01 August 2010

Time allocation: Mundane activities 5:21
Gamer Mom 2:11
Comics 2:09
Preparations for switching to a new computer 1:47
Watching the movie Murder By Death 1:44
Cave Story 0:55
Trying to fix the piano 0:51
Talking to Avri 0:09
Notes: I'm writing this on a computer which I've had for nine and a half years. The hard drive, which is not the original hard drive but is pretty old itself, started to malfunction a few days ago. I'm taking that as my cue to get a new computer. It was my intention that this would be the day I'd order the new computer. But the guy I was going to buy it from is away until Wednesday. I only found that out later in the day, after meandering a bit, reading the new comics and playing Cave Story. (My intention had just been to pass the time until I could buy the new computer.) Then I opened up the piano and tried to fix it. There's one particular key which broke, and I sort of fixed it a while back by wiggling it around until it fell into place, but apparently it wasn't so fixed because a few days ago it stopped working again. Obviously I can't play piano with a missing key, so I tried wiggling it around until it started acting the way it was supposed to, which it stubbornly refused to do. Eventually I realized that I'd need to maneuver some glue through very small passages past things which absolutely should not be glued (and I'm a pretty clumsy person), so I gave up. After that I organized my comics collection, and since my hard drive is about to die I wanted to get it off the hard drive to a CD as soon as possible. So I managed to fill another CD (This is probably something like the 30th disc of my Marvel Comics collection.), and I went next door to lend it to Avri. I watched a movie which had been recommended to me by someone at Avri's weekly game nights, and it was disappointing. I picked up where I left off with my goal of reading the entire decades-long run of Spider-Man comics. (I was up to April 1991.) And finally I used the remaining time writing a particularly neat branch of my game Gamer Mom, taking care to stop only once I'd passed the comics time.
Performance review: It's nice that there was a plan, but you can't just sit around waiting for the plan to start. There's got to be more to the day than that. I think the actor understands that, because there are a lot of different attempts here at finding some meaning to the day. But none of them stand out much, and the performance just comes out flat. It's all well and good to follow a script, but it's also necessary to improvise quickly when things go wrong, and that's not seen here. The day fell apart early, and it never recovered. There were long stretches during the day when nothing of any interest was going on (the so-called "mundane activities"), and that's a real shame. That time should have gone toward making this day more entertaining and interesting.
Score: 3/10


02 August 2010

Time allocation: Mundane activities 2:59
Thinking about (and writing down) a story idea 2:27
Going with my father to carry a refrigerator for Miriam 2:23
Gamer Mom 1:57
Downloading and watching the TV show Sherlock 1:51
Watching the movie Darby O'Gill and the Little People 1:29
Eric the Unready 0:50
Wii Fit 0:28
Notes: I meant to go to the Israel Museum today, but after rushing the beginning of my day I discovered that the museum wouldn't be open late enough today. So I decided on a few standard activities to focus on: Gamer Mom, watching the latest episode of the BBC's Sherlock, and playing Eric the Unready. These were all made less comfortable by my reluctance to turn on my computer for fear of losing it. I did it all on my sisters' computer, which has few of the programs I'm used to using. I downloaded the TV show with BitLet in the absence of a BitTorrent program, I played Eric the Unready from an actual copy of DOS (rather than DOSBox) that they have on an extra partition (because Windows 98 was never uninstalled when XP was put on), and I was writing my game with a particularly awkward keyboard. 45 minutes into playing Eric the Unready, my father suddenly said that I needed to come with him as a favor for Miriam. Now, I don't care for Miriam much. She always irritates me. And when I told her that I did not appreciate being called away from my life on no notice at all to carry a refrigerator into her apartment in Jerusalem, she said (to make me feel guilty, which didn't work) that she'd do it, so I returned to the game. But then a big fight broke out, because she'd been bluffing and actually she needed to be someplace else. So I left, and there went two and a half hours. When we got there it turned out I wasn't even needed. When we got back I watched a very old Disney movie that Avri recommended, which was cute. And then I went back to Gamer Mom to bring its time past the fridge, but along the way I got sidetracked and started thinking about an awesome fantasy-world idea, and I kept looking at it from different angles and fleshing it out and writing down what I had. It still doesn't resemble a story at all, but there's a lot of potential there. (If it did ever turn into a story, that story would be called Wake.)
Performance review: Adaptability, creativity, focus. Very impressive. Mundane activities are under three hours, and it's not so easy to keep moving for an entire day but there it is. The fact that two and a half hours were wasted for the benefit of the sister is a mark against the day, to be sure, but in the end a random idea managed to overtake it.
Score: 9/10


