After spending time looking for a new piece of furniture that would allow me to store all of my music — albums, tapes and CDs — in one place, I realized that the solution was just over my right shoulder: my floor to ceiling, 21-foot-long bookcase.

There is a center section of the bookcase where it is very easy to add to pieces of 1 x 4 to make the shelves 20-inches deep. Previously I thought of using that space as display area, but now I realize that the bottom shelf is perfect for albums and that by using CD flip files, I can get all of my CDs onto the bookshelf (along with my present stereo stack and turntable minus the floor speakers) as well.

I just have to buy two bookcase speakers and find a home for the floor speakers.

Making this shift will rotate my room 90 degrees. My living room is 12 x 17 feet and at present my stereo faces along the short axis. By moving the sound system to the book case, the speakers would then face along the long axis.

This would mean moving my love-seat recliner to the short wall facing the bookcase and my dinning room table to the long wall where the love-seat recliner had been.

The reorientation makes the dinning room table more of a desk, which I like, frees up space along the bookcase.

Next steps: clear the shelves of books where I’ll place my music and stereo; get to the lumber store and buy the 1 x 4s I’ll need; shop for bookcase speakers and CD flip files; put it all together; and then find a home for the old stereo cabinet, CD shelf unit and the two floor speakers.

The military dictators of Myanmar are shameless in their press to ensure they win big in next week’s faux vote on their sham constitution. They given up even the most feeble illusion that the constitution will be voted in by the people of Myanmar. Do they so believe their own propaganda that they really believe that World will get off their case once the people vote?

From Reuters:

Hundreds of government workers in Myanmar have been forced to vote in favor of an army-drafted constitution in non-secret ballots held more than a week before a May 10 referendum, some of the workers said.

In one of the cases, about 700 employees in the Ministry of Electric Power-2’s Yangon office had to tick their ballot papers on Wednesday with local referendum officials looking on, witnesses said.

“We were all shocked and some people were furious but they couldn’t do anything,” one of those present said. The worker did not want to be identified for fear of recriminations from the former Burma’s military rulers.

They said those who wanted to vote ‘no’ had to hand in their resignation,” the worker said. Continue Reading »

I’m constantly tossing interesting websites into what I call my blogpile. Some of them find their way here in the form of regular posts, but more often than not they languish and get buried deeper in the pile. The end result is that I have to go back and do a bit of shoveling. Today’s item is Finding Health and Balance as a Blogger (or, Life Will Kill You, Not Blogging).

I could never bring myself to forward all the email jokes, cartoons and other Internet comedy that land in my inbox. But then I started posting the ones my dad sends me. Judging from my comments and emails, my dad has become one of my greatest blogging assets. So for your morning blog brain bump I present: From My Dad.

Found in my electronic chapbook.

“He who approaches the temple of the Muses without inspiration, in the belief that craftsmanship alone suffices, will remain a bungler and his presumptuous poetry will be obscured by the songs of the maniacs.” Plato p. 63

From The Midnight Disease: The Drive to Write, Writer”s Block and the Creative Brain by Alice W. Flaherty.

I’m relying so much on the wisdom I’m finding on Leo Babauta’s zenhabits, I decided to buy his ebook: Zen To Done. I started reading it this afternoon.

One of the organization elements that Babauta writes about is routine.

A morning routine (for example) could include looking at your calendar, going over your context lists, setting your MITs for the day, exercising, processing email and inboxes, and doing your first MIT for the day. An evening routine could include processing your email and inboxes (again), reviewing your day, writing in your journal, preparing for the next day.

I have a number of routines, but the most important for me is my morning routine. I’ve known for years the importance of investing time in planning each and every morning, but I’ve had mixed success with sticking with that particular element. As I’ve worked on Getting Out From Egypt I’ve repeatedly found myself diving in to the lists of tasks in my head early in the day and not systematically focusing on planning until mid-morning or even lunch time. Continue Reading »

The news out of Myanmar is sadly mixed today as that country runs down to the vote a week from tomorrow on the general’s sham constitution. The bright note is that Aung San Suu Kyi will be allowed to cast her, presumably No, vote. The dark side is that regardless of what happens, the constitution is still a twisted joke.

