A Place for My Stuff

"Nobody's Fault But Mine"

I finally finished transferring the last of the 8mm/Hi-8 video tapes to DVD.  Hooray!  That's one other project out of the way.

Oh yeah, and on to the subject line.  Last summer I sang and played harmonica for a Led Zeppelin tribute band.  I had just gotten laid off, and taking the opportunity for fun, I found the ad on Craigslist.  I sent a reply email around 4 AM then went to bed that night, only to be woken up by a phone call at 9 AM.  It was the guy who placed the ad.  I had an audition that night.  I was welcomed into the band, less than 24 hours from when I first read the ad.

I have been playing in bands since I was about 13, but I've become so disillusioned being in crappy rock bands that insist on playing crappy original music.  This on the other hand was something fun.  We got a few paying gigs too.  Unfortunately, the guitar player was not only a Jesus Freak (as if that wasn't bad enough), but a control freak.  I think I was the 5th person fired from the band in the course of 2 months.  I'll save the hilarious rants and anecdotes for another blog entry.

As I've mentioned, one thing that's rather tied in with me being a packrat, is me being a "documentarian".  Now that I had a nice little mp3 recorder, I recorded all of the practices, and burned discs for the rest of the guys.  I also recorded the shows we did.  The quality was really a hit or miss, involving a lot of trial and error of putting the recorder in a spot that would get all 4 of us with as equal levels as possibles.  Here are some mp3s from the live shows.  Go right-click and "Save Target" or whatever your browser has you doing:

http://oddmanin.net/zep (main directory)

• Ramble On
• Bring it on Home
• Black Dog
• Hots On For Nowhere

And yes, the related junk from this summer stint was still around.  Sitting in the middle of my living room was my briefcase that I used for carrying my microphone, sheet music book, lyrics, and so on.  I emptied it out and put things in their place (patch cables and stuff over with my other musical equipment, vocal effects unit back in its original box, music books back on the shelf with the other music books, etc.).  Well, that's at least another 2 square feet of the carpet I can see.

Rare Doctor Who for sale. Know any fans?

Silly me.  I blogged about the Doctor Who lots I put on eBay, but didn't give the links.

To recap: I put two lots of rare, out-of-print Doctor Who episodes on eBay. Most of them are from the Tom Baker years. They're on VHS (NTSC) and have never been released on DVD (or I think in some cases, at least never released for region 1).

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=190363358407
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=190363360985

Now one thing I don't mention in the auctions, is that I successfully made some DVD-R transfer copies of some of these episodes. So if somebody here buys them or refers to somebody else who will buy them, let me know and I'll throw in some transferred DVD-R copies of the same titles too.  I'd like to see these make their way to the home of a fan!

The Worst of American Idol

I don't watch television.  Oh I do own plenty of DVDs that I love to watch on my surround-sound system.  But I don't watch "TV".  Though I'm aware enough of television to know that American Idol has become a whole phenomenon in itself.  I first caught scenes from it years ago when I was in a sub shop, waiting for my order.  It was playing on the television there.  I watched enough to get an idea of what it was all about.

On top of this, I've been doing karaoke about once or twice a week for a few years.  I could go into reasons why I enjoy it so much more than playing in a band (and I've been playing in bands for over 20 years), but that's a rant for another blog.  But I'll get back to karaoke in a moment.

A few months ago I stumbled across The Worst of American Idol, a DVD highlighting some of the more horrible acts.  Well worth picking up!  I was expecting to laugh a lot, and stare with my jaw dropped in disbelief, and that's what I got.  Best $3.99 I ever remember spending in the past year.

Some of the contestants were actually not bottom-of-the-barrel horrible, but it was clear that they didn't have what it would take to be a regular on the TV show.  A lot of them, ironically, try too hard.  There's a voice underneath, but they add way too much tremolo (fast fluctuations in volume), stretch their range to where it just doesn't sound good to listen to, or in some cases just improvise completely different melodies:

Others were so incredibly bad that you had to wonder (and the judges would sometimes even ask) WHY they even bothered to audition.  What on earth made them think they had a shot? 

