brainbaking-com-s3rbn8.txt (7672B)
1 [1]skip to main content 2 [2] [logo] 3 4 • [3]Archives 5 • [4]Works 6 • [5]About 7 • [6]More... 8 9 Junk Contemplations 10 11 10 May 2025 12 13 The coffee table is spilled with Playmobil figures, a dirty towel, a simple 14 wooden dollhouse, an undressed doll, and a purple teddy bear wearing diapers 15 the wrong side up sitting in an empty plastic ice cream container. To my left 16 of the couch, a dolphin plush is chilling next to a pile of assorted picture 17 books. To my right, an elephant plush wearing a scarf is catching some z’s. All 18 of these things hurt my eyes, even though this has more or less been the state 19 of stuff in our home for the past two years. I just can’t get used to it, 20 something keeps on urging me to clean up, and I indeed have the feeling that 21 that is exactly what I do all day long every single day—without much success. 22 23 I make my way through the house to the new home office downstairs while kicking 24 aside a few more randomly placed toys—both the toddler’s as well as the dog’s. 25 After emptying and moving the IKEA BILLY bookcases, I had another cleanup cramp 26 and threw a random array of mediocre books in a couple of bags to donate to the 27 thrift store nearby. The shelves were roomy for exactly one week. After that, 28 we had to consolidate another bookshelf, more children’s books leaked into the 29 home office, and the cramp returned. It is itching badly. Yet it did not stop 30 me from ordering more books. 31 32 A month ago, I couldn’t open the drawer beneath the TV stand that stores my 33 Nintendo Switch games. Oh hi cramp, how are you? Not good? No? Let’s do this 34 together then! Only thirty minutes later, I had sold nine of them on Vinted, a 35 European online second hand marketplace. But there be dragons! The last time I 36 did something rash like that to a video game collection dear and near to my 37 heart, I heavily regretted the action afterwards. You know, that GameCube Fire 38 Emblem: Radiant Dawn for €10 that’s now worth €150 kind of regret. 39 40 Back in the home office, a naked wall urged me to drive off to IKEA and get one 41 of those five by five KALLAX storage shelves. Somehow, it seemed like a good 42 idea. I could move my board games from the hallway to make space for more junk 43 for the kids and I had more room to buy more stuff for myself! Yay! Wait a 44 minute, more stuff ultimately means more cleanup itches resulting in sudden 45 outbursts of throwaway-rage. It looks like all I do is pester myself by wanting 46 and getting more junk which all contribute to a restless instead of a calm 47 mind. Why do I do this? 48 49 I used to think that I was pretty immune to the whole “fear of missing out” 50 hype. It turns out that I’m not. I hate the philosophy of Limited Run Games, 51 yet my last order probably won’t be my last (hello Gex Trilogy). I don’t like 52 BoardGameGeek’s The Hotness list, constantly teasing you to go off and buy new 53 games instead of properly learning to understand the mechanics of the ones you 54 already have, yet somehow I’m easily convinced by friends influenced by the 55 very same list to bring home new stuff anyway. 56 57 The junk that hurts my eyes is not just the junk of the kids. It’s also my own. 58 59 That is coming from a man who read and deeply respects Fumio Sasaki’s Goodbye, 60 Things; is a regular listener of The Minimalists; and frequently picks a fight 61 with his wife about how disorderly she dares to chuck her clothes into the 62 wardrobe. Somehow, somewhere, the sense of it all seems to have gotten lost. In 63 my defence: The Minimalist guys and Fumio Sasaki don’t have kids. Marie Kondo 64 didn’t have any and now that she does, she’s dialling back on the cleanup 65 magic. See what I did there? I tried to hide my own urge to collect junk by 66 placing someone else’s junk front and centre. Oops. 67 68 I tried to optimize the new home office space by jamming in as much as I could. 