From the Associated Press:

Detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi will be able to vote in the upcoming referendum on the country’s military-backed draft constitution, according to an official voting list released Friday.

Local government offices posted lists of people who have the right to vote in the May 10 referendum on a proposed constitution that critics say is a sham designed to cement military rule.

Suu Kyi’s name was on the list of voters in Bahan township, a neighborhood in Yangon, the country’s biggest city. Suu Kyi — a Nobel Peace Prize laureate — has been detained for 12 of the past 18 years and is currently under house arrest. Continue Reading »

Pretty feckin’ clueless.

I just called Pizza Bogo to check them out (they dropped a coupon in my mailbox two days ago) and started to order a Bianco (white pizza). I was expecting a bit of a price bump for gourmet pizza (this ain’t Georgio’s folks) but my jaw hit the ground when I was quoted a price.

The chain advertises buy one, get two free — which is always total bullshit, you’re buying three pizzas for whatever the set price is — but guess what you get for $20: twelve, count’m twelve slices of pizza. You buy one, small, four-slice pizza for $20 and they give you eight more small slices.

Just figure the crust-to-actual-pizza ratio on that compared to one large, 12-slice pizza from anywhere else.

This is in Cleveland Heights folks, not Hunting Valley. Do you suppose the owners of this chain are so clueless that they missed the story in last Sunday’s New York Times about people buying more peanut butter as the Bush/Wall Street recession deepens?

I give them three months.

1634 We told you so. Now it”s time for Subodh.
0838 Stepcase Lifehack – Rebranding with New Design

Tim Russo said:

This should be a call to arms for Ohio”s blogosphere, because we were right. To me, whatever replacement Chris Redfern and Ted Strickland cook up from this fiasco is dead on arrival thanks to that process”s production of Marc Dann. Any replacement that comes from the same cesspool of insider cronyism which Dann oozed out of is unacceptable.

We told you so. You laughed us off. Well, guess what. You have a chance to redeem yourselves. Make Subodh Chandra the replacement. This episode is going to take a lot of heavy lifting to make things right in Ohio, and appointing Subodh would be a good start.

I’m constantly tossing interesting websites into what I call my blogpile. Some of them find their way here in the form of regular posts, but more often than not they languish and get buried deeper in the pile. The end result is that I have to go back and do a bit of shoveling. Today’s item is How Your iPod Can Make You More Productive.

If you at all suffer from Acrophobia or Vertigo move on. You do not want to watch this video. I’m serious. This will make you heave. If, however, you’re adventurous, play the video full screen.

And oh yea, it’s from my dad.

I could never bring myself to forward all the email jokes, cartoons and other Internet comedy that land in my inbox. But then I started posting the ones my dad sends me. Judging from my comments and emails, my dad has become one of my greatest blogging assets. So for your morning blog brain bump I present: From My Dad.

As I sit here at the Phoenix Coffee House on Mayfield Road eating my breakfast panini with bacon, tomatoes and mayonnaise and sipping my morning matte, people are starving around the world and many nations are terrified of the prospect of food riots like those that we have not seen since France 1789.

This week I’ve eavesdropped (I’m horrible about it, it’s the journalist in me) on several conversations in coffee houses and in libraries about rising food prices here. Americans are talking about doing without. Imagine for a moment what three-fold price increases in your most basic food staple means when you live on less than a dollar a day.

From the Associated Press:

Asian countries sought Friday to tame the spiraling rice market, with Thailand proposing an OPEC-style cartel for exporters and the Philippines shoring up supplies while aiming to end its status as the world’s largest importer.

The moves came as prices for rice and other food staples have been rising rapidly around the world, sparking violent protests in Haiti and Egypt along with concerns of unrest elsewhere amid profiteering and hoarding.

The sudden crisis — the price of rice has more than tripled since January — has experts calling for major changes in food production to improve crop yields and cut waste.

