A Place for My Stuff

Age-Activated Attention-Deficit Disorder

Here's a piece that I found on a message board recently.  I'm still in my 30s, but it makes me wonder how much of this is related to my own procrastination at times.

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A.A.A.D.D. (Age-Activated Attention-Deficit Disorder)

Know the symptoms! This is how it manifests:

I decide to water my garden. As I turn on the hose in the driveway, I look over at my car and decide it needs washing.

As I start toward the garage, I notice mail on the porch table that I brought up from the mail box earlier. I decide to go through the mail before I wash the car.

I lay my car keys on the table, put the junk mail in the garbage can under the table, and notice that the can is full.

So, I decide to put the bills back on the table and take out the garbage first.

But then I think, since I'm going to be near the mailbox when I take out the garbage anyway, I may as well pay the bills first.

I take my check book off the table, and see that there is only one check left. My extra checks are in my desk in the study, so I go inside the house to my desk where I find the can of Pepsi I'd been drinking.

I'm going to look for my checks, but first I need to push the Pepsi aside so that I don't accidentally knock it over.

The Pepsi is getting warm, and I decide to put it in the refrigerator to keep it cold.

As I head toward the kitchen with the Pepsi, a vase of flowers on the counter catches my eye--they need water.

I put the Pepsi on the counter and discover my reading glasses that I've been searching for all morning. I decide I better put them back on my desk, but first I'm going to water the flowers.

I set the glasses back down on the counter, fill a container with water and suddenly spot the TV remote. Someone left it on the kitchen table.

I realize that tonight when we go to watch TV, I'll be looking for the remote, but I won't remember that it's on the kitchen table, so I decide to put it back in the den where it belongs, but first I'll water the flowers.

I pour some water in the flowers, but quite a bit of it spills on the floor.

So, I set the remote back on the table, get some towels and wipe up the spill.

Then, I head down the hall trying to remember what I was planning to do.

At the end of the day:
* The car isn't washed
* The bills are not paid
* There is a warm can of Pepsi on the counter
* The flowers don't have enough water
* There's just 1 check in my checkbook
* I can't find the remote OR my glasses
* And I don't remember what I did with the car keys.

Then, when I try to figure out why nothing got done today, I'm really baffled because I know I was busy all damn day, and I'm really tired.

I realize this is a serious problem, and I'll try to get some help for it, but first I'll check my e-mail....

Do me a favor, please. Forward this message to everyone you know, because I don't remember who the hell I've sent it to.

If this isn't you yet, your day is coming!

Another Slump

I took a look around my home recently, I came to a painful realization.  I still have tons of clutter around.  Right now, my home doesn't look like an "after" picture in a "before and after" comparison of clutter clean-up.

Does this mean my efforts from the past year and half on this blog have all been a failure?  I sincerely don't view it like that.  As my posts have shown, I have indeed gotten rid of TONS and tons of stuff.  Like I've said before, there's no way I could have moved out of my last apartment if I didn't start taking action on this a while back.  But clutter really is about accumulation, and just like mowing the lawn, it's one of those things that's not going to be forever done in just one sitting.  Continuing with the lawn analogy though, if you wait too long and let it accumulate, the situation does grow ridiculously out of control and the job gets harder to do.

So believe me, this blog isn't going away any time soon.  There's plenty to clear out.  Between moving into a new place, getting married, getting a new job, etc., I haven't been making this a priority.  But I'm "settled in" now, so I can't use that as an excuse.

I DO notice a change in my bevior though, compared to 2 years ago.  Clutter control isn't as simple as cleaning one's existing place, or moving to a bigger one, because if you're still a packrat at heart, you're going to fill up your remaining stuff again.  I rarely go on these shopping sprees that used to increase the volume of my stuff: book shopping, DVD buying, flea markets, etc.  I'm just due for another major cleaning.  You'll see the photos here eventually, of course.

 

 

And Thus Spoke the Clutter Fairy...

I could be a stinker and steal the image, but no, I'm better than that.  Go look at it here:

http://clangnuts.blogspot.com/2007/10/clutter-fairy.html

"But Bill, what are you talking about?"  Well, just click on the damn link!  It's, like, to a picture.