And this brings me back to karaoke.  At a karaoke bar, the expectation is already low.  Nobody is really expecting decent singing.  And even if you sing horribly, you can still get applause if you pick a song that everybody there loves, or you just bring a lot of friends to the bar.  I would not be surprised if the far majority of people trying out for American Idol were people that got a good response from a drunken karaoke crowd before, and had never even taken a single singing lesson in their life.  It would be like somebody playing a baseball video game on their X-Box, then trying out for the minor leagues.  Heck, they probably never even bothered to make and listen to a recording of themselves.

What's funny though is how sad or angry some of these people get when they lose.  Some just bawl their eyes out.  Others make idol idle threats.  "Simon's a DICK!" is a motto you hear from most fans of the show and of course from any failed contestants.  And it's true.  He's a very harsh judge, and it would be an understatement to say that he doesn't sugar-coat his criticism.  He tells several different people on this DVD that he or she is "One of the worst singers I've EVER heard." But SOMEBODY was going to tell them this sooner or later.  What I find mind-boggling is that an American Idol audition is their first time hearing real criticism.

Speaking as a singer myself, I'd actually WANT Simon Cowell to hear me and criticize me.  Why?  Because I want to get better.  And if there's one person who can point out my precise flaws, it's him.  But despite the encouraging words from my friends and the folks at the karaoke bar, I ain't auditioning any time soon!

Anyway, there are plenty more where these came from.  Doing a search on YouTube for just the words "The worst of", automatically brings up "...american idol" at the top of the search results.

Getting on the TARDIS to eBay.

It's really hard to tell from this photo, because it's taken from a back side and there's a copy of The Onion draped over the top.  But at some point I had at least 50 VHS tapes stacked on here, "to be sold".

 

I finally got around to putting some listings on eBay tonight.  Two, to be exact.  Namely for two sets of rare Doctor Who stories.  I say "rare" because they haven't been released on DVD, and the VHS versions are long out of print.  If you're a Doctor Who fan or know of a Doctor Who fan, click on the eBay banner on the left and check them out.

At least a couple dozen of those were of Doctor Who episodes.  I bought a lot of them from eBay myself about 5 years ago, because they couldn't be found on DVD.  But now that I learned to copy most of them to DVD-R or re-bought them if they were released on DVD, I wanted to get rid of the tapes.  I wasn't sure how I was going to sell them on eBay.  Selling them as individual tapes seemed like it would be a pain in the ass.  But selling them in a single lot is obviously a gamble too.  So a while back I made a detailed list, marking which ones have been released on DVD (and thus would be tough to sell).  I tried to figure out ways that I could package them with the rare ones, selling maybe 3 at time.  I had a system worked out, but never got around to putting up the eBay auctions.

Some time passes, and I find myself at a bachelor party, visiting an old fraternity brother whom I haven't seen in a long time.  So I just threw a dozen Doctor Who tapes into a shopping bag, including ones I've either since bought on DVD or successfully copied to DVD-R, and gave it to him.  He and his wife are Doctor Who fans, and unlike my ex-coworkers, are not repulsed by the medium of VHS.  Could I have sold them to some stranger on eBay?  Maybe.  But he's happy to have them, his wife is happy that he has them too, and I'm happy that they're not in my chair.

Last weekend, it was his birthday. I still had about two dozen Doctor Who tapes left, half of which were of the not-so-rare variety.  OK, what the hell: more Doctor Who presents!  He appreciated them.  His wife appreciated them.  And another Doctor Who fan at the party liked the idea of the gift too.  This finally narrowed down my collection to around 12 tapes.  Two simple auctions.  Done!  Now hopefully these will sell and I'll be done with it, once and for all.