03 August 2010

Time allocation: Going to the Israel Museum in Jerusalem 8:11
Games night 4:08
Gamer Mom 1:09
Mundane activities 0:57
Notes: I went to the Israel Museum (my first time there since they redesigned the place), and it was lovely. They had a particularly good (and large) exhibit on artworks about extremely slow movement. I saw everything I wanted to see, then I got dinner at McDonalds (which still counts as the same activity because it's part of the whole adventure) and came home. I walked into the house, wrote down the time, and immediately went next door for games night, which was fun though I messed up in many different ways.
Performance review: You've got to respect the kind of guy who spends an entire day out, and still spends more than an hour on his game at the end. An interesting character on an interesting day.
Score: 10/10


04 August 2010

Time allocation: Hanging out with Moshe, and Avri for a while 7:39
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 2:34
Mundane activities 1:48
Reading comics 1:05
Gamer Mom 0:29
Calling the piano tuner 0:15
Notes: Moshe came over to escape his own life. He played Phoenix Wright, I watched and helped. It was fun. After 5 hours or so Avri came over, and he played Metroid Prime 2 while I watched and Moshe acted annoying. That would have been a lot more enjoyable if Moshe hadn't stuck around, but I didn't see a way around it. I really wanted to hang out with Avri, I really wanted him to see Metroid Prime 2, Moshe wasn't willing to play any multiplayer games, and I wasn't going to kick Moshe out because I sympathized with his loneliness. But wow was he ever annoying- throwing in non sequiturs and casual racism and the like every minute just to feel like there was a place for him (which there wasn't). I feel I did a disservice to Avri, but I really don't see what I should have done. Any random things I did while Moshe was over are not considered mundane, because I would have been chatting with him the whole time. When I was alone I continued my ongoing project of playing Ocarina of Time and writing down analyses as I go. I read whatever comics had been scanned so far, and did a token amount of work on my game.
Performance review: 7 hours is too long for anything. Period. Two hours less with other people, two hours more alone with Zelda or Gamer Mom, that would be a pretty good day. Watching people play games is absolutely in keeping with the character, it's just a matter of proportion. Also, the character we're going for wouldn't be so indecisive and confused about dealing with other people. That's something that needs to be worked on. Maybe a new blog post could help. Overall I think this was a distinctive day, with little time wasted, but there's a lot that needs to be fixed.
Score: 6/10


05 August 2010

Time allocation: Blogging 5:13
Comics 4:18
Mundane activities 4:09
Buying a computer 0:54
Notes: Following the suggestion in yesterday's performance review, I began a new interactive blog post. This required me to rewrite the interactive dialogue code, since I learned quite a bit from the last one and this will be a tiny bit different in structure. Only a few new comics have been scanned so far, so I read those. I also kept reading Air and Sluggy Freelance, with the hope that I will eventually catch up on both. (Though in the latter case, that will take several years.) I started some creative editing work for my Marvel collection. I haven't done anything exactly like this in a few years, and it's good to get back into it. I ordered a new computer, got money out of the bank, and paid half now. I've been told the computer will be ready on Sunday.
Performance review: Mundane activities is pretty high, but I'd say the downtime was earned- two other activities exceeded its 4 hours and 9 minutes, both of them interesting in their variety and connection to earlier days. Meanwhile, the computer subplot gives a little taste of what's coming. And that's the entire day, sheer elegance in its simplicity.
Score: 10/10


