A Place for My Stuff

"Uh, huh-huh huh-huh"

While it's true that everybody likes some form or another of comedy, I do consider myself an avid fan of the art.  I buy comedy albums, I go out to see stand-up comedians, and course I've been doing a weekly comedy radio show for over 6 years now.  I am picky when it comes to a lot of comedy too, and I could write you entire essays on the comics I hate and why I think they're objectively horrible. 

Having said all that...I am a shameless fan of Beavis & Butt-head.  Call it low-brow.  Call it bad animation.  Call it repetitive.  It still makes me laugh.  Recently I found a ten-disc Beavis & Butt-head DVD set for around $30.  It included The Mike Judge Collection volumes 1, 2, and 3, along with the movie Beavis & Butt-head Do America.  I've been going through my old transferred VHS-to-DVD discs of past B&B marathons too, compiling episodes that haven't been released on DVD yet.

Somebody recently told me she was surprised that I like B&B.  "Aren't you an engineer?"  That meant "Aren't you too smart for this?"  The irony is that when I was going to engineering college back in the early to mid 90s, B&B was HUGE.  This was especially true during my first two years (1993-1995), where we were seriously considering changing our fraternity's mascot to Beavis.

So what is the appeal of this show?  What is the appeal in watching these two brain-dead teenagers?  There are several factors, I think.

In college, I think the stupidity was such a welcome contrast to the stresses of academic work.  You'd spend the day going to thermodynamic engineering classes and doing differential equations homework, then come back to watch two boys who couldn't even recite the alphabet.  Similarly, there's that appeal in getting to see somebody do the terrible things you've always wanted to do, but you don't because you know the consequences.

In one of the B&B documentaries, somebody pointed out the strange phenomenon that all people, no matter what age and what culture, seem to know somebody like Beavis & Butt-head.  My brother said that the show reminded him of ME at the age of 14, when it would just be me and my headbanger friends doing nothing but watching TV.  I think that was my own appeal too: seeing so many of my middle school friends reflected in these two characters.  I grew up a suburban metalhead, and I certainly wore AC/DC and Metallica t-shirts.  Like Wayne's World or Bill & Ted, you do have to have a good knowledge of hard rock music to get some of the jokes.  There was certainly a part of me in that duo, I'm embarrassed to say.  Even more embarrassing, there were certain situations where I was more like the "Stewart" of the group (the boy in the Winger shirt).  Of course, keep in mind that Beavis & Butt-head were the "Stewarts" in the eyes of their older, bullying, mullet-headed hero: Todd.

Some of the real genius of the show, I feel, was found in the other characters.  B&B weren't the only stupid ones.  With the exception perhaps of smart little Dariah, NOBODY was portrayed favorably in that show.  Mr. Vandriesen, the hippie teacher, lived in the delusion that "reaching out" and "understanding" is always the solution for delinquents.  His complete opposite, the angry and militant Mr. Buzzcut, showed that hard discipline wasn't really all that effective either.  The other adults had their delusions too: the Burger World manager, war veteran Tom Anderson, the Stevenson family, born-again Christian hardware store owner Clark Cobb, and so on.

And while I didn't put this blog post in the "clutter" category, I suppose it's worth asking whether there's any philosophical connection between B&B and clutter combat.  Well, I guess if I had to offer a meaning here, maybe it would be the Zen-like simplicity of the duo's lifestyle.  As I've said before, I'm a shameless hedonist and I'm all for self-gratification.  But clutter can be the problem and not the solution.  So perhaps instead of going out to hit that new flea market, or buying tons of books you still won't get around to cracking open a year from now, or pushing for reservations at a 4-star restaurant ... you can still have a great time with some $2 nachos, a friend, and the TV.  Oh yeah, and chicks too. 

And also...

Watch this clip on how NOT to conduct a yard sale!

Another Pile Shrunken. Another Pile Gone.

