January 4, 2021

"An Interactive Tour of Everything Hilarious and Bizarre on the Web."

My program of working on some sort of housework every day has me decluttering desk drawers today, and these things that were once strikingly useful are so absurdly useless now...

IMG_2045 

I've still got the disc for Word when no version number was part of the name...

IMG_2046

110 comments:

Rob said...

I guess we can infer it's been quite some time since Ann decluttered her desk drawers.

rhhardin said...

I have a couple of boxes of 10" floppies of UNIX-PC backups, with the UNIX-PC in a closet somewhere. It worked the last time I tried it but was superseded by smart terminal (motorola 68010 based) with a faster modem for working at home dialup. Fortunately I've never changed my password so I can still use it.

Then of course there's about a hundred thousand punched cards in the basement and some 800bpi and 1600bpi computer tapes upstairs somewhere. It would be a shame to throw that stuff away.

Dan from Madison said...

ah, death cleaning. Good for you. It is a constant battle for me as well but I try to stay on top of it.

Barry Dauphin said...

Decide if the StreetAtlas brings you joy.

campy said...

A couple of years ago I found a new-looking mousepad printed with lots of tips for using Windows 3.1

BarrySanders20 said...

Wife found her old Atari game console with cartridges and joysticks in her folks' basement over the summer. Not sure if it works with new TV's, but the system looked in good shape. We also recently threw out the original box and packaging to the first Macintosh (circe 1984) that was hers and that we took with us after we got married in 1992. Not sure what we did with the old computer; must have recycled that one a long time ago. Lots of old cords, cell phones, and and other computer junk inboxes in the basement. Someday will need to part with the parts.

John henry said...

Rhhardin beat me to it.

I was going to mention that I may still have the original Framework 5-1/2 disks around.

Framework was an all in one program combining Word processing, spreadsheet, database and telecommunications.

Worked great, I never even used windows until about 1997.

John Henry

BUMBLE BEE said...

I remember seeing a documentary about recovering the Atari console games, (in original boxes), from a landfill after Atari was sold. They were in great shape and plentiful. That was a wierd program. Collector porn!

Wince said...

No "Joe Biden for President" buttons?

I guess even Althouse doesn't hold onto shit for that long.

effinayright said...

My Commodore Amiga and its accessories are down in my basement.

I am tempted to fire it up and while away the lockdown playing "Leisure Suit Larry".

stevew said...

You people sound like my brother-in-law, he still has all his text books from his time at MIT. He graduated in 1972. ;-)

I kid, about you, not him. I had all manner of old and obsolete stuff stashed away too - until we sold our house last spring and purged all the stuff that we didn't want to move or store. One thing that made it easier to part with lots of old treasures was the renting of a dumpster. I don't know why, but I had no trouble tossing stuff into it.

Floppy disks, CDs, blank DVD and CD, old cell phones, etc., etc.

Nonapod said...

The company I work for used to mine the phone book data from the Delorm Street Maps application. I wrote the program that automated the scraping by inputing each and every 5 digit zip code, paging through the results and saving the phone book data that was returned into a thousands of text files of 1000 records each. It took several windows boxes about a week of running 24-7 to extract it all.

Ann Althouse said...

I have only 2 political buttons: McGovern and Jesse Jackson.

Gabriel said...

@BarrySanders20:
Wife found her old Atari game console with cartridges and joysticks in her folks' basement over the summer. Not sure if it works with new TV's

New TVs accept coax input. At worst you might need a converter from RF to coax. I had that for my Commodore VIC-20, but for my NES I use an RCA-to-HDMI converter box, about $20 on Amazon (and you can use Ann's portal).

I Have Misplaced My Pants said...

My favorite thing like that was finding buttons from when Mr. Pants’ dad ran for Congress in 1984. OUR LAST NAME ‘84 in awesome brush script.

Was doing great until the Democrats ran an Italian and by then, in that location, an Italian last name did better than an Irish one did.

I joke during election sign season that although I’m the whitest whitey you ever did see (99.8% You’re-a-peein’ per 23andme) if I ever ran for office here in Texas I’d put my mother’s Portuguese maiden name on the signs. It’d probably be enough to put me over the top.

Ann Althouse said...

'I don’t think I ever wore either button. The only button I remember wearing in my entire life was in the 1960 election when I was 9 and didn’t know any better. It hurt my feelings that my guy did not win, though some say he really did win but chose, for the good of the country, not to challenge the reported result.

Ann Althouse said...

How many drawers in your house are essential trash bins that you’re just not emptying?

stevew said...

How many wires do we not throw away because we think we might just need them someday to power something, charge it, or listen to it? The Apple ones are easy because of the color.

Rosalyn C. said...

