Dan Fogelberg - Same Old Lang Syne

I heard "Same Old Lang Syne"on the radio this morning. I guess I should have expected it - it being New Year's Eve and all.

I mentioned it in a previous posting as being the best "story song" ever. It is a fabulous song.

You can find the following information about the song on Dan's website:

• It's based on a real event
• It took him over a year to write the song
• The melody has references to Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture". 

 Last time I mentioned it, I included a link to a live performance on YouTube. Here is a different live performance:

The Secret to Beating Procrastination

I have mentioned TED talks a number of times previously. I think the TED videos are a fabulous resource (imagine getting a series of experts to talk enthusiastically about their field of expertise). One of my New Year's Resolutions is going to be to watch more TED talks.

I happened to watch a few of them last night. And one of them struck me particularly.

Mel Robbins talked about the secret to getting the things you want in this talk.

Now she didn't talk about the Law of Attraction, or visualisation, or "intelligent dumbing down", "positive affirmation", or "mindfulness", or "neuro-linguistic programming".

She said the secret it simple. It is two words: "Force Yourself".

When I heard it, it was as if I had finally heard the answer to a question I had been asking for years. There is no secret. There is no magic. There are no easy answers. You need to become your own parent.

I read David Allen's "Getting Things Done" years ago. I was hopeful that it would contain the key for me. And it certainly told me how to maintain a list of things to get done. So I became really good at getting things onto my list. But it didn't really help me with getting things (particularly unpleasant things) off my list.

Now, to be frank, I didn't like Mel's presentation style. And I didn't think I would enjoy or get anything from the video. But I was wrong. If, like me, her approach rubs you the wrong way, then (if procrastination is a problem for you) I would encourage you to persevere and watch the whole video. It was the most worthwhile 22 minutes I have spent on the web in some time!


I would like to be able to say, at this point in my posting, that seeing Mel's video has changed my life. But it has only been a few hours to be honest. So I'll have to revisit this in a future posting. But I can say that the evidence of the first few hours has been very positive.

Here is a slide from her deck which sums up the whole message:

Christmas Shoes

I'm sure I would never have heard the song "Christmas Shoes" were it not for Christmas FM.

And even there, people are understandably reluctant to play it!

However it is a guilty pleasure.

Here's a link to a YouTube video where I won't add insult to injury by making you watch the video where people act out the song. In this version you can see "NewSong" performing the song, although there are clips from the movie of the same name starring Rob Lowe.

And here's evidence that I heard the song on Christmas FM earlier this evening:

Christmas FM

I can't believe I am only blogging about this now!

Every year we listed to Christmas FM (or "XMAS FM" as it appears on the car radio) and every year I blog about it.

This year we were listening to the test transmission before it even started transmitting officially!

And last week I had occasion to travel to Killarney and Cork so I was able to listen to the channel:

• In and near Dublin
• Near Limerick
• Near Cork

The charity this year is Age Action.

Well done as always to all involved.

Peter's Flexible RenAmiNg Kit (PFrank)

If you ever need to rename lots of files in Windows, then an ideal tool for the job is PFrank(the "Peter" in the name is not me, by the way).

You can get more information and download here.

It has tons of useful features including:

• Support for regular expressions
• The ability to preview changes before you perform them

And it's completely free.

I used it once when I was preparing to upload lots of files into SharePoint (to make sure that any characters which are not allowed were handled in advance)

Invaluable.

House M.D.

I have mentioned Hugh Laurie in previous posts. I have also mentioned the House TV show.

I can't believe that the final episode of House aired in May 2012 and I never blogged about the episode or the series.

The final episode, to be frank, was disappointing. The main problem I had with it was that there was no Cuddy. Obviously there was a falling out between Lisa Edelstein and the the production team and they couldn't find a way to reconcile it, even for the final episode. That was a shame. It definitely devalued the last episode.

The series had some great moments, and some great episodes.

The best episode by far IMHO was "Three Stories".  IMDB ratings put it in 5th place.

According to IMDB the best episodes are the consecutive "House's Head" and "Wilson's Heart".

I just watched these 3 episodes on Netflix. They are all very, very good.

I was bound to like House, of course. Firstly I am a huge Hugh Laurie fan. And secondly, the character of House is based my all-time favourite fictional creation: Sherlock Holmes. What a winning combination.

Here's a picture of the 2 boys from the final episode, just before they ride off into the sunset:

Tranquil Surrounds

I heard an advert on the radio recently where they were plugging somewhere to stay and they praised the "tranquil surrounds".

I'm sure they meant the "tranquil surroundings".

A definition of the noun "surround" is "a thing that forms a border or edging around an object".

A fireplace has surrounds. Some places to stay have tranquil surroundings.

Genuinity

I heard someone use the word "genuinity" on the radio the other day. I'm not sure if it was an advert or a politician speaking.

In any event, there is no such word. If you need a word for this concept here are two which will fill the bill: genuineness, authenticity.

No need to make up a new one!

Luc Besson's "Lucy"

A movie written and directed by Luc Besson, starring Scarlett Johansson, Morgan Freeman, and Min-sik Choi (from Oldboy, how could that not be great?

I don't know. But it's not.

It's a good idea, and it starts out well, but it just gets worse and worse as it goes along.

There are some fun moments (when Lucy is driving through Paris, for example) but they are few and far between.

Without wanting to spoil the story, there are parallels with "Limitless". But this is not nearly as good a movie. For one thing, when Bradley Cooper is enhanced in his movie, he is smart and charming. When Lucy is enhanced, she is cold, robotic and uninteresting.

I think there is supposed to be some kind of message in the movie. It finishes up with the line "Life was given to us a billion years ago, now you know what to do with it". To be honest, I have no idea!

In addition to Limitless, the movie also reminded me of 1963 movie "The Man with  the X-Ray Eyes" and 1960 movie "The Time Machine", 1968 movie "2001: A Space Odyssey", 1979 movie "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" and "The Matrix" movies.

IMDB scores it 6.5. Rotten Tomatoes scores it 66%. They're both being generous, IMHO.

Here's a still of Lucy just after she begins her transformation:

Last Kung Fu Monk

I would struggle to name my favourite movie of all time (I must have a go at tackling that in my blog soon).

But, thanks to a movie I watched part of the other night, I have no problem naming the worst movie I have ever seen.

"Last Kung Fu Monk", as you would guess from the title, is a martial arts movie. And obviously lots of martial arts movies aren't very good. But LKFM lowers the bar to a whole new level.

Not only are the acting, directing, and story awful, but the martial arts are not nearly good enough to save the movie.

And I have to make special mention of the editing. I have never seen anything like it before! People going to film school should be made to watch parts of this movie to see what not to do. It's unbelievable.

IMDB scores it 4.1.Rotten Tomatoes scores it 36%. They are both being kind.

In addition to everything else which is wrong with this movie, I can't accept that a Shaolin Monk could be completely inept at everything except martial arts. How is that possible!

Here's a shot from the movie where our "hero" takes on two girls!