Funny thing about that chair.  I originally moved it there from my kitchen for a birthday party I had in my apartment in 2003.  It hasn't really moved since.  But we'll see what happens when the VHS burden is finally depleted.

Speaking of video, my quest to convert the old Hi-8 tapes to DVD still continues.  Yeah, yeah, I know I keep saying that I have a lot to say about reviewing this footage of my past, but I really don't know where to begin.  For now, I'll just say this much: it's amazing how circles of friends can completely change in less than 10 years.  I think I'll be making a few phone calls this week.

Email and Back Pain and Plumbing, Oh My!

Latest updates on the "Stuff" front:

• The email sifting continues.  Thousands have been already sorted and stored, and I still have thousands more to go.  But I've sure been making progress.  Here's a tip when it comes to sorting anything:  if you have 300 items in one category and only 3 in another category, then chances are you need to redefine your categories for sorting.
• An old friend from high school just dropped me a line, after doing a search for his name on line and stumbling across a page from this blog.  Hooray for search engines and unique last names!
• I am not somebody who gets regular back pains at all.  But christ on a cracker, I sure ended up sleeping the wrong way or something a few nights ago.  It's hard to move stuff when you don't have much movement in your neck.  Just as well that I stay inside, since I smell like Ben Gay and Icy-Hot.
• Succumbed to another cheap DVD buying spree.  Great stuff, but this has meant more CD and DVD arranging.  At least there are 20 less movies on the floor now.  And I've resolved not to buy any more DVDs for the rest of the month.
• Still transferring the old Hi-8 tapes to DVD.  I've burned at least 16 DVDs now.  And I sure have some thoughts after reviewing all of these old tapes.  But that deserve it's own blog entry or two.

And the following might make me sound like a "Rain Man" or special needs kid who just learned to tie his own shoes.  But really, I am happy to finally have the following stuff working in my home once again.  Some of these could have been resolved with a quick call to my trusty landlord, but I kept putting in off.  In some cases, I was putting these off for several YEARS.  One of the main reasons was not wanting to move the clutter that would be blocking the landlord's way.  But I did clean out a path in the hallway, a path in the kitchen, and everything above and below the kitchen sink.  It was time.  I made the phone call.

Two of the problems were fixed by my landlord and his son when they visited (and on the holiday of Jan 1, no less).  The other two were fixed by me.

• Working lights in the bathroom.  This was the final straw.  This was the one problem of all the four listed here that made me say "OK, enough is enough.  I can't keep on bringing flashlights into the bathroom for everything.  Two days maybe, but certainly not forever."  My lights were working fine until I tried turning the switch when my hands were full.  Trying to jiggle the switch on with the extended edge of a flat box, it flickered then stopped working.  It wasn't the bulbs; they would turn on for a brief second when the switch was turned on.  It wasn't the fuses or the circuit breakers, though I turned them all off and then on again at the instructions of the landlord.  He and his son came by to test the circuit breakers.  They were fine.  Apparently it was in the switch.  Soon enough, they fixed it.
• A working garbage disposal. Next I directed them to the second problem I called them about: the garbage disposal.  For the past several years, turning the switch wouldn't do anything.  I'd normally leave the plunger in my sink so that I could use it to keep the drain flowing.  The landlord's son said something was stuck in it.  He picked up the plunger that was conveniently there, turned it around, and stuck the wooden handle down the drain.  Then he stirred it.  After some fidgeting, he pulled the now black-tipped plunger out of the disgusting drain hole, turned on the switch, and voila: I heard my garbage disposal for the first time in years.
• A shower that doesn't clog.  This was something I had been trying to remedy for a long time.  It wasn't clogged completely, but it had a slow drain.  At some point I did replace my drain cap with one of those specially made hair traps (my hair being, I'm sure, the reason for the clog).  That worked like a charm for a while, but eventually the draining just got slower and slower.  I was sick of finishing a shower and being up to my ankles in water.  I tried using the plunger, but I couldn't get a good seal around the drain.  I had tried buying whatever liquid drain cleaners I could find at the local 24-hour drug store.  I tried using one of those "snake" pieces that sticks down the drain and pulls out hair.  I tried buying a new plunger whose end was small enough to make a seal around the drain.  No suck luck.  Finally, I bought some other brand of liquid drain cleaner made specifically for hair, and it worked.  Now if only I could remember the brand.
• A working toilet.  Actually, my toilet "worked".  The problem though was that the refill valve wouldn't trigger the flowing water to turn on.  So after flushing, it wouldn't fill back up until you opened the back and gave the valve a tap.  It's basically a challenge in physics: the fill valve has to be heavy enough to sink as the water level sinks, but still float in water too so that it floats when the water level rises.  I tried fixing it on several different occasions, and managed to fix it one time with duct tape and an empty Pepto-Bismol bottle (whose triangular shape fits nicely in the corner).  But eventually that came undone.  The bad news this time was that the stuff I bought from Home Depot didn't work, but my new McGyver solution (two paper clips, two thumbtacks, two rubber balls, and an empty travel shampoo bottle) worked like charm!

