Old stuff

Jan 28, 2006

I've been going through all of my old belonging, dating back to when I was a kid. Most of the items I've just given away to thrift stores and such. Others I've sold on ebay, like my car stereo equipment I purchased 3 months before my car was totalled in 2004. In fact the car accident is really what got me thinking about the stuff I buy. Although I've gotten better over the years, I was like most people who needed to buy lots of stuff to keep me occupied and I guess what you could call happy. I can remember going back to 4th grade when I would beg my parents to buy me gi joe, transformers and whatever other cool new toy was in style and all the other kids were playing with. Then I graduated to the more expensive toys....like video games, computers, entertainment centers, my car and so on. I was thinking of including my house in the list, but I haven't come to the conclusion that it can be placed in the same list. A house is more of a need...shelter, which is part of the food, clothing and in some cases some sort of human contact we all need. But you can also go (and you usually go) overboard with the type of shelter you need.

For example, I have about a 1700 sq ft house, with 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, 2 living rooms and a 2 car garage. For the past year and a half or so, I lived in this house with just Anastasia. Me and a dog. That's it. (before that I had a roomate for 2 years). I slept in the master bedroom. One guest bedroom was filled with stuff....stuff I haven't used in years and just wanted to get rid of. The other was empty, except for a twin foam mattress lying against the wall. One of my living rooms had everything I think I need...tv, couches(2). coffee table, lamp, entertainment stuff. The other living room was relativly empty, except for an old simple weight bench and a small weight rack. And the garage has its walls lined with tools and other stuff.

Now, why am I bringing this up. Cause most of the stuff in my house isn't really needed. Maybe I thought it was needed when I bought it, but in the end it just became another list of stuff that ended up sitting there collecting dust. I guess it really took that car accident for me to really notice that, especially all the money i had put into my car stereo system that ended up not even fitting in my new car. Some of it I sold on ebay, but the rest is just sitting in my house with the rest of the stuff. (probably atleast $2k worth of car stereo stuff).

So what's my point again. Well now I'm come across some stuff that I've had since probably between 6th and 9th grade. It's my old collection of sega games. I just hooked it up to the tv and popped a few games in. There's probably about 20 games there, worth an average of $35 each and the game console worth another $200. So as I'm going through testing a few games, I feel like I'm getting hooked to this old stuff again and start thinking to myself, somewhat unconsiously(because I felt like I didn't have real control at the moment), "WOW...this stuff is great. How did I ever do without it." In fact she is asking me to help her make the bed and I couldn't tare myself away from the tv. I just sat there going through each game, until I got tired of dying a few times. Finally I came back to reality, snapped out of the hypnotic spell the games were putting me in, shut it off and helped her...albeit a little late and with her not too happy.

After helping her, I ran to the computer and searched on Ebay for the average value my old games were going for. To my dissapointment, they weren't even close to what my parents had paid. People were selling 10 games for the price they paid for 1. And the system itself was less than 1/20th of its original cost. Then it hit me again. This is like my car stereo all over again. All that money I put into it and I ended up selling parts of it months later at a fraction of what I bought and the rest is still sitting on my living room floor. But this time the fraction was even smaller.

I hope this is all making sense. Now the question I have for myself is what I should do with all my old video games? Do I give them away for free, or see how much I can really get for them. Maybe I should ask my parents, since it was really their money that payed for them. I could always hold on to them, with the hope that one day in the future they will become collectors items and be worth x times their original value. Or maybe inflation with increase exponentially and cover the cost. As I'm sitting here hoping for what will most probably never come, I want to just finish the half filled glass of Amaretto I started and go to bed. And I think that's just what I will do. good night......

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