Freedom Friday – Page 13

Monotasking

Posted on July 11, 2014July 3, 2014 by Jack Flacco

Monotasking is one of those words you hear and quickly dismiss as nonsense. After all, we live in a world where we don’t have time to dedicate 100% of our time to one thing. Right? Multitasking has always been the way to go. But for today’s Freedom Friday post, I want to talk about monotasking vs. multitasking and the benefits of doing one thing and doing it well.

Let’s get some of the definitions out of the way first.

Multitasking: The handling of more than one task at the same time by a single person.

Monotasking: The handling of one task at one time by a single person.

For a long time I’ve been a proponent of multitasking. Who wouldn’t be? The mere definition entices the idea that someone can become twice as productive as, say, performing one task at a time.

But how effective are we when we tackle more than one task at a time? Let’s put it this way, if you have a 24-hour day, it is physically impossible to squeeze 48 hours from it. Experts disagree. Who hasn’t written an email while on the phone? Who hasn’t prepared a post while chatting in a meeting? Who hasn’t checked the sports scores while supposedly researching for their next assignment?

There’s this movement taking place in social circles called Tabless Thursday. It promotes monotasking by encouraging everyone to ditch the tabs in their browsers and work in one window for the entire day. The movement supports one’s ability to produce quality work at the risk of ignoring efficiency.

I’m all up on these interesting trends and for years, I’ve been an efficient multitasker. For instance, I’ve written posts, watched TV and read all at the same time. Don’t ask me if I remember any of it because I’ll tell you the same thing I’ve told my wife when she asks me if I hear her voice while I’m reading an article on the internet. The answer is a resounding no. Oh, I’m sure I was efficient, knocking off tasks from my to-do list as if they were all important, but how good had I produced the work on a scale of 1-10?

Multitasking serves its purpose in an aggressive environment where products have to go out the door quickly. However, monotasking has its purpose, too.

Whenever I have to get something important finished, I now turn off the phone, disconnect the internet, hide my task bar on my laptop, and type furiously at my keyboard until I’m done. It’s amazing how much I can accomplish without interruption.

The other argument for monotasking pertains to the quality of work. This, I can’t judge. I can only go by the reaction of the audience to see if my monotasking ways are effective. All I know is I can get the work done at a faster pace considering I have fewer distractions to keep me from accomplishing my goal.

What are you, a multitasker or a monotasker?

RANGER MARTIN AND THE ALIEN INVASION, on sale October 21.

What do you think of monotasking? How would you go about adding monotasking in your workflow?

Freedom Friday

Without Our Phones

Posted on July 4, 2014July 3, 2014 by Jack Flacco

When did we all of a sudden become so tethered to our phones? Whenever I take the train into the city, everyone has a device of some sort keeping them entertained. I’m not talking about that. I’m talking about “the itch”. If you don’t know what I mean, the itch is this compulsion to check our phones. Constantly.

What would the world be without devices?

I’ve spoken about this subject before, but more from the time management, productivity angle. This Freedom Friday post is more from a rant perspective. As you know, I don’t rant on my blog—at least my regular readers know this. I try to keep things on the lighter side. Even my zombie-related posts have a thread of dark humor I weave through it, and for those who can see it, I’m grateful. Sometimes, the only way I’ll know if I did a good job of it is when I get feedback stating such.

But this constant obsession with checking our devices has gotten way, way out of hand.

I’m writing this from the standpoint that I, too, am a big offender. When my book came out last year, I couldn’t go a few minutes without checking my phone. With a blog, a twitter account, facebook page, Amazon and email, I had my hands full. Literally. Things did settle down a few months later, yet what a crazy time that was.

Then there’s the intimacy issue.

When I’m at the mall, I’ll sometimes sit at a bench and watch people. Twenty years ago, people watching used to be fun. Husbands would fight with their wives about the cost of a new dress. Wives would fight with their husbands for checking out the new blond cashier over at the deli. This happened more often than you think, probably still does. And parents would get mad at their kids for wanting that shiny new game featured in the window of the mall’s biggest toy store.

Nowadays, everyone has their head down and they’re not talking with one another.