 

The 80s are back! In the form of media stupidity

Let me state for the record that I'm an unshamed fan of 80s pop-culture, wtih all that stuff being from the decade I grew up in.  I never jumped on the anti-80s bandwagon that so many were on throughout the 1990s.  But these two news pieces amused me, and I'm here to rant about them.

Here's a quote that summarizes the first news piece: After a complaint from a listener to OZ-FM in Newfoundland who heard the song at 9:15 at night, the CBSC ruled that Money for Nothing, a radio staple since 1985, violates the code of ethics on several fronts due to the use of the word 'faggot'.

OK, so in other words, a 1985 song by rock stars parodying blue-collard workers lambasting rock stars, is now offending some heterosexuals in the year 2011 because they think the song was bashing homosexuals. Got it!

Now for the second piece, which claims to pass as journalism.  Remember back in the 1980s when people were in a hysteria regarding roving bands of devil worshipers who were in every town in America, sacrificing kitties and eating babies?  And of course, if you listened to Ozzy Osbourne albums, or played Dungeons & Dragons, or wore a spiked bracelet, that you'd turn into one of those evil goat-knifing people?  Fewer people seem to remember that it all just turned out to be an unfounded hysteria, and the FBI found no evidence of it.  Granted there were a few isolated cases of criminally insane people who believed the Devil was talking to them, or bored teenagers who ironcially enough styled themselves after the scare propaganda that churches were pushing, but that's about it.

You'd think people would have learned by now, but I guess not.  Dumbass Allison T. Williams and a retired policeman are now claiming "Thanks to HBO's hit vampire television series, 'True Blood,' and the Twilight series of novels and movies that center on teenage vampires, law enforcement agencies nationwide are seeing an upswing in ritual and occult-related crimes".  Oh really?  Where?  When?  Who?  Check out her list of "Behavior signs a teenager may be involved in occultic, ritual crime" at the bottom too.  They're indistinguishable from what extremely troubled teenagers have done in past generations too.  And people really think HBO is to blame?

To further show how clueless she is, she says "there is an increase nationwide in churches that practice satanic worship, including the Church of Satan".  If she just bothered to do even a 10 second search on the internet, she'd learn that the Church of Satan is a strictly non-theistic religion who besides taking Satan only as a metaphor for man's carnal nature, is also strictly against animal cruielty and other illegal activity.  People who have the balls to read their paperback book, The Satanic Bible, already know this.  Never mind the fact that the Church of Satan has been explaining this in all the interviews they've been doing for the last 45 years.  If Williams can't even be bothered to do a Google search on a topic, then what possible research went into her article?

[End o' Rant]

And speaking of readers...

 

Here's a review of mine for Bill Hicks: The Essential Collection.

I've been a fan of Bill Hicks ever since I saw him on TV back around 1990, when there was also so shortage of stand-up shows on cable.  I've since bought every release of his that came out, most of them being posthumous releases of course.  Hicks has also been one of the most requested acts for the comedy radio show I've been hosting for several years.

Whether you're just getting into Bill Hicks or just can't get enough of him, "The Essential Collection" is well worth picking up.  The set contains two audio CDs, two DVDs, and code to download your own copy of Hicks's personal musical project, "Lo-Fi Troubadour".

Obviously, you can't cram every routine of his on to two CDs.  But they do manage to pack a lot of his best routines in here.  This includes about 16 minutes of previously unreleased material, though admittedly most of that is just some variations on routines that were recorded from other nights ("Please Do Not Disturb", renting porno, etc.).  Still, infinitely better than most of what passes for stand-up comedy today.

The two DVDs alone are, in my opinion, well worth the cost of this set.  There are LOTS of previously unseen performances here, going all the way back to 1981!  Most of these are just single-camera shots from somebody in the audience with camcorder, but still gems none the less.  Plus there's the hilariously demented home movie, "Ninja Bachelor Party".