Facing the Inbox

(From Mad Magazine, 1985 "Computer" issue.
The picture, not my article, silly!)

A while back I wrote a post on email clutter.  One one hand, it's great that we live in an age where we can electronically archive writings, photos and even music.  These days you can buy a hard drive for under $200 that's smaller than a toaster and holds the equivalent of a record store or a public library.  Or probably both, come to think of it. 

The inevitable downside of course is that we have a lot of "electronic" clutter: disorganized messes of old emails, mp3s that either aren't tagged right or that we aren't really listened to, too many shortcut icons, etc.  And there's also the risk of loosing or damaging a disk or hard drive and thus possibly losing your only copy of hundreds or thousands of documents.  I'm sure there are AOL-twit families from the past 10 years who've taken nothing but digital photos of their kids and family trips, never bothered making prints or back-up copies, and saw their entire family photograph collection disappear when their hard drive bit the dust.  Granted I'm a hell of lot more cautious than those types, but even so, you can't be TOO safe.

I've been using email now for about 16 and a half years.  I still have saved copies of certain older emails, which hardly take up any room since they had to be all unformatted text-based and typically didn't have attachments.  Though I've been letting the email in my Yahoo account get enormous.  I have at least 1300 in my Inbox, and over a dozen folders with other saved emails.  I needed to find out how to get copies of all of these to my hard drive, so that I could make copies to burn to disc or what not.  This way I'm not relying on Yahoo to keep everything safe.

After sifting though numerous stupid replies (e.g., "u like go highlite the email than copy and paste it to a word doc and do that 4 evry email") I did finally figure out how to transfer Yahoo emails saved to my hard drive.  As for whether the same trick will work with other web-based mail providers (Hotmail, G-mail, etc.), I really don't know, though I suspect it would for some and not others.

Anyway, in essence here's what you have to do:

1. Get a mail-reading program that you can run from your desktop (Outlook, Eudora, etc.).  For the sake of simplicity, let's say it's Microsoft Outlook.  If you have Windows, then you already have some version of Outlook installed.
2. Configure Outlook to connect to your web-based email account.  For the sake of the argument, let's say your email account is with Yahoo.
3. Let Outlook sync with Yahoo, so that a copy of all your saved emails on Yahoo end up in Outlook.
4. Export your emails in Outlook to some type of file (document, archive file, whatever).

Though even all of that is easier said than done.  Here are some details you should know:

• Your web-based email service has to allow "POP" email access.  The free version of Yahoo Mail doesn't let you do this.  But I pay a little money for "Yahoo Mail Plus", which gives you this ability, along with other perks like bigger storage space, no advertisements in your sent emails, etc. 
• Configuring Outlook to connect with Yahoo was easier than I thought, though it has to be done right.  Yahoo gives instructions on how do this here, not just for Outlook but for a variety of other email programs too.
• When you make Outlook grab mail (select "Send/Receive" from the menu) it only copies what it sees in your Yahoo's "Inbox" folder.