Some recent accomplishments on the clutter battlefront:

The shredder!  You've heard all of the paranoia over identity theft.  It's caused some people to be afraid of ever buying something on-line.  I've been buying plenty of stuff on line for years, and never had a problem.  Then again, I take precautions.  I disable cookies for sites I don't know.  I have good anti-virus software.  I run anti-ad-ware programs too.  And I sure don't click on strange links in spam emails to websites I don't know.  But enough about fraud in the on-line world.

Identity theft certainly happens off-line too.  When it's done, it's usually done by professionals who know what they're doing.  Chances are, a shredder won't stop them.  Though it doesn't hurt to have a personal shredder. I probably bought mine at Staples about a year ago.  And it's been sitting in the original box, on the floor of my kitchen.  Just never got around to it.  Well, enough was enough.  I took it out, and found it ridiculously easy to set up and use.  Considering how quick it was to shred a handful of 6 papers, I wonder if I could get rid of all those past bills and stuff in an afternoon.  Hmm.

The Pile-By-The-Desk.  Sitting next to my computer desk has been a pile, taking some shape or another since I moved into this place 7 years ago.  This included a box underneath a DVD player underneath a book underneath a scanner underneath stuff I shouldn't be putting on top of the scanner.  There were other things piled around too: cheat sheets to games I haven't played in over a year, a USB game controller that Itotally forgot I had, a Pinnacle A/V input that collected lost of dust, the pre-amp I use for recording my radio show, and other scary oddities.  Makes me wish I took a "before" photo, because now in its place is a single multi-shelf bookend with the important stuff on it (including the scanner on its own shelf, with nothing resting on top of it).

What was in the box?  More school papers.  I moved these up to the little storage unit I have.

The Storage Unit.  In the top floor of my apartment building, there are several big cubbyholes of sorts.  You can think of them as huge wooden cabinets, with a latch and padlock.  Each tenet has one.  After cleaning out a lot of stuff from last year, the only thing I have left in there now is my hiking backpack from by Boy Scout days, and the ol' school papers. 

As you long-time readers of the blog might remember me saying, I still own every saved scrap of paper from high school, college and graduate school.  I have faced the hard fact that I'm never going to really use the stuff, or at least have any interest in reading any large percentage of it.  But it's hard to just simply toss it, because it is after all the output of much hard pencil-pushing, studying, and tuition money. I have thought of up some solutions, and mentioned them before.  I've got to get rid of it, but not without a ritualistic way or a photo session.  We'll see.

One last thing I did find upstairs though was an old poster I made in college for a contest.  We were having a poster contest for Math Awareness Week (yes, there is such a thing, and believe it or not the website for that year is still up).  I won first prize for this poster on my favorite casino game, roulette. Along with a layout of the table that used all the correct colors, I also included a little explanation about the game and basically how there's no secret mathematical system for winning it, and why (although it doesn't stop people from trying or swearing that they have a working system of course).

Great display.  Or at least, it was when it was new.  Now the thing was bent, warped, and falling to pieces.  The solution: take a photo, then throw away the original piece.  And in this day an age of affordable 7+ megapixel cameras, it's easy enough to snap a photo that's big enough to zoom in on and READ small text if you so desire.  Problem solved!

One last thing about store.  I've said this before, but it bears repeating.  The solution to a packrat problem is not "get storage".  Now for some people, namely people who have seasonal stuff to move back and forth a couple of times a year, storage is a good idea.  But, I'm not really one of those people.  But storage does not solve the problem of getting rid of stuff you don't use.  You're just paying to HIDE the stuff.  And if you don't cut off the behavior at the source, you'll just end up filling up the remaining spaces anyway.  Fortunately, I don't have to pay anything extra for this external closet of mine.  But it's probably time to get rid of what's in there, to make way for stuff that makes for better storage.

George Carlin on Losing Things

No doubt a problem that any packrat may face.

How to (hopefully) Address a Packrat

So yesterday I mentioned some "no-no"s when it comes to getting other people to dejunk their stuff.  Here are some ideas that MIGHT actually work.  At the very least, they're much less likely to backfire like the stuff I listed yesterday.  Some of these come from Don Aslett's For Packrats Only book.