Ah, but the counterargument to that observation is that we’re all being social online. It’s a different way to communicate. Yes, I agree. It is different. The nuances people use to get their point across while communicating online disappears. Sure we have the smileys, winks and frowns, but where is the involuntary brush of the hair when someone’s lying? Or seeing them bite their nails in conversation because of anxiety? Or hearing the inflection of their voice when they’re about to fall to pieces? Or the tender touch when opening our hearts?

We’re living in a world where bits of information has replaced reality.

What would the world be like if we’d put away our devices?

RANGER MARTIN AND THE ALIEN INVASION, on sale October 21.

What about you? Do you find it difficult to put your phone down? What would you do differently to keep that phone disconnected and experience life as reality?

Getaway

Posted on June 27, 2014May 8, 2017 by Jack Flacco

A few weeks ago, my wife and I left the northern climes of our small town and travelled to Mississauga, Ontario for our annual getaway. No kids. No family. And no responsibility. Just the two of us. We settled on a small inn off the highway where close by we had access to a huge commercial center featuring a movie theater, restaurants and a mini golf place. We were in our element. For Freedom Friday, let me tell you how it went.

For those of you who may not know, we’ve had our share of travelling and this time around, we wanted to stick around our own province. Nothing quite compares to exploring the surrounding region and having fun doing so.

Arriving at the inn, we unpacked quickly and that evening, we headed to an all-you-can-eat sushi bar. My wife’s never been to one and it was an experience for her. I knew exactly what we were in for, so I walked her through it. This particular sushi bar provided customers with iPads at the table to order their food. The uninitiated would find the food choices overwhelming. Folks, the point of a sushi bar is not to order everything in one shot, but to experience a relaxed atmosphere while eating at a leisurely pace. Customers tend to make the common mistake when they enter an all-you-can-eat restaurant to load their plates and then they have a table full of food they can’t finish. Guess what? The restaurant charges for leftovers. Surprise.

I’m happy to say, I taught my wife to pace herself. We ordered light at first, going for small avocado salads, headed for medium dishes such as maki and sushi, then we hit the big dishes like Salmon Teriyaki and chicken fried rice. By the time we were done, three hours had passed and we were ready for a movie. We took a long walk talking about our life together, the kids, our family, then went to see the new X-Men: Days of Future Past on opening night in 3D. Wow. Wow is all I can say. Great movie.

For all you romantics out there, yes, we held hands and yes, we snuggled.

The next morning, the inn provided a free continental breakfast where we had a chance to relax without the stress of being somewhere, having to do something or needing to finish quickly. We—wait for—took it easy. I’ll tell you something, whenever I hit vacation mode, something happens in me that always makes me want to sleep. A switch in me says, “Jack’s in vaca mode, time to shut down the factory.” I’m quite all right with it, too, since my wife’s the same way. It feels as if all the stress washes away like a blanket pulled from a bed.

Later that morning I hopped into the pool and had a nice one-hour swim, and followed it up with a long stay in the Jacuzzi. When I got back to our room, we hit a local Greek restaurant and talked for a long time about our future. I don’t know about other couples, but for us, we’re always thinking about what’s next in our lives. We purposely have long conversations mapping our destiny with little interference from anyone’s influence. If this is what freedom is, then I’m all for it.

After the restaurant, we went to see the new Godzilla movie in 3D. You can tell we’re avid moviegoers. Boy, were we surprise. Incredible movie in 3D is all I can say. By the way, the theater that afternoon was, how should I say, ice cold, it felt like I had walked into a meat packing plant. Do theaters really have to be that cold? But maybe it was me. After all, I had a T-shirt and shorts on, but I’m not complaining.

Yes, more snuggle time with my baby.

That evening we stayed in and had fun playing video games together on my tablet while sitting on the bed watching TV. Nothing beats that alone time I spend with my wife away from the stresses of the world.

The next morning, we woke up late, had breakfast, packed our things and left the inn refreshed and feeling great about the coming months. From there, we ended up at the glow in the dark mini golf place. My wife cleaned up the game. Eighteen holes of pure defeat for me as she pounded par or strokes under par to blow me away. She had her game face on and totally trashed my game. Gosh, I’m proud of her.

