It's far from perfect.

Life I'm an organiser. I'm not a manager -- which has become apparent on too many occasions -- I'm terrible at delegating and like to do everything myself -- but if a manager asks me to organise something I seem to be very good at it. I like projects, I like making plans and completing them. I like problem solving, puzzling over something which needs accomplishing and working through to the goal.

I suppose this is why I like research too; what I'd really like to be is in a profession where I spend the day answering complex questions with either the internet or a library as my source. The good things about having all of these genes is that when I realise that something needs organising around the house, my librarian tendencies kick in and some time later I'll find a solution.

I've been puzzling for weeks about what to do about my dvds, of which I have many. Not the commercial bought, special editioned, boxsetted oh look I have everything Woody Allen's directed ones -- they've taken care of themselves clinging together in a gap between two book cases on the wall. I'm talking about the many hundreds of films and programmes I've recorded from television sitting in boxes about the place.

The solution, or at least my solution, is to put them in chronological order based on the year in which they're supposed to be set. So with wikipedia and imdb to hand, I've been working through the piles and classifying them by the century, decade or year (depend on how specific a synopsis is) the story, fiction and non-fiction, occurs. That means that some genres are naturally dropping in next to each other, westerns and noirs, Edwardian costume dramas and futurist sci-fi. Fantasy realms are all being put together at the front.

It's far from perfect. Decade spanning bio-pics don't naturally go anywhere so I'm slotting them at the first year featured. Some stories aren't really set in a particular time period, rather a kind of generic sub-universe in which everyone were hats and togas or spurs or macs and carry guns or spears. But if you assume that its the Roman period (turn of the first millenium) or the Wild West (late 1800s) or the great depression or prohibition it sort of works. Plus there are films which cross cut between time periods, either because of flashback structures or something else. And doing things this way spoils a certain M Night Shyamalan film (though obviously unless you haven't seen it which seems to be too many people since it's his best work).

All of which is by way of an excuse as to why I may be blogging light here. It is a gargantuan but worthwhile task which I'm fitting in between attempting to construct a life. In doing it, I've found all kinds of things I'd forgotten I'd recorded and now I'll be able to find again. It's also a chance to catch up on all the music I've not got around to yet, and discover podcasts, something I've missed because of being trapped at 56k up until a month ago. So far: This American Life's a miracle and I've enjoyed the banter between Aleks and Jemima on The Guardian's Tech Weekly. Does anyone else have suggestions as to what else I should be listening to?