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SXSW Set of the Day: Peter, Bjorn & John

BuzzSugar — Fri, 16 Mar 2007 16:05:40 PDT

At first, it was the impossibly catchy song "Young Folks" that turned me on to Peter, Bjorn & John. But as I spend more time with the Swedish pop group's breakthrough album, Writer's Block, I discover more and more songs that I love.

Now, after hearing KEXP's podcast of PB&J performing at South by Southwest, I'm jonesing to see the band live. But until then, this highly satisfying live recording should hold me over, with a set that includes "Young Folks," "Paris 2004," and "Amsterdam." Be sure to listen to the end, when the band tries to collude with the Austin mafia. To hear the show,

Song of the Day: Peter Bjorn and John, "Young Folks"

BuzzSugar — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 10:33:00 PST

I finally got around to checking out Peter Bjorn and John, whose Writer's Block was one of the most buzzed-about albums of 2006. Now, the CD is finally getting an official stateside release on Feb. 6, and the Swedes are performing on "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" on Jan. 29.

To celebrate, I thought I'd share this track "Young Folks," which I'm really digging right now. Not only does it have whistling - I'm really a sucker for whistling - but it also has a great bouncy melody that just makes me smile. To listen to PB&J's "Young Folks,"

Love. Write. Win. Introducing the OnSugar Blogging Challenge!

PopSugar — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 10:55:35 PST

Everyone has their passions, and now's the chance to share yours. To celebrate OnSugar's new features, we're challenging you to pick up your keyboard and start writing. We want to know what drives you and your passions. Are you up for the challenge?

During February, we'll post a new question each day to get you thinking. As incentive, we're giving away four weekly HP Pavilion dv6t laptops to bloggers who have the most likes, comments, followers, and reblogs. As if four weekly laptop prizes were not enough, the blogger who inspires us the most will win the OnSugar blogging package, including an extraordinary HP Envy14 Spectre and an external drive! Keep reading to find out how to enter.

11 Rules to Dramatically Increase Your Productivity

Wise Bread — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 15:35:04 PST

We're thrilled to present this smart Wise Bread story here on Savvy!

There's a problem with a lot of productivity advice out there, and it's this - your "rules" for personal productivity are often going to be different than mine. Sure, sometimes there's overlap. Sure, you can always learn from others.

But if you want to see a dramatic increase in your productivity, spend less time reading and memorizing other people's rules, and more time figuring out what your own rules are. You'll be more productive and in a way that works with who you are.

So I'm sharing a few of my personal productivity rules. Maybe some of them will work for you or inspire you to think of your own.

1. Small Daily Movements Become Big Accomplishments

I tend to think that I must have big blocks of time in order to get any forward movement. So I hesitate and procrastinate, waiting for that "open time" when I can really push and get a lot done on whatever the current project is.

Turns out, that's a waste of time. Small daily movements add up. It's just that the movements or steps themselves are so small, I think they don't count. They do.

I have to constantly remind myself that I don't need a whole day or a whole week to devote to some project. I just need to take the 10 or 20 minutes I have here and there and use them. I need to achieve a little bit of forward movement every day. That adds up, and it builds momentum, and pretty soon there's been quite a lot accomplished.

For more rules, read after the jump.

5 Ways Spending Less Will Create More Happiness

LearnVest — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 00:15:49 PST

We're thrilled to present this smart LearnVest story here on Savvy!

Recently, New York Times columnist David Brooks wrote an op-ed piece about the “Haimish Line.” The Haimish Line is an invisible line sometimes crossed when you go from spending less to spending more - in doing so, Brooks contends, you often sacrifice warmth and connection to attain luxury and space. According to Brooks, “haimish” is a Yiddish word that suggests “warmth, domesticity and unpretentious conviviality.”

An exclusive, white-tablecloth, four-star restaurant where servers disappear and diners are on their Blackberries would be north of the Haimish Line. A small, casual diner on the corner bustling with loud conversations from neighborhood folks talking over each other would be south of the Haimish Line. A new dorm building with a shiny, new, unused lounge would be north of the Haimish Line; the well-worn lounge of ratty furniture that students veer toward would be staunchly planted south of the Haimish Line. The Haimish Line even slices across neighborhoods: densely packed urban neighborhoods where kids run home from school and and people have stoop conversations versus spread-out suburbs of isolated living in separate homes and cars.

Brooks advises that we learn to spend our money well and stay south of the Haimish Line.

I found this essay so compelling because money often buys privacy, space, exclusivity and “luxury”-all of which are the very opposite of “unpretentious conviviality.” In America, the picture of success is a bigger house (where the family is more spread out), moving to the suburbs (with more distance between neighbors), a nicer car (to be more vigilant about spills in), and flying first class (ok, so some things are not worth getting all concerned about “the Haimish Line” over).

Read on for ways to spend less and create happiness.

Morning Links - Cameron Diaz and Alex Rodriguez Didn't Break Up!

PopSugar — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 07:36:00 PDT

Despite reports, Cameron and A-Rod didn't break up, since they hung out at a MTV Movie Awards bash - People
Find out which country banned Lady Gaga - Huffington Post
It's a good week to get Jennifer Aniston on DVD! - Rotten Tomatoes
Could Megan Fox be on the up again? - Lainey Gossip
Lauryn Hill is pregnant with her sixth kid - PopEater
See Dancing With the Stars' Mark Ballas shirtless! - TooFab
Was Reese's speech designed to slam Kim and Paris? - Us Weekly
Did the ladies of The View upset Paris Hilton? - Wonderwall
It's hard to keep up with the Cheryl Cole X Factor stories! - Celebitchy
Jennifer Lopez is going back to court to block a sex tape's release - Amy Grindhouse
Who rocked strapless red better - Nina Dobrev or Kristen Stewart? - Zap2It
Josh Duhamel gets props for his philanthropy - Fox 411
The Two and a Half Men writers will incorporate Charlie's leaving - ICYDK

Fight the Online Shopping Urge With These Smart Tools

LearnVest — Fri, 29 Apr 2011 00:15:20 PDT

We're thrilled to present this smart LearnVest story here on Savvy!

