The seller said the CD player and cassette deck powered on, but hadn't been tested, and the receiver didn't power on. I offered $40 and he accepted. I figured if either the CD player or tape deck worked, it'd be worth it.

After bringing them home, I confirmed the receiver is dead. And neither of the players in the tape deck work.

The CD player works great. It's a model PD-5700, a couple years older than my other Pioneer CD player PD-102. They look similar, but have different button layouts. I will use both players for my Twitch stream. Now I can alternate between them and even do some radio-style DJ sets with them if I want to, playing specific tracks from CDs in my collection.

I was really hoping the tape deck would work, as the single cassette Sony player I'm using only sounds good playing tapes in the reverse direction. I have another deck in my closet that works and sounds ok, but it has a bit of interference noise that bugs me. It's also silver and doesn't fit with the style of the other equipment, which is black.

I don't know enough about electronics to attempt repairs myself, so I found a local electronics repair place. Their website says they repair audio equipment and consumer electronics, so I'm going to contact them and see if they will even look at these old systems. If so, and I feel their rates are fair, I might take a chance and see if they can get the tape deck and receiver working again. It'd be a shame to scrap them.

Mostly, I just hoped to have some redundancy in place if any part of my current HiFi stack failed. It's getting harder and harder to find good quality vintage HiFi components for cheap.

Discuss...

#100DaysToOffload (No. 109) #music #retro #nostalgia #hobbies #physicalMedia

Vinyl is Toxic

I knew vinyl should be kept out of landfills – that's one reason I justified collecting it. But after recently discovering a video by Ben Jordan from six years ago, I learned how toxic vinyl is to the air you breathe and how, with a few exceptions, the modern vinyl industry makes records pretty much the same way they have always been made.

You can watch the video on PeerTube or YouTube.

There is a lot of good info in the video, like what exactly vinyl is and why the vinyl in records is toxic. But the part of the video that really sealed the deal for me was when he got an industrial air quality monitor and stuck it next to a turntable. It showed that alarming levels of toxic particulates and gasses are released by vinyl records when they are played or even just handled.

It may just be a coincidence, but my allergies have been getting worse over the last two years, and wouldn't you know it, I started collecting vinyl records two years ago. At the very least, it's not helping. But this is just one of a few reasons I made this decision.

Vinyl is Expensive

Out of vinyl, compact discs, and cassette tapes, vinyl is the most expensive format. Of course it depends on the title. I've seen some rare CDs that are going for hundreds of dollars. But I've seen rare vinyl going for thousands.

New vinyl goes for $30-$50+ while new CDs go for around $15-$20. For the sake of my wallet, I'm focusing on CDs and tapes from now on.

Vinyl is Big

It takes up a lot of space and it's heavy. I can store 50-60 vinyl record albums in an IKEA Kallax shelf cube. But I can fit 120+ CD album jewel cases in the same space. By collecting CDs and tapes I can essentially double the amount of music I can store in my limited space.

Vinyl is Great and I'll Miss It

Despite all of this, it's difficult to give it up. I love each physical format for its unique quirks. Vinyl provides a delightful, intentional listening experience. Digging crates, and spinning and flipping records is something I will miss. But CDs have always been my favorite physical format for music and it just makes sense for me to focus on that again.

And so I've been sending vinyl mailers to my vinyl streaming friends on Twitch. I've also been taking stacks of 20 records at a time to trade in for store credit at my favorite record store and taking home twice as many CDs. It'll take a while to get rid of them, but I think it's a move that makes sense for me.

Discuss...

#100DaysToOffload (No. 104) #retro #physicalMedia #music #hobbies

Sometimes, when we were in the mood to watch a tape, one of us would stand or sit in front of the VHS shelves and read off titles until there was a consensus among everyone present on something to watch.

Every so often we'd go to a video rental store like Blockbuster or Hollywood Video and bring home a few movies to watch – that was always a treat.

For a while, we lived in a house with a neighbor who had the biggest VHS collection I've ever seen. They gladly lent out tapes to their neighbors – they even had a sign-out sheet and log to keep track of who had checked out which tapes.