• Set an example.  Get rid of some of your OWN junk, then excitedly mention how much happier you are and how much better your place is because of it.  But here's the thing: DON'T add "...so maybe you can do the same with that thing in your living room?"  Just let your actions on your own stuff speak for itself.  Flaunt your new freedoms without being pretentious about it.
• Drop hints about places like eBay and Craigslist.  Nudge towards some huge amount of stuff that they're not using, and say "Oh that reminds me, I saw somebody on eBay yesterday, selling a collection like this.  I think the bids were up to 80 bucks."  Or forward them an email saying, "Hey, this guy on Craigslist is looking to buy [something the person has]."  If they think they can get money for it, then they may just be motivated enough to get rid of it.
• Get the packrat involved in something like a clothing drive, book/toy drive, or flea market.  "The youth center / school where blah-blah-blah goes is holding a drive for blah-blah-blahs.  Could we make a box of stuff for them?"  Or "We're having a clothing drive at work, and we get prizes if we give more stuff."  It also won't hurt to mention the possibility of getting a tax deduction in the process.
• Invite somebody over the house, whose presence would trigger a clean-up.  This is a little tricky to play, because you don't want to spring an invite on somebody without getting their permission, but you don't want the packrat to embarrassingly rationalize an excuse for the person not to come.  But if somebody very important to the packrat is coming over (a highly esteemed old friend, co-worker, grandparent, etc.) then it may drive them to WANT to clean up some stuff.  If it's a house, you could alternatively invite over somebody impersonal like the electrician, plumber, exterminator, or fire marshal.  The packrat might now say "Crap, I have to clear a path to the fuse box now."  If the packrat is single, that's easy: invite a hot other single to visit.
• Throw a party or other event at the place.  Same reasons as above.
• Give stuff that won't add to their piles.  When it comes time to giving gifts (birthdays, holidays, anniversaries, etc.) try thinking of stuff that doesn't take up much room.  For example: restaurant gift certificates, bus/plane tickets, an AAA membership, NetFlix membership, iTunes gift certificate, etc.  Heck, I should write a separate blog post of examples.  Or even better, get them something that will REPLACE a piece of junk they already have.  "A new pair of headphones!  Now you can get rid of the 10 cheap pairs you have that don't work."
• Take a revealing photo...for "other reasons". Take a photo of their place in an area where the junk is horribly piled up.  Show it to them.  But here's the catch: make it look like you had some other reason for taking the photo.  "I wanted a picture of your guitar to show so-and-so."  "Hey, here's a photo I took of your cat!  Isn't Oreo so cute, curled up in that empty shoebox?" (In between, of course, tons of other ripped and empty boxes, stacks of books and DVDs, and then some).  This might make them face the fact that they have a junk problem.
• Buy them storage cases.  Now this one could actually backfire.  If you get them a new bookshelf or DVD rack, chances are they might fill that up and just create a new pile in the future as they amass more stuff.  Aslett, in fact, advises just the opposite: get rid of things like shelves and rotted tool sheds, and the junk might go with it.  I certainly do not advise getting the person a storage unit at a storage complex, because as I've said before, this just gives a way of creatively hiding the junk, not getting rid of it.  However, if the person is stacking their DVDs or books in towering piles because there's no place else to put them, maybe putting a bookshelf or rack in its place IS just what they need.  I guess you'll have to take this on a case-by-case basis.
• Offer to get rid of something.  If you sincerely see something that's junk, then ask "Do you need these dead Bic cigarette lighters for something?  Or can I just throw this out?""  Again, don't nag.  Don't explicitly deem the item as junk.  Don't make it seem like a trick.  You might relieve them of the bother to dispose the item, which might have been the only thing holding them back.
• Offer to help clean up their stuff.  This might work in a good way, or even backfire in a good way.  If they accept the help, great.  Just make sure you're doing it together.  Again, no packrat likes to have his stuff touched and evaluated without permission.  On the other hand, they might say "no" for this very reason.  But if you offer to organize it and catalog it all by yourself, and keep offering, then reverse psychology may kick in.  They might want to get rid of the stuff on their own, for fear that you might keep asking or do it the "wrong" way.

