Speaking of fingers on fire

Who knew there was a World Championship of Typing? I sure didn't, I want to go, not to compete but to watch. Is this televised somewhere? Someone has to know and tell me so I can watch. And why the heck do they not have a website? Who in 2008 doesn't have a website for something like this?

You can read about it here (sort of, no video or photos or anything which is a disappointment).





Another video here (boo to them for not allowing embedding, but still a good video).

Why do my fingers sometimes work faster than my brain

One of the hazards of typing for a living that I've experienced is that most times on any given day, my fingers will work much faster than my brain.

Case in point, I have a hard time typing the correct word sometimes, even though I will attempt it three or four times because my fingers will do one thing while my brain is saying "whoa Nelly, back up there." In these instances my fingers always win out which is totally annoying. I will mentally know what I'm supposed to be typing, but there seems to be this one small part of my brain that will think it's supposed to be typing something completely different and for some reason my fingers listen to this itty bitty part of my brain. And yes, I will type the word over and over and over and my fingers will win out every time. It's actually kind of comical. I will eventually have to stop, look at my keyboard, and concentrate, then I can type the word correctly. Sort of puts a damper on my typing zone when this happens. The sad thing is it happens far more often than I would like to admit.

Another issue I have with fast fingers is that I will continually type the wrong word for certain words. These are words that I have in my auto-correct so that they will change automatically because I'm so bad about always typing the wrong word. It wouldn't be bad if the mistakenly typed word wasn't actually a word so that spell check would pick it up, but of course they are real words that if they ended up in the report the doctor would probably not be too happy about. For example count, I tend to type it without the O. Yes, it's a bad, bad word and wouldn't look very good in a finished report. I've tried to train myself to type count, but to no avail, my fingers work separately from my brain. Hmmm, six is another, I tend to type sex but I can't have a normal for sex because of course sex is a word that is used in my reports quite often, I just have to sort of hope I catch it when I type it.

There are so many words like that that are real words that I type accidentally in place of other words. It's annoying really. I wish there was some sort of finger retraining program, but I don't suppose there is; maybe I should invent one and become extraordinarily rich and famous. I guess it's just one of the hazards of typing for a living that I just have to accept or die trying anyway.

Typing tutors

I found this website that has all kinds of typing tutors and typing tests. There are ones that you can download and ones you can do online for free, some that cost and some that are free. It's pretty cool. Visit it here

Sad, Sad

Barbara Blackburn held the title for world's fastest typist. She typed using the Dvorak method which is said to be a much more typist-friendly way of doing things. I've personally typed using this (you can change your keyboard to type Dvorak, you don't have to buy any special equipment), but I could never get proficient enough in it to stick with it. Barbara Blackburn could type using Dvorak at 212 words per minute. That's so smokin'. She was listed in the Guinness Book of World Records for a decade until the category was removed.

I just read an article in which it said Barbara died in April of 2008. How sad. I wish I could have seen her type. I've been hunting around for a video of her typing but haven't been able to find one. I will post one if I ever find it.