Bits, Bursts & Bongos

My in-laws came by yesterday on their way home from the summer cabin to hang out and help out with a few things. I pitched the idea of getting rid of our old Expedit IKEA bookshelf and get two smaller shelfs to create a longer but lower desk / shelf hybrid. They agreed (my mother-in-law is an artist and understands asymmetry, white spaces, balance et cetera).

All-in-all it took us 5hrs to pick up and assemble these shelfs (I should say them since the only thing I did was supervise and cook lunch). We gave away the old bookshelf via Craigslist and had 15 takers. The winner came within 30 minutes and the shelf was gone. Love Craigslist.

So for about $200 we got a new shelf that also works like a desk as I need to stand up and work to avoid dislocating the hip as well as building up the muscles. The living room feels much more spacious and longer thanks to the spacial trick we played on our minds. Our iMac is now our stereo (Spotify), TV (hulu.com), office (GApps), university (iTunes), phone and video calls (Skype) and a lot more. We are down to three utility bills: rent, electricity & water and broadband.

On Monday we’ll get our new 30Mbit broadband and then we’ll be wired to the teeth. The only thing left on the wish list is for Apple to release a 32-inch LED display but that might be pricey. Why Apple? Well, what’s a display without a webcam these days?

We truly live in the best of times where we have fantastic tools to allocate our cognitive surplus to more important things than watching TV. Did you know that Americans watch 200 billion hours of TV per year. It took 100 million hours of collective team work to create wikipedia - the world’s most amazing knowledge base which I use on a daily basis. And people say that there is not enough work?!!