Again, there's no guarantee that any of these things are going to work.  But they're worth keeping in mind if you know somebody who's a hopeless packrat.

How [not] to Address a Pack Rat

One of Don Aslett's other books, For Packrats Only, offers some advice on how to address other people's packrat issues.  Rather than just copying the chapter here, I'd like to give a few related anecdotes.

I once dated a woman whose car was an absolute mess.  Clutter everywhere.  This included uncased CDs on the floor.  One time I was riding in her car, and she stopped at a place to get something.  While I was waiting alone in the car, I picked up the bare CD that was on the floor in front of her seat, and put it in the little compartment underneath the radio.  Why did I do this?  Because CDs in my experience get scratched when they're carelessly tossed around and not kept in their cases, and this can make the disc skip when you try to listen to it.  Keeping a disc off the floor like this would probably minimize the risks of that.

She came back, and got into the car.  Then she asked where the disc was that was on the floor.  I said "I moved it her so that it wouldn't get scratched."  She flipped out, giving me a short lecture on how she has her own "system" on knowing where everything is, and that I made a bad assumption about her stuff and shouldn't have touched it.  Silly me, I should have known that keeping CDs open and on the floor was a normal and practical thing for some people!

Lesson #1 in addressing pack rats:  DO NOT touch a packrat's stuff without their permission.  You might think you're doing the person a favor.  You're not.  No matter how insignificant you think the displacement is, they will most likely notice.  It's just not worth it.

Thinking back, I used to get into the same problems when I was growing up, only from the other side.  As I mentioned in a past blog, I grew up in a house that was huge, yet had tiny bedrooms.  I didn't have much room for personal stuff.  Even my closet was mostly filled with my father's stuff, because my mother had taken over the one closet in THEIR bedroom. 

Most mothers nag their children to death about keeping their rooms in order.  My mother was no exception.

Now before I continue, I'm sure there are some self-righteous soccer mom types out there who read that last paragraph with a smirk, thinking "Ha!  See, your mother was always right.  Clutter is bad!"  No, you missed the point.  First of all, mothers are NOT always right.  Having offspring does not automatically make you correct about everything.  Parents are like any other people: some have a good grasp on logic and can distinguish debate from personal attack, and some can't.  My mother falls somewhere in the middle.  And if you think THAT'S a personal attack on my mother, then once again, you're in the "stupid" category.

But nothing pissed me off more than having her touch my stuff.  Or anybody else who touched it for that matter, for whatever reason: baby sitters, toddler cousins who got to invade my room on Xmas, etc.  But when it came to clutter, my most common problem in my final years of living under that roof, was the pile.  THE pile.  In the center of my room, a pile would develop on the floor.  No matter how much I tried to get rid of it, it would eventually reappear.  At some point I just accepted it as a natural phenomenon, like a leak in a boat that wouldn't go away no matter how much water you baled.  I even tried using that as an excuse once, but naturally my mother wouldn't buy it.  Sooner or later she had to vacuum, which meant moving my stuff without any forewarning.

And it was always the same argument about getting rid of my stuff.  A lot of nagging parents like to pick one specific example, and bring it up like a mantra.  One of my mother's favorite lines was "You have papers in here from the 3rd grade!"  My reply to that was always, "Well if I haven't thrown them out by now, isn't that a pretty good indication that I want to keep them?"  Needless to say, she didn't further engage in logical debate.  She'd just fall back on repeating the same commands.  Which brings me to...

Lesson #2 in addressing packrats:  DO NOT nag.  Nagging is much like proselytizing.  It doesn't make a person see your way.  It only annoys them.  If anything, they'll go against whatever it is you're nagging for, just for fun or out of spite.  Further nagging only establishes you in their mind as being a nag, not a source of wisdom or constructive information.

