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5 Jan 08 – Review and Contemplations on Making It All Work

It's funny what disappoints people.

Years ago, David Allen created a productivity system called Getting Things Done, which I've talked about quite a lot here on the blog. He recently published a new book, Making It All Work, and the GTD community has gotten excited about what new gems of wisdom it might contain.

There's nothing new. His original Getting Things Done book is still the foundation, and explains his recommended systems and methods. Making It All Work explains the psychology behind GTD, what he discovered about human nature and his design of the system to flow with the ways human beings actually behave.

And people are disappointed. They want revelations, deep wisdom, fireworks, and drama. I suspect some of them secretly want new systems and formulae. Nope.

Instead, we get an erudite exhortation. Allen's eminently practical, and Making It All Work shows why humans need a system like GTD. In a way, it's a proof for GTD, as well as encouragement to implement some kind of lightweight, air-tight system to track your work.

And people are disappointed, because the system has no drama, no big changes. It just works.

Which is why I love it, and why Making It All Work was such a valuable read for me last week. I now deeply understand the importance and consequences of an air-tight system. I appreciate how much better life is in general when all one's work is written down, outside of one's mind, freeing the mind to concentrate on bigger questions.

Doesn't that sound good?

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3 Jan 08 – The Guerilla Art Kit

So, a couple of weeks ago I was in a fancy stationery store, which sells all sorts of satisfyingly tactile papers, pens, sealing wax, etc. Which was where I looked down and saw a book called the Guerilla Art Kit.

It's a celebration of public artwork, such as posters and stickers posted on public buildings and signs. More destructive forms include graffiti, but this celebrates less permanent forms of public expression.

The author points out that public spaces benefit from artistic expression. The creation of beautiful artwork, and posting them publicly, helps society. Imagine the random people who stumble upon a cheerful sticker or thought-provoking quote taped to an out-of-the-way wall.

It's also psychologically freeing. It says a lot about a person who's willing to display their homemade artwork in a public space.

The book provides dozens of different ideas for guerilla art, from the easy (chalk art) to the daring.

So, it has lots of neat idea, and it just might push a few folks to try something outside their culture zone that expands their creativity. Sounds good to me.

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2 Jan 08 – Stock Music.net

For those of us who actually create media, it can be really hard to find good music that you can publish as part of your own work. Whether it's a trailer, a music video, or a larger work like a film, licensing can be really complicated.

Which is what makes sites like StockMusic.net so wonderful. Each song costs $30, and you can use it effectively anywhere, for any reason, as much as you want. And they've got hundreds, perhaps thousands of songs. Downloadable in AIFF, WAV, or MP3 formats, with a free demo of every single one playable in your browser or downloadable.

A great little service.

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1 Jan 08 – The Abominable Charles Christopher

There are so many good webcomics. And so many good artists.

The Abominable Charles Christopher updates only once a week, and it's a four-panel strip, so not much happens. It's slow. And it's beautiful and emotionally involving.

It's drawn by an artist who works at LucasArts, so its beauty should not be surprising. But the strip has a poetic, deliberate feel to it that I rarely see in Western-style stories. It has the kind of steady hand on the tiller of story that I associate with, say, Jeff Smith's Bone.

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31 Dec 08 – The Advantage of Familiarity In Regards to Huge, Slavering Hell-Beasts

I've noticed something. Of those wonderful people who think up horrifying monsters for players to encounter during a tabletop role-playing session, many of them struggle with originality.

They strive to create thoughtful histories and almost complete ecologies for their creatures, in the attempt to create a monster that's not just another vicious humanoid.

I'd like to take a moment to say: They don't need to.

If I'm questing through a dark, eldritch forest, and something leaps out at me, I want to know how to react. Do I swing my katar at it? Do I make threatening moves? Do I very much not make threatening moves? Do I close in or keep my distance?

If I'm fighting a completely original creature, I've no idea how to react to the thing. So I usually have to resort to careful investigation ("Does it seem particularly muscular?"), trial and error ("I poke it."), or having fun with it ("I rush in and stab it, screaming the whole time!").

How much fun is that? Not much (for me, anyway). And certainly not if the same scenario occurs for creature in an adventure. I need some facts I can grab on to.

If, on the other hand, I encounter a bear with lizard-like skin, I know roughly how to react. It may spring plenty of surprises on me, but at least I have a framework within which to act.

Which is fundamental to role-playing. One reason for D&D's popularity is its medieval universe, which is familiar to all of us from reading The Hobbit under the covers as children. We know how to react to most environments in the world, at least basically. The challenge lies in keeping our characters alive and achieving their goals, which usually have nothing to do with the originality of the random creature that drops on their heads as they creep through the Sapphire Caverns.