“The world has come together in the past,” said Robert Zeigler, director general of the International Rice Research Institute in Los Banos, Philippines. “I think they could come together again to make sure that humanity has enough to eat. We just need the political will.”

The only political reality worse than nations filled with unemployed young men is nations filled with hungry unemployed young men.

Think about that this morning with your second donut.

Found in my electronic chapbook.

“What garlic is to salad, insanity is to art.” Augustus Saint-Gaudens. p. 63

From The Midnight Disease: The Drive to Write, Writer”s Block and the Creative Brain by Alice W. Flaherty.

I have clocks. Lots of clocks. I have a clock in my living room. I have a clock in my kitchen (that one is part of my stove). I have a clock in my bathroom (actually a clock radio that I used to listen to in the mornings). I have the clock on my laptop. I have a pocket timer that is also a clock. I have a timer-only piece. I have a clock in my car. I have my primary CD player alarm clock in my bedroom. I have the clock on my cell phone.

What the feck does any one person need with nine time pieces?

Specially when twice a year I have to go around and reset six of them (the computer and cell phone reset themselves).

This is just ludicrous.

Here’s what Leo Babauta has to say on the subject:

I have a solution, and it”s not original I”m sure but it surely isn”t as common as it should be: break free from the clock. Get in touch with the rhythms of life, of your body and of nature. Be more relaxed and reject the notion that time rules us.

I actually experimented with this 15 years ago when I became a full-time freelancer. I didn’t need to get up at any certain time so I did away with my alarm clock. I had to be able to call sources at certain times, and for that I used the clock on my computer, but for everything else I discovered that I didn’t need a clock.

…ask yourself, is it possible for you to be your own boss? And if not, is it possible at least to find a job where you can set your own schedule? For many people, it is possible. For others, you won”t be able to live all the tenets of this manifesto, but you can change smaller things, here and there.

Why should you change things? Because the clock is meaningless – we follow it without really realizing why. We follow it because we”ve been raised to believe we should, and because those who control us (bosses, corporations, schools, etc.) set schedules we must follow. The clock, then, is a means to control us – and that, in my book, is as good a reason to break free from it as any.

In other words, the clock is just another manifestation of Pharoh. And I want Pharoh to let my moments free.

Today I put the clocks in my bathroom and living room into the Yard Sale pile. I put the clock on my stove permanently into timer mode (the only valuable function it really has) and I moved my CD player alarm clock to a spot where I’ll be able to hear it in the morning (if I choose to use it in that manner on any particular day, something I intend to do much less of) but not see it.

I’m feeling less narrow every day.

For now, economic sanctions in the West, combined with an arms embargo, seems to be the agreed upon most sensible level of action to help the military dictators of Myanmar understand that their people actually want to live in a free democracy. But sanctions only work when they, uh, actually do something.

From Embassy:

Opposition members are calling into question the effectiveness of Canada’s trade sanctions against Burma’s military regime after documents from Trade Minister David Emerson’s office revealed Canada is not systematically tracking which companies are investing in the Southeast Asian country.

In December 2007, following a crackdown by the Burmese military junta on pro-democracy protesters, Canada invoked the Special Economic Measures Act against Burma. Doing so prohibits Canadians and Canadian financial institutions from directly or indirectly trading with the Southeast Asian country, and banned new investment there.

However, a document obtained by NDP Foreign Affairs critic Paul Dewar from Mr. Emerson’s office reads that “there is no requirement for Canadian companies to register their business activities with the department,” and that “the department does not have information regarding Canadian companies or individuals who have indirect investment through third-party companies in Burma.”

In addition, the document reads that “there is no requirement by companies to advise us of their investment intentions in Burma.” Continue Reading »

I’m constantly tossing interesting websites into what I call my blogpile. Some of them find their way here in the form of regular posts, but more often than not they languish and get buried deeper in the pile. The end result is that I have to go back and do a bit of shoveling. Today’s item is Unforgiven.