I have been reading like a demon of late. In the last couple of weeks I have finished reading three books – Life in a Medieval Village, FlashForward and The Esoterrorists. Admittedly, I had reached the halfway point in one and another amounted to only 88 pages; but, I’m impressed even if no one else is.

I have reasonably good cause to read each of these volumes. I have far too many books lying around the house not to have considered long and hard, before coming up with a plan. If I don’t channel my reading activities, I’ll get no where. I need to read with purpose to get through the backlog and to fulfil associated commitments.

For example, I’m reading historical texts at the moment with the aim to write one or more supplements for Maelstrom. I have a very brief outline in mind for a supplement relating to travel in olden times; and, I also have a couple of adventures simmering on the sort of heat that would make getting a hard boiled egg sorted before lunchtime something of a hassle.

In the wisdom of the TV executives, FlashForward – the series – got cancelled. While the series suffered from a dip or two because of the comings and goings of the crew and direction behind the scenes, it ended triumphantly, in my opinion, with an excellent cliffhanger. Indeed, the cliffhanger galled no end in the knowledge that nothing would follow. So, I read the novel that inspired the series in the hope of getting something back. I warn you – no matter how entertaining a read the novel might be, it has very little in common with the TV series. Or, more correctly, the TV series took the principle of the novel along with a few names, then wove a completely different cloth from the small wraparound shawl created by Robert Sawyer.

Finally, I read ‘The Esoterrorists‘ because I needed something else to take on my trip to Oxford. I have already read the excellent ‘Trail of Cthulhu‘ and wanted to see the Gumshoe system from another angle. I also started to read the futuristic version of the Gumshoe (still in playtest); but, I’ve been struggling a little (probably for want of an iPad!). Overall, I’m thoroughly enjoying the investigation-always-works-because-it-has-to angle of the system. I have read a lot of adventures and campaigns that all too easily ground to a halt because they depending on something happening that sometimes didn’t. Yes, as a gamemaster you could steer the characters in the right direction or drop hints to the players; but, Gumshoe gives you a system to support this within the structure of the game.

You don’t bend the rules with Gumshoe to make an adventure work. The experience and skill of the team allow them to find out what they need to know simply by looking for it. And, just in case you didn’t include every skill amongst the characters in the team, they can each have a build point or three held back to use in a “Oh, I haven’t read Sumerian since my Ancient Cultures course at the University…” moment.

Now, I want to use the Gumshoe system for everything with an investigative bent. ‘Doctor Who’, for example, could be a perfect fit, because finding out what’s happening always means more to each episode than any scuffling that might happen – and the General skills of Gumshoe can handle chases when they happen with the roll of a few dice.

Anyway… I must get back to reading. Writing blog entries takes up valuable page-turning time.

Spent a solid portion of Saturday lurking around mobile phone websites seeking out some kind of bargain. Any incentive to upgrade my phone would be nice, but I failed to find anything to tickle my fancy. O2, my current provider, hollers that it treats new and existing customer alike – presumably to offset the old complaints from existing customers that newcomers got all the incentives and discounts. However, I want to feel special – I want O2 to reward my loyalty and willingness to stick with them through thick and thin. I don’t want to feel they consider me as important and trustworthy as someone they’ve never done business with before – where’s the benefit?

Seems the whole mobile market took a knock with the proliferation of the smartphone, because the whole data deal seems to have dropped through the floor. You can’t move for companies flogging unlimited texts and endless hours of calls, but with data use limited to 500Mb or whatever. Data comes at a premium.

I have considered sticking with my contract, but that means finding a new phone – and that’s a tough call, because those things don’t come cheap. The iPhones seems to be like the Volkswagen Golf of the mobile world, hardly depreciating from the day of purchase. I could throw all caution to the wind and try the roulette of eBay, but I’m not sure I’m that desperate just yet to pick up some cracked and chipped third-hand mobile – or, for that matter, spending a lot of money on a half-brick in a box!

I suppose I can stick with what I have now, but like computers mobiles go out of date very quickly and older models fall out of support. I have watched as the first generation iPhone and older iPod Touch fell off the support wagon, and with iOS4 it feels like the 3G might be next. Apple created the new operating system without much regard for the 3G and my phone currently runs like a two-legged dog with a limp. Simple tasks, like opening an email, can take forever. I sit and ponder as the screen sits blank – reminded of my last desktop computer when it too had fallen out of warranty, support and everything else. If it ran on Windows, I’d expect a visitation by the Blue Screen of Death by now.

Maybe I need to start participating in magazine competitions and telephone quizes in the hope I can secure a new phone for free?

Oxford – city of a million bicycles. Yesterday, I suspect it might have been more apt to describe it as the city of a trillion raindrops. From arrival around lunchtime until mid-evening, it rained – either half-heartedly, spitting and spraying, or with full-bodied summer rain. So, I spent my first day here wrapped in a cagoule. And those things can get sweaty and uncomfortable in their own right.

However, Oxford offered a little more than doom and gloom on this first day. We had an interesting lunch at Fire & Stone, a brand of restaurant that has crept no further north than this place of dreaming spires. I had a New York (crispy bacon, mozzarella, tomato sauce, garlic & rosemary roast potatoes, caramelized onion jam, topped with sour cream and smoked paprika), while my wife had her home town pizza – a Melbourne (tomato sauce with sweet roasted butternut squash, balsamic roasted red onions, sliced brie, mozzarella topped with toasted pumpkin seeds). I suspect you can see Fire & Stone don’t deal in ‘ordinary’ pizzas – and the site has a link to their menu – so, we found some small amusement in a couple, somewhat older than ourselves, who came in. The wife reviewed the delicious options on the menu and after due consideration ordered a Margherita. How delightfully adventurous!