06-07 August 2010

Time allocation: Comics 5:19
Mundane activities 4:50
The blog 2:13
Composing 1:17
Watching the piano tuner 0:37
Watching the LOST epilogue 0:15
Notes: A lot of editing for my comics collection today. I woke up early to let in the piano tuner, and watched as he fixed the broken key. He's going to come back on Monday to fix the rest. I didn't get as much blog work done as I normally would in this amount of time, due to my computer continually crashing.
Performance review: Mundane activities are two hours too long, and the blogging would need to be two hours longer to make up for Gamer Mom's absence. This day was a test of character, seeing how well the actor can do while tired. It was known from the day before that that was going to be the case (due to a break in sleep schedules), but if that knowledge has informed the outcome of the day I don't see it. There is no pattern here, no balance.
Score: 4/10


08 August 2010

Time allocation: Gamer Mom 4:16
Comics 3:13
Cave Story 3:08
Mundane activities 2:51
Composing 0:24
Notes: I came up with one ending for Gamer Mom which really surprised me. I read a few months of Sluggy Freelance (I'm still only up to 2002.), and I did a lot of editing/organizing for my Marvel Comics collection, including Black Panther, which always needs lots of fat cut out to be a good story. I got really far in Cave Story, and had Avri point me in the right direction to get the good ending. I played around with a simple musical idea that I don't have any idea what to do with, and mulled over vague ideas for a theoretical second (and more unified) CD. Don't get too excited - it'll probably never happen. I'm just throwing ideas around because that's what I do.
Performance review: Gamer Mom is on top, as it should be, and the work there seems to have been very satisfying. Minimal time was wasted, and every single activity here reflects on the character somehow. Flawless.
Score: 9/10


09 August 2010

Time allocation: My New Computer Adventure 9:39
Hanging out with Avri in Metroid Prime 2 2:05
Mundane activities 1:18
Cleaning the computer room 0:49
Metroid Prime 2 0:46
Gamer Mom 0:20
Chatting with Benjy 0:12
Notes: My mother hired a cleaning lady to clean the house, so that she won't get in trouble showing it to her parents when they come. This morning I woke up to discover that she had "cleaned" the room the TV and computers are in, which made me very nervous. When I found that a Gamecube controller's analog stick had been chipped and that my Zelda notes had been smudged, I started yelling at the cleaning lady and she got so angry she refused to clean any more of the house. Anyway, I had to fix the mess she'd made, putting everything back where it was supposed to be. Immediately afterward I continued Gamer Mom from where I'd left off, stopping in mid-thought when I found out that my new computer was ready. For the majority of the rest of the day, I tried to accustom myself to this new environment. It was a task made much more monumental by my decision to install Linux, which I have next to no experience with, without including Windows as a safety net. Nine hours was not enough in which to replace my old computer, in fact it was barely enough to begin. I will not be uploading this day's update until later, because I simply don't know how to yet. Avri interrupted my journey by coming over and agreeing to continue Metroid Prime 2. Watching him play made me realize that I needed to relax, so later I shut off my computer and went back to the world of Aether myself.
Performance review: Hm. Give me a minute to think about this. ...There's certainly a lot of personality here. But I don't think it's the personality we're looking for. The character is enthusiastic, focused and willing to change, and all these qualities are well-represented. But he is also in control, and the performance gives a sense of being right on the edge of a nervous breakdown. I'm not seeing that he's capable of giving up the little things he's comfortable with, and if that's the case then how can any change last? In a way this is the most important day of all the performance reviews so far, because here we're seeing exactly what's wrong with the performance, both on a social level and on a personal level. The actor is only reacting. Someone messes with his room, he goes ballistic. Someone plays an old favorite of his, he calms down. Too much of the day's emotions are dependent on the whims of other people. If the cleaning lady really had ruined something, could I have recovered? And if Avri hadn't decided to come over, it is reasonable to assume that there would have been no games and a good three hours more fighting the computer. It is not, however, reasonable to assume that there would have been any good to come out of that. Simply put, this first experience with the computer is too intense and too long. The actor seems incapable of controlling his own emotions sufficiently to get on with the scene, which would have been Gamer Mom and the blog. And that is something we're going to have to work on.
Score: 2/10


