In which I run, read, watch and contemplate.
The difficulty of naming sequels
I made fun of Marvel a while back for their use of the word 'home' in their Spider-man film titles, and I'm going to do it again now. Have you noticed how all of the Ant-man films to date contain the name of the previous film in the title?
- Ant-man (2015)
- Ant-man and the Wasp (2018)
- Ant-man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023)
I can now exclusively reveal the titles of the next films in the Ant-man series:
- Ant-man and the Wasp: Quantumania War (2025)
- Ant-man and the Wasp: Quantumania War Stories (2027)
- Ant-man and the Wasp: Quantumania War Stories: Tokyo Drift (2030)
Recording objectives at work
We've just been through end of year performance reviews at work and one thing that keeps coming up is how to manage objectives, particularly around recording progress.
I've suggested the following enough times that it's worth writing down. Put a reminder in your calendar at the end of each week of 'what did you do this week?'. Take five minutes to look through your calendar, notes, pull requests, or whatever you've done and note down key things against whatever objectives you have.
Over time, I've found this has become a habit to the point that whenever I do something that counts towards my objectives I automatically record it, so by the time I get to Friday and the notification pops up I don't have much left to write about.
Still running
I recently wrote about taking up running, a sport that had never previously interested me but now is my only source of fitness. Having completed the Couch to 5k program and already run what will probably be my fastest 5k, I wasn't sure I'd be motivated to keep going.
I was exploring the Strava app and noticed that it records the total distance run in a year. I did some rough maths and realised that if I ran 5k three times a week it would total more than 500 miles in a single year. I can't do that, because some weeks I'll be ill, or on holiday, but 400 miles in a year seems like a reasonable target.
As I write this it's coming up to the end of April and I've already run 157 miles, which means I'm on track for my end of year goal. It's been difficult at points - I missed more than a week of running due to a recent holiday and getting back into it has been tough - but having the goal is helping enormously.
Goodbye Terry Pratchett
I've just finished reading the almost-last Discworld novel, Raising Steam. I found it very long and mostly not very interesting. It felt more like a fictional historical account of the development of steam engines than a fantasy/comedy novel. It also lacked a real villain or mystery or intrigue of a similar nature that would have kept me hooked - a lot of it is the main character travelling around, organising things and having meetings, sprinkled with a few exciting moments and a few strange things that didn't seem to fully pan out.
I felt sad because it didn't feel as well written as Terry Pratchett's earlier work. I found myself finishing Raising Steam not out of a need to find out the ending, but out of respect for him and his largely impressive body of work.
I might have to read Thief of Time again to remind myself of the good times. Goodbye Terry, we miss you.