Soooo....here's MY plan for the next day or two:

1. Organize my Yahoo Inbox by emptying it.  This is going to take a while.  Every email that's in their now either has to go to some appropriate folder with similarly saved emails, or go into the trash.  I've already cut it down from about 1300 emails to around 650.  
2. Move emails from one of my saved email folders in Yahoo, to the now empty Yahoo Inbox.
3. Go over to Outlook and have it grab the emails from Yahoo.  Remember, it only copies from Yahoo's Inbox.
4. Save these emails in Outlook by moving them to a new Outlook folder or exporting them right away.
5. Empty the Outlook Inbox
6. Repeat all of the previous steps for each folder I have on Yahoo.

Yeah, I know.  It's a clutter project that doesn't decrease physical volume.  And it's not as photographically fun as something from my living room.  I'm sure I've bored some of you.  But it's still another long overdue "cleaning" project.

Letter from Don Aslett's assistant!

Earlier I found the website of Clutters Last Stand author Don Aslett's website and sent him (or whoever handles his email) a message thanking him for the book and mentioning the blog it inspired me to make.  And today, I got this kind reply back from Aslett's assistant.  I'm posting it here with permission.

 

Dear Bill:

I'm dejunking my desk--sorting, tossing, filing--and came across your email to Don Aslett, July 31, 2009, that I've hoarded cuz I like it so much, then clicked my way to your blog. That was quite a while ago, I got hooked. I like your writing style, not unlike a famous author I know, however peppered with cuss words :)

That takes a lotta time. Please blog about how getting it out in words has affected your purge.

Anyway it's terrific, thank you for sharing your stories, I'll keep up with your RSS feed.

Happy decluttered New Year,
Tobi
(Don's assistant since 1986)

Ps. I prefer the original CLS because it is sooooo opinionated (doesn't mean I agree), and it seems to be timeless.

The copy of the book that I own and have been quoting is the first edition.  Though now I'm curious how later editions compare to it.  But I have to agree with Tobi's "timeless" comment.  As I've probably mentioned, I didn't even realize the book was from 1984 until I got to a paragraph about computers. What's funny is that there's a drawn picture of a totem pole with a number of 80s pop culture icons: E.T., Pac-Man, Strawberry Shortcake, etc., and it's more relevant NOW than it was back then when you think of the whole junk nostalgia concept.

As for "how getting it out in words has affected [my] purge", I have to admit that BLOGGING has been a bigger motivator than WRITING.  I did try using a hand-written "junk journal", but found that I'd only get around to writing in it rarely.  But having a blog, and NOT wanting to be one of those countless bloggers who only posts stuff once every few months (if even that), means that I have to keep on coming up with stuff to post here.  And that pretty much means having to clean more stuff, so that I write about it.

I guess the logic breaks down to this: I'm more meticulous about websites than I am about my own apartment.  And fortunately it looks like I've found a way to utilize the former against the latter.

Speaking of de-junking, here are a few more oddities I threw out recently:

• Expired consumables.  Including vitamins that expired in February, Quaker Oats that expired in 2008, a can of powdered Slim-fast that expired in 2005, and instant Iced-Tea mix from November 2009.  Sure, the last item might be reusable, but considering how long it would take something like this to expire, makes me wonder how long I've probably had it.  I don't want to know.  I don't need to know.  Especially now that I have my own electric iced tea brewer.

Oh, and that metal magazine rack that I had to move out of the closet?  I moved it next to my bed against the wall, which now gives me a place to put my new humidifier.  Two problems, one solution.  Man I love that.

When Clutter Articles Become Clutter

One of my odd pet peeves is misuse of the word "ironic", which was abundant back in the 90s.  That's something I've already ranted about.  So trust me when I say this is a "tragic irony", I'm not using the term lightly.

