A Place for My Stuff

"Why Vinyl and Cassettes Should Stay Dead"

A short but interesting article I just read:

http://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/stop-romanticizing-the-analog-age/

To quote the article's summarizing rhetorical question, "What is [the deal] with [this fad of] adopting long forgotten technology that doesn’t work very well?"

Personally, I'm all for nostalgia and aesthetics.  I really am.  But I have to balance that with practicality and convenience.  It's a personal choice where to draw that line.  Even for the same person, the line is going to be in a different place when it comes to different things.  I can think of plenty of albums that I bought on cassette back in the 80s, but have long since re-bought on CD and now listen to as mp3s which I personally ripped from those CDs.  Why?  Convenience!  I like being able to carry my entire music collection in my pocket.  I do NOT miss the days of having cassettes getting "eaten" by players, having to fast-forward and flip the tape after side 1 was done, and painfully trying to narrow down my cassette collection to a case of 30 tapes to take with me on vacation.  If there's some sacrifice I'm making in aesthetics or audio quality, it sure hasn't stopped me from enjoying the music.

Granted, it can be fun to tinker with an old piece of technology and get it running for curiosity's sake.  I was just at a party a few weekends ago where we listened to 78rpm records on a hand-crank turntable.  It was fun, but I'd never want to do that as my sole means of hearing music, just as I wouldn't want to use an IBM PC Jr. and Word Perfect 1.0 to write this document.  If you're going out of your way to watch most movies in BetaMax, or to use a quill for everyday writing, then at that point it seems to me like you're just inconveniencing yourself out of pretentiousness.

 

It's also not hard to relate this back to the topic of clutter.  Technology has given us movies and music in smaller and smaller-sized media.  We've reached the point where one can, ideally, keep his or her entire music, movie, and book collection on a single hard drive.  Granted, I'm not going to do that myself; I still like having physical collections of CDs of the bands I'm loyal to, and most of the books I read are mathematics books whose e-book equivalents simply don't have the equations and symbols rendered correctly.  But when you have an entire wall o' stuff that you seemingly never touch, whether it's books, records, cassettes, etc., it's worth asking "Can I afford to store or get rid of at least SOME of this?"

Spacing Saving "Borderline Genius" ideas

Not all of these photos are of spacing-saving ideas, but some certainly are.  This is worth looking at, at least once:

http://boofckemhoo.com/some-simple-ideas-that-are-borderline-genius-3138/

Mailing lists, mailing lists, mailing lists

I find myself rarely checking my personal email account these days.  I guess that's because I simply use email for less things than I used to.  I'm sure it's the same way with many people.  Now a days it's easy enough and more common to send text messages (including to yourself), program events into a cellphone, use social networking sites, do more discussions on message boards rather than mailing lists, etc.  Even when it comes to my podcast, the feedback and questions I get from listeners more often comes through on Facebook or some message board.

That's not to say that email is obsolete.  Far from it.  However, I've noticed that by far and large, the new emails I do get are either spam or from mailing lists. I've talked before about deleting existing emails that amount to "digital hoarding clutter".  This blog entry is more about stopping the inflow.  

The spam is thankfully pretty well under control these days.  A lot of web-based mail services like Gmail or Yahoo mail tend to do a good job lately at keeping spam separated.  It's not flawless, but it seems to work much better than it did in internet days of old.  Then again, I also use a special forwarding address in cases when I suspect it's going to be used for spam (e.g., contests, department stores, or services that I seldom use).  A lot of spam these days incorporates misspelled words and special characters to avoid being picked up by spam filters, but ironically this makes the spam more easily recognizable!

So it's time to weed out some of the mailing lists I'm on.  Here's what I see in my inbox.

