Still sick. But I can't complain; my garden is in full flush, I have a good job with fun co-workers, and I'm blessed with a huge amount of entertainment.

It's worth the occasional cold.

Last week's trip seems to have given me a touch of...something. I won't describe the grotesque details, but safe to say I am sick. I hope it won't last; I want to go to work tomorrow.

I comforted myself by watching Versus, a movie by the live-action Japanese director I saw last weekend, Ryuhei Kitamura. It's a samurai zombie revenge film, and it was just wildly entertaining.

And I'm back. The trip was precisely fine: informative and uneventful. I didn't have a great time—I never like changes to my comfortable life, and yes that worries me on occasion—but nothing remotely bad happened.

'Twas strange, though, being in a company town. Cedar Rapids is mixed zoning, strip malls glaring at industrial plants that sit a block away from quiet neighborhoods. About half of the light industrial buildings I saw had Rockwell Collins signs out front. There's no huge corporate complex, and all the buildings are flat and wide as a lake. I don't think I saw a single three-story building anywhere outside of downtown.

If I headed a company like that, I'd want a campus. I'd build tall buildings with style, not a bunch of cookie-cutter industrial parks.

But then, I'm not heading a company like that. Perhaps it's good that they don't spend money on that sort of thing.

I'll be travelling on business this week, so expect few updates to this site.

To completely change the subject, if you ever get the chance to watch the Taiwanese film The Puppetmaster, be prepared for an excruciating documentary style in which every shot lasts, on average, three minutes. And in which the theme appears to be "Look at my horrible relatives and tragic life."

I'm back from an anime and manga panel discussion at the Smithsonian. I sat literally a few feet away from Monkey Punch (creator of Lupin III), Mitsuhisa Ishikawa (president of Production I.G.), and Ryuhei Kitamura (live-action movie director). A few random notes:

• In one month in 2007, 250 manga magazines are published in Japan, and 750 volumes of manga are published.
• The average manga reader can read two pages of manga in ten seconds. As a result, manga writers know how to write fast stories. This constrasts with typical slow Asian live-action films.
• Ishikawa: When I show violence, I show how it hurts.
• Monkey Punch: In manga, each panel is equivalent to one word in a sentence, so that many panels are strung together to form a complete thought. In Western comics, each panel is its own concept, which can be much more restrictive (and wordy).
• Ishikawa: Children want to experience a world that's slightly beyond their own. So, fantasy, but not wild fantasy. This was a signature of Disney films pre-Katzenberg, but Pixar is bringing it back.
• Kitamura: I was asked about the best ten films of last year. My number one was Cars, because it was just such a solid movie.
• Monkey Punch went to the San Diego Comic Con in the 70's, and found that Americans hated manga, especially the "weird glassy eyes." So he got together about ten big names in manga—including Osamu Tezuka and Go Nagai—and they all went to the 1980 Comic Con. This made a big splash and was a major initial turning point in manga acceptance in America.
• Astro Boy (the character) is quite similar to Mickey Mouse.
• The best thing Japanese creators do is take many influences and harmonize them.
• Neon Genesis Evangelion was huge in Japan, while Ghost in the Shell (the first movie) was not so much. But they were both big in America, which fueled success back in Japan and led to the recent Ghost in the Shell projects.
• Sam Raimi has said that the flying sequences in the Spider-Man movies are based on the flying sequences in Nausicaa.
• Ishikawa: The hardest thing about his job is just not failing.

Interesting stuff.

Some of you may remember the cooking show that I made and posted on YouTube last winter. I've reposted the website, where you can browse and watch the videos.

I read half a dozen self-improvement blogs every day. This week, I've become increasingly disillusioned with them.

Several of them focus on things to do to improve your life. Go to the gym. Get away from toxic people. Envision wild success and focus all your time on that.

But these are all external circumstances. Isn't this all about self-improvement? The true goal of self-improvement should not be to improve one's circumstances, for the best people thrive in all circumstance with any people.

After watching the first episode of an amazing BBC documentary, "The Secret Life of The Manic Depressive," I've made a few key realizations.

1. Most of my major life decisions are driven by pride.
2. I crave fame.
3. My reach exceeds my grasp. I start many grandiose projects when I'm feeling great, only to feel overwhelmed when I'm feeling down.
4. I'm not manic depressive or bipolar, but I have some mild symptoms.

So, what am I going to do about it? It's midnight and I'm laying in bed, typing this into my laptop. I've found no conclusions yet. Perhaps sleep will help.

David Allen writes:

One subtle life skill should become part of the competency set for all professionals (and all people): How fast can you get back to "ready"? How easily and rapidly can you relax and refocus when it's necessary to do so? How good are you at creating a centered, balanced, aware, and open state of mind for the next input or impetus that emerges in your world? When something pushes your button, rings your bell, grabs your attention, bothers, upsets, engrosses, or excites you, what is your lag time to unhook from those feelings, clear the decks internally, and engage again appropriately with a fresh perspective and with the new subject/object that must now be confronted?