10 August 2010

Time allocation: Games night 4:51
Linux 2:55
Hanging out with Moshe 2:28
Mundane activities 2:07
IM chat 0:57
Composing 0:48
Shopping for clothes 0:47
Comics 0:31
Notes: I am so exhausted from fighting with Linux that I don't have the energy to write up any notes.
Performance review: Pathetic. This is Mory? A guy who's so tired out from using an operating system he picked for himself, that he can't even work on his game? What a waste of a day!
Score: 1/10


11 August 2010

Time allocation: The blog 7:10
Mundane activities 3:08
Installing UltraEdit on top of Windows 2000 on top of VirtualBox 1:59
Setting up widgets on my desktop 1:24
Cave Story 1:21
Transferring files from my old computer 0:09
Notes: In order to keep my days focused, I've made a habit of writing down several goals for the next day each night. Last night I wrote: "Goal: Write a blog post, and publish it. That is all." In order to write a blog post I needed UltraEdit, and in order to run UltraEdit I needed to install a virtual machine. Once I got settled with UltraEdit, I found that I'd forgotten the file with the interactive dialogue I've been working on on my old malfunctioning hard drive. So I plugged in my old computer again, copied the file over, and then (since it was already on, which will not be an everyday occurrence) started copying the less-important files that I hadn't bothered with earlier. As the computer transferred files I played Cave Story. I played until the computer crashed. Then I wrote the blog post, which partway through inspired me to set up my desktop.
Performance review: The whole day revolved around the blog post. I wish there were days that revolved around making games. But this is perfectly fine. It makes sense to worry about the blog before the game, considering how long it's been since the last post. My only concern is that the day could have been a little bit tighter. An hour less of mundane activities, and there could have been another activity in there.
Score: 9/10


12 August 2010

Time allocation: Mundane activities 5:38
Gamer Mom 2:37
Comics 2:36
Watching a movie 1:56
Watching TV 1:48
Wii Fit 0:17
Looking for meteors 0:17
Notes: I watched Kick-Ass, which was entertaining enough but overly long. I also watched the last episode of Sherlock, because in all the excitement of a new computer I'd totally forgotten about it. There was a meteor storm tonight, or so I heard. I went up to the roof, and between the lights everywhere and the cloudy sky, I couldn't see a thing.
Performance review: What a tremendous amount of wasted time. This is a Level 1 sort of day, and in Level 1 it would have scored pretty highly, but this is Level 2 and I'm not impressed. This day feels phoned-in, running through a checklist of generic activities for lack of any better ideas. Gamer Mom is on top, and it's been in need of being on top, but two and a half hours isn't so much, especially compared with yesterday's blogging. Where's the energy, man?
Score: 4/10


13-14 August 2010

Time allocation: Mundane activities 5:42
Making Linux versions of my games 5:04
Reading comics 1:47
Notes: The code for my games was written in a way that compensated for bugs in the BlitzMax programming language. Those bugs are not present in the Linux version of BlitzMax, though there seem to be other unexpected bugs here. I needed to write code which would recreate the flaws in the Windows version's approach, because it's easier than rewriting large portions of code. Once the games were running, I edited the games page and ran into some random problems in getting the programs onto the server which I eventually got around. I should note that I have not tested these programs on any computer other than my own, and so it is quite possible that they don't actually work. So if you have a Linux computer and they don't run, please let me know.
Performance review: Where's the rest of it?
Score: 2/10


