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    Verge Favorites: Casey Newton

    Verge Favorites: Casey Newton

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    Verge staffers aren't just people who love technology. They're people who love stuff. We spend as much time talking and thinking about our favorite books, music, and movies as we do debating the best smartphone to buy or what point-and-shoot has the tightest macro. We thought it would make sense to share our latest obsessions with Verge readers, and we hope you're encouraged to share your favorites with us. Thus a long, healthy debate will ensue where we all end up with new things to read, listen to, or try on.

    Timehop

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    Timehop

    The older I get, the more sentimental I become. The free app Timehop has become my chief enabler, giving me a daily dose of nostalgia via a late-morning push notification. Each day I get to see my pictures, tweets, Facebook statuses, and Foursquare check-ins from one, two, and three years ago. It's mindless fun, but I love the way it helps me keep in touch with the recent past.

    TRX

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    Ftx

    This year I made a New Year's resolution to get to the gym at least three times a week. To my own surprise, I've stuck with it — and the TRX has been a big reason why. On one hand, it's just a pair of straps suspended from the ceiling at the gym. But from those straps come an endless variety of exercises. You can work out just about every part of your body with TRX, using your own weight against you in ways that are exhausting but effective. And somehow it’s fun!

    PSB M4U 1

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    Psb_m4u_1

    Last month I decided not to upgrade to the latest iPhone, and suddenly $300 was burning a hole in my pocket. I chose to invest in my first pair of high-quality headphones, and since they arrived I've been wearing the (atrociously named) PSBs for hours each day. There is much to be said for re-listening to every album you ever loved in the hopes of discovering something you had always missed. And it turns out I'd been missing a ton.

    Ike's Place

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    Ike_s_place

    San Francisco's off-putting obsession with burritos has obscured the fact that it is also a very good town in which to get a sandwich. The best of these sandwiches can be found in the Castro at Ike's Place, home of a $9.99 gut bomb called "We're Just Friends," which I like to eat whenever I'm in the neighborhood. The sandwich's star is the halal chicken, glazed in a sweet orange sauce, and it's accompanied by lettuce, tomato, avocado, pepper jack cheese, and a slathering of Ike’s Dirty Secret Sauce. Choose your own bread if you must, but know that only a fool gets anything other than the Dutch crunch, which is baked fresh in the back.

    'Trouble Will Find Me', The National

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    Troublewillfindme

    I am congenitally predisposed to enjoying the music of self-loathing miserablists, and Matt Berninger has been one of my go-to sad sacks ever since The National released Boxer. Like Boxer, this year's Trouble Will Find Me is a wonderfully sad and lacerating record, sharing its knife-stab lyrics and intimate, almost overheard quality. The chief knock against The National is that they're boring, but this record is angry. Start with "Graceless."

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