From there, we popped over to the same sushi bar from a couple of nights ago and feasted for hours until we left to pick up the kids that afternoon. By the time we got home, we had all we could do to keep from going to bed early. That’s when I knew we had an incredible time.

Writing this today, I can’t wait until our next getaway. I’m not sure where we’re going, but we’re certainly again going to have the time of our lives.

RANGER MARTIN AND THE ALIEN INVASION, on sale October 21.

Do you take getaways with your significant other? Where’s the last place you’ve gone?

Freedom Friday

1999

Posted on June 20, 2014June 19, 2014 by Jack Flacco

I am convinced that 1999 was one of the best years in film. I didn’t notice this until one night when I was looking through my DVD collection and came upon The Matrix, a movie about a reality within a reality. Flipping the box, I came upon the date and remembered Fight Club came out that same year. This led me also to note American Beauty and Magnolia released that year, too.

I have a few minutes, grab a chair, and let’s talk movies for Freedom Friday.

Did you know The Mummy and Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace came out in 1999? Both mega-blockbusters took in just under $1.5 Billion. That’s a lot of money, especially for back then.

What thrills me, though, is not the blockbusters, but the movies that have become annual events here at my home. Movies like Drop Dead Gorgeous, Analyze This, and Payback get a yearly viewing from me. Why? They’re fun movies! Whenever I’m bored, which happens more often than you think, I grab one of these movies, ease into my couch and let the story carry me away. I’m like a little kid wanting to watch the same movie again, even after having watched it twice already in a row. I never tire of these.

Anyway, about 1999—the world held its breath wondering if the lights would go out because of that supposed nasty Y2K bug that would have otherwise crippled North America’s very capable power grid. Of course, Y2K came and went with not even so much as a whimper. But the movies remained and the stories tempted their audience to be different. The majority of films imposed the message on us that we humans are unique, different, and filled with hope, and that we should go ahead and fulfill our dreams.

Here is a list of movies that hit theaters that year and why I feel they merit more than an once-in-a-lifetime viewing:

January—The Thin Red Line: A military movie gone crazy. So many cameos hit the film that I can hardly keep up including George Clooney, John Travolta and John Cusack.
February—Payback: Mel Gibson as the bad guy out to settle a score. Notable mentions go to October Sky, Office Space and 8mm.
March—Analyze This: Robert De Niro spoofing his mob boss roles from the past. Hilarious. Notable mentions go to Cruel Intentions, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and The Matrix, of course.
April—Go: One drug deal, three different points of view. Incredible.
May—The Mummy: A mummy comes back to life and eats people’s body parts. Sounds like a modern zombie movie. Notable mentions go to Election, and Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace.
June—Tarzan: Disney’s animated version. Great song by Phil Collins.
July—Drop Dead Gorgeous: A mockumentary about teen beauty pageants. Notable mentions go to American Pie and The Blair Witch Project.
August—The Sixth Sense: The kid sees dead people. Scary as heckfire. Notable mentions go to Dick and The Iron Giant.
September—American Beauty: Kevin Spacey has a midlife meltdown. Awesome! Notable mention goes to Double Jeopardy.
October—Fight Club: Don’t talk about Fight Club. Notable mentions go to Mystery, Alaska, Three Kings, and Bringing Out the Dead.
November—Dogma: A loophole in Catholic dogma may undo creation. Hey, anything with George Carlin is funny. Notable mentions go to The Bone Collector, The Insider, Sleepy Hollow and Toy Story 2. You didn’t really think I was going to forget this one, did you?
December—Magnolia: Multiple plotlines that all intertwine somehow. Notable mentions go to The Green Mile and Man on the Moon.

Quite a list, isn’t it? Can you believe these great movies came out all in one year? I suppose the fear of the Y2K bug consuming civilization made for a situation where creative juices flowed freely.

Speaking of which, I have to head off. I think later tonight I’ll pop in Fight Club and have Jack’s complete lack of surprise engulf me.

RANGER MARTIN AND THE ALIEN INVASION, on sale October 21.

What 1999 movie do you remember as the one you cannot forget?