I still have a VCR and a very small VHS collection which includes just a few of the tapes from my family's old collection. I even have a tape rewinder. Occasionally I'll bring home a tape from the thrift store to add to my collection.

The picture and sound quality of VHS tapes can't compare to DVDs, of course. But it's not about the quality, it's about the nostalgia. It's about the intentional experience of watching a movie on physical media. It's about the memories, the feelings of peace, comfort, and safety I had in my youth watching movies at home my family.

As convenient as it is today to watch video on-demand, I miss those days when we were limited to watching what being broadcast over the airwaves and what was in the collections of family and friends and video rental stores – and we were happy all the same.

Discuss...

#100DaysToOffload (No. 103) #nostalgia #TV #movies #retro

I recently wrote about the first smartphone I ever owned and the first cell phone I ever used. But the first cell phone I ever owned was a Motorola V60 flip phone.

It was early 2003 and I had just returned home to the United States after serving a full-time mission for two years in Brazil. My mother took me to the Alltel store to pick out a phone and add me to the family service plan.

I knew I wanted the V60 when I saw it. Sleek, metal finish. Replaceable battery (of course they all were back then). Extendable antenna. It even came with a belt holster clip and you better believe I used it (I miss holsters and phones small enough to fit holsters). It was a great little phone. Solid and dependable.

And my favorite feature? Programmable ring tones. You could use the settings to create your own ringtones note for note. I had the Star Trek and Star Wars themes, of course. I know I had several other fun tunes but can't remember specifics. Probably popular songs of the time.

And don't forget that satisfying sound and feeling when you closed it after a call. CLOMP.

Discuss...

#100DaysToOffload (No. 88) #tech #retro #nostalgia

I recently wrote about the first smartphone I ever owned. But my very first experience with a cell phone was using an Audiovox CDM-4500 or an Audiovox model very similar to it.

Around 1999 my parents bought a single cell phone for the family that any one of us could take along when out of the house if we needed to easily call home or be contacted. I was attending community college at the time and remember taking the phone with me on several occasions and using it. Although we were discouraged from using it unless absolutely necessary because apparently the minutes were very expensive. I don't know how much they paid for the phone or the service.

So it technically wasn't mine, but it was the first cell phone I ever used. I thought it was amazing to be able to talk on the phone wherever I was. Little did I know how drastically cell phones would change over the next couple decades.

Discuss...

#100DaysToOffload (No. 86) #tech #retro

Here's one that's supposed to be a shark. I'll have to take their word for it, because I can't see it.

I tried everything anyone recommended to me: hold it close to your face, relax your eyes, stare through the picture not at it, focus on your own reflection on the page/screen, etc. Nothing I have ever tried has worked and to this day I have never seen one of these 3D illusions.

I might be just a little bitter about it.

Discuss...

#100DaysToOffload (No. 74) #misc #retro

There are lots of news articles, blog posts, and social media posts about it, so I will try not to get too wordy here. Suffice it to say that I am and always will be a BlackBerry fan, and I dearly miss my beloved physical phone keyboards.

My first BlackBerry device was not actually a phone. It was a BlackBerry PlayBook tablet that I bought when they were selling them off for dirt cheap. I didn't have a tablet, so I figured I justify trying out a brand new PlayBook for $200. I actually loved that tablet a lot. So much so that I bought a Curve 8530 smartphone to pair with it. My thumbs instantly fell in love with the Curve's clicky keyboard, and I was hooked.

Over the years, here are the models of BlackBerry phones running their own OS that have passed through my hands (not necessarily in this order):

• Curve 8530
• Torch 9810
• Bold 9930
• Z10
• Q10
• Q5
• Z30
• Classic
• Passport OG
• Passport SE

I have also owned the Android-based PRIV, as well as the TCL-manufactured KEYone, KEY2, and KEY2 LE.

I have used Androids, iPhones, and Windows phones. But none of them have quite captivated me like BlackBerry phones. I have never enjoyed typing on glass, but I can truly say typing on a BlackBerry physical keyboard was delightful and effortless. And BB10 was an excellent OS that was ahead of its time.

During my BlackBerry years, I also met and collaborated with some amazing people who were as interested in the phones as I was, and loved creating video and blog content about them. It was a small but passionate community and it was just fun to be a part of it.

