5 of the Now: Mix version

I'll try something fresh this time around. Rather than individual tracks, I'm going to give you 5 dj mixes I'm feeling right now. I listen to a ton of continuous mixes. I have 149 of them sitting in iTunes right now.

• Cameron Adams - The 139 Mix Tape
  The rockinest thing to hit me in some time. Well done man, well done. Were you born in the 70s or early 80s? Have you listened to music in your life? Yes and yes? You'll love this mix.


• Aeroplane - June Mix
  Yes, this is a mix from June and yes I'm still feeling it in November.


• Nick Warren - August 2009 Ambient Mix
  Throw this on for those late night coding sessions.


• Felix Da Housecat & Diddy Present: Lectro Black - Last Train to Paris Mixtape
  I remember back, years ago, when Diddy was screaming "Let's get up and let's get ill". I'm not even sure his dance album ever got released. I guess he's giving it another shot. I even enjoyed the Diddy talking over the music - odd.


• Sultan - Nu Breed
  
  Groove.

7 Sources of Clutter

Perhaps it is just the folks I surround myself with, but it seems like clutter is getting a lot of buzz these days. My decluttering journey kicked up a few notches a few years ago when I became a father and my family moved to a larger house. Along the way, I've come across some things I wouldn't have considered clutter years ago. Here are 7 of those things. Maybe they'll spark you to look in different directions while you simplify your life.

1. Wine - My wife and I drink wine, but not often, and that was the problem. I'm no wine expert. I'm not even a wine enthusiast. So why did we have 25 bottles of wine in the house? None of it was anything worth letting age. The more wine you get, the more racks you need, and then you need places for those racks. We've turned that around now. For us, we don't need more than 5 bottles. The best part is, I'm excited when guests bring a bottle rather than thinking "great, another bottle of wine we won't drink for months".


2. Food - Having a large pantry can be bad. You feel like you need to fill it, but why? If you haven't eaten the food in a year, why do you think you ever will? The same for sauces and leftovers. It's a game for us now to see how many things we can finish off. It sparks new flavor experiments. Some good, some bad. Have fun with it, but also make it part of the game to have as few leftovers as possible. Don't be wasteful.


3. Magazines - I blame my father for this one. He had a wall of car magazines in the basement. Stacked shelf after shelf. He enjoyed the magazines so much, he felt he had to keep them because surely he'd want to read them again some day. Even with this pre-warning, I found myself subscribed to more magazines than I could read. I couldn't just throw them away. I had to read them. I also found myself saving magazines like my father had. I now get 4 magazines, more than I want, but I look forward to them arriving and very much still enjoy reading a physical magazine, so I'm happy. Protip: If your magazine has a binding spine, you can tear out the pages you've read and recycle them right away. I started this when I'd take magazines on business trips to save weight in my carry-on bag, but now I use it all the time. I don't waste time figuring out what I have and haven't read and it feels good to be making progress in the magazine.


4. Clothes and Shoes - Plenty of people have clothes clutter. My take away from this was I reached a critical mass of clothing. I've been the same size for over 15 years and had enough clothes such that hardly anything ever wore out. Is it worth keeping in your closet if you only get to wear it twice a year? I don't think it is. Try the hanger hack to figure out what to ditch. Now I focus on having fewer, but higher quality, items. Anyone have recommendations on how many shirts a male adult should own?


5. Movies - I used to feel the need to own a movie that I wanted to watch more than once. With Netflix's turn around times these days and online streaming, I haven't bought a physical disc all year. Whatever I want is at most a day or two away. It isn't worth the cost and space of owning most movies.


6. Dishes - Collectible cups that aren't even a full set anymore...why? Like the food, just because you have the cupboard space, it doesn't mean you have to fill it. An empty kitchen cupboard can be a great substitute for otherwise having to buy another endtable or shelf to store whatever needs storing.


7. Gift cards - Fake money as I like to call them. They fill our wallets and purses. They fall in value from ridiculous fees. I especially hate them because they drain me mentally. I know the value of a dollar. I can't not spend them. We have a new focus to try and spend (or regift) these as soon as we can, but at the same time, I don't want to buy things we don't need, so it is a challenge. Any ideas on getting rid of gift cards?

5 of the Now

• Tommy Sparks - I'm a Rope (Yuksek Remix)
  Has a great call and response feel to it. If you dig this, check out Yuksek's mixes on his podcast. Tommy Sparks is a hell of a lot of fun too.


