Welcome to the quirky dimension that is my journey as a Christian and fully devoted (just not perfect!) follower of Christ. Here you'll find out that, as a writer, there's next to nothing I'm not prepared to write about, including my faith. Prepare for a smash-mouth style to collide with colourful topics as I continue to blog into everything that God has called me to be. Do not adjust your monitors, there is nothing wrong with them, you have simply entered... The WRITE Dimension!
Wow!
Time has flown by hasn't it since I was last here!
Learning to say it is what it is over what we can't control frees the resources up that we need so we can respond to that which we can do something about.
Hello everyone!
I'm only at the beginning of the second full week of the year and already I can feel the benefit of 2024's completion being what it was. In my end of year review I looked back over how I'd managed my time over the course of last year and it was interesting to see what habits formed and stuck and what didn't. Given that hindsight is such a good teacher I thought this would be a good exercise to do having not done it before.
It was a good way to keep myself accountable because if I wasn't happy with who I'd become at year end, then there was only one culprit; the choices I had made all year long. Some small. Some significant. All of them add up in the end and, as I discovered during my grief counselling last year, there is a toll to be paid for every sacrifice and it will be paid in the end. Maybe not at the time, but all checks will balance out in the grand scheme of things...
Hey everyone!
For many it will be the first full week back just completed and I know for me it's been one where I've decided to press into the new year with a desire to head in a new direction otherwise I'll continue going in the way that I'm going.
People talk of new year's resolutions at this time of year and, I must admit, I'm not one for them but instead prefer to reframe that idea as a goal setting exercise where I ask myself one question.
At the end of the year, what do I want to have achieved so I can look back on the year and say 'yes, this was a good year'?
Hey everyone!
I've been looking forward to writing this one as the first one of a brand new year.
First off thanks for your patience whilst I've been growing through the grieving process since losing my dad almost three years ago now. It can't last forever, the process, but it's just that; a process. I've had to readjust my priorities in that time which has, sadly, meant that the blog had to take a back seat throughout. I knew I couldn't commit to the pace and quality I prefer to put out so had to take a big step back and walk through it.
I haven't exactly been prolific in my writing this past few years and it's a desire I want to correct this year in my bid, finally, to send Off the Scale finally to one hundred episodes which has taken me so much longer than I expected it would.
But such is life sometimes...
Well here it is again,folks!
The 2024 Year End Review and it's that time of year where I celebrate some of the media I've been consuming this year. It's been a year where quite a lot has changed as series I've been watching have gradually been finishing for good leaving me with space to try and discover new shows to get addicted to.
So let's get this show on the road, shall we?
Well it's finally upon us, almost!
Merry Christmas from all here at The Write Dimension!
I want to take this opportunity to get in early with my season's greetings because we all know family and friends will gather round and no doubts old frictions will arise and tempers may flare causing us to lose our way emotionally. But if we make it our aim to rise higher then this will become a season for us and our loved ones to remember for all the right reasons.
Still to come here is the year end review where I, as always, look back over the year and pick out some of my favourite media to be consumed. It's almost complete now, I've just got the final touches to put to it so expect that over the coming days.
Again, Merry Christmas and a happy new year for 2025!
Peace!
===TLP===
Hello!
Last night I got to thinking how a lot of our problems are less about what happens to us and more about the lens through which we choose to use to view what happens to us. This can cause us to create feelings that we think are attached to these events when they really aren't. What happened to us happened to us, it didn't come with added anxiety, or worry, or fear, hate, anger etc. The events transpired exactly the way they were supposed to, even if we didn't like or appreciate the outcome.
The challenge comes in remembering that we always have the ability to choose our response in life's events. We have a response-ability. An ability to choose our response in any and every situation that takes place around us. Even in the ones we don't like or care for. They happened, they didn't bring any more emotion than we chose to add into our response.
Well, it's the second half of the year and the height of summer!
Or one would think it is one day here in Oldham, but not the next!
Still, you got to make the most of each day as they are all like sand in an hourglass slipping through your fingers. We can state the need to make the most of every moment, but how many are actually doing it?
No, seriously.
How many conversations have you had with people who... just... seem... to be going nowhere in life? You know, they seem to be absent of ambition, of dreams for the future they want, and may even go as far as blaming everyone and everything around them for the reason they are like they are today.