The music of "Lo-Fi Troubadour" was mixed together at the famous Abbey Road Studios.  These are Hicks's multi-track recordings of his own compositions.  No comedy; just music.  If you've heard the albums "Arizona Bay" or "Rant in E-Minor", then you've heard some samples of this in between those comedy tracks.  Granted, "Lo-Fi Tourbadour" isn't a would-be platinum album that will change your life.  But like everything else in this collection, it's still something honest and heart-felt.

Big Dead Place

Some time ago I finally got around to cleaning my old car.  This included the box of forgotten stuff in my trunk.  I usually keep a book in the car so that if I'm out at a restaurant or wherever, I can read.  Sure enough, I found two books stowed away:

One of these is The Pythagorean Sourcebook and Library, graciously hunted down and given to me as a gift by the owner of Abraxas Books.  Pythagoras is one of those famous yet elusive figures from history, the latter because there aren't too many objective historical sources on him.  But this compiles as much as possible into one volume.

The other book is -- and this brings us to the topic of snow, which I see plenty of outside my window -- Big Dead Place: Inside the Strange and Menacing World of Antarctica.  Here's a description from the site:

"What goes on in Antarctica? Is it the pristine but harsh frontier where noble scientific missions are accomplished? Or an insane corporate bureaucracy where hundreds of workers are cooped together in hi-tech communes with all the soul of a suburban office park? Welcome to Big Dead Place, a grunt’s eye view of America’s Antarctic Program that shatters the well-worn clichés of polar literature. Here the heroic camaraderie and romantic desolation give way to sterile buildings populated by characters like a crazed manager who fills his boots with antifreeze, the greasepaint-obsessed worker Boozy the Clown, ghosts that haunt the food freezer, and horny employees who grab rare private moments coupling on the altar in the Chapel of the Snows."

Here was a review I wrote a while back:

"Like many, I assumed that UN-owned Antarctica's only inhabitants were maybe a group of elite scientists at the south pole. Far from it. The majority of people there are actually blue-collar workers who aren't near the pole. Johnson goes into great detail about what labor goes on, the social scene, living situations, and a lot more. And let's face it, the job of working in one of the most isolated wastelands of the planet is not only going to attract certain personality types, but have its affect on people who live down there long enough.

Some anecdotes had me laughing in hysterics. Other times my jaw dropped as I read of some of the tales of the original Antarctic explorers (no sunlight for months, obviously no vegitation, having to sever frostbitten limbs, ec.), as well as the ridiculous bureaucracy that goes on there today behind the friendly HR faces. Johnson writes in a way that's very down to earth without sounding over-opinionated or whiney.

Within each chapter, the author jumps between Antarctica history and stories from his time working in Antarctica. This makes the format seem a bit disjointed at first, but you get used to it. The book even includes a glossary of Antarctica community slang. This is more than just an amusing appendix though, since he uses a lot of the terms throughout the book.

Never mind those documentaries on the Discover channel. THIS book is an honest and very revealing first-hand account of what goes on down on the seventh continent."

Shows that Hoarders Might Want to Avoid

My wife has been hooked on two particular shows as of late: the History channel's Pawn Stars (I guess the channel caved in to the fact that many people are too uneducated to want to watch a history program, even an inaccurate watered-down one), and A&E's Storage Wars.

Pawn Stars is quite simply about a pawn shop in Las Vegas.  You see the strange and bizarre things that people bring in, the experts who evaluate them, and silly haggling wars between the sellers and the shop.

Storage Wars, to quote the website, "follows four professional buyers and their teams as they scour repossessed storage units in search of hidden treasure."  You see, storage unit companies often end up being stuck with some units full of stuff, due to the owners no longer paying their fees or even disappearing without any notice.  So they clip off the padlocks of these abandonned units, and auction off their contents under the condition that 1) prosepective bidders can open the unit and take a look around, but not touch anything or open any boxes etc., and 2) it's the entire contents of the room that's being auctioned off.  It's a mystery grab bag.  The buyer might end up bidding $2500 and wind up with a room of valueless crap, or might find some rare antiques or collectable items in there worth $10,000.