Freedom Friday, Other Things

The Sims

Posted on June 13, 2014May 10, 2017 by Jack Flacco

For a few weeks now, I’ve been rediscovering an old game I thought I had put away for good. My youngest is to blame since all I’ve been hearing in the house is The Sims 3 theme song. No, I haven’t been playing The Sims 3, but instead dusted off my copy of The Sims 2 and have lost myself in the pixels somewhere between my mouse and the game environment.

Electronic Arts' The Sims Games — Electronic Arts’ The Sims Games

If you haven’t played any of The Sims games, it’s an experience. As I’d mentioned, it’s been a rediscovery for me, given I have a virtual canvas to create the family, community and town I’ve always dreamed of. It’s a thrill to place myself in the game as a character to see what I’m capable of within the confines of a controlled environment. I say this with a smirk on my face knowing how deceptive a game environment can be. I’ll explain more about that later.

Now, The Sims 2 is an old game according to today’s technology standards. It came out back in the mid-2000s and soon spawned multiple stuff and expansion packs, adding to the game’s potential as life’s little petri dish.

I’ll never forget when I opened the game interface for the very first time. I really didn’t know what to do. I mean, here was this small community with floating green diamonds over the houses, and I had no clue as to what the goal was. First, I’d thought it was another SimCity game complete with animated people to control, but then I didn’t see the people. Second, I’d thought I needed to create houses and create a virtual economy. Boy, did I have a lot to learn. It took several attempts to understand I had to play the game at a more familiar level, the family level. Once I discovered how to enter the homes in the town, life became interesting. All it took was a double-click of my mouse and I unlocked a virtual home complete with appliances, electronics and kids fighting. No different from any other family.

Anyway, that was the first time I’d played the game almost a decade ago. Today, since The Sims 2 is open-ended, my goals have changed. I play a more leisurely game. Contrary to previous years, I haven’t built my own house yet complete with pool, Jacuzzi and big screen TV, but I have explored the various other communities available through the expansion packs with my Sim. My Sim now knows how to swim, paint, play darts and chess, workout and countless of other activities. My Sim puts me to shame for my sitting on my rump in a passive stupor.

As for the controlled environment I’d mentioned earlier, it is rather controlled, yes. You can’t kill your Sim on purpose, but you can certainly try. Nothing prevents a player to throw their Sim into a pool and removing the ladder or tossing them into a room and removing the door, thereby starving them to death. Or it doesn’t even prevent a player from starting a fire in the kitchen and watching the Sim go up in flames in a ball of charred cinder.

Fun stuff for a Freedom Friday, huh?

My favorite part about The Sims 2 is decorating the house with Christmas props, presents and all that jolly yuletide madness, and celebrating Christmas year-round. Better still, how about Halloween all year long? Who wouldn’t want all those spooky decorations plastered all over the walls and furniture? I know I would. Who knows maybe one day, the zombies will come knocking on the door.

RANGER MARTIN AND THE ALIEN INVASION, on sale October 21.

Have you played The Sims 2 or any of the other Sims games? If not, what is your favorite game?

Freedom Friday, Other Things

Love It or List It

Posted on June 6, 2014May 10, 2017 by Jack Flacco

Having recently upgraded our bathroom fixtures in our home, my wife and I have come to appreciate a home improvement show here in Canada called Love It or List It. The show details a completion between a home designer and a real estate agent in the Greater Toronto Area. I’ll talk more about that later. The brilliance of the show is in asking the simple question: If you had a choice with improving your home or buying another, which would you choose? Would you love it or list it?

Living north about an hour from Toronto, gives my family the opportunity to enjoy quiet small town living, but at the same time, about five minutes away, we have all the retail chains and big box stores to shop at when we need to replenish our cupboards. That’s why taking a trip to Home Depot makes for a rather uneventful moment, considering they’re down the street from us.

Getting back to Love It or List It, the show is a gentlemen’s competition between a home designer (Hilary Farr) and a real estate agent (David Visentin). The typical set up consists of family members who have either grown bored of their current home and want to move or they want to live through a renovation nightmare while they consider if they’ve made the right decision asking the producers of the show for help. In all cases, one of the members of the family wants to move while the other half wants to stay.

