Several weeks ago (who am I kidding, several months ago (we just didn’t tell you)), we began decorating our television media console furniture thing with books. The console has a very dark stain and consists of several rectangles — a library or bookshelf feel. It screamed PUT BOOKS ON ME! several times while we were watching (or obsessing over) Dexter.

But the thing is, I’m not really a book reader – and neither is Rebecca – so what could we possibly put on this thing? I’ve read two or three books, in full, maybe in the last decade.

And one of those might have just been an audio book, too.

I began searching Google and Amazon for queries such as ‘all time classic books’ and ‘must own books’ which gave me a great starting point. Most of the books presented I certainly recognized (probably because I saw the movie-adaptation) so I quickly added them to my shopping cart. They were DIRT cheap since I only added used books mainly from Goodwill stores across the country.

The first batch of books came and we started to organize and decorate with them. Sure they were great, but being we were not readers, they were only decorations and they didn’t hold much meaning for us. The smart thing would have been to pick up those books and start reading, right?

Nope.  Instead I opted to buy more books!

I started to look for used books that could at least potentially hold my interest: sports. And specifically, the New York Yankees. I quickly picked up several great and relatively new books, too: Selena Robert’s ‘A-Rod: The Many Lives of Alex Rodriguez’ aka ‘Arod: Steroids’, Buster Olney’s ‘The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty’ and ‘The Yankee Years’ by Joe Torre.

And so here is my little corner of books that I can actually speak about! Or at least bullshit about the contents of the book.  Hey, I’m just being honest.

The other day, Rebecca began moving some books on top of the mantle when we put the new mirror on the wall. Suddenly, our media console was lacking books. She then gave me the nod to order more books. And once again, I began searching like mad for used books. I filled my cart up with maybe 8 or 9 books when I thought back about my Yankee books. I once again was adding books to my cart only for decoration.

So I began searching for books on another topic that I’m very passionate about: lyrics and music. Being that I co-manage a great music community focused around lyrics (cheap plug), how great would it be to house some music or lyric related books? I quickly found some used (and cheap!) lyric books from artists such as Sting, Paul Simon and Bob Dylan. I also ordered some non-lyric music books, too – Jay-Z’s ‘Decoded’ and Kanye’s ‘Thank You and You’re Welcome’. They’re all on their way this week!

Wow, Rebecca is getting two posts out of me in two days!  This calls for another trip to Disney in our future!  But really, Rebecca is a bit stressed over some graduate courses, so I figured I’d chip in around here if I had some time.

Before I get into this next post, let me tell you a small bit about myself.  When I was 12 or 13 years old, I locked myself in my room for a solid 3-4 years learning how to code and interact with databases.

Seriously, ask my parents, they used to think I was depressed all the time.  Meanwhile I was just trying to retire before 40, I swear.

Flash forward to when I was 16 or 17 and I was running a successful music community as a hobby — one because I loved music and two I loved developing code.  We slapped a few advertisements on said community and before I even knew it, the thing turned into a business.  Oh and I’m still determined to retire by 40.  Maybe.  We’ll see.  At least a vacation home would be nice.

And to sum it all up, I once had my palms read while vacationing in Lake George, New York.  The nice lady said I’d have a career in music.  I walked out of there thinking, “music?  I can’t sing for the life of me.”  But only now does that all make sense.

Due to all the development I do, I required a decent office when we bought our house.  I needed something that could hold my computers and various monitors.  But I never wanted it to be that office — random computer parts here and there, wires everywhere and generally one big mess.  It had to really portray what we do and what we’re passionate about, while also being completely functional.  Since our mantra is always think outside the box and do your own thing, here are a collection of WANTS to hang around the office.

Apple’s ‘Think Different‘ campaign really means a great deal to me.  And what better way to portray that than Lucy and Desi?

I would LOVE to frame this and have it displayed in the office.  It’s an autographed Jason Mraz LP.  It’s currently selling for $299 on eBay; I so want to pull the trigger on it but it’s a tad much.  (hey wife!  Valentine’s Day is coming up!  Hint hint, wink wink!).  I’ve been a huge Mraz fan for a few years now, and most recently, I’ve been really trying to live by a snippet of his lyrics:  “Hold your own, know your name, and go your own way.  And everything will be fine.”

This thing gives me chills just looking at it.  eBay is at it again.  These are the handwritten lyrics to Lovin Spoonful’s Daydream and signed by the entire group.  But for 400 beans?  Not sure if I’ll pull that trigger on this one either.

And finally, maybe some pop canvas print art from artforurbanspaces.com.  At roughly $60/each, these aren’t all that bad.  From top to bottom it goes:  Run DMC, John Lennon and Kanye West.  All pioneer artists who continually think outside of the box and are generally non-conformists.