And lesson #3 in addressing packrats: don't demean the value of their junk.  First of all, the packrat and only the packrat can make the ultimate judgment over the value of a personal item.  That's why their called PERSONAL belongings!  If you say "Like this thing for instance.  This [insert item here].  You don't need this!  It's crap!", then you're just going to trigger the person to give their reasoning for keeping it, and make yourself look like the enemy.  And especially don't bring it up when the two of your are talking to other people. "Junk?  Oh my boyfriend here knows all about that.  [Patronizing pat on the back.]  He's the biggest packrat in the state."

From the book, here are some other bad approaches to dealing with a packrat:

• Don't threaten. If you threaten a packrat, they're just going to cling tighter to their stuff, and learn to distrust you.  If anything they might throw YOU out.
• Don't give ultimatums. Like threats, they don't work.
• Don't withhold favors. I've never heard of somebody who withheld sex or sensual affection as a means of hoping a packrat will clean up their stuff, but considering how many manipulative women there are who do this for other things, I wouldn't be surprised.  As Aslett simply puts it, "They might find abstinence is just great - or someone else is a lot better. The only thing that will get tossed is your love life."

Tomorrow I'm going to explain some better approaches that might work in helping a known packrat deal with their stuff.  Stay tuned.

"Not Dead, Just Sloppy"

From NY Daily News:

Cops find man isn't dead, just a slob

BY Jonathan Lemire and Bill Egbert
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITERS

Tuesday, September 8th 2009, 10:01 AM

The awful stench coming from a Queens apartment on Monday was so bad that cops thought they would find a body inside.

But when firefighters busted down the the door, they found tenant Ming Li Sung was very much alive - and living with rotting garbage piled floor to ceiling.

"When they started trying to clear away some of the trash to get in, he popped up inside, yelling, 'Get out! Get out!'" said Ray West, who lives across the hall.

Cops first noticed the horrible smell when they were called to the Ravenswood Houses in Long Island City in the early morning for a domestic dispute.

"They thought he was DOA," said West.

The apartment looked like a landfill, with trash jammed top to bottom and pressing up against the flat's front door and rear window.

A broken fan, an old watering can and scores of sodden plastic grocery bags stuffed with wet garbage could be seen among the detritus.

When an FDNY haz-mat team arrived to start excavating the garbage, an army of cockroaches poured out into the second-floor hallway, West said.

"The police were throwing up," West said.

Sung, 69, was taken to Elmhurst Hospital Center for psychiatric evaluation, police said. He does not face any charges.

Sung's next-door neighbors have moved out because of the smell, which had been a problem for years, West said. He and his wife, Robin McNeil, are still on a long waiting list for a transfer.

"We're stuck here," said West, a veteran who returned just over a year ago from 18 months fighting in Afghanistan, only to spend his time fighting city bureaucrats over the rancid stench.

West said he called 311, the city Housing Authority and even the Health Department to complain, but he kept getting bounced from agency to agency.

"Everybody kept saying, 'We don't deal with that' and told me I had to call somebody else," he said.

Social workers would visit, but Sung wouldn't answer the door. A year ago the city took some action, according to West, but to little effect.

"They took him to Bellevue to get evaluated," West said, "but then they sent him back here."

The Housing Authority never made a serious effort to clean out the rotting refuse, said McNeil, who has lived at Ravenswood Houses for six years. Sometimes conditions were so bad that dead flies would accumulate on the hallway floor.

"All Housing would do was come and sweep them up," McNeil said.

McNeil was pregnant with twins - the couple's first children - but she miscarried in May. West thinks the overwhelming stench and the stress may have played a role.

"We have to follow the law and respect the rights of the tenant," Housing Authority spokeswoman Lynn Godfrey said late yesterday. She added: "We have a crew out there now to tackle the situation."

Using the Local Library, Instead of Trying to Become It

"I can't and don't want to pass judgment on your books because you can do it perfectly well if you'll be 100% honest with yourself: you wouldn't read many of the books on your shelves if you were trapped with them on a desert island."

