KemoNine's Blog

I wish they didn’t but the unfortunate truth is that tools do matter. It doesn’t matter what discipline we frame this up within. Tools Matter. QED, EOF, return 0.

I bring this up because a lovely human I know via the internet voiced their distaste for writing recently.

After talking to them for awhile it seemed like the tools they were using were less than the best for their needs and writing style. I sent them some links and they actually seemed excited for the prospect of reducing their distaste for writing.

The [work]book ‘American Cursive Handwriting’ by Michael Sull (Goodreads Link) is an interesting ‘read’. I picked up a copy years ago when I first started getting interested in writing. I was looking for ways to slow down, think and better remember things. After I entered the world of analog writing it quickly became clear it helped me on too many levels to properly enumerate here.

The biggest problem I had early on with analog writing was my legibility and writing speed. I could barely read my own scribbles and anyone else had about zero chance of reading my handwriting. Despite other gains I had with analog writing, these were major hurdles for me. I would definitely have thrown in the towel on analog writing if I hadn’t found ‘American Cursive Handwriting’ during my research into ways of improving legibility and speed.

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted about my soap preferences. My previous supplier went weird politically and seems to be forever out of stock on the soaps I use to get clean. I had to find an alternative.

Enter Chagrin Valley Soap and Salve (link). They really saved me when it comes to bar soap and have become my primary source of soap over the last ~9-12 months.

Currently I’m using the following products and I cannot complain. I highly recommend checking out their offerings, including the following

Riffing

a monolog or spoken improvisation, especially a humorous one, on a particular subject

or: break the rules and see if there is no spoon

Bullet Journals (BuJo)

The official Bullet Journal site (link) is a full, end to end system of organization. It’s been a huge hit in pen/paper circles for several years now. I read their documentation, tried “the system” and walked away with a bad taste in my mouth. I also was left in a bad spot organizationally.

The Humble Every Day Carry

When I first went back to a pen and paper I discovered I never wanted to be without. Rain, snow or shine: pens, pencils and paper will be there for you. Day of night, power, no power too. These simple tools will ‘just work’. I’ve had phones and digital organizers fail because of drained batteries, getting wet and getting too warm or cold. Analog beats digital for an every day carry every time.

Changelog

2024-12-06

Updated to link to the digital version of the notebook. Mild rewrite to improve post text.

Digital Version

This post is about the analog anti bad habit notebook. For a digital version implemented as an Obsidian vault, see this post.

The Post

Not going to lie : I have a few bad habits.

I’m trying to break them but lack a good ‘visual cue’ for how often I succumb and how bad/good I’m doing.

OK…

Lately I’ve been poking at updating and improving my usual offline mapping setup on Android. For the last few years or so I’ve been GPX tracking my outings, adventures and some other stuff. Mainly for photo geotagging but also because it can be neat to see where I was and when after a day trip.

When out and about I insist on purely offline maps too. I like being away from the modern world, notifications and distractions. So… my phone ends up in places without cell service or the SIM card removed.

Analog Fun

Lately I’ve been heavily focused on all things analog. Writing supplies (pen/paper/pencil), shaving hardware, belts, jewelry, etc.

It’s been a very fun journey but along the way I realized something that may not be obvious : the ‘mass market’ effect is real and tends not to produce ‘high quality’ goods anymore. ‘Unique’ is also becoming an oxymoron.

Mass Market / Mass Production

I can go to Amazon, Google, others and do a search for something like, say, a ‘razor’ and a nice, very long list of products will materialize from thin air. Quality ranges from ’this will last one use’ to ’this will probably be handed down to your next of kin’ and everywhere in between.

[Editors note: this post was inspired by ‘Reach for Markdown, not LaTeX’ (link)]

Years and years ago I learned about a wonderful markup language called LaTeX. It was far more powerful than HTML, had many templates available, handled math correctly and generally ‘just worked’.

Having content and presentation generally separate was a freeing moment in my journey through markup languages.

Once I discovered this disconnect I became an instant and heavy user of markup languages. I’ve used many over the years and LaTeX always reigned supreme for me. It’s flexible, adept and works beautifully.

Going the Distance

I recently finished mailing 32[!] letters as part of the InCoWriMo (link) ‘challenge’. I put out a call online for interested parties on my primary social network(s) and the response was overwhelming. So much support and positivity among the analog lovers online. Some even asked if I wouldn’t mind becoming pen pals as a fun way to keep the project alive long-term.