In cleaning out my bookshelf (see yesterday's entry) I found some articles I printed regarding clutter clean-up.  Yes, I took an article on clutter clean-up, but instead of cleaning it, I stowed it away as part of my clutter.

Here's the first article:

http://www.oprah.com/article/omagazine/omag-200701-clutter-organize

Yeah yeah I know, it's from "O" magazine.  So not surprisingly it's written by some soccer mom who hardly refrains from painting her husband as some 1-dimensional character, and makes plenty of jabs at him.  Plus moments of crying, and professional PC sounding titles like "home space orchestrator" and "house therapist" thrown in for good measure.  Still, there's some good stuff to be extracted from it.

The second article isn't anecdotal, and instead has a lot of practical advice from different people.  This is something I'm sure I'll be quoting here and there in the future:

http://www.oprah.com/article/omagazine/home_200701_cluttertips

2010: The Year We Fade Clutter

New Years Resolutions?  I have none.  If there's something I really need to do, then why wait until January 1st to start doing it?  Besides, most people go into resolution relapse by February. Fighting in the clutter battle front isn't a New Year's Resolution; it's a work already in progress.  Let's move on to the blog.

It's helpful having some other person who can see your progress with cleaning.  Because often I find myself doing all sorts of cleaning and thinking I haven't even made a dent in the problem.  But then my S.O. will say "Hey!  You really cleaned this out today!"  Reassurance is always nice.

• The bookshelf.  I have a keyboard and a box taking up the bottom shelf of my hallway bookshelf.  I have dozens of books stacked on top of the bookshelf, in the hallway, and next to my bed.  The solution?  Stick they keyboard and box I'm not using (at least not now, or at least not as frequently as a book) into a closet, gather the books, and put the books on the bookshelf.  I can't remember the last time my hallway looked this cleared.  There's still more to be done, of course.  But at least I can walk without fear of stepping on stuff.

• The closet.  Again, one of those projects that's going to take longer to do right.  But significant progress, none the less. I wish I took a "before" photo.  Before, I had at the bottom from left to right: a stack of two milk crates, an empty metal magazine rack (which was in the upstairs bathroom of the house I grew up in), and few gym bags and stuff crammed in to the right side.  On top of the milk crates was (and still is) a huge box of old posters and old work stuff.  In front of the milk crates on the floor was my stack of comic book and magazine backing boards & bags, sitting in a pair of nested but broken plastic crates

I ditched the broken crates and moved the magazine stuff back into the empty(!) bottom milk crate.  I removed the magazine stand.  And remember that wheeled plastic filing cabinet I'm no longer using? (If not, see the two-part Cabinet of Dr. Cluttergari blog entry of mine.)  Well I wheeled that straight in.  Besides making more floor space in the living room, this also gave a more practical place for my visiting girlfriend to keep HER stuff.  Normally she leaves bags of her stuff in front of the closet door because it was the only space she should find.  Now I can actually open the front door with ease.

• The bathroom and kitchen sink.  This isn't really a direct clutter issue.  But I REALLY have to call my landlord once and for all to fix my garbage disposal and (now) bathroom light.  How is a man supposed to get any reading done without a bathroom light?  Of course, I haven't gotten around to calling my landlord because I knew I'd need to clear a path for him.  And of course, I hadn't gotten around to doing that because...well, that's the "because" that aplaceformystuff.org is addressing in general.  But enough is enough.

I'll admit, watching episode after episode of House has started to make me a bit paranoid.  In the TV show, some patient gets sick and on the brink of death, so the doctors go into their house and start gathering samples of molds and lead poisoning and whatever else they can find.  Gee, maybe I should finally take care of that horrible mold in parts of my shower?  I'm kind of glad I didn't take a "before" picture of this.  But that stuff is cleaned up now, as is my sink and surrounding area.  Now I can't say I've done "everything but the kitchen sink".