Are you lazy?

[Valka D'Ur]

Was, in a time apparently lost to time, Prime Minister of a UN Security Council member. Called a snap election believing it would strengthen her position. Too bad.
(Of course I know you're jesting. Just in case someone does not remember... )

No, I really wasn't sure who you meant. I didn't realize until later.

In my defense, when I see the name "May" in a political context, I tend to think of Elizabeth May, the former leader of the federal Green Party here.

I am a lazy person, and I don't like it, my laziness is rooted in my difficulty to start doing something, but when it starts, it's rolling.

A piece of advice I give to some of the newer NaNoWriMo participants over on the forums there is that if you're frustrated by not knowing how to start your story from the beginning, start somewhere else. It was 3 years in August since I got addicted to the computer game I've been novelizing, and it's close to 3 years since I started the actual writing, for the November NaNoWriMo.

I had no idea where to start this thing. I only actually decided to go ahead with it when I got an ungodly case of writer's block with the project I'd previously intended, and opted to fast-forward my King's Heir project with only 3 weeks left (when the minimum daily word count is 1667, 7 days' worth adds up significantly).

But where to begin? Well, I knew where the game began. But I also had ideas for prequel material, sequel material, and didn't want to just drop the characters into everything like the game did.

The problem was that I hadn't actually decided where the beginning should be, precisely, and it was around November 7 or 8... I had only a fraction of the words I needed by that time, and had to make a fast decision.

So... I wrote the last couple of chapters of the game first. After all, that's where the basic story was supposed to end, and I had definitely decided on how I wanted to handle certain scenes. By that time I'd already had a notebook full of prep notes, including the game script that would be (mostly) worked into the story (I changed some things to make it flow more like a story and less like a game). So I knew the major plot points, and the question was just how to get there.

I'm satisfied with the results. And later, for other NaNoWriMo competitions over the next 3 years, I've done other parts of the story - both the basic game and the alternative version I decided to do (longer, darker, significant plot deviations from the game, but in my view it's a better story and still gets the true heir onto the throne).

So... what this all boils down to is this: When creating something artistic, or doing any other project or job that has a complex number of steps, the hardest part is figuring out where to start.

My start-in-the-middle approach won't work for a lot of things, of course. It won't work for all of my own artistic endeavors (you can't stitch a 3-D needlepoint item before you've cut and trimmed the canvas, for instance). But it's my approach to writing, and for me it works (as long as I know where the story is supposed to end up, of course). I've worked on this story every single day during the last 3 years, not just during the 3 months of NaNo. Sometimes it's just a sentence a day. During the NaNo months it's hundreds, or even thousands of words/day. But as you say, it's rolling.

on the topic of laziness, I'm like a mountain.

As with any geological feature or process, mountains are not lazy. They're just productive on a different time scale.

 

[H4run]

As with any geological feature or process, mountains are not lazy. They're just productive on a different time scale.

Agreed, of course, but what I meant is more in the sense that it is unmoveable, my laziness would not flinch at anything, it's a giant.

 

[warpus]

As with any geological feature or process, mountains are not lazy. They're just productive on a different time scale.

Going to remember this for when somebody calls me lazy. "I'm not lazy, just productive on a different time scale" *walks away*

 

[H4run]

Going to remember this for when somebody calls me lazy. "I'm not lazy, just productive on a different time scale" *walks away*

A typical argument of lazy people, a powerful one also.

 

[warpus]

Lazy people of the world, unite!! Later

 

[bernie14]

I feel like you'd have to be pretty big before a reduction-driven overhead program beyond a simple audit would cost less than it would usably free resources.

Well, he's an Amazon regional plant manager

 

[AmazonQueen]

Lazy people of the world, unite!! Later

Why put off until tomorrow what you can not do at all?

 

[H4run]

Lazy people of the world, unite!! Later

Good idea, lets unite after this last cig, oh wait, can we do it tomorrow instead? I just remember that I have things to do, I'm really sorry, gosh!