15 August 2010

Time allocation: The blog 6:07
Comics 5:03
Mundane activities 3:01
Notes: I scored poorly over the last few days, so today was a self-control exercise. I did an hour of blog work, then an hour of reading comics, then back to the blog and repeat until there are no more hours left. If I'm in the middle of something when the hour's up, I put it down and continue an hour later. I wasted some time before starting the exercise, and I wasted some more time after deciding to stop. Also, in the middle I messed around with Linux a bit, which I'm not counting because nothing became of it.
Performance review: Three hours of wasted time is a bit much for an exercise in self-control. I would have liked for it to be closer to one hour total. It seems like the exercise would be more effective if an effort were made to keep a tight focus on the two activities.
Score: 8/10


16 August 2010

Time allocation: The blog 3:20
Mundane activities 3:18
Installing Windows 3.1 2:47
Cave Story 2:23
Hanging out with Avri 1:30 (-ish)
Skimming through a movie 1:03
Thinking about one of the Five Games 0:36
Gamer Mom 0:26
Notes: The time I spent with Avri is a rough estimation, because I forgot to write down the times. We played Resident Evil 4. Half the time in Cave Story was spent trying to do something that I needed to do but the game wouldn't let me do for no apparent reason. (It turned out to be a very silly design oversight, once I stumbled into the answer.) The other half was spent getting better at the final cave. I set up a virtual computer in VirtualBox with MS-DOS 6, intending to install Windows 3.1 on top of it. The end goal was to be able to run the original Myst on Linux, since WINE doesn't support it. Okay, I could probably just run it in the Windows 2000 virtual machine. But where's the fun in that? So I installed Windows 3.1, but the mouse didn't work right in it. So I checked the internet and found that DOSBox (the DOS emulator which I use to play DOS games like Eric the Unready) supports Windows 3.1. Who knew? So I installed Windows 3.1 there, installed a sound driver and a graphics driver, installed Quicktime for Windows 2, and finally I'm able to run Myst as though I have a computer from 1993. Which is pointless, but awesome. I continued (and finished) working on something for the blog from yesterday which you'll see in a week or so along with the next post. It's something I've been planning on doing for months. I skimmed through the movie Deadly Ray From Mars, which is a hyper-compressed edit of the serial Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars (which I've seen). In order to turn that 3:45 hour series into a 1:30 TV movie, they edited out all the "Will they survive?" moments and just jumped from plot point to plot point. I was curious to see what the end result was like. I had an idea for one of my future games, which makes it a lot less cliché than it would have been.
Performance review: That's a lot of notes. Notes on every activity but the wasted time and Gamer Mom. It's pretty clear what the priorities are here. There's so much wasted time here that only one activity manages to just barely get past it. But that activity is blogging, which we've already seen many hours of over the last few days. But to judge what this day actually is, rather than what I'd like it to be... this is a pretty good day. Utterly bizarre in its activities, productive, provocative. If blogging overtakes Gamer Mom for much longer I am going to have to lower points for it. But for now I think this is fine.
Score: 8/10


17 August 2010

Time allocation: Games night 5:44
The blog 3:28
Mundane activities 2:44
Cave Story 1:07
Watching TV 0:55
Notes: I continued writing the interactive blog post, and since it's clear it'll take a while I decided to upload the new title now instead of waiting for then. I hope you like it.
Performance review: I have no problem with all this blogging, just so long as it's not the main focus of every single day. Mundane activities are low, and other than the TV none of these activities are passive. But this repetition is getting tedious. Entertain me already.
Score: 4/10


