Let me tell you one thing. The most powerful form of nagging is not how persistence it is but how subtle it is. You-know-who never explicitly nags me. She subtly nags me. The thing is, once someone nags at me, the guilty feeling of what-I-should-have-done is somewhat lessen. Nagging itself is a form of punishment. Having being punished, it makes the guilty acts somewhat justified. Make sense?
But, you-know-who never nags explicitly. So when I see her unhappy about some bad habits of mine, I feel darn guilty. However, I just cannot stop buying music albums. No way! My collection has split over from the CD rack in the living room to the common bedroom, to the storeroom, and then piles and piles of albums appear in the living room. I just cannot help it. You-know-who never nags about it but deep inside, I know she is stressed about it.
So, I have set my heart to sort this out once and for all – to end this years of guilt.
Day 1 – 2pm
Digitization of my album collection was the way to go. I was convinced. Last night I stayed till 2am in the morning to make way for a 240GB of music (formatting hard-disk). Day 1 at 2pm, I took out all the albums I have. I did a count. More than 700. That excludes the ones in storeroom. My first action was to focus on the main artists.
Day – 6pm
Took me a long time just to distill out the main artists whom I enjoy listening to. However, there were still a lot more to sort out. This approach was not working. Why not keep it simple and sort all the albums alphabetically? Those CDs that I will listen to in this 12 months’ time shall be displayed in the living room. The rest should be stored at the common bedroom alphabetically for easy access. If I wish to digitize any album for my non-existing iPod, I shall do so only in later days.
Day 2 – 1.30am
I travelled to Ikea and bought some paper boxes to store CDs. Once back, I started to sort out the albums alphabetically. I allocated each floor tile (in some cases, extend to 2 tiles) for each alphabet. I even labelled some of the tiles. Imagine … 700 squats and as the living room was covered with CD. I hardly have space to walk. I could not even access to my computer for more than 24 hours! Next, was the strenuous task of distributing each album into the appropriate tiles on the floor.
Guess which are the most popular alphabets? C & D for my CD collection is correct. P, M, and S is also correct!
I couldn’t continue. I must sleep. And I woke up with aches all over my body.
Day 2 – 11pm
After returned home, I continued to sort out what shall be displayed in the living room and what should be kept inside a box for easy access. All arranged in alphabetically order. Gosh!
All is done. I am happy. Let’s see if Cynthia will see the difference in the outlook of our living room when she is back this weekend. Provided if she hasn’t got the chance to read this blog. It would be a good surprise.
Edit: Those boxes of CDs will temporary disappear into the common bedroom … till I figure out what to do with them!
19 replies on “Gosh … What To Do With My 700+ Music CDs?!”
Gosh, you have such a massive collection of CDs. I have not been buying CDs for a while. Now I just listen to the radio.
I know! I just can’t seem to stop buying them 🙁 Listening to radio is a good idea. Just that most of the time, they play commercial stuffs and I need more varieties that don’t seem to air in Singapore.
700 CDs!!! Gosh! That’s thousands of songs and lots of money spent! I own only 4 CDs in my lifetime. Am I losing anything here? Do you listen to all of them?
Cynthia is just so accommodating. I would hate to tell you what I would have done. hehehe….
OMG……….
Thats really a HUGE collection! I just did a mental calculation and that you have spend not lesser than $15,000 on the CDs….
ECL – Only 4 CDs in your lifetime?! Which four?! Gosh … that is so … impossible! You know, if my band manages to cut an album say in 10 years’ time, I shall post one signed copy to you. To up that number from 4 to 5 … ha ha ha!
Oh no … please don’t count to 3 asking me to get rid of my CDs! Gasp!
Lani – You know. I haven’t really counted how much my collection costs (and I still can’t recall how many I have inside the storeroom … another 100 to 200?). $15,000 sounds like a lot of money! OMG! Spread over 15 years of obsession, that would be S$1,000 CDs a year … or more than 4 CDs a month! Hmmm … that is about right. Looking at the music reviews I wrote and the backlog I have.
I must find a cheaper obsession.
woh, those photos simply scream “GARAGE SALE!!”. 🙂
No way Sing Chyun! Each album has a tiny piece of memory attached to it! I can tell you. Whichever album you pick from my collection, I can tell you a little story of where I was, what I have done.
WAH!!!!
the money you spent on CDs can fund many many many many many of my bags 😛
I know G! I have no clue how much money I have “invested” so far. But wait. !0 to 15 of your kind of handbags doesn’t sound that “many”. Ha ha ha.
Oh WOW (with all the capital letters).
You can run a second hand album shop! Amazing. Or sell them on Ebay/ have your online music shoppe.
Ooooo Ooo Ooo…Maybe I can buy some from you then. =)
Ivy – Ha ha ha … sorry, I intend to keep them for as long as possible. You see, lots of memory triggered by each album. I can just pick any album and I can tell you a story of where I was during that period, how I felt, and what I was doing.
This is scary!
You sorted them all? And you have a softcopy catalogue now?
CSC – Ya, ha ha ha, I sorted them all because it is very frustrating that whenever I want to listen to a CD, I would spend ages trying to find them and at times I just couldn’t.
Unfortunately I haven’t got a soft-copy catalogue. Maybe I shall invest on one of those bar code reader and find a way to link up to some catalogue database eh?
Barcodes! That’s a pain too!
Hey, how do you categorise them?
Do you also keep vinyl?
CSC – I know! Bar coding can also be a pain. I was thinking of digitalizing all my CDs initially but I realize that to preserve the quality, I would need a super huge hard disk. So I scrapped that idea.
I had vinyl long time ago but they take up too much space and mould easily. Anyway, I simply categorize my CDs into: (1) English and International, (2) Japanese CDs, (3) Classical and Soundtracks, and (4) Misc. Then I will try to arrange them alphabetically or whatever that makes sense.
I have given up on digitalising too. There are now 1 terrabyte HDDs but the effort taken is forbidding.
Yes, you are right about vinyl taking up too much space. Don’t you get fungus and stuff on your CDs as well? Some of the CDs which I bought in the late eighties are almost dead!
CSC – Fungus does grow in selective CDs. I realize that so long as I keep my CDs in some airy places, they are not so prone to moulding. And those I leave them in the living room definitely all in OK condition.
Fear not, Blu-Ray format on audio is out. Neil Young (I think) is going to release his collection in Blu-Ray together with downloadable content. The world is heading to a brand new dimension after more than 20 years of CD format.
My first CD is Dire Straits. I think it was the first CD being produced.
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