Insidecy

I. 100 Thing Challenge

I recently found on popurls, which is now my favorite place online for finding more stuff… online, a very intriguing TIME Magazine article which over the last several days got me thinking about my life and what I hold important. The article talks about this dude David Michael Bruno and how he has committed to reducing the clutter in his life and challenging himself to try to live with only 100 personal possessions. He doesn’t count items that are shared by his family like the dining room table or the piano, but rather things that are for the most part only used by him. He’s dubbed it the 100 Thing Challenge and it’s recently gotten exposure to the world wide web through the TIME article and other forums. Another site I found interesting giving more insight into the challenge was ZenHabits.net.

I like to believe I’m a minimalist. It shows in my design and artwork and I generally just agree with the philosophy of it all. Do more with less. I think trying out this 100 Thing Challenge will be a great way to extend that philosophy to the way I live my life. It’ll probably be pretty fun, but a little difficult as well. By the end of this month. I’ll take inventory of my stuff and report on what I’ve got. Depending on what I’m starting off with, I’ll make a deadline for reducing my inventory to 100 things. That’ll be the start date for this year-long challenge. David is starting his challenge November 12th on his birthday. The challenge is to keep an inventory of only 100 things by November 12, 2009. I’ll probably start mine when I get back to USC and keep an inventory of 100 things at least through the end of the school year.

David wrote this in his latest post summarizing the 100 Thing Challenge and I agree firmly with it:

“My buddy Todd summed it up better than I could today when we were talking about it. He said, “Things are to be used. People are to be loved.” The crazy thing about our consumer culture is that we so often reverse it. We use people to get the things we think we’ll love. How stupid. As if fancy cars or more shoes are really going to satisfy us more than a great friend or a close relationship with our children.”

I think that as of late, I’ve been a little bit overwhelmed and engulfed in our consumer culture. Trying to get the latest gadgets or clothes or whatever. I think what I really value in life are relationships; how close I am to my friends, my contribution to society as a citizen, my family, etc. Committing to this challenge will help me put things in perspective and focus on what really matters in my life.

Keep checking back and I’ll keep you all updated. And if any of you want to join in on this with me, it’d be cool to have a confidant and partner(s) in this challenge.

More: Check out ZenHabit’s 10 Things You Can Do Today to Simplify Your Life.

II. Viva La Vida

I’m no music expert and I don’t know all the technical terms to describe the different sounds and attributes of a song (like our friends over at Pandora and the Music Genome Project), but I’ve been listening to Coldplay’s newest album for the past hour while writing this entry and I’ve got to say, it’s incredible. It’s quite distinctive from their previous albums. I may dare say I like it a little bit more than Parachutes.

This might sound a little funny, but for the last hour or so, I’ve been sitting in the dark in my living room, listening to Viva La Vida on my sound isolation earphones. I guess it helps to focus on the music a bit more. I feel like this album goes through a lot of different emotions. It just seems to flow so much more than their previous works. As the week goes by, I’ll give more of my thoughts on specific songs, but right now my first impression of this album is that it is extremely refined. It’s a great listen. Surprisingly enough for me, Chris Martin’s lead vocals take a backseat to the incredible composition and musicality of this album. There are so many points on this album that make me drift into my own thoughts and forget about anything around me. I guess that’s pretty powerful.

I’ve had the digital files off of iTunes for several hours now and I’m pretty sure that Viva La Vida is quickly going to be the Most Played on my iPod for the next several weeks. Sorry, Jason Mraz. (Although, his newest is really fresh. Check that out too.)

More: Listen to Viva La Vida, Violet Hill, and Lost? for free on Last.fm.

III. Firefox 3

Nerds everywhere are going crazy because today is the official release for Firefox 3. Mozilla has put on their blog that they’re attempting a Guinness World Record for the most downloads on a single day. They’ve also put on their most recent entry the link for the download site for the new browser.

I’ve got to say that I am so psyched for F3. While no one is going to really even read this post until after it’s been released, I’m just saying now that I plan on being awake by 10am PDT to download the official release ASAP. I’m sure there are thousands of geekophiles out there who will be doing the same. This new browser has so many new features and a slick new design to go with it. It looks great.

LifeHacker recently posted an entry in their blog about the changes from Firefox 1.0 through 3.0. It’s definitely worth a read! One of the changes I am most looking forward to is the location bar update. You’ll be able to search your location bar in a topical sort of way using keywords. I don’t know how to explain all this stuff exactly, so check out that article to get the scoop on the newest Firefox browser.

I’m stoked!