• Freecycle newsletter.  I've mentioned Freecycle before. In summary, they can be a double-edged sword for hoarders: good for giving things away, but rather dangerous if you don't have the self-control to not take the other free stuff people are giving away.  While I have used Freecycle before, the bottom line is that I haven't used it in quite some time.  There's really no need to keep getting emails about it every day, so I'll unsubscribe to this list for the time being.
• Music gadget mailing list.  A couple of years back I bought a Yamaha rack for one of my all-too-many "back burner" projects (in this case, a musical one).  I played with it for a while.  Then I had to take my set-up down since the room was being swallowed up by something else.  I kept on the mailing list, because in the back of my mind, I kept thinking "Well seeing these newsletters will be a good reminder to get around to using it."  Well, that didn't happen.  Will it someday?  I'm sure.  But there's no need to keep subscribed to a mailing list I'm not reading.
• Musician's Friend.  This is a really great website for browsing and buying musical instruments and related accessories.  Great deals, fast shipping.  I recommend them, and I know I'll purchase from them again in the future.  However, I don't need to see a bunch of things every week I could blow my money on and not use.  So here's another unsubscribe for me.
• Concert venues, band sites, ticket vendors.  I've lost track of just how many of these I get.  Here's how it happens: I buy tickets to see a band or comedian at a particular venue, and from that point onward, I get updates about who's coming to town.  Ditto for a few band's official fan sites.  There are some places I do visit frequently and I do want the updates.  On the other hand, there are venues I barely go to more than once in a 2-year period.  I can drop these.
• Golf Equipment Site.  A few years back, I bought a gift for my father through this website.  Since then, they've been sending me the emails.  In the back of my mind, I think "Well my father is frustratingly difficult to shop for, so I might buy from them again, especially if I do one of these discounts they're talking about."  Well, that hasn't happened.  Unsubscribe -- FORE!
• Amazon Local Deals.  Do you get these?  I've used some.  Though I may very well drop this.  I don't need coupons every day.
• Restaurants.  Same as the concert venues: some I go to, some I never go to anymore.  Keep subscribed to the former, unsubscribe from the latter.

Oh, and one final word of warning: sometimes when you think you're unsubscribing from a list, you're unknowingly signing yourself up for future lists.  This usually happens if you find yourself on a mailing list that you DID NOT sign up for in the first place.  When this happens, just delete the email.  Otherwise, if it's something that you've knowingly subscribed to or did an on-line purchase from, it's not exactly "spam", so unsubscribing is typically safe.  As always, when in doubt, use a throw-away email address for subscriptions!

Desktop Clutter

As I've mentioned before, clutter can take on digital forms as well.  Recently I decided to take a look at one of those big digital clutter magnets: the desktop.  No, not a physical desktop.  I mean the desktop of your computer's operating system.

I would not be the least bit surprised if most pack rats, by far and large, have lots of shortcuts, files, and folders cluttering up their computer's desktop.  The reason I suspect this is because I suspect the underlying mentality is the same: a lot of instances of "I'll get around to this later" or "I need to see this or I'll forget about it", or some combination.

Here were some of the recent icons I deleted from the ol' desktop:

• A picture I edited in MS Paint to point out some details to somebody, on some discussion on some message board last year.
• Dead website shortcuts
• Some .m3u playlist file.  Who the heck even uses these?
• An executable for a Firefox upgrade.  I think I used this to install my current version after I had to do a restore.
• An empty folder.  Go figure!
• Shorcuts that I already have in my Start menu.
• Notes from my attempt to check up on this telemarketing scam who keeps calling me.  It's always on my land line and never when I'm home.  Unfortunately, I don't have the exact times they call, which means I can't fully file a complaint with the FCC.  So there's no need for this little text file on my desktop.
• A text file where I was keeping some comments I was planning on posting in response to arguments I was having on YouTube 3 years ago.  It's certainly not worth trying to look these up again.
• A list of stuff I was meaning to mail out...including a set of photos I was going to give to a friend who died earlier this year.  These are the extreme types of clutter costs that REALLY piss me off.  I don't even want to go into details here.  'nuff said.

Boston Sunday Globe

"She couldn't just throw away the old newspapers; she had to examine them for important information. It would take years to go through all of them, so she avoided the task and went through none of them."

- from the Steketee & Frost book, Stuff

Since I brought up Boston in my last blog post, I thought I'd take a minute to mention the Boston Sunday Globe.  The Boston Globe is one of the major newspapers here in New England.  Their Sunday edition is, like many Sunday papers I suppose, HUGE.  Really, the Boston Sunday Globe is the size of an old VCR.  If you find a hoarder in New England, I would be willing to bet that in at least 90% of the case, you'll find one or more stacks of old Boston Sunday Globes in the home.  That makes for a tall pile.