The internet. It’s our best friend and worst enemy, depending on the hour of the day and our frame of mind.

It’s our ally when it comes to finding important info or Googling someone’s photo. But when it comes to procrastinating, getting sucked down a social media rabbit hole, or online shopping (and forget about reading all those reviews) . . . well, sometimes we could just use an “off” button.

Online addiction–it’s not only a formidable money-suck, it can be a time-suck as well (which is just as concerning, given how much your hour is worth).

So, after spending one too many precious hours online, we’ve decided to fight fire with fire. We’ve found software, plug-ins, and websites that will help you focus on the task at hand (like, you know, your job - or your life) instead of getting sucked into yet another flash sale or Youtube marathon.

Read on for our online addiction fixes.

In Her Shoes: Charlaine Harris, Vampire Author

Emily Co — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 06:00:17 PDT

Through the pages of books written by bestselling author Charlaine Harris, readers enter a fantasy world - one filled with sexy vampires, endearing shape-shifters, and incredibly gorgeous fairies. You might be more familiar with the HBO show True Blood, which was inspired by Charlaine's Southern Vampire series. I know that many of you aspire to be writers, so read on to find out what it's like to walk in her shoes!

SavvySugar: What's your typical day like?

Charlaine Harris: I hardly have a daily routine any more because of the increased demands on my time. However, on an ideal day I’m in my office by eight. I write six pages, finishing by early afternoon, and then I deal with other matters until three thirty or four o’clock, when I read for a while before starting supper.

SS: How did it all start?

CH: I was writing my first book while I was taking a writing course at the University of Missouri St. Louis, the only year I lived in St. Louis. The teacher of the class was Shannon Ravenel, later top editor at Algonquin Press. Then, she had just quit work at Houghton Mifflin. She liked what I wrote for the class well enough to recommend me to an editor there. My career would not have supported me at all until the past 10 years; very fortunately, my husband was delighted to stake me until I began earning. I realize this is a luxury and that I was most fortunate.

SS: How do you know that your idea for a plot is a story that you can really get into?

CH: That’s where experience and talent come in. You have to ask yourself a lot of questions while you’re plotting your book. Is the book you plan going to take you to the point you wanted to reach? How many plot threads are you going to tie off in this book? How many will you leave open? I usually start with a key scene (from any point in the book) and build the narrative forward or backward from there.

To find out what motivates Charlaine Harris, read on!

What Living in a 90-Square-Foot Apartment in New York Is Like

Emily Co — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 14:04:54 PDT

In a YouTube video that has gone viral, professional organizer Felice Cohen displays plenty of savvy when she shows viewers how she makes a 90-square-foot apartment fit her lifestyle. For one, it already fits her budget as she's paying $700 to live alone in an apartment in New York, a city with one of the highest real estate prices in the country. Another appealing aspect of the small space is that the location is prime - Felice resides a block away from Central Park and two blocks from the subway (If the allure of the apartment's prime locale makes you want to pack up and move ASAP to a smaller home, be sure to check out these savvy moving tips!).

Although Felice initially rented the apartment with the aim of only staying for a year, she's been living there for "three years and counting." In the video she admits that some compromises had to be made, but ultimately it works out. She doesn't have to stress about rent, and when she travels, she doesn't feel like she's leaving behind a huge space that needs to be taken care of. A big influence on her frugal living is having a bankruptcy lawyer as a father. She says she "learned early on that you don't acquire what you can't afford." Watch the video below to see how she manages to make a small space work for her.

To learn some tips from Felice, read on.

A Day in the Life of James Oseland

YumSugar — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 15:02:14 PDT

You may recognize James Oseland from Top Chef Masters. He's a regular judge on the show. The New York resident is also the editor in chief of the beautiful and informative Saveur magazine. Here's what he did yesterday, a day he describes as "wonderfully average," Tuesday, July 26.

7:30 a.m.: I started out the day with my usual bill of fare. It was ploddingly predictable. I had homemade poor man's muesli. Every three weeks my partner, Daniel, makes it from scratch. This version had oats, whole rolled oats, and nuts of many different varieties. There were a lot of coarsely chopped Brazilian nuts - which I have affection for. Also dried currents, dried apples, and dried raisins. Daniel teaches ESL in New Jersey and he has to leave early at 5:30. What he does, the night before, is he makes two bowls of muesli and he leaves one in the fridge for me. I bring it out and put it on the counter and let it come to room temperature. I added kefir and some milk, along with my new obsession: fruit from Trader Joe's.

The fruit from Trader Joe's is weirdly more satisfying than the way, way, way too expensive fruit at the Union Square farmers market. At least for now. But this fruit from the Trader Joe's that's two blocks from my house is actually pretty good. It's hit or miss and it's unfortunate that it's prepackaged, so you can't smell it, but you can get some shockingly good fruit. I threw in some apricots and white nectarines that I chopped up and they were very delicious and very sweet. I put some cinnamon sprinkles on the cereal too. Alongside, I had a cup of PG Tips tea with a lot of sugar and a lot milk.

Keep reading to see what James did with the Trader Joe's fruit later in the day.