But it doesn't have to be like that.
In fact, I'd argue that if it's like that today then, chances are, you're not doing enough to unfasten your eyes from off the present and onto future glories. It's easy to think that this is all there is if all there is becomes all you look at every day.
You need to dream bigger. Higher. Faster. Further. Longer.
I don't claim to have all the answers how to do this, just a conviction that if all I see today can be changed at any point by learning to focus on just one thing different then I'm going to do all I can do in order to find that one.
The law of nature is: Do the thing, and you shall have the power, but they who do not the thing have not the power. - Ralph Waldo Emerson
It all comes down to doing that next thing that will make that shift in perspective. Not the one after, or the one after.
The. Next. Thing.
If you want that change in your life, will you do what's necessary to have it?
As long as it's safe and legal do it, it's worth it, trust and believe that!
===TLP===
Hello everyone!
Drawing the movie themes to a close it's back to Thomas Newman and this time American Beauty takes centre stage.
I've gone for a particular piece of music that's so soothing, so relaxing, it almost demands you stop what you're doing to consume it properly in my opinion.
Hello everyone!
Well, we're 20 away from target now and it doesn't seem all that long since I started before I took the series on a hiatus.
Continuing in with movie themes, I've chosen one from a movie I could care less about, but the music on the other hand? This one has to get a special shout out...
Hey everyone!
Onto the next in my mini-series within a series.
This time, it's the turn of the excellently scored movie Braveheart. I'm not wasting time on accuracies or inaccuracies of this movie because my series zooms in on the music that matters...
Hello everyone!
We're back for another edition of Off the Scale and this time it's movies I'm paying a visit to. For the next few entries I'm going to be looking at some of my favourite themes.
I hope you can grow to appreciate them as much as I do...
Hello everyone!
My, it's been a looong time since this series was last present on my blog!
I've been through a tough few years and have had multiple intentions to restart this series celebrating classical music in all shapes and sizes...
Then the pandemic hit and changed everything.
Then my dad got sick and changed everything.
Then my priorities changed, as my dad passed away, and I had to step back from blogging for a season.
But here I am, back once again in my journey to 100 episodes...
Hello everyone!
Rather belatedly, but as promised, here is my best of show for 2023. As always, the winners are not necessarily from content produced in 2023, just that it was consumed, by me, last year and made enough of an impression upon me to deserve a place on this list.
Here we go...
Hey everyone!
Two updates in a week? in two days?! Say what?!
My recent updates have been inspiring me to up my game because I have, admittedly, let it slide for long enough and there was only going to be so long that I was going to use grief as a reason little realising that the only way out is often through your circumstances. So if trying to write more is going to help elevate me even further then so be it, I'll commit the resources I can to do so.
I believe that life is only what you make of it so if you are living a life today that you are not happy with then you gotta ask yourself a question: -
What am I doing to change it? Am I doing anything? Or am I waiting for someone else to do something?
These questions, once answered, will help you paint a picture of the steps you need to take next. Never mind the bigger picture, oftentimes you only need focus on doing the next right thing to change your life...
Hey everyone!
Can you believe we're in the final quarter of the year? Already? I know for me it still feels like I'm running on an internal clock that still reads "summer" so I've been playing catch up this past few weeks trying to push my internal clock up-to-date again.
Such is the life walking through the grief journey, I suppose.
Today I want to talk about some of my goals for this blog in the run up to Christmas and beyond.
As always, in December will come my end of year review where I'll be celebrating all things entertainment that have impacted me this calendar year. The usual entries will feature from video games to movies and TV shows. Who knows, in years to come I may flip the script and create the antonym of my awards and celebrate some of the bad stuff too...
Beyond that, in the coming months heading into 2024 I'll be looking to officially restart my Off the Scale series in my illusive quest to one hundred. The book and film reviews will be continuing too.
Finishing the year strong is my only aim and that is why I'm trying to push to update my blog more frequently. Although that's only because I'm about to break my post record for 2020, my only year-end target right now. I long for the days when I can get back to hitting three figures' worth of posts per year but that's the target in the long term.