- Clutter's Last Stand, p139

A few weeks back I started using something called "The library".  Now a lot of you may not have heard of this place, so allow me to explain.  Just about every town has one of these.  They are buildings containing thousands and thousands of books.  No, they're not book stores like Borders or Barnes & Nobel.  These "Library" places let you BORROW the books, and return them when you're done.  And here's the kicker: it costs NOTHING!  No strings attached.  You just have to get an ID card there at the library.

Seriously though, I know what you're thinking.  "Well that's nice, but they don't have the kind of books I want."  Sad to say, most people haven't set foot in a library since they had to do a History paper back in high school.  And these days with the internet, I have to wonder if kids today have ever BEEN to a library.

At the risk of sounding like somebody from a children's PSA commercial, I have to say that many libraries contain a surprising amount of new stuff.  They get the used donations from the people who keep buying new books at stores like Borders and Barnes & Nobel.  So chances are good that they do have that New York Times best seller that you heard about last year and just never got around to reading.

If you do want to buy some titles that you can't find in the library, then you can save yourself a lot of money by marking the titles down and then buying them somewhere on-line.  Even with the shipping included, you can find websites that sell like-new booksat a lower price than what you find in the stores.  I've had the most success with Half.com, with a close second being Amazon.com's market place (when you look up a book on Amazon.com, you might see a "used and new from..." panel on the right where people are selling their used copies).

Books though are hardly the only thing a library carries.  This is where people have been donating their old CDs and movies.  I went to my city's public library and was amazed to find an entire floor of CDs and movies (not just VHS, but also DVD and even Blu-Ray).  So -- not that I would ever advocate the following activity -- but you could conceivably get a stack of CDs, rip them to mp3s at home, and bring them back.  As for the movies, most of the education or documentaries cost nothing to borrow, but all other VHS tapes and DVDs each cost $1.00 to rent, and you could hold on to them for a week.

There are also lots of freebies that the library gives away, but that they might not want everybody to know about.  One library I know gives away tickets every day to the Boston Museum of Science.  They only give out a pair of these a day, and you have to be the first to claim them, and show up on the day to do so.  But they are free.  So check your local library's website.  You'd be surprised what free stuff like this they have.

Getting back to the subject of clutter (and this post's title line): I own a lot of books, or at least a lot by most people's standards.  And I always find myself buying more and more.  I had a stack of them piling up in the hallway near my bathroom, until I finally got a bookshelf for that area.  And now, of course, the bookshelf is already full and I've found myself stacking books on the floor again.

I have, though, gotten much better about this.  I've been at the local Borders store where I see a bunch of books that I'd like to own, but then I tell myself. "No, I don't need all of these!  I still have 10 books at home that I bought over the past year and still haven't gotten around to reading!"  Try this the next time you're at a book store.  If you have the will, the phrase will save you money by walking away empty-handed.

Here's another good rational reason to use the library.  Look at the books on your shelf.  Out of them, how many have you actually read more than ONCE?  If you find yourself reading many books only once, then doesn't it make sense to try to find them at the library instead of buying them?

I suppose it's also worth mentioning reading devices like the Amazon Kindle or the Sony Reader.  I haven't gotten one of these myself, but certainly they're a way of minimizing the number of books when it comes to volume.  They'll do for books what the mp3 has done for the CD.  I saw one of these Sony Readers in a store, and at first I thought it was just a prop because the writing looked like a printed piece of paper put over the display, not an electronic screen.  Lo and behold, I was wrong.  The text on these things really do look that incredible! You really do have to see it to believe it.

Globo-Chem

This is easily one of my all-time favorite comedy pieces.  Mr. Show with Bob and David was an incredible comedy sketch show that ran on HBO for four seasons.  I caught a marathon of episodes late one night back then, and I was completely hooked. 

