Archives for Uncategorized
Amazon’s Kindle is in stock
We wrote about the Kindle when it was first released back in November of last year. Upon its release, Amazon underestimated the demand and a waiting list was awaiting customer orders. Amazon has since increased production and the Kindle is now available for immediate shipment.
From Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos:
Ever since we released our wireless reading device Kindle last November, we’ve been unable to keep it in stock, and we’ve had to work hard to increase manufacturing capacity. Today, we’re excited to announce that Kindle is in stock and ready for immediate shipment.
We’ve also been adding selection. Since launch, we’ve added 25,000 additional books, blogs, magazines, and newspapers that you can download wirelessly to your Kindle, bringing the total to more than 115,000.
Go forth and read all the e-books you would like without worrying about bookshelf space.
Popularity: 3% [?]
Toy lending library
If there is one thing I remember from when I was a young pup, it was my all too fast boredom with toys that I accumulated. I would eagerly anticipate a trip to the toy store so I could pick out a new toy, only to have it lose its appeal in about two weeks. One Christmas I was so psyched to get Laser Tag, but upon receiving it I realized that those slick commercials made the thing look so much cooler than it actually was. Laser Tag found a quick exit from my toy rotation and it stayed in the basement for quite some time.
Fast forward 20-plus years later, and I find my daughter in the same boat. Yes, she’s younger than I was when I lusted for my very own Laser Tag set, but she definitely gets bored of the many toys that she has at her disposal. We luckily have a great service within walking distance of our home, the Pittsburgh Toy Lending Library, to help curb the toy accumulation problem. It lets little ones play with all of the library’s toys, and they can check toys out and take them home if they like. The service is very inexpensive and it is operated by an all-volunteer staff.
Hopefully, your city or town has something very similar (if not, check out our second post today, which discusses a national toy lending program). For those of you who want to curb the accumulation of more toys, this is a great alternative to purchasing toys that lose their appeal in a few weeks.
Popularity: 20% [?]
Rock Band clutter
One of the most popular games this holiday season is Rock Band. Think Guitar Hero, but multiplied by three. The game not only includes a guitar, but a drum kit and a microphone. Now, all your friends can pretend to be rock stars at the same time!
I’ve never played Guitar Hero (and I don’t intend to start), but Rock Band seems like an unclutterer’s nightmare. The storage space needed for all of these fake instrument controllers is ridiculous. For all the strides that gaming has made in making their systems smaller and wireless, they have been demolished by Rock Band. Not many homes are equipped for impromptu jam sessions, so be forewarned as to what you are purchasing for your children. You will have to deal with the consequences of your clutter. And more often than not, you will most likely have to play the roadie and clear the stage of all the fake instruments. That is when I would threaten to sell the game and all of its peripherals. Mom and Dad aren’t roadies and the den isn’t going to be a studio.
For more on Rock Band, here is an article in the Charleston City Paper.
Popularity: 10% [?]
Gordon Brown auctions off Blair’s gift clutter
Over his 10 years in office, former Prime Minister Tony Blair received quite a few gifts from his travels abroad. Due to ministerial rules, he was not allowed to take any gifts that he did not pay for himself. The result is a ton of clutter left behind for Prime Minister Gordon Brown. Brown has decided to auction it off for charity.
From the article:
Also due to be auctioned are dozens of tokens of respect from foreign leaders, including a £4,000 Segway electric scooter presented by the King of Jordan, a nativity scene presented by Yasser Arafat, and £195 bottles of Château Mouton Rothschild from President Chirac of France.
Let this be a lesson to us all. If you have a bunch of gifts from world leaders taking up space in your place, you may want to auction them off to charity as well.
Popularity: 6% [?]
Reader suggestion: Storing and disposing used paint
Reader Mike sent us the following tip that he adapted from an episode of TLC’s Clean Sweep:
Paint cans in my garage tend to reproduce and grow. Pretty quickly after various projects there is a collection of 1 gallon paint cans taking up huge amounts of space. When my wife and I went to finish painting a room, we discovered our less than half filled paint cans also thickened a little over time.
To put and end to this, I purchased a few 1 quart cans from the paint store for $1.88 a piece and poured the paint out of the gallon containers into these little guys. In the end, I wound up throwing away a very small amount of paint, but a very large amount of paint containers.
He added the following tip:
Paint in its liquid form is hazardous waste, however, as a solid it is safe to throw away. I combined all my left over paint into a single one gallon container, capped it, and saved it with the used lightbulbs for hazardous waste disposal. The rest of the [empty 1 gallon] cans were left outside in the sunlight to dry, then they were simply tossed.
Thank you, Mike, for the great tip!
Popularity: 37% [?]
Pardon our dust
Frequent visitors to this site will undoubtedly notice some changes to Unclutterer today. Over the weekend we made the switch from Movable Type to Wordpress. While we were performing the migration, it seemed like an opportune time for us to make a few other changes we had been planning:
- For the time being we’ve decided to move the advertising to the far-right column (away from the content) to make it less obtrusive. We hope this makes your reading experience more pleasant.
- We wanted to make it easy for you to refer this site to a variety of social bookmarking sites, but we didn’t want to litter-up the page with a multitude of little icons, so we are now using the Share This plugin from Alex King. You’ll find a link for this functionality at the bottom of every post. Give it a whirl.
- Near the bottom of the middle column you’ll now find a list of the posts that are currently the most popular.
- Those who access our content with RSS feed readers might temporarily notice duplicate items appearing. A required change to the URL scheme for permalinks is the source of the issue. We apologize for any inconvenience this might cause.
All these changes have been made in an attempt to serve you better. As always, please let us know in the comments below if there’s anything we can do to make this site even better.
Popularity: 18% [?]
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