Once called into the fray, both designer and agent have budgets to work with and a list of must-haves. During the course of the show, as the construction crew demolishes the family’s current home and prepares it for much-needed changes according to the designer’s plans, the real estate agent shows the family home listings within their budget, but not necessarily in their neighborhood.

The competition is over after the family views their current home’s renovations and has to decide if the improvements merit sticking around a little longer. If the owners decide it’s time for a change, they will choose from among the listings the real estate agent presented.

It really is a fun show with lots of drama and funny moments. Something always goes wrong in the renovation that delays the timeline, pushes costs through the roof (pun intended) or makes the owners pull their hair out in frustration. Things like tree roots clogging the sewer line, termites, leaky roof, foundation leaks in the basement, mold in the walls, stairs not meeting code, improper furnace venting that may cause carbon monoxide poisoning, sagging ceiling due to a leaky pipe, carpenter ants, bad grading on the outside walls of the home, and rewiring nightmares will make any homeowner’s head spin.

Throughout it all, my wife and I’ll watch the show to garner new ideas of things we could do with our own home. The best part is seeing how other people decorate their homes, which in turn, inspires us to follow the same approach.

I hope you enjoyed this Freedom Friday peek into my family’s viewing habits. There’s more to what I watch than zombies.

RANGER MARTIN AND THE ALIEN INVASION, on sale October 21.

What do you like about home improvement shows? What has inspired you with your home decorating ideas?

Freedom Friday

Friday Tradition

Posted on May 30, 2014May 22, 2014 by Jack Flacco

Weekends are for movies. Friday nights are for science fiction or retro. I’m not sure what I’m watching tonight, but whatever it is, I’m sure it will be perfect. Last weekend I watched The King of Comedy with Robert De Niro and Jerry Lewis, a Martin Scorsese film about an obsessed comic who goes too far with wanting to be on TV. Not science fiction, the 80’s movie was nothing short of clean fun.

The other day I watched Mars Attacks! with pretty much everyone who was anyone in Hollywood in 1996 starring in the flick. This proved to be another hilarious romp, but this time it was science fiction.

I’m not sure when this tradition started. All I remember is how Friday nights became The X-Files night and once the show had moved to Sundays, I had a massive void to fill. Incidentally, one of the first movies I watched for a Friday night was Mars Attacks! and it became a type of template for what I wanted out of the evening.

All the Men in Black movies became a Friday night staple at my home, too. They deliver on fun with a twist of science fiction. The wonderful thing I like most about the movies is their consistent 50’s theme while set in the 90’s and 2000’s. For instance, the flying saucers, which everyone knows is nothing more than a throwback to the old sci-fi flicks that hit the drive-ins in small towns across America during the cold war, make a valiant appearance.

Part of my Friday night viewing pleasure is retro viewing. I’m talking about watching one of those 80’s action flicks with plenty of cheesy lines, and a thousand explosions that would cause serious sonic damage to the structural integrity of my house’s foundation. We’re talking Sylvester Stallone and Arnold Schwarzenegger damage here. I’m a sucker for those movies. Anything but the movie Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot will work here. If it’s Predator, I’ve seen it a gazillion times. If it’s any of the Rambo movies, I’ve seen them another gazillion times. Nothing quite beats a muscleman hero with a smart-alecky attitude to get my testosterone pumping full throttle. These movies never cease to entertain me on a Friday night.

Lastly, I do hold a special place for those one-offs where no other night will do to watch the movie other than a Friday night. I’m talking about real bad movies. The kind of movie that would embarrass your mother if she were watching it with you. The kind of movie that would cause someone to have the desire to walk across a busy freeway. The kind of movie that would make someone wish a train would derail and crash into the house to bring them sweet relief. Can I get away with one more bad movie joke? The kind of movie that would cause you to say, “drop your gun, I’m Superman,” knowing full well the robber will shoot to prove you wrong. Somehow, these movies make for a fun start to great weekend.

I hope you enjoyed this Freedom Friday post. What a treat to go back to the days when habit became tradition and I now have something to look forward to every week.

RANGER MARTIN AND THE ALIEN INVASION, on sale October 21.

What do you watch during movie night? If you have more than one movie night, what kind of themes do you have?

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