18 August 2010

Time allocation: Gamer Mom 3:51
Reading comics 3:36
Dealing with the Super Mario Galaxy 2 issue 3:01
Eating out for Dena's birthday 2:16
Mundane activities 0:53
Wii Fit 0:20
Notes: Dena came home from America today, bringing some things I'd ordered with her: Super Mario Galaxy 2, and the comics Action Philosophers! and The Waiting Place. Super Mario insisted on running a Wii system update (which would erase my homebrew programs), so I finally found a way to get around that (and got the Wii Shop back in the process!), but the game still wouldn't run. I tried everything I could think of short of updating, but my Wii couldn't seem to read this brand-new disc. So I tried it in a neighbor's Wii, and got the exact same problem, meaning that it was definitively a defective disc. I had bought it from Amazon, so I asked them for a replacement. I'll get it in 11 days when my grandparents come for the wedding. I started reading The Waiting Place and got hooked. I also read a few of my usual comics that came out this week. Deciding that the problem with Gamer Mom was that it had grown past the point where I really understood it, I set out to make myself a map of the game for constant reference. I installed a mind-mapping program called XMind, but it turned out to be less usable than a pen and paper. So I took a pen and paper and started charting, coming to a much better understanding of my game. In the process, I discovered that I'd made two branches that were very similar, so I tied them together neatly. (That editing skill I picked up from collecting comics, coming in handy!)
Performance review: Only 53 minutes wasted? Damn impressive. Gamer Mom also makes its triumphant return, reminding me why I care at all about this character in the process. The Mario thing is a bad turn, but there's no freaking out on display- just dealing with the issue and moving on. You know, I think what's changed here really is Wii Fit. Maybe this is just superstition, but it seems like a little bit of exercise adds a lot of mental energy for the day. Whatever the reason, this is exactly the kind of day we're looking for.
Score: 10/10


19 August 2010

Time allocation: Reading comics 5:29
Mundane activities 5:06
Cave Story 1:48
IM chat with Benjy 1:40
Dealing with the Super Mario Galaxy 2 issue 0:21
Notes: I finished reading The Waiting Place. Excellent series.
Performance review: ...and we're right back to days like this. Great.
Score: 1/10


20-21 August 2010

Time allocation: Mundane activities 5:52
Composing 1:50
Watching TV 1:21
Cave Story 1:17
Reading comics 1:11
Notes: I watched through a very short video that Harel Amitai made, to try to figure out how to compose a soundtrack for it.
Performance review: Soundtrack, huh. Okay, that's kind of interesting. [sigh]
Score: 2/10


22 August 2010

Time allocation: Mundane activities 4:21
Gamer Mom 2:22
The blog 2:21
Cave Story 2:02
Games? online magazine 2:00
TV shows 1:49
Wii Fit 0:19
Notes: I made progress on the game and the interactive blog post (which is pretty much a game itself, but it's for a different purpose so it's counted separately). I reached the standard ending of Cave Story, then continued and got pretty far in the hard part of the game. (It's called "Hell", but it's quite fun and addictive.) A blog I follow linked to a new online magazine called Games?, which aims to be about "Games that offer a little more than they initially appear to; new ways to play, different perspectives on what a game can be." and is therefore of great interest to me. I joined the forum, and upon reading the first issue (which was interesting, and led me in all sorts of directions to get more information about games which I hadn't heard of) I took issue with a design flaw: the site has ads, and though Adblocker eliminates them, distracting gray rectangles remain where the ads had been. So I wrote a script to remove those with Greasemonkey, which was made harder by the fact that the page was created in Microsoft FrontPage. (Blecch!) It took a while, but eventually I was able to read the magazine without any intrusive elements at all.
Performance review: Oy, the mundanity. There's good work here, there's an interesting new direction in the preoccupation with this magazine... but it just doesn't make up for how much time was wasted. I like the character here, but I can't keep giving leeway for how long it takes getting there. Once you're on stage, you've gotta keep acting, ya know? You can't just stand around and expect the audience to stay with you. Look, here's the problem. The character we're going for is an overachiever. Overachievers don't sit around and browse the web casually, they keep moving. So even with all the good stuff going on here, the character isn't coming across. By the way: in order to pass this month, every single day from tomorrow on needs to be a perfect 10.
Score: 7/10


23 August 2010

Time allocation: Games night 4:55
TV shows 3:46
Mundane activities 3:09
Cave Story 2:09
A comic book 0:16
Wii Fit 0:12
Notes: I watched several episodes of Twin Peaks and The Muppet Show, and an unaired episode of Better Off Ted that recently found its way to the internet. I read an issue of the comic The Bulletproof Coffin. I left my grandparents -who'd just arrived from America for the wedding- to play strategy games next door, which I lost miserably but enjoyed all the same.
Performance review: That last note is key, I think. "Lost miserably but enjoyed all the same." There's something wrong with that. This day is utterly devoid of interest, appeal and good character.
Score: 0/10

It's no longer mathematically possible to win this month, so let's just call it now.

