John August, screenwriter (Go, Big Fish, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory), is also a geek. As a geek, he embraces the cutting edge of tech. He also shares on eof my sentiments - as tech makes it easier for those of us with the necessary knowledge and skills to get more things done, there are inevitably more things we discover that we want to do. Hence, we get overloaded with the plethora of choices in which we can invest our time.
I've been discovering that recently in my forced choices in consuming media. Podcasts have replaced music in my car during my daily commute. I now miss listening to my favorite CDs, and wish that I could pop Andrea or Vladimir back into the CD player. But that would entail falling behind one or more podcasts, and that would be very difficult. So I do without the music. I know that won't last.
I've also fallen far behind on my reading. It's amazing that I've had Anansi Boys at my disposal for over a week now, and I haven't read a single word. I'm stuck in the first third of Jared Diamond's "Guns, Germs and Steel" which is a book I beleived I could not put down. A combination of the web, playing boardgames and dealing with my fantasy sports teams have sucked all that time up. Even on the plane, I'm forced to choose between catching up with the Wall Street Journal (I'm only five weeks behind) and seeing films that I missed at the theater, even if it means watching them on a 6"x4" screen. (I chose to see The Fantastic Four and Batman Begins.)
It's not humanly possible to consume all that media, work, sleep, spend time with your loved ones and do it all competently.
Thanks for the capability, tech, but we're all still human, and the day still has no more than 24 hours.
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