Multi-Tasking: Not So Much

For a variety of reasons that I won't bore you with the details of, I've found myself struggling with multi-tasking lately. I'm not talking about your standard type of listening to some music while you do some homework or work on a project, but the kind of trying to juggle multiple important things at once.

There was a time in my life that I really enjoyed being overwhelmed by a million things to do, and sort of found a bit of a thrill in finding some way to get it all done. Lately though, not so much. Even the general tasks of living day to day life and trying to remember when each bill needs to be paid, when appointments are, and all those other lovely things seem to be falling by the wayside. Sometimes I feel like I'm losing the ability to retain any sort of "memory" if you will, which is a little frustrating.

One thing I've noticed is that if I can find the motivation to get things done and focus on just one thing at a time and work my way down the list I usually do a pretty good job, but if ten things need to be done at the same time, or I need to find a way to remember a million details all at once, things don't go so well.

I've been trying to figure out why this is happening, and I think it is mostly based in my discovery earlier this year that I suffer from anxiety. I'm not sure if coming to the realization that I suffer from anxiety has tripped some sort of subconscious trigger that makes it difficult for me to keep track of things, or if it has something to do with the medication I'm using to treat the anxiety. Regardless, it has made for some interesting months recently.

Being able to track a bunch of important stuff is nice, and I would like to find some way to get back to the point in my life where I remembered to do everything on time, the right way regardless of how much was going on, but I'm still searching for the right solution in light of my more recent life developments.

Going Big and Bold with Font Size

Yesterday while I had very little to do at the office I was browsing casually through a bunch of websites for web developers and designers and came across an article on Smashing Magazine that was discussing the use of 16 pixel font size for web content. I've always been a bit annoyed that so many websites use such small font sizes for their content, and the article was the tipping point for me to give a larger font size a try and make the change here on the blog.

I really don't mind when sites want to use smaller fonts for things such as sidebars, disclaimers, or other content that is deemed less important to the reader/user, but I always love it when I open up a site and see the reading material at a larger size. It makes me much more likely to read, I can tell you that much.

Being a web developer means you learn a lot of stuff, a great deal of it peripheral stuff that you only use on very specific occasions, or only need to recall for very specific conversations with others. The fact that all web browsers default to a 16 pixel font size is one of those kind of details, and to convince myself I actually spent a bit of time yesterday messing with browser settings to make sure it was indeed the case.

Turns out it was, so I'm now fully on board with such practices. So, whatever personal web project I decide to work on next (whenever that may be), I'll be using this new information when putting my design together. 

Review: Knight and Day

I've always been a fan of Tom Cruise. One of my favorite movies of all time is Top Gun, and it's my personal opinion that he is a great actor when it comes to action movies. Cameron Diaz is one of those ladies who sort of has that classic beauty that never goes away regardless of what role she is playing, and putting the two of them together in a spy flick seemed like a pretty good combination to me when I first saw previews for this movie a while back.

WHAT I LIKED...

Most importantly, I liked the stunts. Any action movie Tom Cruise is involved with has great stunts and Knight and Day is no exception to the rule. I also liked the acting for the most part. Say what you will about Tom Cruise and his craziness in everyday life, but when it comes to somewhat off-kilter humor in the middle of a fight scene he does a pretty good job. Diaz is an excellent foil for his character, and the two of them seem to have pretty good chemistry.

Thankfully, unlike a lot of less-well-known action movies I've watched recently, this one didn't try to go too far with the twisting and turning of the plot. There was a little bit of mystery to keep me interested enough to keep watching and discover if there really was going to be a massive plot twist at the end, but not so much that I felt like the writers were trying too hard.

WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE...

In the end, while the movie was a pretty decent couple of hours spent, I did feel like things were a little too formulaic. Knight and Day finds itself following a very large number of spy-movie cliches, but given that I personally think this movie was simply Cruise's tune-up to prepare for the upcoming Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, I can't be too heavily disappointed.

While I do like Cameron Diaz, and think she's a great actor, I don't think the character she had to work with here gave her much time to shine. She had her moments, but in the end the character of June was written with a hefty dose of cliche as well. Cruise's Roy Miller on the other hand seemed to be at least somewhat unique.

RATING: 6 out of 10

RECOMMENDATION...

This is a great popcorn movie if you are looking for something to get a few laughs, see some cool stunts, and marvel in a bit of nice camera work. Don't expect anything too much from it, but it is certainly worth the time if you can find it on Netflix streaming someday or grab it for a buck in the local corner Redbox.