Let’s Get Physical. Or Not

Argh, the problem of physical media is raising it’s head again.

It’s been many years since I converted all of my CDs to MP3s and the boxes of discs still sit in the garage until we can decide what to do with them. Like a mate is doing I may just leave them there until it becomes some body else’s problem. There’s way too much sentimentality attached involved for me to be able to just turf them all. I was forced to buy a CD a couple of weeks ago, the first in years, as it was significantly cheaper to have it shipped from the UK than to buy it on iTunes. The first thing I did was rip it to my hard drive and now I’m left with a disc and packaging that I no longer want.

Rae and I love our movies and we don’t go out much (thank you lovely children) so we had invested quite a deal in our movie collection which was at last count over 450 DVDs. That was fine when we had space and watched movies on a dvd player but things have changed.

First off we changed our room around and removed all of the shelving. We can now fit in two lovely comfortable couches but there’s nowhere to store the discs. This isn’t so much of a problem though as we no longer have a standalone DVD player; we watch everything through a PC. Windows Media Centre allows us to play our music, view photos, listen to the radio (local and internet), record/watch television and have our movie collection all run through a dedicated media computer. For us it’s fantastic as television shows and movies live on a server that we can access them from anywhere in the house, but now we have 450 movies sitting in boxes next to the CDs.

These should be easier to throw away than the CDs but the big problem is back up. The movies take up significantly more space and even though they are backed up on two different servers/machines in the house a back up isn’t a backup unless it’s automated and off site. I have two back up services that I use to back up files and photos but the backing up over the net all of those movies just isn’t practical yet so I’m stuck. I’d love to move to an all digital environment but need the physical discs, just in case.

I know it’s very much a first world problem, and one we’re incredibly lucky to have, but that won’t stop me from having a moan.

Today’s Office

Thought you may like to see where I’m working today.

A Conversation With Moo

“Hello my love, did you have a nap?”

“Yes Dadda.”

“Did you fall asleep and then wake up?”

“I’m not sure I did that Dadda.”

Storm

Last night the clouds were pretty impressive, even if we missed most of the storm.

Lawns

If Dad was still around he probably wouldn’t believe this but I’m feeling pretty good this afternoon after spending a couple of hours in the garden this morning. Yes, Me, in the garden (I think ghost of dad just had a heart attack). I never thought I’d actually want to spend that much time mowing, edging and weeding.

I remember one particular afternoon when I had to mow the lawns while Dad was at bowls. I sulked in my room, no doubt reading Dr Who books, until mum eventually forced me out to the back yard. I think I yelled and grumbled through the lawns, there may have even been some tears when the bloody lawn mower refused to start and it began to drizzle. I’d do anything possible to put off my one hard job. Nana’s lawns though, not a problem but they may have had something to do with the jelly beans and five dollars that came with them.

Any ways, no tears or grumbling 30 years later and I’m a lot better with an edger.