Organizational chart

It's always great when someone teaches you about something you didn't know. Like the time I was in a radio session with Tress MacNeille and she taught me the word "dirtnap." Which I always try to use whenever I can.

For example, "Looks like that campaign idea is taking the big dirtnap."

Anyway, my art director pal Kathryn and I were working on an assignment. She had a great idea, and to help me see what she was thinking she had us look at a website called Things Organized Neatly.

It was love at first landing page.

It's a web blog that's exactly what it says it is: from typewriters to car parts to crayons to movie props to sets of scissors to bicycle parts and more, all perfectly organized and displayed neatly.

I'm not a neat freak, but if I was doing a production of The Odd Couple I'd be Felix. A fatter, more Jewish Felix.

I have trouble breathing when things are too out of whack and unorganized. I like order, and knowing where everything is. The way I do that is I put things back where they belong every time. That way I don't have to send out a search party when I'm looking for my phone. Or my keys. Or my shoes.

The site is also inspiring in it shows that anything with more than one component can be organized neatly. Music to my eyes.

I want to be clear. I'm not saying things should look sterile or unused. I don't want everything to feel like the couch wrapped in plastic at Grandma's house that no one can sit on.

I'm just saying if you're going to use something every day, make a point to put it back where it belongs. (Mike, Lori and Imke: you know the joke that goes here).

Because I'm a giver, tonight I thought I'd pass along the site for your perusal in case you appreciate things organized neatly as much as I do. Frankly, I could look at it all night long.

But I have to finish organizing my books by height. Right after I alphabetize them.

When's the iSelectric getting here?

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, copywriters didn't work on computers. They worked on this beauty. The IBM Selectric Typewriter.

If you've ever typed on one, just seeing the picture instantly brings back the sound of the inter-changable font ball clacking away, not to mention the visceral feedback from the keys as you pounded on them.

The Selectric III pictured had several improvements over previous models. I won't go into them here, but you can read about them all at the IBM Selectric Wikipedia page.

This old school technology - which was quite revolutionary at the time with it's correction ribbon and stationary carriage - has been single-handedly responsible for every keyboard redesign since desktop computers were invented, at least when it comes to haptic feedback (for the haptic-ly challenged, it means using the sense of touch in an interface to convey information to the user - for example, if a key has been pressed).

They were big, clunky and loud, just like my high school girlfriend.

But like her, I loved working on it.