Let me recap for you: So far you’ve met the good and the bad (Part 1).
In other words: your brainmachine is gorgeous, but your memory sucks and you have some inexplicable irrational tendency to take over the world … or just get laid.

It is time to present… the ugly. No, it’s not me, it’s the training part of memorization mumbo-jumbo. Lame, I know.

The Ugly – How to learn’n’memorize

Prerequisites for the ugly part are a brainmachine (preferably your own), a piece of cheesy thing called memory (usually included in the brainmachine) and a list. We also have the fishy part – preparation for the training.

Have you ever played the game Simon says? If you have, good for you, you must have been born under a lucky star. If you haven’t, no worries, it’s a childish game anyway. There is only one rule in this game: do whatever Simon says. Beware: there are many guys named Simon and we don’t wanna end up doing everything every Simon-guy on the planet Earth says, therefore we’ll obey dude with a very odd name – Gninrael.

Gninrael says: be the new kids (on the block).
Revelation: be like a new kid in town – discover, ask questions, observe, pay attention.
Off the record: you don’t have to dig deep into your collection of music to find this or this.

Gninrael says: doubt but don’t you dare doubt me! And leave the salmon out!
Revelation: don’t believe everything you hear or see, even if it’s on tv. Actually, especially if it’s on tv. You can always read The Salmon of Doubt by Douglas Adams.
Off the record: don’t you dare doubt sparkica and her cunning plan of making the memorization machine out of you!

Gninrael says: regulary practice holymollysticism, but you better leave Molly out of this business.
Revelation: take a holistic approach to learning. Learn with all your senses, learn about everything you find interesting – weird creatures, horror movies and lightsabres included. Engage the body, the mind and the spirit.
Off the record: key words are feel – imagine – think – practice. Feel the joy of driving a Ferrari, imagine being an owner of a Ferrari, think you own the Ferrari and practice car stealing. :lol:

End of the game. Did you know that Gninrael’s real name is learninG? :D

Are you ready?
Ready for what?
For THE list. You can’t avoid it! It’s here. Bam! Right in between your eyes.

GONE IN 3.1 SEC LIST

Sunglasses
Mosquito
Miss Piggy
Relativity
Tractor
Violin
Bumble bee

Stop starring at the list. Now! Do you hear me?!

By now you probably think I’ve gone mad in 3.1 seconds and you’re asking yourself  “Wtf is this list good for?“. Patience, my young apprentice. Everything will be clear. In a while. Maybe.

TERROMemorize me

How on earth could you possibly remember things like Miss Piggy and relativity… together? I suppose you could hire someone to memorize this shit instead of you. But this is expensive, right? Better way to do it is to learn some techniques to aid you. Go on, don’t hesitate to keep on reading. It won’t hurt (too much), I promise.

Dude, where’s my car?

Guess what? With this technique you can find car keys even if you don’t have a car. The trick is visualization and taking a virtual walk (no shoes needed). Visualize path or road you take often. Ok? Now try to identify as many stops on this road as there are items on the list you have to memorize. Stops can be either rooms in your house (flat) or towns (villages, crossings, bars, cathouses)  on your way to work. Associate every item with one of the stops and voila! When you have to recall the items, just take a walk. A virtual one. Unfortunately, no calories are burned during this process.

What have car keys to do with this method? If you misplaced something (including your child or partner) and you can’t remember where you left it (him, her), you can use a variation of this method.
Step 1, recall your last whereabouts. Ask yourself where exactly did you stand and what did you do at that moment.
Step 2, go to that point and repeat Step 1. Do this step1-step2 thingy until you find what you’re looking for. Don’t blame it on me if you end up by and with your drop-dead sexy neighbour (or neighbour’s car keys). :lol:

Werewolf meets Bush meets E.T.

Still with me? Good. Don’t let the werewolf (or Bush) scare you off. What have Werewolf, Bush and E.T. in common? Me. And this post. And presentation at Barcamp. Don’t call the lunatic asylum just yet. You see, if you’d like to memorize things harder/better/faster/stronger, use persons, creatures, things you seldom (never?) encounter . If you’re lucky, you can see E.T. in Maribor. Yeah, it’s me. Undercover. Let me tell you a secret. I have a hunch Werewolf, Bush and E.T. have regular virtual meetings in someone’s brainmachine. But you didn’t hear that from me, k?