This, I think, is why we all need productivity systems. We need some way to keep track of what we've agreed to do. Even if we've just agreed with ourselves to do it. Especially if we've agreed with ourselves.

Just finished watching Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress.

I like Kurosawa's films, but I just don't love them like many people do. This one's no exception; it's very good, but I've no interest in watching it again. Well, except for one spear fight halfway through. But he holds his shots for much longer than I feel necessary, and the story just drags on.

Ah well. Worth seeing. The included interview with George Lucas was enlightening, too.

I admit it: I'm frustrated with my progress on many projects. I haven't had the energy for much beyond playing Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess on my Wii or watching anime. That worried me until I realized I just started a new job (okay, technically re-started, but my responsibilities are quite different). Nevertheless, I feel like my creativity has ground to a halt. I usually love to write, and I can't write for five minutes.

Meanwhile, as you may notice from the sidebar, I've been reading the Rurouni Kenshin manga. It's fantastic. Tightly plotted, inspiring, and thought-provoking.

And yet, in each volume, the creator frequently apologizes for its sloppiness, for the rushed writing, for the resolutions that disappoint the fanbase. Even great creators think poorly of their own works. It's encouraging. Maybe I'm not in such a bad spot.

Just finished watching the first episode of the first anime: the original Astro Boy. A few thoughts:

• The animation is often terrible.
• ...but occasionally excellent.
• Tezuka's direction shines in a few amazing, dramatic, downright cinematic shots. Often they're motionless, but the shadows and angles provide amazing power.
• If today's anime fans complain about American actors "murdering" roles, they should hear this. (And to be fair, that's what cartoon voice acting was back then; all of it.)

Worth seeing, but I'm glad I didn't buy it. Thanks to Mom and Dad for their purchase of a six-month Netflix subscription for me. I can see myself falling in love with this service.

I'm increasingly sympathetic to the Butlerian Jihad. While I don't plan to abandon email any time soon, I'm worried by fellow humans' reliance on technology. If a fact is unknown, people rush to Wikipedia or Google. Those I know over forty are noticeably better at mental math than those under forty. People don't memorize, except through massive repetition; they worship St. Google.

Are we allowing ourselves to grow more stupid?

We all hear stories of ordinary people achieving greatness, of the man who rescues children from a burning building, or the female CEO who's still Mom to four kids. Yet I look around at bus drivers and fast food service (heck, "service" anywhere), and most don't even reach beyond mediocrity.

We're surrounded by images of average people. Eight-hour workdays. Goofy men who pretend to be handymen but can't fix anything. Children who mostly exist to fire quips at their parents.

The more we hear a message, any message, the more we believe it subconsciously.

Are we all limiting ourselves to averages?

The American Heritage Stedman's Medical Dictionary definition of "addiction:"

ad·dic·tion

Habitual psychological and physiological dependence on a substance or practice beyond one's voluntary control.

Some are addicted to getting money, others addicted to getting love. Some are addicted to getting time.

I've been guilty of time addiction, and surely haven't completely kicked it. Time addiction means wanting to use every second to its fullest, and feeling disappointed when you don't. It means rushing and multitasking in all things. It means speeding through neighborhoods, eating a meal in five minutes without tasting it, and a frustrated sigh when Google doesn't load in three seconds.

Why do we want more time? Not for its own sake; for what it gives us. The ability to do more. To finish more projects and collect more things. To have more experiences. But as we all know, the more you push the gas pedal, the more the scenery blurs.

Seems to me the solution is to want less. To push off a few projects; let them wait a week or two. They may grumble, but it's good for both of you if you can give them more attention when you return to them.

Why not defer half your current projects? Just focus on a few? Give yourself some time.

Heh. By letting go of projects, you get more time. Funny how that works, isn't it?

I have a Wii. I'm most impressed by its slickness; everything is just pretty and easy to do. I wish computer applications were this clean.

Everyone you meet is terribly insecure.

I'm one of the more organized people I know. I'm usually early for things. Tonight, I'll attend a regular meeting of the SF/F Writer's Group of which I'm a member. There's only one story to critique, and it arrived in my mailbox several days ago.

I still haven't critiqued it. I'm going to take it out to the patio now and redline it.

I tell myself that critiques are important. My actions speak louder than my thoughts.

Finally watched volume one of Madlax, an anime by the creators of Noir and .hack. The creators have great confidence in their stories, so much so that the first third of each series contains almost no plot, focusing instead on establishing the characters.

This is fine if you love the characters. While I like Madlax's protagonists more than those of Noir, with no context for their actions I have little interest in buying volume two (which may also shuffle along). It's a perfect example of the problem of TV scheduling; I'd be interested enough to catch this every week, and the plot of later episodes would probably hook me. But releasing four episodes at a time on DVD is a different model with different forces at work.