Sold records and broken computers

[originally posted May 26th 2023 with the title "an obituary for my record collection, also my computer blew up"]

Today I sold my entire ~200 piece vinyl collection to the local second hand record store i frequent.

I grew up with CDs and have been interested in physical media for most of my life, but around 2011/2012 I got into vinyl records, because I thought that a serious collector has to be collecting vinyl and CDs are for casuals. I bought a lot of records over the next few years, but some time late 2016 the novelty of the fancy new (to me) format wore off, and my active interest in vinyl faded and i eventually bought my last vinyl record some time in 2017, turning back to my one true love, CDs.

Despite not doing anything with them, I held onto the records ever since, never feeling secure enough in my lost interest to part ways with them, suspecting that at some point it may return and I would regret not having them anymore. I suppose that will happen at some point, but I accept that. If I kept them, I would've probably regretted it too at some point cause they just sit there, collecting dust and rotting. I had a lot of really cool pieces in the collection, ones that I'm sure are highly sought after. Giving up on them would be quite a sacrifice. But would it, actually? I know a lot of these are quite valuable, but what joy do they bring me? Realistically, not really anything at all anymore. And they're sitting there, on my shelf, taking up space.

Now, the folks from the record store have them. The owner was very delighted about my collection and looked genuinely excited to be able to resell them in the store. In his own words, this is the kind of stuff they don't get very often, and this would reflect postively on the store, people coming and getting excited about a new batch of cool records to sift through. And yeah, I hope that they find buyers that make them as excited as they used to make me. I love the thrill of looking through a used CD bin, and finding something that's special to you. I hope someone will look through the newly arrived vinyl next week, and find my splatter vinyl Pierce the Veil record, and it'll make their week. Or my out of print Farin Urlaub Racing Team record. Or the Linkin Park original press with different cover and an etching on the D-Side. Or the signed Donots or Enter Shikari records. The Die Ärzte live box set. The countless Epitaph and Fat Wreck skate punk records. Knowing they'll find excited new buyers makes it emotionally very fulfilling to let go of them.

I know I could've probably made more money selling these records if I put them up individually on discogs or ebay, because someone who goes online to look for a particular record is gonna pay more than someone who just walks into a store and stumbles upon something that catches their eye. But, the thought of all the work that goes into putting up 200 records for sale and then also shipping them is something I absolutely don't want to deal with. And then it's not even guaranteed I'd sell all of them. So I'm very grateful the record store was willing to take the entire collection, this way I don't have any work with it, I help out a local business I visit frequently, and I get a nice, clean all in one bookend for the record collection. They're all gone, no records left that didn't get sold. End of that chapter.

Now, a tangentially related different story.

Of course, I also sold the record cause I could use extra money. I had no particular plans of doing anything with that money, but I was looking forward to having a bit of a buffer on my bank account, and especially with the upcoming trip to ESA in Sweden, the money was gonna be pretty tight otherwise. So the vinyl money gives some relief in my financial anxiety.

So of course, on the same day, just a mere few hours after finishing negotiations with the record store owner and agreeing on a deal. That same evening, my PC crashes, and it doesn't turn back on. Not even a BIOS. Just completely dead, from one moment to the next.

I've always had issues with this PC. It's a cobbled together mess, 20 year old case that doesnt make sense with any of its components, and I've been using it, replacing individual parts one by one over the years as they broke. But something always caused issues sooner or later. Sometimes just minor but irritating hiccups, sometimes the whole thing became unusable until I did some major replacements. And something major seemed to happen every 2 years.

In all honesty, I hate having to think about computer hardware. I hate every moment of opening up the the case and screwing around and replacing stuff. I hate having to think about components, the moment I try to research anything my brain shuts off. I don't care, I hate it. All I want from a PC is that the basics work. And my complete refusal to engage with any of the hardware research, just buying the first thing I find in my price range and then half assedly cobbling everything together was probably the reason my PC was such a complete utter mess the entire time. I know that, but man, I can't help it. I don't care about this shit and I don't want to learn.

So now my computer blew up (again) and I suspect that it's the mainboard, the central puzzle piece everything is attached to, meaning replacing it means I'd have to pretty much rebuild the whole thing. Pain, hate, kill. And it's money I need to spend. Right when I was about get a big wad of cash that I was looking forward to having as a financial buffer. Great, financial anxiety is back. Only a small dent on the vinyl money, but I can already feel the cash slowly dripping away. And like, you don't understand how much new computer hardware does not excite me. My computer worked (at that time), and then suddenly it broke. There's no excitement for getting shiny new hardware and an upgrade to my system. I don't care. My computer worked fine then, and now I have to suddenly deal with bullshit again and spend a bunch of money I wasn't gonna spend otherwise just to have somethin that works again, great.

After being a hate filled ball of rage at all things computers for a while, I came to the conclusion: Hold up, this is an opportunity to cut out the computer bullshit I've been dealing with for years. I am convinced this wretched PC is cursed. Mostly everything is old and it's broken now. I don't want to have to rebuild it with more random assorted pieces now. So let's cut all of that out, and just buy a whole new entire PC. No more cobbling together pieces that barely fit. No more this wretched cursed torture machine. Just replace it.

So at the trusted computer shop I was also gonna buy the mainboard at, instead of looking for a mainboard, I just looked for their full PC setups, and picked one in the price range I was willing to pay. Did some quick comparison of the components to what I had before, yep, that one would definitely be an ugrade. And it'll be assembled by professionals. Ok, I'm convinced, I'll take it. I'll have a new PC that'll be assembled by professionals instead of one where the case is held together with literal duct tape. I'll have to spend much more money than just buying a mainboard obviously, but this is probably the best chance I'll ever get of breaking my enternal computer curse.

Today I got the money from the records, and immediately ordered the new PC. I am still salty my PC just blew up like that, but I see how absurdly lucky it is that these events just coincided like that. I wasn't planning on immediately blowing a huge chunk of the the vinyl money, but if I didn't have that money coming in, I wouldn't have been able to afford a replacement, especially not with the travel plans coming up. Looking forward to when the new system will be up and running (with hopefully as little tinkering neccesary as possible).

Both of these stories filled me with anxiety, uncertainty and frustration, but now that the records are sold and the computer is on the way, I feel quite hopeful.