Too much stuff.

For Mother's Day we went to the flea market with Sarah's parents. Sarah's mom doesn't get to go as much as she would like, so that's what she wanted to do for Mother's Day. We went to the Berlin Flea Market in Berlin NJ. It's big, and it's indoor and outdoor, and we usually find good stuff there (good stuff is relative, of course). I was very excited to go, as it was the first flea of the season, but it turned out that I was very tired, despite being in bed for 8 hours. I am thinking that my sleepiness contributed to my apathy towards the flea market, but I'm not really sure.

When we lived in NJ, we used to go to flea markets every weekend. Sarah got me into going when I first started collecting Atari games, which was back in 1995. Back then, Atari games were everywhere, and we sometimes went to 3 markets in one day. We always came back home with a good haul. I amassed quite a collection of games in a short period of time, and I played those games almost everyday. The playing (and flea marketing) came to a grinding halt when we moved to DE. We first lived in an apartment, and it was too small to set up all of my games, and DE is certainly uncontaminated by flea markets. There are some, and I found a few things, but I just had so much already that it was hard to find anything new. Classic game collecting also entered the mainstream, which forced prices up, so I was leaving a lot of stuff that I would have bought when I was in NJ.

I think I wrote about how last summer I traded in quite a few of my games and systems for a Wii. I never regretted trading in anything until yesterday. There were many cheap N64 games at the market, and that's one of the systems I don't have anymore. I don't have the trader's remorse today, but it was very strong yesterday. Despite the fact that I am on Sabbatical from buying Music and games until the Beatles remasters come out in September, I did buy a few of each yesterday. I bought a few rare games for the collector in me, and one game for the player. I also bought 2 Cd's. There were Cd's EVERYWHERE, and they were very cheap. I am thinking that many people are digitizing their collections and unloading them (something Sarah wants me to do, but I cannot bring myself to do it. Yet?). There were lots of Cd's I wanted, but I just didn't feel like buying them, and I'm not sure why. I thought that maybe I was growing up a little, saving up for something that I really want to have. I have also been thinking of getting rid of more game stuff (mostly memorabilia-type stuff) and thinning out my record collection. I feel tired of having so much stuff, even if it is interactive. I am going to be 40 this year and we have no kids. Perhaps I have been subconsciously pondering my own mortality? I know that if I go first, I don't want Sarah to have to deal with all my crap. I know that I will probably get rid of the games at some point in the future, I don't need to be playing Zelda on my deathbed. The music is a different story; I will still want to hear it, but I'm sure there will be more revolutions in digital music storage down the road, and I will most likely give in to that. Until then, I'm keeping my Cd's and games and most of the records, but I will have some stuff for the town wide yard sale next month.