks to share their modest hotel room for the night, as there are no rooms left anywhere in town...and after all, he is the manager. Roz decides that the couch is a less disagreeable or gossip-producing option. Back in Seattle, Niles' re-surfacing memories about his dad's dangerous work life compel him to track down Marty (with a tip from Sid, the apartment block doorman) in a 'sketchy' neighbourhood, and corners his dad - in a white van. Niles has a special genius for pestering and employs it ruthlessly, partly by playing with the tracking equipment and partly by insistent questioning. Marty eventually wears down and admits his surveillance work for Daphne's fiance Donny (a lawyer) is questionable.

But with this show, the scriptwriters don't let you go with that easy ending. At the very last moment, the guy being watched carelessly runs his car into Niles' beloved Mercedes, and all the high-principled talk is instantly dismissed as the younger outraged Crane brother demands that Marty get the guy on camera. The wily old cop couldn't be happier.

Good night, and good blogging.

Re-visiting 'Frasier' episodes

While I've been browsing blogs in the last few days, and checking a website or three, I found a set of quotes and scenes all relating to drinking coffee. They all come from 'Frasier' episodes. After a year or two of not watching it at all, I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed the series in general.
A good friend at work really introduced me to the world of Frasier. I'd seen a single episode here and there, but talking about the characters with my friend, who had a kind of infectious enthusiasm about the charcters and stories , convinced me it was worth checking out more seriously. So, today it was time to get out Series 7 from my DVD collection and re-visit a couple of episodes.

1. 'Dark Side of the Moon' - not one of my absolute favourites, but thanks to Anthony LaPaglia's guest role as Daphne's joyfully loutish brother Simon, it's a real showcase of what happens when families collide. This time it's her rough-and-ready background from Manchester vs Frasier's crazy little super-orderly corner of the universe. Simon is the dark side of the Moon family and Frasier is the neat freak who just isn't mentally equipped to deal calmly with this bumbling human hurricane. Not many people are, of course, and Simon's surprise visit (thanks to Donny-the-fiance's bungled efforts in organising a bridal shower party) takes a toll on all the characters, but the simple central fact of Frasier making his living a s a psychiatrist and self-styled sophisticate is the foundation of the comedy in this episode.

'Dark Side...' is also one of the rare times Daphne is analysed by someone outside the Crane apartment, and the analyst is having a hard time with this member of the Moon clan. Daphne is there to get compulsory anger-management counselling after a reckless act caused a mutli-car pile-up in the street below Frasier's apartment. Could she really be more like Simon than she's prepared to admit?

2. 'Whine Club' really shows off the Crane brothers' pretentiousness and intense rivalry at the same time, and the two issues are mutually reinforcing. There's also a 'love interest' for Niles -she not only pumps up his ambition but manages to poison relations between herself and the rest of the Crane group plus Frasier's closest colleague Ros, the producer at the rdaio station. In some ways, Mel the plastic surgeon/Niles's sweetheart (after relations had been permanently frozen with his wife Maris) is as disastrous to peace and friendly feelings as Daphne's brother Simon, but for comically different reasons.

During a scene where Niles is dressing to go to the wine club nomination, thinking he would simply be sponsoring his brother's bid for the coveted title, Mel starts to plant ideas in his mind. She slyly flatters him, 'helps' him alter his choices of tie and jacket -which the audience can see is simply re-engineering his image in her eyes and for her own reasons, stealthily assures him she doesn't want to get between him and his brother, and asks probing questions about why he isn't running for the title himself...

The show-down between the brothers, described in the sub-heading as "Gunfight at the Bouquet Corral" is a hilarious meeting of over-refined taste buds, spiralling tension levels and a spit-bucket's worth of seething hostility, since Frasier is finally faced with a totally unexpected chance of having the Corkmaster title snatched from him by his very own brother, who was coached by the new Lady Macbeth -Mel... Naturally, neither brother can stop talking about the end result, of Niles becoming the new Corkmaster. Niles floats on his own cloud, and Frasier fumes about rank injustice and hints at treason within the family. For Mel, though, the family brunch that Frasier originally planned as a gesture of hospitality turns sour. Like so many ruthless, selfish and crafty people, she is her own main blind spot: for all her manipulation of others, she is blissfully unaware of a very different effect as she talks down to a group. During the doomed brunch she just can't help being or acting in a way that perversely unites everyone against her -everyone except Niles, who hasn't come out from her spell yet.
One of the gems in the whole 11 seasons.

Morning walk: noticing signs of life in my suburb

In recent months, I've been making a habit of going for a pre-breakfast walk each day, usually for just half an hour during work week and a bit longer on weekends. Now the days are steadily becoming shorter, and cooler, it's not as easy to get out the front door. :) Still, it's another good chance to see, on a daily personal level, what's happening in my part of the city, and also daydream a bit, of course.

Although nothing dramatic happened on my early-morning walk today, there were plenty of signs that life had already started in the suburb:
- newsagency and bakery crew at the local shops were already getting their business activities sorted before opening hours
- a few of the regulars walking their dogs
- early-morning joggers
- the glow of a big tv screen under a half-drawn blind
- cats sitting on windowsills
- first customers at the newsagency and bakery that hadn't opened at start of my walk
- some council workers starting up their leaf-blowing machines
-and some other signs: on a metal pole, a handwritten sign for a garage sale (may have been on weekend just past); half-finished landscaping in a front yard; today's newspaper on a lawn; a building site before the 'brickies' and other tradesmen had arrived.

One of the classic books that relied heavily on the accumulation of daily observations was Rev. Gilbert Whites' The Natural History of Selborne. Written in the late eighteenth century by a priest in a village, it has now become a valuable record of pre-industrial England, including weather conditions, local people, natural landscapes and flora and fauna of the time -many varieties of them are now extinct or endangered.

Readers: if anything really unusual happened on or just after your morning walk today, in any part of the world, please feel free to post a comment.
And now I'd better get ready for work. :)

End of Sunday

My curiosity got the better of me again, so instead of spending some decent time making a substantial new blog entry I mainly browsed other blogs. Sure, there were some interesting and bizarre on-line displays but will now need to wait 'til tomorrow evening (for sake of eyes) before making any more comments on the Scorcese movie or Al Gore's documentary.

'An Inconvenient Truth' - brief notes

It's an inconvenient truth that just now I'm running a bit short of blogging time, but here are some brief notes about Al's presentation:

- he uses a fair bit of personal background story to show his own main reasons for investing so much in this project;
- he uses a few different styles of documentary presentation, from the classic lecture-in-progress to more sophisticated IT tools, and does practically all his own voice-over;
- Some self-deprecating humour at start of story really helps get the audiences on-side, both in the movie and the audience I was in last night;
- His obvious enthusiasm and passionate interest can't be just faked all the time -this guy is really 'into' what he's talking about, and has covered an incredible number of km to check out various parts of the world;
- The end credits are full of 'this is what you can do next' kind of info, so this isn't just another talking head going on about problems -Al wants audiences to start following up on what he's saying and to actually feel they can do something effective;
- By the time he uses his tag line "political will is a renewable resource", it's also become a very hard and deserved dig at the Bush regime, and a sly joke appreciated by audiences;
- Forget about any previous reputation of Al being a 'boring' Vice-President in 1990s -this guy has the gift of the gab and clearly wasn't content to just live out the old VP joke about working on his golf score...if his family story is anything to go by, he hardly had or has time for golf anyway.