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One would be Gordon Bell, a Microsoft research scientist who’s been doing a darn good job at living a relentlessly documented, paperless life. He’s been deemed the guinea pig for the MS lifeblogging project, MyLifeBits. The Bits software enables users to save every email, IM transcript, phone call, a new jpg every 30 seconds–basically all your lovely ephemera; as ars technica explains:
Bell generates 1GB of data each month, and says that having a computer store this much information frees his mind for other things. “It gives you kind of a feeling of cleanliness,” he says. “I can offload my memory. I feel much freer about remembering something now. I’ve got this machine, this slave, that does it.
Do you consider yourself a lifeblogger? If not, what kind of an archivist are you? I just read Alison Bechdel’s intrepid Fun House, and feel inspired by her diligence in documenting & the ensuing pay-off. My friend saved all his receipts for a year and then used them as a backdrop for a giant painting. Another takes a picture of herself everyday at 3 p.m. How do you document your life?
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Since I was a kid I’ve kept my ticket for every (or nearly) special event I’ve attended – concerts, games, movies, conferences, etc. The thought was that someday when I get old I’d put them all in a huge frame and be able to visually look back at the things I’ve done/experienced. The sick thing is to look at the number of movies I’ve seen in a theater, ugh…
posted by Ryan on 6-22-2007 at 1:37 pm
I keep a detailed dream journal and post all my dreams to alt.dreams in usenet; also I read them at the end of my weekly radio show on KMFB. I’ve added about a thousand words a day to my journal for the last ten years. Here’s a link to some of it: tinyurl.com/2zyhs
posted by Marco McClean on 6-22-2007 at 3:21 pm
Not a blog of my life, but of one year from it.
The year: 2000; my age: 14; the record: the number of times I went to the bathroom, numbers one and two.
I kept tallies for each bodily function in a little Mead spiral notebook… which I, sadly, have long since lost.
The totals: I don’t even remember…
posted by Amanda on 6-22-2007 at 10:39 pm
I started documenting my everyday goings-on with a picture of the day. I send it to all my friends and family through my email. So far the response is good, and I even receive more pictures from my friends because of it.
posted by Scabs on 6-23-2007 at 2:17 am
For 30 days during my winter vacation while i was in college, I recorded every time I: ate, use a substance (including tylenol, cigarettes, etc, fell asleep, woke up, and engaged in any kind of sexual activity (including masturbation). Then at the end of the 30 days i assigned each event a color and charted all 5 on a 30 (day) by 24 (hour) chart to try and find a pattern in my life. Needless to say it was a pretty rough and depressing period.
Right now Im keeping all the hairs I pluck off my face/chest/stomach, mostly because Im an attractive girl and I just think its funny all piled up.
posted by Omega on 6-23-2007 at 1:47 pm