h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I've mentioned a few times over the last couple of years that K and I really need a new place with more space. I won't get into another boring recap of what we looked at, and why we didn't go for it. We're working on Plans A and B at the moment and I'll just let everyone know where we wind up.

It's the lack of space thing that has brought to mind what I'm thinking about today, while I'm working. We've been purging a lot of stuff we don't use, mostly to avoid packing and moving more than necessary, but also to get a better idea of what kind of shelving and storage we really need. We've donated a couple dozen bags of books, clothes, and dishes/ housewares since the beginning of the year.

In my previous JE, I mentioned K's "40 Days of albums" surprise. I'm at #7 as of today. And storage remains an issue!

We don't even have sufficient shelving to accommodate the albums we already own- K has his in a number of cardboard record crates and shuffles through them when he wants something. I have mine in milk crates. We're going to need that much more space to fit in another 33 albums.

So this morning, I was wondering if I should go through my CD collection and flog anything that winds up duplicated with a vinyl copy. I much prefer listening to albums than CDs (digital music is rather flat) anyway, and gone are the days when CDs were necessary if I wanted my music to be portable. It's certainly no bother to rip an album to mp3 while I'm listening to it (or to back up specific tracks from CDs before trading them in). I'm just wondering how much actual space it would free up. We already have to store books and CDs in double rows, so we're used to having to dig for anything we want at any point in time. But, with the exception of the odd gift with sentimental value, is there really much sense in keeping multiple formats of the same release?

Obviously if the CD is a reissue, that might be different.

(And I'm wondering if I should purge cassettes in the same way...?)

What do you all think?

That's a tough one. I'm always glad for any CD I have once my PC had a hardware failure resulting in my losing all that was on it.

Meh. Throw 'em all out and get Spotify.

Hmmm. CDs do take up a lot of space for their size (as daft as that sounds )

I'd ditch them. But then, it's always easier to say that about somebody else's clutter than your own!

I do have a couple of boxes of vinyl in my attic. I may even have a turntable.

Oh - and we have a cassette player somewhere. It's turquoise with big, pink buttons and was last used for playing 'The Wheels on the Bus'. Endlessly.

Spotify? Isn't that some kind of mp3 thing? No, not the same thing. mp3 has the same problem as CD- the music is compressed and of far inferior quality to vinyl. Fine for commuting, using tiny earbuds, but not for actual listening. Nor do mp3s come with cover art and liner notes. Nor can they be used to DJ in our friends' bars.

We have two stereo systems, but they're those sealed bookcase units that were popular some years ago. I received mine as a gift when I lived in a one-room apartment. The cassette decks work, but not the CD player. We do have a nice, high-quality turntable and I am working on "upgrading" with actual hi-fi components so we can ditch the bookcase units. At least we have decent speakers connected to one of them.

I'm not sure whether a CD takes up more space, or an LP, but if I wind up with one album in both formats, I'd definitely use the LP for listening and not the CD. I'm just thinking that it would be a better use of space not to have duplicates, but then again, space is only at a premium because housing prices are so high in our area and a decent-sized unit may not be within our desired price range... so maybe I am just overthinking the clutter issue.

Free yourself from material attachment. Enlightenment FTMW!

It's not material attachment, per se. I don't really hang to a lot of stuff we don't actually use regularly. On the one hand- I don't really need the same album in LP and CD format, so the CD can technically be traded for something else I don't have. On the other hand- some of them are reissues, or were received as gifts. And on a third hand () - with my luck, I'll find only a dozen or so duplicates anyway, which wouldn't free up enough space to be worth all the effort.

We *really* need to move somewhere that we can get all these albums out of boxes and into shelves in proper alphabetical/ sequential orders, so that when I want to listen to one, I don't have to lug out a dozen or more cartons and hunt for it. Same for my books!

Well you know my attitude to alphabetising! How are you meant to find anything if you have to remember that you own it in the first place?

Yes, I am familiar with your approach. It amuses me greatly, even if it wouldn't work for me.

But it's sure a lot easier to pull everything for a play list if I can find it all in the first place.

The problem with not knowing what we already own is buying several copies of the same thing, when we could have better spent that money on some stuff we didn't already have.

Oh, the playlist problem is a cinch. If you can't find what you want...just make a different playlist.

I agree that the multiple copies thing is mildly frustrating.

Well, except when you've been hired to DJ and there's a specific theme. The music and the movies typically are selected fit the theme.

Back to the thoughts of donating/ trading in some stuff, though... it's always a good thing when I do purges like this just a couple of days before the charity pickup. That way I don't find myself second-guessing and putting half of the stuff back where it came from. There's a series of commercials on TV that poke fun at that tendency- it's for Public Storage and in every commercial, someone can't bear to part with something, for various sentimental reasons. Or my famous "but I might be able to use it, sometime" (I invariably never do).