I’m tired, hot and stressed out. We’re moving on Wednesday, which means we have two more days to pack up all our stuff and be ready. I’m sure we’ll manage it, but right now my own feelings of exhaustion — brought on at least partly by the incredibly hot, humid weather we’ve had today — are making that “motivation” thing somewhat troublesome.
I’m sure it’s not as bad as it looks. I hope it’s not as bad as it looks. There is still a lot of stuff to pack into boxes, but at least we had a pretty ruthless clearout of books today, meaning there are a lot fewer of those to move than there once were. It was a little odd to throw out a number of books that have followed me around from house to house since before I went to university, but there’s really no point in carrying a lot of them around any more. All the fiction books I own that I’m going to read I have already read, and if I want a new book I’m more inclined to buy a digital book to read on the go rather than a physical one these days. (A curious inversion of my attitude to video games, where I prefer to have a physical disc.) The reference books I own are outdated and have been made largely obsolete by the Internet anyway. And I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I am never, ever going to read The Lord of the Rings. And so off for recycling they all go.
The last time I was so ruthless with my possessions was a few years back when I ditched the large cardboard outer boxes for the older PC games I still own. There are occasional times when I regret doing that, but my available shelf space thanks me. To be perfectly honest, I could probably stand to throw out some of those old PC games, too, given that a significant proportion of them almost certainly won’t run on a modern Windows 7 machine, but I can’t quite bring myself to throw some of them out. At least I haven’t been able to to date; perhaps I’ll have a closer look at what’s there tomorrow and actually chuck out the games that won’t work on a modern system and which have modernised digital equivalents available from somewhere like GOG.com or Steam.
It’s easy to get attached to possessions and fall into a habit of hoarding. I’ve done that to a certain degree over the years, but in a lot of cases the things that I’ve kept are conversation pieces. Someone sees I have an original copy of Wing Commander III on my shelf and it’s all “oh, cool! I remember that!” That’s also one of the big reasons I keep a big physical collection of console games from the PS1 era onwards — they look cool, they sometimes spark conversations and, frankly, I just like it. (One day I might return to collecting cartridges for older systems, but to be honest I’m much more inclined to return to a PS1 game than an N64 game. Sorry, Nintendo fans.)
Anyway, as the rambling nature of this post will attest, I am far too tired to be able to do anything particularly productive for the rest of this evening, so I think it’s time for me to get into bed. Tomorrow I am getting a haircut — it may sound ridiculous, but I’m convinced part of my tiredness at the moment is coming from the mane I’m currently sporting making my head far too hot — and then coming back to do some packing, packing, packing. Then it’s my final Japanese class for the academic year in the evening, and then probably some more packing, packing, packing.
I’m really looking forward to being in the new house. I just wish all the other stuff wasn’t between me and being able to snuggle down in our lovely brand-new bed.
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Nooooooooooooooooo! Don’t chuck out Lord of the Rings. You are only 33 – you have a lifetime yet to get round to it. In fact when you are feeling a bit down or slothful or unwell you could always pick it up for a light read.:D Trust me on this Pete – once you start reading it you will wonder why it took you so long to do so. The man was incredibly insightful and, though a reflection of his era, wrote with great skill, power, and poignancy. His use of language is brilliant, and his creation of languages amazing. Lose yourself in his world. I can’t believe you have never read LOTR – especially with your penchant for RPGs. My son Guy read it when he was 10. I just assumed you had. So fish it out of the dumped pile and shove it in the moving pile. You won’t regret it that way. 🙂
Haha. It’s not through lack of trying. I think the problem is that I just know it all already — I listened to the BBC radio adaptation when I was young and saw the movies when they first came out, and I just don’t have the energy to plough through all that text for a story I already know inside out. You’re right that I like fantasy and I’m honestly surprised it’s never maintained my attention, particularly when I’ve read fantasy epics that are just as long like David Eddings’ Belgariad and Malloreon series.
Never say never, but it’s gone for now, unfortunately. If I do decide to try again, it’ll be as an ebook, I reckon.
And I know what you mean about the old games – I have some of those myself – not on a grand scale like you as I’ve come to this quite late in life. I’ve found that quite a few of them can play if I reset them via Windows 7 Troubleshooting, but often the graphics just aren’t up to it – they become rather pixellated which makes searching for defined HOs difficult. Some I’ve chucked out but some are in the bottom of the Games box. It’s hard to let go sometimes.