Now, I love a well-thought-out, unusual creature. I applaud it. But if creature #5 is basically a wolf, don't worry. It'll still be fun.

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Meanwhile, reading David Allen's "Putting It All Together," a fantastic long explanation of his views on personal productivity.

Ahhhhhh. All my productivity systems are up-to-date. Inboxes empty, papers filed, etc. My life has that new-car smell.

Meanwhile, reading David Allen's "Putting It All Together," a fantastic long explanation of his views on personal productivity.

Yay! A friend of mine is spending the next three days here, and I'll be off for four. Should be a great time.

Brent:	Apologies for the lack of updates recently; unusually busy combined with "falling off the wagon" of my productivity system. I've tightened that up, and should be posting more regularly now.
Brent:	Oh, and the image accompanying today's post is by Julian Johnson-Mortimer, whose gallery you can browse at http://www.johnson-mortimer.co.uk/
Kelly:	Would you recommend then that these descriptive character histories follow more along the lines of a "Bear Guide Survival Book" or simply that they be dropped for features more familiar to the player and DM?
Brent:	Good question! It depends on the system and the campaign. One or the other may be particularly appropriate.

30 Dec 08 – Something's Going On. It's Called Life.

My Christmases have always been quiet. I may spend more time than usual shopping or baking, but I'm able to keep up with everything.

Not this year. A perfect storm kept me busy every hour of every day for the past several weeks. I was left breathless.

After several wonderful, quiet days at home this past weekend, I've recharged. I'm back to "normal," whatever that is.

I'm analyzing these busy weeks. I've since re-negotiated several things that were holding me back, such as teaching, which I don't need to do as much of now. I've also looked at my work. I made a lot of cookies, which were great, but did I really need to make that many? Could I have made fewer, and still delighted people? Yes, and I would have better managed my time had I looked at that more closely.

Because time is precious. There are so many things left in my life that I want to accomplish and experience, and do so fully. Not rush through so I can tick them off a list, but deeply experience an autumn in Maine or a week in Japan or an afternoon at St. Paul's Cathedral.

And one key to achieving that is constant re-appraisal of your life. Trivial things constantly battle for our attention. We must fight them. And live.

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Just finished volume 12 of "Shaman King." Stayed up way too late. Yep, it's that good. Fun, light, dramatic, dark; perfect shonen fare.

Heh. Retweeting @scobleizer: "if I worried about my personal brand I'd stay off the net"

Wishing I could go to sleep. Posting to my blog about recent life re-appraisal. More at http://brentnewhall.com/

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@rozsavage Best of luck with the trip!

@hotdogsladies Hey, www.43folders.com looks to be crashing on IE6. FYI. Works fine for me using Firefox on my Mac. Fun, huh?

Episode 27 of the podcast is out, with a full crew! Tons of anime news analyzed and dissected. http://www.otakunovideo.net/

22 Dec 08 – New York City?!?

I'm back from my first trip to New York City. Briefly: It was very cold, I saw The 39 Steps, and I took a lot of pictures.

Less briefly: I'm glad I went; it's worth seeing New York at least once in your life, if just for the change of pace. It's breathtakingly diverse; there's always something to do or see. One could spend the rest of one's life just sampling restaurants.

And the people are...hurried. Not rude, though that depends on your definition. They just expect everyone to keep moving. Sit down and talk with an average New Yorker, and you'll find someone as nice as anyone else.

And, to my surprise, New Yorkers stick together. Everyone in New York feels like a native, much more so than in other places I've visited.

It's a city of movement: people moving, lights moving, taxis and bicycles moving.

I'd like to go back when it's warm, and I can take a couple of days to explore some neat parts of the city. I don't think one needs a week to appreciate New York City, but one needs more than a day or two.

As with so many things.

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Reading some reviews of "American Beauty." Highly divided opinions. Interesting. Glad to see; this is what the internet is for.

@Artmaker Alternative words for king/tribal leader: chief, chieftain, or lord

Reading some reviews of "American Beauty." Highly divided opinions. Interesting. Glad to see; this is what the internet is for.

Saw "The 39 Steps" in NYC. Fantastic. A Hitchcock homage meets British screwball humor.

Back from New York City. (New York City?!?)

18 Dec 08 – Great Television, Archived Online Forever

I'm conflicted about whether I should write about the Digital Archive Project here. I don't want to get it into trouble.

See, despite TV's bad reputation, there have been a few great shows over the decades. Many of them were canceled early; others left the airwaves and have never received any other release. The only exist on a master tape in a vault somewhere in New York City, and on dusty VHS tapes scattered around the world.

Then there are shows like Mystery Science Theater 3000, in which every single episode requires license wrangling for the original movie rights.