I no longer own any BlackBerry devices. I have long since sold or donated them. But every time I see a photo or video of one, I smile and remember.

#100DaysToOffload (No. 4) #tech #retro

My current obsession is rebuilding a Nintendo 64 collection from scratch. When I was 16, I got my first real job as a cashier at Kmart. Soon, I was “promoted” to working in the electronics department – a dream come true for a nerdy high school student. As part of my job I got to become familiar with TVs, VCRs, video game consoles, stereos, and other fun gadgets. My little brother had mowed lawns and helped out on paper routes to save up for a PlayStation (PS1). When the N64 came out, I knew I wanted one. Working at Kmart allowed me to save up and buy one with my employee discount.

Over the years I built quite the collection – controllers, accessories, at least a few dozen games. I had all the essentials like Goldeneye 007, StarFox 64, and Mario Kart 64. The crown jewel of my collection, though, was the collector's edition of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. I was still working at Kmart at the time, and you could only purchase the special edition cart by pre-ordering it. I'm pretty sure they cost more than the regular editions, because it was just too expensive for me to justify pre-ordering one. Our store received a certain amount of these carts to distribute to those who had pre-ordered them and we kept them locked away so they wouldn't be sold along with the regular stock. After a time, there was still one special edition cart left that nobody had claimed. My manager agreed to let me purchase it. It scanned at the register for the same price as the regular edition! And not only did it come with a special shiny box and gold cartridge, it included a t-shirt and a CD with a few music tracks from the game! I kept that shirt for years until it was threadbare. Don't remember what I did with the CD – probably sold it or donated it.

I often regret having given my entire original collection away about 10 years ago, though it went to someone who I know appreciates it at least as much as I did, if not more so. I had even kept all of the original boxes. It was really something.

So I reached out to an acquaintance I knew might have a N64 console lying around that he might be willing to part with. He agreed to ship it to me for $20. So I got a console with power and A/V cables. It was missing the memory expansion slot cover, but it DID come with the expansion pak already installed. The console is definitely in used condition, but I cleaned it up and ordered a replacement memory expansion cover on eBay.

I also ordered 2 knock-off controllers and a memory pak so I can save games. Original controllers in good condition are not cheap, but I'll eventually pick some up.

As of the time I write this, I still don't have any games, so I'm not even sure if the console works! But I found a good deal on Tetrisphere – one of my personal favs – and that should arrive in the mail tomorrow. I also found a good deal on a bundle of wrestling games, including WCW/NWO Revenge, which was another favorite of mine that I played pretty regularly back in the day.

I'm not sure how deep I'll get into this, because N64 gear is highly collectible and desirable these days, and I'm finding it difficult to justify spending what most sellers are asking! But if I keep my eyes open I'm sure I can snag some good deals here and there.

But we'll see how long this latest nostalgic phase of mine lasts. What usually happens is I end up losing interest or being reminded of the reasons I decided to get rid of whatever things I thought were so important for me to acquire again, and I eventually sell or donate them all over again. But at least for now, I'm enjoying the challenge of building a modest collection again and rediscovering some great games I haven't played in a decade or so.

#100DaysToOffload (No. 3) #retro #tech

Topics of Focus

#faith – thoughts related to my religion #tech – self explanatory

Other Topics

#100DaysToOffload #accessories #AI #automobiles #Bandcamp #books #business #cassette #charity #Christianity #Christmas #ChurchOfJesusChrist #climate #community #compactDisc #contention #COVID19 #decentralization #DigitalMinimalism #economy #electronicMusic #EveryDayCarry #eWaste #family #FOSS (free-as-in-freedom and open source software) #friends #gratitude #haiku #health #hobbies #HomeOffice #humor #intentionism #internet #laptop #LessConvenient #libraryMusic #life #Linux #loneliness #media #meditation #mentalHealth #misc #movies #music #news #nostalgia #physicalMedia #planning #poetry #politics #privacy #prophets #retro #smartphones #SocialMedia #synthwave #travel #TV #Twitch #unity (not the game engine) #Utah #vaporwave #writing