It's the bottom of the ninth, bases are loaded, two outs and I'm up to bat and that's when I suddenly realise that I don't know anything about baseball other than this cliché, is it good that the bases are loaded? Is it bad? What are they loaded with? Cheese? Marshmallow? The mix of pride and self- loathing a parent feels toward a child who has achieved more in their short lives than said parent ever did or, indeed, could???
The point is I'm procrastinating. I do this often. When I'm bored, when I'm excited, when I'm sad, happy or any point in between, I will procrastinate. It's not that I'm lazy, I'm really not...there's just only so much attention I can give to a task before ooh, hey, shiny! I see a new thing and I'm off to do that. I blame video-games. Well, games in general to be honest. That and books, and movies, and cooking, and cleaning and and the world, nay, the universe in fact! Stop being so damned interesting, you fool!
Mostly I do stay on top of my procrastinating, even if it does mean that I don't get things done until the very last moment, and of course, there is always another very last moment. Truth be told, I'm actually scared that one day it's going to bite me in the arse. See, so far, I've always managed to find that last moment, pull it out in the clutch scenario like the cliché I opened this piece with (I do actually understand baseball, to my everlasting shame, I can't help it, I'm addicted to learning crap yo!) and that's cool and all. Then, after the dust has settled and I've relaxed a bit I always say "next time, I'll do it with time to spare, no! With plenty of time to spare in fact!" and I don't, because I am me and I will always leave things to the last moment, always and every time, even the times where I do not do so.
My current problem is a presentation I'm working on. I'm doing a portion of it, looking at regulation in television media during the 60s and 70s, and there's a fair amount of stuff to sift through, but most of it is junk in terms of relating to the actual question. Bloody interesting to read through though. Which is why I've been procrastinating, why I've been off doing other things instead of doing this work, it allows me time to refocus, get back on track. The less time I have to complete the work, the more precise I'm forced to be, the better I am at discarding useless (though oh so interesting) information and picking only the juiciest, most delectable facts.
...at least that's how I justify it to myself....it's more probable that I am severely unfocussed and whilst this topic is interesting, it's only interesting in a broader scope. It's like someone hands you a sandwich but then tells you you can only eat the crusts. Now, don't get me wrong, the crusts are vital, I understand why they are there (to keep the gooey innards of the sandwich from leaking out....what? It's not a real sandwich if its innards don't squirt! jeez, you people and your prim and proper "deli sandwiches" I don't know what the world is coming to....anyway), but it's really the whole of the sandwich you're interested in. Looking at one part of a subject in great detail is great and I can understand it, but honestly, I'd rather just have the whole thing instead of one piece.
Certainly in this presentation. A lot happened in the 60s and 70s, that's for sure, but the really interesting stuff in television happened in the decades surrounding it (i.e. the 50s and 80s) at least, that's how it seems to be from what I can find on the subject. It's like regulation started in the 50s, didn't change all that much unto the mid 70s and that change (from what I can find) was mostly incidental...just five years more on the span and I could take about it detail, but no, got to stick to those decades....then you've got the UK media ignoring of the troubles in Northern Ireland. In Irish television, big deal, in UK nothing really significant happened until 1979 with the Carrickmore incident...which is great, but I can't really talk about one year in a two decade span for all that long, even if it was significant.
I feel like I'm missing something, something obvious. I got the BBC director general greene, the pilkington committee and ITN being all like "Here's the News at Ten, bitches!" and that, and the aforementioned pieces of info, but that can't be it, there has to be something bigger than this because this is small stuff that's fairly interesting but it's not...well...big...it's not revolutionary and why look at this era if the only salient points are "tvs got cheaper and more colourful so more people went there for news"
...or maybe I'm over-thinking it and I'm over-rating the 60s/70s importance as basically everyone seems to do because the baby-boomer generation was the beeeest, they even say so themselves so it must be true! Ah the well, I've had a nice little vent, so I'm going back to it now, later taters.
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