Enter the Digital Archive Project. Its goal is to put every episode of these great shows (except those that have had a legitimate DVD release) online. Essentially forever. All in one place, using BitTorrent technology.

If you go to the site and create a free account, then click on the Categories link in the left-hand navigation pane, you're presented with a list of great old shows. MST3K. Freaks and Geeks. Max Headroom. Cartoon Planet. Brimstone.

All of them downloadable, most in high quality. Until there's a DVD release.

Now that you know about it, go forth and watch some great TV.

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Wow. I'll have about 3 non-asleep hours at home in the next 6 days. Holidays are crazy.

@Shinmaryuu Hope you feel better!

Watching MST3K episode "Invasion of the Neptune Men." With Space Chief!

17 Dec 08 – How to really use Twitter

Okay, so you've signed up for a Twitter account, and maybe posted a few times. How do you move to the next level?

Here are some suggestions for improving your Twitter experience:

Go to the Everyone stream. See who's talking, and about what.
More importantly, see what catches your attention. Observe effective use of 140 characters, so you'll know how to tweet more effectively.
Look at who's popular on Twitter (via Twitterholic). Read their tweets. You probably won't want to follow all of them, but they are popular for a reason. I follow about half of them, for whatever that's worth.
Get on Twitter frequently. It's really most effective when you can check it several times a day, at least. Fortunately, this doesn't take long.
Check your @Replies often. While you're away, someone might reply to you about something you tweeted yesterday, and you may not see it in your regular stream.
Check your DMs (direct messages) often. See above. Also, DMs function more like email, and they're very easy to miss.
Post original content. This is a personal peeve; I see folks whose stream consists entirely of "@gozo Yeah, and you know what that means" and "@hiroyuki Oh, I know it!" Little real content. Instead, as you're browsing the web, tweet about the websites you're reading. And as you sit down to your computer and load up Twitter, think about what you've been doing, and tweet about that.
Look into an aggregator application, like Twhirl, TweetDeck, or PeopleBrowsr. These will show all your feeds (including @Replies and DMs) on one screen, making it much easier to notice important topics.

But above all, don't go too nuts. Twitter's fun and useful, but it's not a place to spend your entire day. It's only Ones and 0s.

Hope this helps.

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@nwjerseyliz The most cheerful people often have had lots of negative experiences, too.

Over 500 free RPG's at http://is.gd/cdjf

Checking lots of blogs. A lot of interesting things out there.

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@brennen Just about everything?

@Annakie Glad to help re social media etiquette article. I don't agree with all of it, but some great advice there.

Augh. Just burned a batch of Christmas cookies. I just don't have time to bake this year; may end up with a small set.

16 Dec 08 – Practical Advice: Initiative Cards

I believe that speed is essential to good role-playing. Think of a good action movie or an engrossing book; the story rockets from revelation to revelation, leaving you breathless. Not that a GM should rush from one plot point to the next, but there's no point in taking a plot slowly.

Unfortunately, many of the rules and resolution mechanisms in role-playing systems slow down the game as players roll dice and compare numbers. They're necessary, sure, but the time they consume needs to be minimized.

Enter initiative cards. This one of those little tricks that drastically speed up a game.

Imagine a 3x5" card that contains the following information:

Character Name
Initiative score
Max HP
Current HP
Standard attack
Vulnerabilities

Imagine writing up one of these for each character (player and non-player). When a battle begins, write down the initiative scores, and order the cards by that score.

Boom. You call out the name of the player on the first card. The player attacks an NPC. You pull out the NPC's card, note any damage, and slip it back in. You then flip to the next card and announce that player's turn.

And battle zips from one player to the next. No need to write down a temporary initiative list, and all vital stats are in one place.

Even better, on subsequent battles you just sort in the appropriate NPC cards. Takes about ten seconds to set up for a battle.

It's greatly sped up my games. I'd prefer to just do away with initiative altogether, but that's another blog post.

Posted in Role-playing - Permalink - Reply

No offense to any of my Twitter friends, of course; I'm just a little tired of all things digital at the moment.

Feeling a bit tired of social media this morning. Would rather spend a few hours around a table, with juice and eggs, chatting with friends.

Reading a great list of social media etiquette (for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.) - http://is.gd/aZ2n

@Scobleizer There is no competition.

Whew, last night of Web Design class. Went well, but I'm wiped!

	Making It All Work by David Allen
	Appleseed, volume 2 by Masamune Shirow
	Shaman King, volume 12 by Hiroyuki Takei
	Shaman King, volume 11 by Hiroyuki Takei

	And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself (Antonio Banderas)
	The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (Mamoru Hosoda)
	Madagascar 2 (Dreamworks)