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Going to remember this for when somebody calls me lazy. "I'm not lazy, just productive on a different time scale" *walks away*

As soon as I posted that, I realized it would have made a great Button Wisdom saying. I have quite a collection that I bought over the years at science fiction conventions. Some of my favorites include:

Portable Non-smoking Zone
Only Visiting This Planet
The meek shall inherit the Earth. The rest of us will go on to the Stars.
2 + 2 = 5 for sufficiently large values of 2.
Beam me sideways, Scotty! No one here knows which way is up!

 

[warpus]

My other t-shirt is a vest

 

[Hygro]

Well, he's an Amazon regional plant manager

In a better world, this would have a very different meaning

 

[Sommerswerd]

USA #1 is the best at everything!... including being the worst at everything because we are the laziest at everything!! U S A! U S A!

 

[warpus]

United States of Apathy

 

[Sommerswerd]

The first time I ever visited Canada, many, many, years ago, as a young child, the first thing I noticed that was different about it, even before I noticed the flashing green traffic lights (super weird BTW ), was how clean Canada was. It was just so... clean. No litter all along the side of the highway, no trash and debris strewn in the streets...

It was almost as if, people didn't even throw their food wrappers and used napkins and apple cores and cigarette butts out of the windows or something... or people were actually picking up after themselves and taking their trash, roadkill and damaged vehicle parts to proper disposal receptacles instead of just leaving it or dumping it in ditches on the side of the road. Blew my mind, cause in USA #1, lot's of us can't be bothered with any of that... way too busy being lazy and thoughtless.

To be fair to my countrymen... we're alot better than we were in the 80's, but still, nowhere near as clean as I remember Canada being every time I've been there. It's been a while though... so maybe you guys have gotten your slob game on point by now.

 

[warpus]

If you ever visit Japan you will have an even larger "whoa it's so clean" reaction. Your reaction of how clean Canada was.. was basically the same as my reaction when I was walking around Tokyo, and comparing the level of cleanliness to what we have in random Canadian cities or whatever.

The flashing green traffic lights.. Do you mean advance green lights for certain lanes/directions?

 

[Valka D'Ur]

The first time I ever visited Canada, many, many, years ago, as a young child, the first thing I noticed that was different about it, even before I noticed the flashing green traffic lights (super weird BTW ), was how clean Canada was. It was just so... clean. No litter all along the side of the highway, no trash and debris strewn in the streets...

It was almost as if, people didn't even throw their food wrappers and used napkins and apple cores and cigarette butts out of the windows or something... or people were actually picking up after themselves and taking their trash, roadkill and damaged vehicle parts to proper disposal receptacles instead of just leaving it or dumping it in ditches on the side of the road. Blew my mind, cause in USA #1, lot's of us can't be bothered with any of that... way too busy being lazy and thoughtless.

To be fair to my countrymen... we're alot better than we were in the 80's, but still, nowhere near as clean as I remember Canada being every time I've been there. It's been a while though... so maybe you guys have gotten your slob game on point by now.

My first encounter with this "Canada clean/USA dirty" concept was the first time I went with my family on a cross-border shopping trip between BC and Washington. No sooner had we crossed the border than I noticed how poorly the American highway was maintained, how scruffy the boulevards and ditches were, and how much garbage there was along the way. And this was in the '70s.

I remember one time when I was maybe about 6 years old, my mother and I took a drive along what is now called the QE2 (formerly Highway 2) near the acreage where we lived. We went in several different directions, picking up pop and beer bottles that had been chucked out of people's vehicles into the ditches. Back in those days (1969), the depot only paid 2 cents/bottle, so it took a long time to come up with enough to make it worth the trip into town to turn them in for cash. I guess most people didn't consider it worth the effort, so they just threw the empties out anywhere, figuring somebody would be along to clean it up.

My mother considered it worth the effort, as it helped to pay the milkman (we had milk delivery back then).

Nowadays, empties pay more - 10 cents for containers less than 1 litre and 25 cents for containers 1 litre and up (personally I think the 4 litre jugs should pay 50 cents, but whatever). These prices are for pop, milk, juice, water, drinkable yogurt, and nutrition drinks containers (ie. Boost, Glucerna, Ensure) - whether bottles, jugs, cans, or tetra boxes. Maddy's cat milk containers aren't eligible, even though there's no physical difference between her milk boxes and my juice boxes other than mine come with straws and hers don't. I don't know what the deposits/enviro fees are for beer and liquor containers. Deposits = money, while enviro fees are not refundable and are supposed to go toward environmentally friendly waste disposal.


