Kevin's Weblog

As promised, I did get the graphic novel from the library, and read it in a couple days while I was travelling. It’s not really a fair comparison, but visually the movie won out for me. Which is to say, that the movie excellently captures the feel of book and draws the viewer in to a degree that the comic just can’t hope to compete with.

The rearrangements of some parts of the plot didn’t bother me, nor the updating of the apocalyptic mechanism. I did find interesting the subtle shift in V’s philosophy, though. In the movie, he’s an anti-totalitarian freedom fighter; in the comic, he’s an anarchist, who just happens to be fighting a totalitarian regime. It’s a small difference, but significant in the ultimate meaning of the work.

Wow... I looked at the receipt I was using as a bookmark and discovered I bought this book about 2 years ago, and it’s been in my “current” reading list almost all the time since. It’s somewhat embarrassing, really. What happened was that I started reading the book and the first three intro chapters were no problem. Then I got to chapter 4 and he started talking about how you should set aside 2 whole days to bootstrap yourself into the process; and that just wasn’t happening. And, so the book sat, taunting me, until a couple months ago when I realized I needed some sort of organization system if I was going to succeed with my 101 in 1001 program. So, I cracked the book back open, downloaded some software, and got on it. I didn’t do a complete collection process as he suggests, but I got my office and my email pretty much under control in about half a day each.

Since then, I’ve finished reading the book, and gotten most of the system worked into my life. I’m definitely not perfect about it, but things seem vastly more in control than before. My biggest hurdle is still procrastination. This week, I’ve been forcing myself to get a couple minor things done each day, even if I’m feeling burnt (and, I’ve been feeling pretty burnt lately). I’ll probably write more later about they tools I’m using, once it stabilizes a little more.