69 But two old computers next to the modern workstation in front of a window felt 70 too messy to comfortably be and work in so I am temporarily forced to tear down 71 and store the Windows 98 Athlon and Windows XP Core2Duo setup. Not even a KVM 72 switch would have saved the day here. Yet a new problem arose: since we have 73 neither basement nor attic, we don’t even have the space to properly store 74 stuff like this. And no way in hell am I going to let go of these machines. 75 While attempting to make room in the wardrobe (simply because that’s the 76 largest closet we have), I found an old 12" CRT tube and more old computer junk 77 stuffed in there “just in case”. I guess these can go… Yes, that last sentence 78 was typed with a sense of reluctance. 79 80 All these junk contemplations do not help in calming the spirit. If anything, 81 that spirit is triggered and working overtime right now. More junk needs to be 82 moved across the house because of a renovation and more runs to IKEA need to be 83 made because of an upcoming family expansion. Yup, we made it worse. 84 85 Perhaps I need to kill off the music CD collection, even though that one is 86 quite modest. That smaller case could be replaced by another BILLY extension. 87 And it’s been years since I last touched that Evercade, who even has that many 88 handheld gaming devices anyway? On to the get-rid-of list it goes. But wait, 89 are you sure? Are you sure? [7]Are you sure? 90 91 Meanwhile, those empty KALLAX holes beckon: now that I do have the space to 92 store more board games, perhaps it’s time to re-read that wanted list… 93 94 [8]braindump [9]stuff [10]collecting 95 96 You Might Also Like... 97 98 • [11]The Challenge Of Buying Games At Physical Stores 06 Jun 2024 99 • [12]Overlooked Reasons To Still Buy Physical Media 25 Sep 2023 100 • [13]Is Collecting Physical Games Worth It (Part III) 29 Oct 2022 101 • [14]Double-dipping and Market Prices 05 Jul 2021 102 • [15]Flea Market Season 22 Jun 2021 103 104 Bio and Support 105 106 [avatar2024] 107 108 I'm [16]Wouter Groeneveld, a Brain Baker, and I love the smell of freshly baked 109 thoughts (and bread) in the morning. I sometimes convince others to bake their 110 brain (and bread) too. 111 112 If you found this article amusing and/or helpful, you can support me via [17] 113 PayPal or [18]Ko-Fi. I also like to hear your feedback via [19]Mastodon or 114 email. Thanks! 115 116 JavaScript is disabled. I use it to obfuscate my e-mail, keeping spambots at 117 bay. 118 Reach me using: [firstname] at [this domain]. 119 120 ↑ [20]Top | [21]Archives | [22]RSS Feed | [23]bv | [24]© CC BY 4.0 License. 121 [25] [brainbakin] 122 123 124 References: 125 126 [1] https://brainbaking.com/post/2025/05/junk-contemplations/#top 127 [2] https://brainbaking.com/ 128 [3] https://brainbaking.com/archives/ 129 [4] https://brainbaking.com/works/ 130 [5] https://brainbaking.com/about 131 [6] https://brainbaking.com/more 132 [7] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNY6ZstdUdY 133 [8] https://brainbaking.com/categories/braindump 134 [9] https://brainbaking.com/tags/stuff 135 [10] https://brainbaking.com/tags/collecting 136 [11] https://brainbaking.com/post/2024/06/the-challenge-of-buying-games-at-physical-stores/ 137 [12] https://brainbaking.com/post/2023/09/overlooked-reasons-to-still-buy-physical-media/ 138 [13] https://brainbaking.com/post/2022/10/is-collecting-physical-games-worth-it-part-iii/ 139 [14] https://brainbaking.com/post/2021/07/double-dipping-and-market-prices/ 140 [15] https://brainbaking.com/post/2021/06/flea-market-season/ 141 [16] https://brainbaking.com/about 142 [17] https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=R2WTKY7G9V2KQ 143 [18] https://ko-fi.com/woutergroeneveld 144 [19] https://dosgame.club/@jefklak 145 [20] https://brainbaking.com/post/2025/05/junk-contemplations/#top 146 [21] https://brainbaking.com/archives 147 [22] https://brainbaking.com/index.xml 148 [23] https://brainbaking.com/bv 149 [24] https://brainbaking.com/copyright-and-tracking-policy 150 [25] https://brainbaking.com/links