Externalizing my brainwaves

For starters, new blog with zee puppets.

 

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It's a new year, folks!  Did you rock in 2008?  Did you suck?  Yes, you sucked?  Is it time to stop sucking so much?  There are a number of things I'd like to work on in 2009: regrowing an attention span, not being a jerk to my mom when she asks me computer questions (ugh, so bad at this... sorry, Ma), getting more sleep like I promise myself I'm going to do EVERY SINGLE YEAR...

I'd also like to do a better job getting my thoughts in order.  These days, it feels like I keep ideas in too many places.  Here are some (not all) of the ways that I'm recording the thoughts that are worth saving - in other words, these are notes about my notes.

 

Text files (Google Docs & Microsoft Word)

All-purpose, simple, effective.  I use them for all sorts of lists, like words I love (most recent addition: zaftig) or blog ideas.  Lately I'm using Google Docs more often for the simple interface and the ability to view the files at any time from my iPhone.

 

Mind maps

Long my preferred method of choice for taking notes at work, via the freeware Java application Freemind (shown in the screenshot).  Mind maps make connections between ideas much more visual.  They're perfect for concepts with a hierarchical structure, which might be why I've found them so useful for tracking projects at the office.

 

Google Notebook

Great for capturing info on the web, especially with the Firefox Google Notebook extension: highlight some text, right click, and choose "Note this"; the text is recorded in your notebook, along with the web page title, a link to the page, and the date the note was recorded.  Tagging and search capabilities help you track things down, so you don't lose track of that great Churchill quote you wrote down a few months ago.

 

legal pads

I keep one at my desk and one on my nightstand for writing down the stuff that pops into my head right before falling asleep.  It's easier to relax when you don't have to worry whether or not you'll remember to add gummy bears to the grocery list for your fancy dinner party tomorrow; write it down and fall asleep with a clear mind.

 

back pages of books

Only done this a few times with my non-fiction reading.  It's nice having the notes on hand whenever I'm reading, and I try to fit them all on a single page that I can reference quickly.

 

I'm really interested to hear anyone's suggestions on this topic, so fire away.

Stories of the Road returns soon with a new international edition!

Euphoric nostalgia

In her latest book, What It Is, Lynda Barry provides methods, exercises and general motivation for getting your creative juices flowing.  Large portions of the book are dedicated to memories: What is a memory?  What is the past?  Where (and why) do we keep bad memories?  Why are memories important?  A few recent blasts from the past have had me thinking over these questions.

I downloaded a fan-subbed version of the first Rebuild of Evangelion movie.  For those who don't know, I was a huge anime fan in college and Neon Genesis Evangelion is my favorite series - hell, it's pretty much my favorite anything.  Books, albums, movies... I have to admit that my #1 spot remains shamefully devoted to a Japanese cartoon from 1996.

The new Eva movies are a reanimating/retelling of the original story: about 3/4 of the scenes remain basically the same, but look nicer and sometimes have computer-animated additions.  Of course, this means 1/4 of the scenes are (shudder of spine-tingling anticipation)... NEW.

Here's the great part: they didn't fuck things up with the new stuff.  (Are you reading this, George Lucas?)

It was awesome.  It was so awesome.  For 97 minutes, I was bursting with this feeling that was a combination of nostalgia and euphoria; I don't know of any English word to adequately describe it, but we could damn sure use one.  I was literally giggling when I paused the movie halfway through to polish off the remains of our pantry's cookie stash.

When the new X-Files movie came out earlier this summer, Lucy went through the same thing: almost two hours of fantasy bliss, revived straight from her adolescence.

It's a rare privilege to be transported so completely back into your past by something brand new.  When I was watching that movie, I felt the Evangelion feeling; there's no other way for me to define it.

Three more Eva movies are planned for release over the next 2-3 years.  Funny to realize that I already know exactly how I'll feel when I watch those as well.

Attention span approaching zero

For those who haven't seen this yet on my tumblog, here's proof that my girlfriend is the best girlfriend in the world. In your face, chumps!



I remember reading something online a little while back about how Google is actually having a detrimental effect on people's memory skills. Because so much information is now available at all times and can be accessed with a negligible amount of effort, not only is there less incentive to retain information but the ways that we acquire that information are less thorough. These days, you can answer pretty much any bit of trivia that pops into your head - like, what's the name of that caveman-looking dude from Boogie Nights? - within 30 seconds of conceiving the thought.

Tyler & I talked about this yesterday and he said that he read something else about how the internet is actually making a number of us better learners and communicators. I think the reasoning there is that we have to clearly organize our thoughts in order to make the best use of a search algorithm, or to write a blog interesting enough that anyone will actually read it.

Um... I wish I had the links to back these up, but I couldn't find either of these articles via Google. So much for answering any question in 30 seconds.

Maybe the verdict is still out on technology's effect on memory, but I can say definitively that my attention span has been destroyed by my gadget lust. I can't read an article online, listen to a complete song, write an email, or even make it to the end of most YouTube videos without stopping at least 5 times to search for random shit, relevant or otherwise. At the beginning of my workday today, I caught myself listening to my iPod while reading a New York Times article on my phone and writing a 3 sentence email that took me almost 10 minutes to complete. Some would call that multitasking, but that description is a little too flattering.

In somewhat related news, today I created an account on twitter, which is a microblog that provides a service along the lines of the Facebook feed by allowing you to keep in touch with your friends in the most trivial and expedient way possible. Feel free to sign up and friend me!