I can’t remember whether I found this on Facebook or Twitter, but Randy Reddig posted this idea on his blog and it’s awesome.  The basic concept is to get rid of one thing in your house, everyday for a year.  I’ve thought about all the stuff I’ve accumulated and doing something like this with it for some time, but never put it into motion.  Now there’s a movement, and I’m on board!

To take his vision one step further, I’ve created a workbook for myself with a couple of spreadsheets: one tracks the stuff I’ve gotten rid of and how I did it with each, and the other is a brainstormed list of stuff that I can potentially get rid of in case I get stumped.  I’m also allowing myself the following rule: If I donate, sell, give away, or trash multiple items on the same day, such as a garage/yard sale, eBay, craigslist, etc, I can count each of those items as a different day’s Less 365 accomplishment for the next X days.  That way I can give myself a break for awhile if I need it by putting in more work ahead of time.  I’m also allowing books to count toward my goal, where Randy isn’t.  He must have much more shelf space than I. :-)

I’m also brainstorming what my actual goal will be here.  I know I won’t hit 365 items, as I’ve already skipped a couple of days this past weekend, so it needs to be something reasonable.  I also need to figure out what the reward is for achieving that goal, since it’s always nice to work toward and get a reward.

For now, you can follow the movement on Twitter.  Comments are welcomed!

Two days ago, I finally went out and got myself the nook.  As the months have passed since my original posts on eReaders, the decision became an easy one.  While I don’t intend this to be a fully-informed feature comparison, etc, I’ll tell you my reasons why.

The first is the Agency Model that book publishers have forced retailers into using.  In a nutshell it means that regardless of which eBook store you use, the price for the same eBook at each should be the same, even though that price may be higher (across the board) than what you’d expect.  That right there says a lot to me: 1) The playing field has somewhat leveled and the choice of which bookstore your device is tethered to is less part of the decision, and it becomes more about the device and its features.  2) There’s no really good reason anymore to argue for proprietary data formats, because nobody can claim that their bookstore has the lowest prices and their device is the one everyone should buy, using that to trap consumers into their proprietary format and future devices for life.  While I don’t believe the Agency Model allows for good market competition, I think it has the potential to force  retailers into dissolving their proprietary formats, then banding together in support of returning to a model that fosters healthy competition and a realistic pricing model in this space, much as the digital music stores have.

Other eReaders are emerging on the market, but for various reasons they are not a good fit for me.  In my two other posts on eReaders, I mentioned two in particular that I was watching: the Alex Reader by Spring Design and the Ocean by Copia.  I liked the Alex because it’s also a dual-screened Android device, like the nook.  They went to market with a $399 price point, however, which is twice what the fullest featured nook costs right now and that’s a complete deal-breaker for me.  (And I have no plans to inadvertently help fund the lawsuit Spring Design has brought against Barnes & Noble about the similarity between the Alex and the nook.)  The Ocean is the most attractive eReader I’ve seen so far, but Copia has been stringing people along for months now with nothing to show for it, not even the release of their supposed social network that their readers are meant to tie into.  People won’t buy into hype forever; I’m the case and point in this instance.

Everyone’s talking about the iPad and comparing it to an eReader.  Well, first of all it’s not.  It’s an over-sized iPhone that runs the iPhone OS, but doesn’t have a phone.  So it’s a tablet, without a fully functional operating system behind it.  By its nature as a tablet it has a backlit screen, which can make reading for long periods of time hard on the eyes and drains the battery.  The eInk in eReaders takes no power to display something on the screen, only when changing what’s on the display screen.  That’s why the battery life of eReaders is so long.  So if you want a Fisher-Price-sized iPhone without the phone, which allows you to read eBooks through your bookstore’s iPhone app, get the iPad.  Otherwise, get an eReader and read.

So, in the end I bought the nook: an Android-powered, dual-screened eReader tethered to Barnes & Noble, a bookstore I’ve come to loathe.  But I’m 100% ok with that.  The nook is still the most attractive device for me, from a technical standpoint.  It runs on Google’s Android platform, which I like.  That also means that (fingers crossed) at some point in the future I may be able to use the Kindle for Android app on it and also buy eBooks from Amazon.  The battery is user-replaceable (key for me on almost any device I buy), and I can add more memory which is also key.  I bought the 3G version, which really only means I paid $50 more for the ability to use B&N’s bookstore wherever I am, because the 3G allows you to do nothing else.  Borders (the bookstore I prefer) just opened their eBook store that supports the open ePub format, which can be used on a wide variety of eReaders.  I can purchase and sideload them onto my nook using Adobe Digital Editions.  I’m able to use public library eBook loan systems with the nook, as well as other, independent eBook sites like eBooks.com and fictionwise.  I’ve also discovered a great tool that you can download and use to manage your eBooks from these various sources that works well with the nook, called Calibre.

I highly doubt this is the last eReader I’ll ever buy.  This one suits my needs and desires now, and I think it will for the foreseeable future.  I can only hope that the next time I need to shop around for one, the market has evolved to the point where it really is all about the device’s features and not to which vendor’s bookstore it’s tethered.  Another factor in the decision at that time will be whether or not I can transfer all of the eBooks I’ve purchased between now and then, proprietary format or not, onto that new device.

Folks, I just had to post this. I got it from a comment by a guy with the nickname of JoePhilly on this article from USA Today.  I couldn’t tell if the poster was serious or not when posting this, but haven’t laughed so hard in a month.  I hope I’ve given enough accreditation here, as I would never want to steal anyone’s material. Enjoy!

“Gays have an agenda and they plan to destroy traditional marriage. Here is their plan (my wife stole it from her hair stylist).

1) Two gay guys buy the house next to yours. They fix up the lawn. And it is Immaculate!!! Your wife is so impressed, that she tells your fat lazy butt to put down the beer, get up off the couch, and fix YOUR lawn.

2) The gay guys invite your wife over for lunch. She sees that they have decorated their house, and it is incredible. When you get home from work, she explains that she wants to spend a fortune to redecorate your house. Fortunately, the gay guys provided sketches. You want to scream.

3) The gay guys agree with your wife that YOUR clothes are hideous. Together, they go out and buy new clothes for YOU. They go with lots of pastel colors because they compliment your skin tone .. whatever that means.

4) The gay guys give your wife a total make-over. She now looks better than when you married her. Meanwhile, you are still a lazy, fat, hair cover chia-pet … other men are now staring at your wife again.

5) One afternoon, one of the gay guys approaches you and offers to teach you about waxing your back, at this point you flip out and attack him. He subdues you because you are fat and lazy, and he goes to the gym twice a day. Your wife files for divorce.
6) Because of your violent actions, she gets the house … and you move to a trailer.

7) You then hear that your ex-wife has taken in a person who is renting a room … it’s a gay woman, a friend of the gay guys from next door.

8) Your 5 state killing spree begins.

If people don’t see this … I don’t know what to say.”