After eating, we trundled off to our accommodations at one of the colleges, before scuttling through the rain to the Pitt Rivers museum. I suspect, having visited twice, you need a day or two to really absorb this place. We managed to walk around the top floor at the back of the museum – and even spending a couple of hours doing that felt rushed. The museum had the top floor closed off for renovations last time we visited, in 2009, so we went straight there to find out what we’d been missing (Swords, Shields and Samurai, as it happens). Some very impressive displays of weaponry of all kinds, many raising an involuntary wince when you read the description of how they might be used to main or kill an opponent. I especially appreciated the ornate cudgels – the prospect of enjoying the handiwork of the craftsman while being beaten to death.

Still raining, we headed off to The Eagle and Child, which has some good guest beers/ales and a very filling menu of rustic fare. The place seemed packed with Americans and Spanish – as does the rest of Oxford, with a few Germans and Japanese thrown in for good measure. I began to wonder whether when the students leave, do the tourists come in and fill the void for a few months? The Americans seemed oddest, as they apparently expected courtesy without giving any. Someone trying to get past with a pram asked politely three times ‘excuse me?’ to an American woman who had her back turned, and when he finally started shifting furniture she became aware enough to move other people out of the way with reprimanding looks. A moment later, some squeezed past her and when they’d gone, she gave the most disapproving stare to a rotund man I assumed was her husband.

We had a sausage platter followed by Eton Mess – and I had a restrained string of half-pint samplers. All very pleasant in nice surroundings. I took the occasional dip into a book I picked up from Oxfam (around the corner), just to really turn it into a cultural and literary experience.

And then bed. I’m sorry – we were tired. 9PM or not – we couldn’t keep our eyes open any longer and lapsed into sleep.

I have been working for the last couple of weeks on a new community site for doll collectors. I admit that might seem a little odd to anyone who doesn’t know – and odder still, because I don’t actually collect dolls. I appreciate the artistic intent in their creation and the distillation of their personality into the final form they assume – but I don’t myself collect ‘em.

I have, for some time, run a site called dollSearcher that originally ran on a content management framework called PHPNuke. I appreciated the simplicity of the version I created the site with, but then the owner of the script started developing it in directions I didn’t really want or need. I stuck with the old version and did the best I could to keep it running and secure; but, eventually, PHP itself shifted a version, or two, and the functionality of the site started to fail. I consider myself aware of PHP and can program a little, but I certainly didn’t have the skills necessary to upgrade the whole site.

So, I decided to shift on to a new platform and used Drupal. I appreciate the flexibility of Drupal as a content management system – and I use it on other sites; but, for this doll site, where the key activity was chat and picture albums, Drupal seemed like overkill. dollSearcher lost its lustre in name and form.

Here in the present, I formulated a new idea and decided to run with it. I found a new system to run the site on – a BuddyPress enabled WordPress installation – and designed a theme, almost from scratch. WordPress supports the essential purpose of discussion – someone posts a blog entry and others can comment. BuddyPress puts a community spin on this, introducing groups and forums. The combination creates a sort of Facebook vibe.

dollissimo is born… a new platform, a new name and a new purpose. Creating the look of the site has been a bit of a bitch, but BuddyPress/WordPress supports child theme creation, so you can do a lot yourself and fall back on the parent for everything else. I appreciate the help this parent has offered – and, over time, hope to give the child a little more independence. Now I have to get my head in search engine marketing mode and disseminate a few invites. Getting a buzz going and assumulating some presence in the search engines will be good, but take time – but, in the meantime, I can iron out any bugs in the theme.

All good fun!

Yes, I’m finding it easier to get things done with a to-do list. Mind you, having tried to use two or three on the iPhone, I’ve realised it needs to be desktop or paper-based. Unless I can find a good one that effectively stretches across iPhone and desktop in a seamless, sync’d-in fashion.

Having a to-do list isn’t the end of it. I need to be conscientious about keeping it up-to-date and reasonable for a start. If I have more than about half-a-dozen things on there, for example, I know that I’m heading for a loser. Half-a-dozen means I can be working on a couple of things now, a couple of things then, and a final two soon. Planning more than that means planning too far ahead – and the moment you do that you lose some of the impetus. A sort of claustrophobia sets in and I feel crowded out by the enormity of whatever I’m expecting from myself.

So, I have a very simple tool – TaskMate – that represents little more than an electronic tick-list. I could do it on paper – but then I’d lose it. If I have the tasks set down on my desktop and they’re there every start-up… I’m keenly aware of them.

And, I don’t like to refill the list until I’ve got all half-a-dozen tasks done, otherwise the last one or two get pushed out. If priority demands it, I’m introduce something new – but that’s only one thing and only because if I don’t do it now something dire will happening (like sorting out the insurance for my car the weekend before last).

Right now, I have one, and only one, priority at work – though this has sub-tasks to complete… but, there I can have a paper-based to-do that I can’t lose. For the time being, I remain retro at work and keep the to-do on the agenda and key in my mind by revisiting it daily and re-scribing it weekly. Re-writing the whole thing, I ensure new priorities get the attention they need and where nothing stands out I can make judgment calls for the week ahead based on who might be available when to have catch-up meetings with.

NOTE: I have now discovered tadalist, which I’m going to give a go. It’ll all via browser, but the site has a very friendly iPhone face that looks promising. I might actually get this bitch of a to do list online…