Unfortunately, most of the clips you find on-line don't do the show much justice.  Like Monty Python's Flying Circus, it was set up so that each skit just flowed into the next.  Do yourself a favor and buy one of the Mr. Show seasons on DVD.

And remember, you can eliminate your bag clutter at home by buying "Bag Hutch"!

OK, here you go: Conversion of Physical Media

As promised, here's a blog about converting your data and audio/video to different media.

What does this have to do with clutter combat?  A lot, in fact.  Many people own tons of albums and movies on physical media that they simply don't listen to or view anymore: VHS, BetaMax, 8-track, vinyl record, 8-mm film, 8mm video tape, Hi-8 video, DV camcorder videos, audio cassette, 12" video disc, and so on.  Not to mention photos and projection slides that would need to be scanned in order to share on-line or printed bigger.  These take up space.  Sometimes, they take up a LOT of space.  On top of this, they deteriorate over time.  As I mentioned a couple of posts back, old computer disks are like this too, though not nearly as common for most people.

So, what can you do about it?  Some of this stuff you could sell or give away, especially if you have a rare collector's item (though the chances of that are much slimmer than you think) or can give away a lot in bulk. 

Well that might work for some of the store-bought stuff, but what about those personal things?  Like videos you made of weddings or kids birthday parties?  Or old music that you still can't find anywhere on CD, or don't feel like buying for a second time?  In this case, you want to find a way to extract what's there.

To transfer old audio or video, you basically have three options: get a professional to do it for you, buy a special all-in-one device that will do the job, or do it all yourself using your computer. Naturally, there are advantages and disadvantages to these.

1. Hiring a professional.  There are professional audio/video people who, for a fee, can take your old home movies and put them on DVD, or take your old music collection and put it on CD.

• Advantages:
  • You don't have to be tech-savvy at all. You let the professionals handle it.
  • Sometimes this can be your only choice.  For example, I have old 8mm reels of family films from the 1970s, and while I do still have the original rolls of film, I don't have the means to project them in a way that I can properly capture the picture and sound, and there are (as far as I know) no really good products on the market that let me do this.

• Disadvantages:
  • You have to pay them.  This might cost a lot.
  • You also have to trust that they know what they're doing.  Some will just rush through the process without trying to optimize for best results.  Some might even cut off the videos short, and not give you everything.
  • You don't have much choice in how you want to edit the videos (or music), what order they appear in on the final product, etc.

2. Buying a device that does the copying.  Places like Best Buy and Brookstone carry devices that not only PLAY different types of media, but let you COPY from one to another.  For example, I bought my parents a combination DVD/VHS player that let you convert from one to the other.  I liked it so much, that I bought one myself.  I put a blank DVD-R disc into the DVD tray, put a movie into the VHS tape slot, and in 90 minutes I had a DVD copy of the movie.

• Advantages:
  • Again, you don't have to be too tech-savvy. Just load up the stuff you want, press a button, and let the machine do it for you.
  • Although buying the new unit would cost money, you could use it multiple times, unlike going to somebody who provides the service.
  • It's much quicker and simpler than #3 (which I'll get to in a moment).
• Disadvantages:
  • You still have to buy the new unit in order to do this.
  • Editing capabilities are limited.
  • This sometimes won't work for store-bought VHS tapes.  For example, some movies on VHS secretly have a copyright protection signal build into the video so that if you try to bub it on to DVD using one of these devices, the device might refuse it.

3. Using your computer.  What you do is play the video (or vinyl record or whatever) on its own player, then feed that signal into your computer.  From there, can capture the signal and store it as a file. Once you have the file (a movie file if it's video, or something like an mp3 or a wav file if it's audio), you can burn it to a DVD or CD, or share it on the internet.

• Advantages:
  • The cheapest method, by far.  Chances are, your computer already comes with software that will do this for you.  Though you can get better software plus jacks that let you plug your device into your computer, and spend less than $50 for it.
  • You have complete freedom to edit things however you want!  For example, you can make your own DVDs these days with chapter breaks, titles on the menu, your own professional-looking display when people watch it on their TV, etc.
  • Most transfer software also gives you "cleaning" capabilities.  You can eliminate pops and scratch sounds from vinyl, add brightness to old dim videos, and so on.
• Disadvantages:
  • You have to know what you're doing.  Fortunately these things aren't TOO hard to learn, in my opinion.
  • The act can be very, very time consuming.

