It’s simple: Keep only 100 things, not including anything in your shared household, anything you might want to use later, anything with personal history, or any books. Then get rid of crap you’re not using, like a yoga mat, and some extraneous clothes and the pewter LotR figurines. Voila!

Zabaduba describes in detail this guy’s self-parodying “purge.”

So, Dave was so disgusted by his cluttered lifestyle that he’s rebelling by living in a fully furnished house (with piano!), with a completely stocked kitchen and loaded bookshelves, while keeping all the personal items he doesn’t use everyday in a box for a year. Wow. Inspiring.

Judging by the comments, there are too many people who still think that good intentions and high-flown ideals are what count. Why do you have to bother to set up a Game with a Namegoal like 100 Thing Challenge … and then make a mockery of it right from the get-go by taking more than 100 things out of the running for elimination? Why can’t you just get rid of crap you’re not using, like the average rest of us?

Oh yeah … that wouldn’t gain you the admiration of a slice of the masses. But dude, as long as you’re sacrificing, I’ll be happy to take those LotR pewters off your hands.

If you’d just been extracted from your car by the jaws of life and people were trying to shoulder up not to offer help but to snap you with their cell-phone cameras, would you joke about it? Nope, I wouldn’t either, but apparently Morgan Freeman did.

[Charleston Sun Sentinel editor] McFerrin said bystanders converged on the scene trying to get a glimpse of the actor.

When one person tried to snap a photo with a cell phone camera, Freeman joked, “no freebies, no freebies,” McFerrin said.

Swift recovery to you, Mr. Freeman.

Firefly is on sale today at Amazon for $17.99. Get it before it goes back up.

What a circus Green Bay’s management is making of Favre’s wish to unretire. Granted, the wish lends itself to spectacle. In a perfect world Favre would have made sure he was really serious about retirement before going ahead with it, but c’est la vie. NFL Commissioner Goodell has now reinstated Favre, so Green Bay’s choices remain: Play him, trade/release him, or dangle money enough that he will retire at their command.

Management is being extremely silly here. They say they want to move forward with Favre’s replacement QB, but they won’t release Favre because they’re afraid he’ll sign with the Vikings.

This is not even silly; it is downright stupid. There are only two possibilities here that should dictate management’s action: Either they believe 1) That Favre can play at something approximating his optimal levels; or 2) That Favre cannot play at these levels. If they think he can play, they should have taken him back, no questions asked, except with a little private grumbling and a sop to his potential replacement. The man should have earned a little leeway, not to mention loyalty, by now. Replacement QBs will come and go, but in Green Bay there is only one Favre, even with his star slightly tarnished by a false-start retirement. If they believe he cannot play, they should have quietly admitted him back to the rosters and quietly released/traded him. Because if they don’t believe he can play, what harm does it do anybody but Favre himself and the Vikings if he goes to the Vikings? Certainly wouldn’t hurt Green Bay; in fact they’d have a prime opportunity for their players to show the old man that he should have stayed off the field. An ignominious end, certainly, but that risk should be left up to Favre to take.

Seems like management’s letting its pissiness at Favre’s desire to do something other than what they want to dictate its actions. They need to come down off the high horse and make a decision based on football, not their bruised egos.

… do you pass a “comprehensive energy policy that can bring down gas prices” that does not already included drilling in the United States, offshore or otherwise?

“My interest is in making sure we’ve got the kind of comprehensive energy policy that can bring down gas prices,” Obama said in an interview with The Palm Beach Post.

“If, in order to get that passed, we have to compromise in terms of a careful, well thought-out drilling strategy that was carefully circumscribed to avoid significant environmental damage — I don’t want to be so rigid that we can’t get something done.”

So to pass some magical plan that’s going to bring down gas prices through Barry Dust and Hope, he’ll throw a bone to “compromise” that will do the thing that actually will bring down gas prices.

It’s not so much that I think Obama’s stupid, it’s that I think he’s deeply invested in the belief that we–both his opposition and his potential base, mind–are utterly stupid. Nobody could say these things if he didn’t believe he was talking to dolts.

Granted, the kinds of people who heckle speeches probably could use some doltspeak, but I have to admit to a little bit of flabbergast even there, at the patronizing, kindergarten-teacher way he speaks to these–black, lest we forget–shouter-downs:

Obama eventually stopped speaking, turned around, and said, “Excuse me, young men. This is going to be a question-and-answer session, so you can ask a question later. Let me make my statement. Why don’t you all sit down? Then you can ask your question. That’s why we’re having a town hall meeting. Sit down. You’ll have a chance to answer your question. But you don’t want to disrupt the whole meeting. Just be courteous. That’s all. All you got to do is be courteous. That’s all. Just be courteous and you’ll have a chance to make your statement.”

The men eventually sat down and their sign was taken away by those sitting nearby, and eventually a campaign staffer took it away.

*** UPDATE *** Per NBC’s Lauren Appelbaum, Obama eventually took a question from one of these protestors. Here’s the exchange:
Obama: I’m going to call on these young men. Just one of you. All right? And remember, I made a promise to you. But also I want you to give your mike back after you ask your question or make your comment.

If you have a four-year-old or similar-aged child, you’ll recognize this phrasing right away. It’s what you do to teach children who are just learning manners and correct human interaction. I give you something, but remember what you have to give me back, courteously. Hearing him speak this way to other adults, even clear jerks, leaves a bad taste.

Frankly, the most amazing thing to me about it is that they even cooperated after being babytalked like that. I don’t expect it to work as well on, say, Ahmadinejad.

All said, I prefer McCain’s manner of handling hecklers: “This may turn into a longer speech than you had anticipated.”