Meantime -->> L.I.F.E. G.O.E.S. O.N.
Until next time...
Peace!
===TLP===
Hey everyone!
Well, it's the first week after another birthday and I must say that, even though I feel like my home is in the valley just now, I can still see enough of the light to know that dawn is coming. The dawning of a new day of perspective shifting as I seek to follow Peter's advice when he instructed believers to continue their growth in Christ: -
But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be glory both now and forever! Amen. 2 Peter 3:18
This is a verse that has been repeatedly coming to mind at the moment as I remember that no valley experience is ever meant to be a permanent home for me; I am always meant to be transcending all circumstances to skate over the top of them. It doesn't mean I won't feel them, just that I am not meant to wallow in them so much that they end up becoming sinking sand to pull me under...
Hello everyone!
I'm glad to be sat here, writing this, in my local library given that I know it's been about a month since my last update. I'm trying to return to a more regular schedule with the ideal being to return to BAU, yet that is not as possible as I would like just now.
It'll come. In time.
Meantime, I want you all to know that I haven't forgotten about you, my dear readers however many or few there are out there. It may look that way but remember that appearances are deceptive oftentimes. The way things look in one season is not necessarily correlative or indicative of how they'll show up in the next season.
How time flies when you're having fun... living life!
It's been a long time since my update and a lot of that I'm putting down to processing my grief since losing my father early last year. This second year has been soooo much harder on me emotionally than the first one and I think that's because every day it's becoming a little more real that I'll never see him again this side of eternity.
No phone calls. No more meet ups.
It makes you think... life is so short and goes by so fast that even if someone has been in life your whole life, losing them never really goes away; it's like a faint echo of who they were sings out through each of the days designed to remind you not to waste a single minute.
I'd be lying if I said I'm coping with it all as I'm currently signed off sick whilst I process this all. Or at least get to a level where I can move forward with enough traction that I won't slip backwards like I am at the moment.
But sometimes, you have to go backwards to go forwards again. Some things you learn never to let go of, but to move on from. It's all you can do. It's all I can do right now as I process losing pops each and every day.
Bear with me as I want nothing more than to resume normal service and restart every plan I had before this all started. It's just not possible yet...
Still, God is faithful and He'll complete what He started (Philippians 1:6) in the end.
God is still good and He still does good (Psalm 119:68), no matter how bad it looks today. If it's not good today, God's not done with it.
Peace!
===TLP===
Hey everyone!
So, a fortnight ago, I secured a deposit on the OG XBox One.
I have until the end of May to complete my payments as I'm buying it on a reserve basis.
Already I have got (or had bought for me, luckily!) Ghost Recon: Breakpoint and FarCry 5 to enjoy with it when I get it home. But I fully intend to add FarCry: Primal, Sunset Overdrive and Ghost Recon: Wildlands along with a couple of Assassin's Creed titles; Assassin's Creed: Odyssey and Assassin's Creed: Origins to it!
Finally taking a step over into the eighth generation around a decade later, it will be nice to get back into the current generation of gaming. Even if it is at the tail end of what is, in reality, the last one (convoluted logic much?) with the XBox Series and PS5 serving as current gen. It will be awesome to be able to buy some much newer games given that I've been in reverse for so long in PS3 and PS2 back-catalogue that I'm going to be surprised by what others take for granted in their games.
Sure, over time, support is likely to end for PS4 and XBox One titles now that the XBox Series and PS5 has, what I feel, got a better grip on the industry. But I'll take advantage of it whilst I have the advantage of it because there are plenty of other games I want to play aside from the above. Like Cyberpunk:2077, No Man's Sky, Outer Wilds & Red Dead Redemption II for instance, that I'm sure I'll get enjoyment out of and hopefully, be blown away graphically like I was the first time I saw footage of Assassin's Creed: Odyssey.
That footage alone showed me how I'd de-tuned myself from current and last gen gaming under the proviso that, if I can't buy it, there's no point making it worse for myself by looking at games I just do not have the tech for...
Until now!
Well, May at least!
Naturally, expect reviews for these titles as and when I deem it relevant/appropriate to do so. I'm not going to review as soon as I've played; I would rather play the game enough to be, hopefully, balanced in my assessment.
Peace!
===TLP===