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July 25, 2011

"Disengagement from the consumerist zeitgeist is essential."

I once lived briefly in an old one-bedroom trailer set in a patch of pine woods near Farmville, Virginia.
A brick barbecue came with it, and a large floppy pooch, apparently a mixture of Irish setter and whatever was around. The place was blessedly quiet. Birds and bugs aren't noise. When it rained I delighted in being almost in the storm, but dry. I think the whole shebang cost the owner five thousand dollars, including a well and septic system.

If you are thinking, “Why...no...I couldn't possibly live that way,” you are probably right. But if I were doing it now, I would have staggering amounts of pirated music on today's monstrous memory sticks, a set of very decent speakers for a few hundred doomed green ones, a Kindle or the free computer version for reading books from Amazon if I had the money or Project Gutenberg if I didn't, and a fairly large flat screen for watching movies donated by uTorrent. Net cost: Under a grand. -- Fred On Everything

Posted by Vanderleun at July 25, 2011 6:29 PM. This is an entry on the sideblog of American Digest: Check it out.

Your Say

I was planning on renting the Unabomer's cabin but the FBI carted it away and it's on display somewhere now.

Seriously, get the Kindle anyway. Get the one with 3G wireless and you get free blog reading for no monthly fees. I use mine more for reading blogs at work than books. There are few web pages I can't read easily using my kindle and filtering web pages through www.skweezer.com.

I thought the Kindle was a fad and resisted getting one for a while. It's one of the top 2 tech things I ever bought. If you have cell coverage you can have free internet.

Posted by: Scott M at July 26, 2011 3:33 AM

Finally bought a used vehicle and it astounds me to consider what I considered an acceptable car payment only a couple of years ago. But the gadgets.. gotta have the gadgets. I could live in a tent so long as I have my gadgets.

Posted by: RedCarolina at July 26, 2011 7:05 AM

So you found Fred. Good on you. Some stuff he says will grate on you, but other stuff of his you'll find is pure gold.

Posted by: Don Rodrigo at July 26, 2011 10:27 AM

I adore Fred. We had a hilarious correspondence that I lost when I went to Earthlink from AOL. All my letters from him were lost. I didn't understand the concept of backing things up. Geez....that was 12 years ago.

Posted by: Jewel at July 26, 2011 11:57 AM

Yeah, I'm a Fred reader (or a Fred Reeder) too, have been for a while. Nowhere near twelve years ago though....

Posted by: pfsm at July 27, 2011 12:36 PM

Did you know Fred's daughter is a jazz singer?

Miss Emily Anne and The Hot Nutz:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7sjv57f85Y

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m5cE0zxBjYE&feature=related

I used to bounce heer on my knee a whole lot of years ago. If I did that now, it would be kind disturbing.

Posted by: Don Rodrigo at July 27, 2011 1:41 PM

Posted by: Don Rodrigo at July 27, 2011 1:47 PM

She was on "Idol"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbEY8j_8-XY&feature=related

OK, I'll stop now :-)

Posted by: Anonymous at July 27, 2011 1:58 PM

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