I like audiobooks. I listen to them when I’m driving or cleaning the garage or pretty much anything that doesn’t require actual concentration. Some I get from places like LibriVox. I’ve found some really good ones at my local library. Until recently, though, it was something of a pain to listen to them on my iPod. I’ve figured out the perfect method, though. As usual, smart playlists are the answer.

I create a smart playlist with rules like this:
Artist is John Hodgeman
Album is The Areas of My Expertise
Play Count is less than 1

That pulls all the tracks in the audiobook for the playlist. I make sure they’re sorted in the right order, then right click the playlist and hit Copy To Play Order to be sure. Then I select all, right click, and hit Get Info. At the bottom, I change Remember Position to Yes so that if I stop listening in the middle of a track, when I start up again it’ll be right where I left off. I also change Skip When Shuffling to Yes so that if I have the iPod in shuffle mode, it won’t play any of the audiobook tracks. I don’t have to worry about hitting the chapters out of order or anything.

The beautiful part of this is the Play Count rule. Whenever I finish listening to a track, it drops off the playlist. Whenever I want to pick this audiobook back up again, I just scroll to this smart playlist and hit play.

A brief dump on a bunch of stuff:

• I’m getting things done. It’s working pretty great for me, but I think I’m stressing Deirdra out with it.
• I like to map stuff out on my whiteboard, then take a picture with my phone to refer to later. In the last few days I’ve gotten myself unstuck on some old lingering projects this way.
• In talking about productivity stuff, Merlin Mann said on a podcast something like “In order to find what works for you, it helps to understand why the old stuff doesn’t.” That falls neatly in line with my experiences over on The Forge with rpg theory. In a similar vein, Leonardo da Vinci said “He who loves practice without theory is like the sailor who boards ship without a rudder or a compans and never knows where he may cast.”
• I attended a two-session seminar last weekend at a local Hapkido school. The first session covered Hapkido applications of cane, rope, and short stick and was taught by GM West, the school owner. The second session was classical judo stuff, taught by Dr. He-Young Kimm. It was a pretty good experience. I had a lot of fun, despite the bruises.
• I bought another Moleskine notebook to use as a reading journal. I haven’t gotten around to starting it yet, but I haven’t finished reading anything of consequence since I got it, either.
• I’ve toyed with the idea of creating a personal status page with stuff from last.fm, flickr, and info distilled from some of my tracking files, but I haven’t made a decision yet. It wouldn’t really be of any benefit to anybody who reads through an RSS feed unless I had some sort of weekly dump like the automated del.icio.us post. I suppose that wouldn’t be too hard to automate, though.
• My garage is clean for the first time in well over a year. Just don’t look in the tool room. At least I can park inside if I want to, though.

I can’t draw. I really wish I could, but I can’t. I’ve read stuff that says anybody can acquire the skill if they put some work into it. Not that anybody can be a fantastic artist, but that if you put your back into it you can learn to draw at least well enough to convey your intent. Maybe that’s true, I dunno. I’ve never had much success when I’ve tried, and I just haven’t been able to stick with it.

If I could draw, this is what I’d use that skill for: Martial Arts Moleskine

Last week I skipped sparring so that I wouldn’t risk getting myself stupidly hurt. Usually I’m fine with the idea of getting stupidly hurt, but this was a special case. I didn’t want to risk having to postpone my test again.

I was supposed to test in November, but in early October I started developing a knee injury that kept me out of class until December. Then I had to spend some time getting back into shape and learning all the stuff that I should have learned during those classes I missed. I felt ready by the end of December, so the first chance I had, I tested.

How did it go?

Pretty well.