You want a story about how clean Canada is? I read this many years ago... there was a film company shooting some kind of cop/crime movie in Toronto, and the film crew considered the alley they were filming in to be too clean (the movie was set in the U.S.). So they brought in some old papers and garbage and messed the alley up to look more authentic. They did a scene or two, and then broke for lunch.

When they came back, they discovered that the garbage and papers were gone. Apparently some people had come across it, decided it was a disgusting mess, and cleaned it up.

 

[warpus]

When I visited my sister in South Carolina, years ago now, I stayed at their place for a couple of nights while they were working. There were no sidewalks at all in their neighbourhood. To walk to the nearby mall/plaza, which was like 15 minutes away on foot, you had to walk right on roards or on people's lawns. This was weird to me because it's not like this was some village, it was an average sized town. Not a metropolis by any means, but it just confused me.

My brother in law was basically like.. "Yeah, we don't have that much tax revenue, so there is no money to fix roads and stuff". Indeed, the roads there were really bad too. Lots of potholes and all that junk.

But hey, when I went to a restaurant I could tip 25%, cause the taxes were so low I might as well. Food in restaurants was very cheap too, compared to Canada.

Strange priorities...

 

[Valka D'Ur]

When I visited my sister in South Carolina, years ago now, I stayed at their place for a couple of nights while they were working. There were no sidewalks at all in their neighbourhood. To walk to the nearby mall/plaza, which was like 15 minutes away on foot, you had to walk right on roards or on people's lawns. This was weird to me because it's not like this was some village, it was an average sized town. Not a metropolis by any means, but it just confused me.

My brother in law was basically like.. "Yeah, we don't have that much tax revenue, so there is no money to fix roads and stuff". Indeed, the roads there were really bad too. Lots of potholes and all that junk.

But hey, when I went to a restaurant I could tip 25%, cause the taxes were so low I might as well. Food in restaurants was very cheap too, compared to Canada.

Strange priorities...

Residential sidewalks weren't really a thing in downtown Vernon, BC for all of the years that we went there for holidays. You had to decide whether to walk on the grass or the pavement and hope nobody was going to come along too fast.

Mind you, there are no sidewalks on either side of the driveway that leads to the parking lot of the building I'm living in. This means it is unsafe for me to even think of trying to walk anywhere in this neighborhood unless I take a chance that I'll make it across the street and onto the sidewalk there before a car comes either around the corner or up the hill and flattens me. We really need a traffic light there, as this building is really close to a very busy intersection.

I could access a sidewalk on this side if I left via the back door, but it leads out to a ramp that is too steep for walkers and wheelchairs to navigate safely without help. And then there's the same issue of how to get across the street, because the intersection is right there and there's no traffic light.

Lack of sidewalks can be good sometimes, though. In unenlightened cities that take no notice of the problems faced by mobility-disabled people, it at least means you don't have to try to get your wheeled device over a curb with no dip in it.

 

[warpus]

I am very pro sidewalks designed to be used by people of all creeds. I can understand some villages and some streets not having sidewalks, but entire city neighbourhoods without sidewalks is just.. lazy. Or cheap. It forces people like me to walk all over people's lawns, which brings down property values and so on

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I am very pro sidewalks designed to be used by people of all creeds. I can understand some villages and some streets not having sidewalks, but entire city neighbourhoods without sidewalks is just.. lazy. Or cheap. It forces people like me to walk all over people's lawns, which brings down property values and so on

Back when I had a house, the Canada Post guy would walk across the neighbor's lawn and my lawn because he couldn't be bothered to use the sidewalk. He was creating a noticeable path and damaging the grass. I kept telling him to use the sidewalk, and when he mouthed off about it, I told him he would be reported.

He didn't believe me, and I did. He wasn't happy about it, and there were times when he still walked across the grass, and I really have no sympathy for him wanting to save 30 seconds. Once upon a time I had a paper route and we were told to NEVER take a short cut across lawns. Even one complaint would mean we'd lose our monthly bonus.

I never lost my monthly bonus.