Synesthetic drugs

I know, I know, I’m such a bad person, encouraging you to do synesthetic drugs. Please drop the drug part. What I mean is you should use your senses in different and unusual way. Try to smell (the color)  green or taste yellow. What does it taste like? Does it taste like lemon, is it sour, is it oily and thick? I have one small request, though. Don’t lick anything funky-funny while repairing your car.

Stop, stop, stoooooop!

It’s time for little exercise. How could you memorize following items (Sunglasses -> Mosquito -> Miss Piggy -> Relativity) from our list using the techniques I’ve described?
What list? Which techniques? Now, now… don’t try this cheap trick on me, it doesn’t work.

Here is my story (but you should make your own!):
I’ve put on my strawberry flavored sunglasses in Maribor, a mosquito hitchhiked me in Celje, near Trojane we met Miss Piggy (indulging in HUUUGE donuts) and just in front of IJS in Ljubljana we bumped into Einstein explaining relativity to a Playboy Bunny. Go figure.

Can you see what I see?

Before I continue, I have to check your vision. Ready? Can you see …
… bunch of dudes? No? Walk in a bar. Better?
… /me on a sandy beach chasing dragons? No? I can. Try harder!
… a pillow under your keyboard and some crazy people in pillow fight? No? Check again (or use youtube).

Well, I have to say it. You might have very poor vision. Take two pills of imagination, three pills of silliness and five pills of science fiction mixed with fantasy ever day. Roger that? Ok, I’ll let you continue just in case you really saw /me chasing dragons on the sandy beach a minute ago.

Panem et circenses

Errrrr…. what? English please!
Sorry, my bad. I’ll start again.

Bread and circuses

To really excel in memorizing you have to eat a lot of bread and play a lion-food-part at a circus. No, but seriously, you have to be able to visualize (almost) everything no matter how odd, bizarre or peculiar it might be! Do you hear me? Everything! However, if you intend to visualize me, do it with some proper clothing, thank you very much.

You probably know that I know that you always utterly admired Indiana Jones. If you didn’t know, you sure know now. You don’t have to admit it, I just know things like this. Well, I have good news and bad news. Bad news: you won’t get the main role in next sequel of Indiana Jones. Good news: you can be Indiana Jones in your head. Go on an adventure asap! Go chase pretty women, sleazy guys with mean guns and go find the Holy Grail. But do it in your head, we don’t want Harrison Ford to sue our asses off. I don’t really care about your ass, but anyway, you got the point.

Woohoo!

Woohoo what?!

It’s time to remember the rest of our list: Tractor -> Violin ->Bumble bee.
Here’s the story…

After Einstein explained relativity to the Playboy Bunny, she jumped into a HUUUGE RED tractor. Then she started to play a violin made of ice and bumble bee started dancing tango.

Hungry for more?

More games no bread

Oops, no bread, but I do have some more tips on memorizing. Stop yawning, it’s not gonna be THAT boring!

1st tip: pin down that bastard! Hey, easy now, we won’t hurt anyone, ok? Just try to connect something you’re trying to memorize with something you already know: Mad Max with Mel Gibson and Mel Gibson with Apocalypto and Apocalypto with … dunno, chocholate? :D

2nd tip: use super-duper Spiderman’s web! You don’t have to beat that poor guy and take his fancy spiderweb-kit away. Instead you can make connections between things, put them in a web of associations.

3rd tip: make it BIG, EXAGGERATED and UNREASONABLE – create impossible, weird images in your head. E.g. Gargantuan whale came into your tiny office and asked with a gentle, high-pitched voice: “Dude, where’s my car?”

4th tip: use the action (reaction) in your images, make things jump, run, roll over, hump your leg …

5th tip: don’t just use one thing/person/creature, make up gazillions and gazillions and gazillions of them!

The story. Again. But a bit different.

Einstein was so exhausted after explaining the relativity to a hot sexy Playboy bunny, that he dropped dead and vanished in a sec. She was puzzled, she didn’t know what to do, so she jumped into a seven stories high red tractor with pink flowers on it and started the engine. Suddently, she was overhelmed by the sadness and she grabbed a violin made of ice (someone told her it’s made of diamonds, hehe). Thousands and thousands of bumble bees appeared out of nowhere and they started dancing tango.

Sleazy cheesy question

Can you recall all the words from the list? :D

… to be continued … again …