Fortunately, I've never had this problem myself.  My wife buys it every now and then for the coupons insert, but we're quick about recycling the rest as soon as possible.  But the newspaper seems to be a very commonly hoarded item.  The word comes up over 50 times in the Stuff book.

What makes people save stacks and stacks of newspapers?  I think the quote at the top of this post says it all.  I'm not going to bother to elaborate on it.  At least not this time.

Stopping Impulse Buying

"Impulse buying" and compulsive shopping is something that shows up rather often among hoarders.  It's not universal, but it shows up frequently enough to talk about it here.  A lot of my own clutter was partially due to simply having a way higher accumulation rate than a disposal rate.  For example, going on used book or used DVD shopping sprees way more often than getting rid of things.  It took me some time to get back into the balance of things, and being a little more critical of buying anything remotely appealing that I'd pick up in a store.

MSN.com posted an article on 9 ways to stop impulse buying.  You can go click on the link to read the original article.  Here are the 9 items they list, but with my own comments on each of them:

1. Follow the time rule.

This is a helpful rule, and it shows up in the "Stuff" book.  Basically if you find something you like, the idea is to wait a little while before buying it.  The "little while" could be anything from half an hour to a month.  Chances are the initial appeal of getting the item will wear off, maybe even to the point where you'll forget all about it because it wasn't worth remembering.
 
2. Don't shop when upset.

I'd expand this concept to "Buy the item because you actually want it, in and of itself. Let need and honest desire for the item, and not some temporary emotion, drive the reason for buying."  And I HATE the new-agey sounding sentiment of the following statement (especially in the way some other people choose to word it) but it's true: sometimes people will buy an item to fill some emotional need at the time, and/or for the feeling they get from making the purchase, rather than because of the item itself. I know this because I've caught myself doing it with different things over the years.  I'd like to think of myself as a creative, intelligent person who's always interested in learning new things as well as learning as much as possible about the 3 or 4 things I'm the most interested in.  There's absolutely nothing wrong with buying stuff for that.  It sure beats spending 6 hours a day playing video games.

The problem, however, was that I ended up buying some things in a desperate attempt to get a new mind challenge or new outlet of creativity, only to not carry through with it.  I remember some time ago buying a caligraphy set.  Learning caligraphy seemed like one of those fun and creative things I'd like to do.  But what happened is the book just collected dust while I tried working on 20 other things.  I even have a number of different musical instruments sitting in my room getting dusty, for the same reason: the thrill of having something new and different and potentially creative ended up being the real motivation for buying it.  Over all, I still don't regret buying them.  But now I'm certainly a little more careful before I buy new things, and asking the magical quesiton: "Do I already have 5 really similar things just like this at home?"
 
4. Don't shop with the wrong people.

I don't think I've ever had a problem with this personally.  Maybe it's because most of my friends are misers.  But I understand why it's on the list.
 
5. Give yourself a splurge budget.

One way to do this is to carry cash on you, and use only the case to make the purchases for a given week or month.  Sounds simple, but it's amazing how fewer and fewer people bother to carry cash these days.

6. Buy only things you can return.

This rule sounds nice, but I doubt how effective it is.  It's more of a pain in the ass to buy an item and return it, than to not buy it in the first place.  And speaking as somebody who has been known to buy harmonicas as well as sheet music, I know that there are some items you simply can't return for legal reasons.

7. Remember to not be fooled by sales.

This one is self-explanatory.  But again, the bargain books, music, and movies is what used to always get me.

8. Keep a list of things you really want or need.

This is probably more effective when it comes to things like grocery shopping.  Most of the time when people go shopping, it's not for anything in particular, so there's no list.  Of course, shopping for the sake of "poking around" is someting that deserves its own place on this list!

9. Don't give yourself access to your money.

To me, this seems really extreme.  But maybe for some people this is what it takes: leaving your credit cards at home or locked in the car, for example.  I sure as hell recommend it for people visiting a casino for the first time, but that's another topic.

