24 Outdated Shelves

So I bought a pair of these. I figured I’d have enough to fill three of them, but after the big purge, I barely filled two. Cassettes are stored somewhere else for now and the few DVDs I own fit on the CD racks. And the fact is, I don’t really touch any of the CDs in the rack anymore. The procedure now is to just rip everything to the big hard drive and then file away the CD for reference, or to prove I didn’t steal it when the RIAA comes looking for me, or to see if the lyrics are to Death Cab for Cutie’s “Soul Meets Body” are really as goofy as they sound. A fair amount of the music I “own” doesn’t even embody a physical medium. That’s a fairly odd thing to think about and leads to a whole tangent about backup methods and drive mirroring that’s far too dry for a topic as emotional and lively as music. But it’s a topic that anyone who actively listens to new music will have to deal with. Oh, and I’ve got records too. Not a lot of them, but it’s just as well — the stylus on the old Fisher stopped working about a year or two ago so now I don’t have a way to play them anyway. I guess if I get the urge I could always re-buy them on iTunes. Maybe they’ll give me a discount if I cut out the UPC code and mail it in to them.