Wednesday 2 February 2005

Pic of the day: "I'm so happy to be alive!" (Screenshot from the anime Mamotte Shugogetten.)

Not so bad after all

I'm talking about the visit by the realty woman, of course. I was not too upbeat as I waited. Despite carrying a fairly heavy bag away from the house each day, I had barely made a dent in the stack of paper on one corner of the living room table and the bedroom drawer. There must be a dozen times as much left, and these were the things that were easy to decide to get rid of. The green trashcan (paper for recycling) was full, and it's 3 weeks till next time it is emptied. I suspect it will be full pretty soon after that too.

The place wasn't too presentable. But the lady was not interested in that, and said so (rather politely too). She mostly looked at the size and placement of the rooms, windows and such that she could have seen from a floor plan. She seemed to be rather in a hurry too.

***

Something good came out of it, at least. I got rid of some stuff, and got a kind of priority on what next to throw out. This is the way it will be going from now on, surely. There is no reason saving up stuff, because I'm not likely to rent or buy some big place. In fact, technology will probably make this less and less interesting as time marches on.

Already I can get the archives of The Economist online for an affordable price, and Scientific American has 11 years online as well. I might subscribe to SciAm online as well, but I kinda like reading it on the bus. It helps me fall asleep. Heh, you thought I was more geeky than that, huh? Actually the sleep effect varies by the article. But some are pretty tiring.

I still buy some books on paper, but for each year more and more are available as e-books. I like that. I don't have a sentimental relationship with paper. There is way too much of it here, and the more books I can get in electronic form, the better.

I suppose I could burn the old games to CDs and throw away the disks and boxes, but there is still the problem of the manual. Well, actually some of the manuals are available online, legally or otherwise. I suppose it would anyway be legal for me since I have bought the original, although that could be hard to prove if I throw it in the garbage bin...

But of course, now that the pressure is off, I am likely to forget it all and continue to accumulate dusty stuff until suddenly I have to move. Luckily I have the right to a couple months warning according to the contract. I think it is four, they think it is two, I suppose if I ever find the contract we'll find out for sure. It is somewhere in all the paper...