So why am I mentioning these shows?  You would think that this is something that packrats and hoarders should watch and look into.  "Hey, Bill, look at this!  This means you can probably sell some of your stuff."  However, I suspect it would have the opposite effect.  Hoarders are always looking for rationalizations and justifications to keep their stuff.  If you tell them that there's treasure among their trash...they're going to be even more reluctant to get rid of it!

Granted I like what I've seen of these shows, especially Pawn Wars, because you do learn something about history or celebrities in every episode.  But the sad reality is that most of the crap you've been hoarding is not valuable.  To quote that great book again, Clutter's Last Stand by Don Aslett:

"The glittering illusion that someday you might be able to sell a piece of junk for a phenomenal sum creates an excuse to cling to even the most worthless items.  All sorts of appetite-whetting success stories appear in the media telling how some lucky soul wandered into his attic and found a rare old coin, kettle, or credenza that made him rich.  Don't let that hope get you out of perspective -- only a few pieces of junk in tens of thousands are rare and valuable [...] There isn't much cash in your closet, only clutter."

Coming soon from iRobot: the Scooba 230

iRobot, the company that makes the Roomba vacuuming robot, also makes the Scooba floor-washing robot.  And now, they're coming out with a smaller version of the Scooba called the Scooba 230.  You can see the commercial here:

http://www.irobot.com/scooba230/

Will hoarders buy this?  Probably not, because most hoarders have a problem with getting all of the stuff OFF the floor before you can vaccuum or mop.  Still, I think it looks really cool, and I am a happy owner of a Roomba (which I can use, now that I can finally see my carpet!).  So I think it's worth mentioning.

There are also a number of litter box cleaning robots out there, like this one:

http://www.litter-robot.com/

Is there a way to use computers and/or AI to help fight clutter?  I've never really thought of it before.  But now it's gotten me wondering...

Which Newspaper Do You Read?

Some humor I found on the web recently.  Author unknown:

WHICH NEWSPAPER DO YOU READ?
 
1. The Wall Street Journal is read by the people who run the country.

2. The Washington Post is read by people who think they run the country.

3. The New York Times is read by people who think they should run the country and who are very good at crossword puzzles.

4. USA Today is read by people who think they ought to run the country, but don't really understand The New York Times. They do, however, like their statistics shown in pie charts.

5. The Los Angeles Times is read by people who wouldn't mind running the country -- if they could find the time -- and if they didn't have to leave Southern California to do it.

6. The Boston Globe is read by people whose parents used to run the country and did a poor job of it, thank you very much.

7. The New York Daily News is read by people who aren't too sure who's running the country and don't really care as long as they can get a seat on the train.

8. The New York Post is read by people who don't care who is running the country as long as they do something really scandalous, preferably while intoxicated.

9. The Miami Herald is read by people who are running another country but need the baseball scores.

10. The San Francisco Chronicle is read by people who aren't sure if there is a country or that anyone is running it; but if so, they oppose all that they stand for. There are occasional exceptions if the leaders are handicapped minority feminist atheist dwarfs who also happen to be illegal aliens from any other country, or galaxy.

11. The National Enquirer is read by people trapped in line at the grocery store.

12. The Minneapolis Star Tribune is read by people who have recently caught a walleye ice fishing and need something in which to wrap it.

And now, the news:

 

The Richter Scale of Stuff: NSGCD's Clutter-Hoarding Scale.

Here's something I learned from the quiz I posted a couple of days ago.  It's about the Clutter-Hoarding Scale.  Or as I call it, "The Richter Scale of Stuff".

The Clutter-Hoarding Scale was developed by the NSGCD as a tool for professional organizers to evaluate the levels of health and safety in a home. It measures household clutter and hoarding tendencies on a scale of 1 to 5 (Level I is low while Level IV is high) in four categories:

• Structure & Zoning Issues
• Pets & Rodents
• Household Functions
• Sanitation & Cleanliness

You can download their PDF file which explains it in more detail.  I'd probably rate myself at worst as a II, I (because I have no pets), III, III, in the four categories respectively.