• Massive Attack - Euro Zero Zero
  Here's what's great about an iTunes library. You don't see that the song you are listening to is a B-side and not supposed to be any good. Clearly that's a generality, but you get my point. This is off the Tear Drop single. So chill.


• Kim - B.T.T.T.R.Y (Bag Raiders Remix)
  
  Epic energy.


• Petter - These Days & Unkle - What Are You To Me?
  Take two previous appearances from the 5otn and let one of the best DJs (and his production team) on the planet mash them up. Pure bliss. I've always loved these tracks together, but they hit me with a special bit of emotion a few days ago. The sample really doesn't give you the feel, but that's the quickest (legal) link I could find.


• Del the Funky Homosapien - Phoney Phranchise (Domino Remix)
  
  Del is timeless.

5 of the Now

• Luomo & Apparat - Love You All (Club Version)
  Apparat's been a sleeper for me. Once I finally gave him some focus, I realized I was already a fan and have a handful of his stuff that I absolutely love. Expect some more iTunes payouts Apparat, I'll warm up the credit card.


• LMFAO - Yes
  Party. This is getting constant play from me since I picked it up. I'll listen to it 2 or 3 times in a row even. "Every day I see my dream" can be quite profound, even if that was not the intention.


• CLASSIX - I'll Get You
  This is just fun. Crank it up and sit on your back patio in the summer air. I want to make my own edit of this. Highlight the Jeppe vocals and let them play a bit more.


• Fever Ray - Triangle Walks (Rex The Dog Radio Edit)
  Haunting, groovy, driving. I'm strangely attracted to the voice. Had to dig out the Knife albums and give them some more plays too :) The link is to a free download.


• The MFA - The Difference It Makes
  This has always been a favorite and I was shocked to see I hadn't fit it into a previous 5otn. I was huge into Border Community back when this came out.

5 of the Now

Honestly, this is 5 of the month and a half ago, but I was feeling them at the time and I want to burn that in to the Internet memory forever.

• Freeland - Under Control (Evil Nine Graveyard Smash)
  That's some large sound. "No time to talk about it, just got to feel it alright."


• Deekline & Wizard - Handz Up (Stanton Warriors Remix)
  Absofreakinlutely bangin. It's available a few places, but this is the best sample on the iTunes store.


• Sinner DC - Glass Alley
  I imagine this sounds tremendous while watching the sun rise.


• Glenn Hansard & Marketa Irglova - Falling Slowly
  I had an instant crush on the movie Once. Check out the music and the movie. So passionate. I recommend using the movie to introduce you to the music.


• Porno Galactica - Superwhore
  Still enjoying these guys. I want to go see them live again.

5 of the Now

• Evil Nine - Icicles
  Evil Nine's latest continues to grow on me. I have woken up many mornings with this song in my head. Oddly enough I was really digging Icicles just when it was released as a single. Must have been all of that radio airplay I was catching in Iowa - yeah right. Seraphim, you rule. I want more. It was particularly fun to get lost in this track during an absolutely ridiculous travel experience at an airport recently. People yelling, nearly ready to throw punches. "All around...you...is fire!". Brought a smile to my face.


• The Prodigy - Omen
  So great to have all of the boys back together. This album has lots of the feel of "Music for the Jilted Generation" and that is a wonderful thing.


• Lyrics Born - I Like It, I Love It (Live @ The Picador)
  Thank you for stopping in Iowa City LB. The crowd wasn't huge, but you rocked it like the entire town was there.


• Lyrics Born - Do That There (Live @ The Picador)
  Joyo Velarde rocked it too.


• Porno Galactica - Sail Away (Live @ The Picador)
  These guys were so infectious. They owned. Spider-man crawl on the ceiling was the best. Check out their mixtape on MySpace.

Safari 4 UI Confusion

I'm pretty meh on Safari 4 so far. The top sites thing isn't something I'll use. Coverflow previews are neat, but haven't used them. Tabs on top are ok, but I'm finding myself confused. Here's how.

If you have a window open, with tabs, and then click a link that opens a new window, Safari creates that window in such a way that the tabs from the old window appear attached to the new window!


Yes, there's a line here that is smooth in the regular window, but this interface is new. My brain doesn't know that yet. Second, it seems there is a slight color variation with the active and inactive windows. I'm sure that's great if you aren't colorblind. Doesn't do jack for me.

This is bad because I try to click the tab that I think belongs to my window, but it doesn't. It seems Apple could fix this by simply creating the new window 5 pixels lower, or higher.