Organizing the CD-Rs and DVD-Rs

Over the last month and a half, I've been furiously working on a new book.  No, it's not about "stuff".  But it does have something to do with my two biggest passions in life: music and mathematics.  I've set the end of the month as a deadline for myself to complete it.  That's all I'm going to say about it for now. 

As far as clutter goes, one of my more recent areas of attack were by sticks of burned data CD-Rs and DVD-Rs.  I have these going back at least a dozen years. These days, the CD-R seems to be on its way out.  It's not just audio CDs giving away to mp3 players, but there are lots of other faster, cheaper and sometimes safer ways to store data these days: the exponentially cheaper hard drives and even thumb drives of today, data clouds, bigger webspace, faster internet speeds, etc.  I even read that a 128gb SD card in the works.  Granted, a dual layer DVD-R can store 12 times the amount of data on a standard CD-R, and a Blu-Ray data disc can store eaven more than that.  But I wouldn't be surprised if in the next 10 years, the CD-ROM drive goes the way of the floppy drive.

Regardless, I've still got 10 years worth of data on burned discs, not all of which is doubly backed up on some other source.  Having a 1TB hard drive in the year 2001 was unheard of.  So those files had to go somewhere.  I had a few music mix CDs I burned, too.  It was time to go through these home-made discs and decide which ones to keep, which ones to throw out, and which ones to just extract a thing or two before throwing them out.  Then out of the ones to keep, it was a matter of organizing them.

To help with this, I bought an Atlantic Parade disc holder from K-mart.

It holds 96 discs total in 4 slide-out books, which you can also label in the front.  Obviously this means getting rid of the cases and insert booklets, but since I didn't really have any booklets on my data discs (I typically just wrote the description on the discs themselves with a marker) or anything fancy in the cases, this was fine.  The whole thing is about 7 inches wide.

I've talked before about storing discs in different sorts of holders in order to save space.  I still keep most of my movies in bigger 3-ring binders.  But this is another product I'd recommend if you're not concerned with keeping cases or booklets.

Prince Charles: admitted hoarder?

Some interesting quotes from him in this article:

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/317242/Prince-Charles-My-boys-are-always-pulling-my-leg

"I hate throwing things away. I am always trying to find ways of re-using things. There are bits of this, bits of that everywhere. For example, we’ve had to take curtains down in my bathroom and I was seeing how we could make cushions out of them."

Fridge Clutter Includes What's On Top

In cleaning my refrigerator, I realized I overlooked another place where clutter can build up: on TOP of the fridge itself.

If your refrigerator has cabinets or something directly above that prevents you from using it as a shelf, then you don't have this problem.  Though maybe you want to consider dusting the top once in a while.  Otherwise, I've seen the top of the fridge become a magnet for clutter.  I guess the reason for this is pretty simple: it's easy to put stuff on there because it's a flat surface in a common area, but it's not something you often look up and notice often enough to sort through it.

In my own case, I found at least 3 bags of long-since-expired chips of some variety.  I was happy to toss them.  And from now on I'm going to try to keep this area in mind.  I'd insert some poetic comment here about "not seeing the forest for the trees" and trying to relate that two in interior and exterior of the refrigerator...but I can't think of anything clever.

(On a side note, why does "fridge" have a 'd', but "refrigerator" doesn't?  I checked several spell checkers and dictionaries on this, and that's how it is.  Other people don't understand it either.)

Unearthed from the Depths of the Antarctic (my freezer)

Speaking of freezing food, I've looked at the enormous piles of stuff in my freezer, and said to my wife "You know, we probably have some stuff buried way down in there that we've had since we moved in."  She said that no, that simply wasn't true, because she keeps the stock rotated.  I was still a little skeptical.

Recently, my wife took on the challenge of penetrating into the freezer even deeper, throwing out many things along the way.  She came into the room and said "Kidding.  There WAS something we've had in the freezer since we moved in."  I saw it and grabbed the camera, "Ooh!  Let me take a pic for the blog." "No!" she screamed, "People will think that we're disgusting!"  I pleaded with her until I could finally snap the pic.  Here it is, for your viewing pleasure.  Just don't think of my wife as disgusting or lazy in any way.  She really isn't.  I mean it's not like we left this thing in the living room.