Personally I'd only suggest #1 if you know the professional who's doing the work and can trust him or her to do a thorough job, OR if the medium you're working with is so old and weird that you really can't use the other two options.

I highly suggest #2 if you have a LOT of stuff you'd like to transfer, and where quantity is much more important than special features.  This is precisely what I did when I transferred my VHS collection.  Could I have done it all on my computer?  Yes.  I do have the skills and software to do that.  But it would have taken me FOREVER to do it.  So what I did was use my DVD/VCR combo unit to transfer the bulk of my videos.  Just load a video and a disc, hit a button, then work on something else while it did its thing.  I didn't care about where it put the chapter breaks or things like that.  I was just happy to have it transferred.

As for #3, I suggest this route if you have very special videos or music whose details you'd like to pay additional attention to.  If you think it will be worth the time to remaster those old music recordings you have or to make a really nice video of your cousin's 3rd birthday party from the 1980s, then go ahead.  Stores like Best Buy carry a lot of capturing devices like this.  For music, I personally suggest MAGIX Audio Cleaning lab.

Conversion of Physical Media. But First, More About floppies.

In my next blog entry, I'm going to address the issue of transferring physical media.  In layman's terms, that means: "What do I do with all of these old VHS tapes, vinyl records, cassette tapes, and other things that I don't use a player for these days?  Is there hope in salvaging what's on there?" 

But for today, I'm just going to give you a quick addendum to yesterday's floppy issue.

As I mentioned in the last blog, I successfully transferred a bunch of PC floppies to my current PC.  However, my old 5.25" floppies from ye olde Apple IIc are another story.  They're not that easy to transfer, and not just because I'd need to get a drive with a 5.25" floppy slot.  Apparently, Apple did things completely different back then.

Yes, yes, I know you zealous Mac cultists think Apple can do no wrong and that all things Apple are compatible with all things Apple, but that really isn't the case.  I asked for advice on one of the forums I frequent, and a user I know by the name of Chess gave me this very informative reply:

It's not just a matter of obsolete filesystems, either. If I recall correctly, the old Apple II method of disk access used a completely different system of tracks and sectors, and "modern" (PC or Mac) floppy drives aren't physically capable of operating in that way. From what I've heard, the best way to get data off an Apple II disk is to find a working Apple II and then rig up some sort of serial-cable null-modem arrangement to a modern PC. (No, really.) Needless to say, this is a considerable hassle, even to a tech geek with a do-it-yourself spirit.

That's why all your favorite abandonware classics were transferred this way ONCE and no one since has bothered to so it again. For example, if you download a copy of the original Oregon Trail disks and play them in an emulator, chances are excellent you'll run across a tombstone engraved with the epitaph "peperony and chease" [sic], left by the saved game of some kid who thought he was being clever, sometime in the 80s. "Peperony and chease" has even become something of a catch phrase on account of this. (No, really.)  [See point #7 on this page for the explanation. - Bill]

If I absolutely had to get the data off these disks myself? If they were program disks, I'd just look for emulator-ready images already on the Web somewhere. If they were personal data disks... well, I'd wish myself luck and then start trying to find a community of vintage hardware enthusiasts. Maybe someone there will know someone who knows someone who already has a serial-cable setup.

Fortunately, there isn't really anything important on these.  It's mostly just Apple software and games.  If I really wanted to play the games, I'm sure I could find hacked copies of them made for emulators.  There were some personal creations like stories I wrote and little computer programs I made.  Though I'm pretty sure I still have all of my stories printed out somewhere.  I'd like to see the code of my old programs just for the sake of personal nostalgia, but if I can't, no biggie.  I may just junk 'em or make a new coaster set.