August 2010

Average score: 5.45
The month in review: This has been the weakest month yet. It seems that when greater efficiency is demanded, the quality of the results suffers. This is understandable. It is also, however, inadequate. The plan outlined in the post The Five Games is far-reaching -moreso than it may appear from that post, which did not elaborate on the nature of each game. The plan is a good one, but it cannot be achieved by a theoretically-possible human character within one lifetime if that character does not make the most of every minute he has. So the requirements next month will be no different than this month, but September will yield a passing score. The month of August is now over as far as scoring is concerned, but there are seven review-days left. These will be used as character-building exercises, to prepare for next month and the clean slate which it offers.
Verdict: TRY AGAIN


24 August 2010

Today was an exercise to make me more aware of the passage of time. On the hour and the half hour, I would stop whatever I was doing and switch activities. I was only allowed to return to that activity once two hours had passed from the time of stopping. And once an activity had been started, it needed to be continued until the end of the half hour. This rigid structure lasted until around 7:20 or so, when I went to dinner with my grandparents and family. I resumed the exercise upon our return.

25 August 2010

Instead of counting each individual activity, I sorted every minute of the day into two categories: "active" and "passive". But I was a bit generous, perhaps. I traveled to Jerusalem to audition for the play Ruddigore - on any normal day I would have counted that activity as 4 hours and 41 minutes, but only a few of those minutes were truly active. The rest of that time was spent on buses and waiting for over an hour for my turn to be auditioned. (I think it went very well, by the way.) The generosity I mentioned is that I counted all 4:41 as "active", because otherwise it would be tantamount to shooting myself in the foot to bother auditioning, which I consider to be a very worthwhile activity. Even with that kindness, "active" just barely passed "passive", 7:24 over 7:17.

26 August 2010

Same exercise as yesterday, because I suspected I hadn't mastered it. Sure enough, free of the interesting events of yesterday passiveness overtook activeness 5:37 to 5:09. The exercise still has not had its intended effect -active and passive uses of my time seem to blend together to the point where it's hard to distinguish one from the other. When I repeat this exercise again, I'm going to aim for activeness beating passiveness by a ratio or 2:1. Today was a short day because tomorrow morning I need to wake up early and go to Jerusalem for callbacks of Ruddigore.

27-28 August 2010

The goal was to take Friday and Saturday night as two separate days (even though Shabbat makes them both short), and try to make each day interesting and distinctive. I failed in this, as Saturday night had nothing going for it. (A 0/10 day if I ever saw one.) Friday, however, was a solid 9/10 thanks to the Ruddigore callbacks. In between the two, my parents and I went to P'sagot, where we stayed with Miriam's fiancé's family.

29 August 2010

This day contained only three activities, with more time spent on each one than would be usual. I continued the interactive blog post, finished off the TV series Twin Peaks, and started playing the game Super Mario Galaxy 2.

30 August 2010

As the day went on I wrote down not the valued activities but the activities which were mundane or misguided. I hoped this would encourage me to see the error of my ways. It did not. Looking at this piece of paper, I feel okay with having wasted so much time. And that's a problem. Looking back at these "character-building exercises", I think my mistake was not scoring. An eleven-point scale is not necessary; a simple "WIN" and "LOSE" would have sufficed. Without that basic indicator of success, there is no motivation to excel and the "exercises" become just a vacation by another name. Today I was supposed to finish my interactive blog post which I've been working on for most of the month, but instead I spent many hours in Super Mario Galaxy 2. It's not that I have a problem with Mario- it's a fantastic game, and a worthy use of my time. But it's not the right day for it. I've written very little on the blog this month, and I was really hoping to have the interactive post up by the end of it. Tomorrow will be too busy a day for any instructions to matter, so this month is thus concluded. May next month be much, much, much better.