What Can You Learn From Gaming?

In my last post, I described how playing Quake 4 was wasting so much time. The playing was fine. It was challenging, fun and there was a reasonable story. It's just that loading saved games when you're killed by the opponent took so much time, the game got boring.

Well, I gave up on that and moved on to another game: Halo, Combat Evolved. They are like night and day in the loading saved games department. When you die in Halo, you immediately spawn back to life at the last automatic checkpoint that was made - and those are made frequently. Bottom line? Today and yesterday were a lot of fun.

That got me thinking. Some of us are very tenacious (read stubborn) and tend to keep trying to finish things until we do - no matter how much frustration, or irritation, or wasted time it takes. While that can lead to a certain feeling of accomplishment, you have to wonder if it's really worth the effort and frustration. In the end, you are usually just left with a bad taste in your mouth about the activity itself.

There is another approach. Give activities a real chance, and if they are uninteresting, boring or other wise a seemingly waste of time, drop them and move on to something else. That's not an original thought. I've heard of people doing it with books. They might read the first 2-5 chapters, and it the author hasn't caught their imagination by then, they put the book down and move on to the next one.

I did the same with Quake 4. I played here and there during the day for about 3 days, and gave it a good try. It was just plain frustrating waiting for those saves to load, so I dropped it and started Halo. Now I know I can play a whole series of games and enjoy them, rather than doggedly try to finish them, just to finish them.

That' s probably not a bad model for business either. If, after giving an activity a good, honest shot, you are just getting frustrated - move on to something else, or if it is something that has to get done, outsource it to someone else. Life is too short to waste time getting frustrated, when we could be having a lot of fun making progress towards our goals.

So yes, I think you can learn from gaming. What do you think?

Quake 4

Yep, today was a flashback. What do you do on a day where the wind is howling and the rain in pounding on the skylight?

I spent pretty much the entire day playing Quake 4. Well, playing Quake and waiting for saved games to load after the bad guys got me. On the XBox, the saved Quake 4 games take about 40s each time they load. If you get terminated a lot like I do, you play for 10s and then wait for 40s to play again. Perhaps I need a new strategy? Heh.

It all reminded me of real life. Your time to shine is usually pretty short, compared to the time it takes in preparation. That's just the way it is.

Left Over

I found this little berry in the park at Green Timbers the other day. The red of the berry and the green of the moss really stood out from the dead leaves and logs around it.

I used the on-camera flash to give me just a little catchlight to draw attention to the berry. What do you think? Did it work?

The forest seems pretty dead at this time of year, but if you look, you'll find patches of fungi coming to life in the rotting logs and leaves, and an occasional berry patch here and there.

I must have seen 5 or 6 different fungi, ranging from the usual conchs to jelly-like species on old logs. Actually, that might make an interesting project in the future - to photograph as many fungi in the park as I can find. But that's another day.

Most of the berries seemed about done, but this one berry seemed to be in its prime. There's always one, right ;-)

It's easy to lose track in these fast times, and I find that there is nothing like a slow walk in the woods to help me reconnect with nature and centre myself. It's a nice start to the new year, and it usually results in at least a few pictures.

Exercise with a humming top

As I entered Green Timbers Park in Surrey yesterday, I heard this faint hum that got louder and louder as I walked along the Willow trail. Turns out the hum was coming from this gent doing his exercises with a humming top, up on a knoll overlooking the lake. You could hear the noise all over the centre of the park.

He was nice enough to let me take some photos while he went through his routine. The actual top was red and yellow, and the widest part of the red section had some holes and cavities that caught the wind as it spun. That section narrowed down to a metal section and then widened slightly to the bottom yellow blimp. He kept it spinning by moving two short poles connected with a short line stretched between.

He was good! He twirled, danced and did squats, all while keeping his top twirling and humming. When he tired, he signalled for me to try, but lazy old me declined. It looked interesting though. He told me the name of the thing, but it was in Chinese, and try as I might, I'd forgotten it by the time I was out of the park.

Anybody know what it's called in English, other than a humming top?

#Mustlearntotakenotes.

Happy New Year

Don't you just love this time of year?

The bloggers are doing their annual reviews and publishing their goals for the coming year. Tweeters are passing along inspirational quotes to start 2012 off on a positive note. All the top 'x' things and lists are showing up and they probably will for another week or so.

All in all, everyone seems to be on a positive note on January 1, and that often last through at least the first few weeks of the year.

At Green Timbers Park this morning, it seemed that everyone was going out of their way to be friendly with everyone else. Pretty much everyone on the trails had a smile and a Happy New Year for those they passed. People were actually catching fish in the little lake in the park, and I watched a grebe do the same. (BTW, the fisherman released his catch; the grebe didn't. Both were happy ;-)

It would take some concerted effort, but I bet we could keep that friendly, optimistic spirit up and going for the whole of 2012 if we really tried. What do ya think. Shall we give it a try?