I feel badly about just tossing some old electronics, like old modems, telephone extension cords, etc., into the trash. Especially since I'm otherwise conscientious about recycling. Do you all take your stuff to some special hazardous waste facility or just into the trash?

NorthOfTheOneOhOne aka Doug Emhoff's Pimp Hand said...

I miss WordPerfect!

Temujin said...

I've moved quite a bit over the years, and long ago found it more advantageous to lighten the load by tossing everything I could. Then I got married and moved in with a woman who had her own life full of stuff that included her kids stuff. So...we spent a few years lightening that load a bit until we moved to where we are now.

But I still come across a box now and then that have amazing stuff that looks like it comes from another era (it does) and someone else's life (nope- it's from my own). But nothing...nothing matches going through office desk drawers which almost never got cleaned out. Just...shifted around. And over the years as desk drawers became less necessary (everything I need is on my current desktop now), those drawers have sat alone, still full, waiting.

Occasionally I'll pull one open to grab a paperclip-l as if I'm going to keep multiple pages of hard copy. But, yes, sometimes the Government requires it (because they are still mired in 1970). When I open the drawers, I find files that were once important, but have not been looked at for about 10+ years. I see every kind of Apple music device, from the early iPod Classic, to the mini, nano, shuffle. Dozens of different earbuds. Keys to things I'll never remember, but at some point thought it important to save them. Large clips that no one uses anymore to hold massive reports that no turns in anymore. A small, but important bunch of floppy disks housing what, I'm sure I thought, were creative ideas so important, so useful to some future moment, that I just had to store them.

And, one still operable hand-held Mattel Classic Baseball Game. Of all the things I just mentioned, the only one worth keeping is the Mattel game. The rest are museum pieces now. I'd say maybe the grandkids will enjoy seeing them, but what kid wants to see a collection of large report clips?

Funny thing about time.

Will Cate said...

Similarly I am trying to regain control over a home office stacked with ancient technical debris. No Microsoft floppies but I do keep my first Macintosh system disk (1985) for sentimental reasons.

MountainMan said...

"How many drawers in your house are essential trash bins that you’re just not emptying?"

Guilty, at least at my other home in TN, earlier this year. I have spent what time I have been up there this spring and summer cleaning out drawers, file cabinets, closets, and attics to get ready for some major renovating. Like you, I came across drawers and boxes of old computer disks, software, manuals, and printed output that my wife had been saving for whatever reason. Some of it was 20+ years old. Put it all in the trash or took to the landfill. Covid has me stuck in GA and need to get back up there to finish so we can get some work started.

Scot said...

My great grandparents had a drawer full of cereal box prizes, probably from the 1940s. They were big & clunky & made of painted wood & metal. My brothers and I were fascinated. I never asked, but I wouldn't be surprised if my father played with some of those toys.

tcrosse said...

I have a drawer full of stuff for my Apple ][c, long departed. Thanks for reminding me.

NorthOfTheOneOhOne aka Doug Emhoff's Pimp Hand said...

I'll have to look around. I bet I've got some old AOL CD's somewhere.

Static Ping said...

I once installed Windows with floppy disks. Not recommended.

Mark said...

I have WordPerfect on floppy discs.

Mark said...

I also used to have both DOS and WordPerfect on 3.5 disc for use on a laptop that had no hard drive, so the operating system and software both had to be loaded each time.

Curious George said...

I still have the two 64k cartridges for Lotus 123 on the PC Jr. I won't dig them out to take a pic, you'll have to trust me. They look like this.

https://i.pinimg.com/564x/34/15/5e/34155eaad7a004696f704211b9b3ce55.jpg

Oh Yea said...

WordStar, a Toshiba T1000 laptop and a dot matrix printer got me through my MBA program.

Wince said...

Althouse said...
It hurt my feelings that my guy did not win, though some say he really did win but chose, for the good of the country, not to challenge the reported result.

And you see how that worked out, for Kennedy and Nixon alone, never mind everyone else.

tcrosse said...

An Olympia manual typewriter got me through college. I stll have it.

Earnest Prole said...

I'm so old I remember when the web was going to be a net plus for humanity.

madAsHell said...

My Gawd!! If I was to search for the lost chord.......this would be a good place to start!!!

wild chicken said...

miss WordPerfect!

Yes and Reveal Codes!

Wince said...

I still have:

A "Reagan for Shah" button and handbill ("Unleash the Fury of the Ruling Class") I got at the 1980 Democrat Convention in NYC.

And dBASE III on 5.25"

CWJ said...

When I went through my banker's box of phone, electronic, tv, stereo, and computer cords and accessories, I couldn't bring myself to go completely naked on any one type so I decided to keep one of everything and toss the rest. I was amazed at how large the toss pile was, but more amazed at how much was still there after the culling. Does anyone remember the game/tv switch boxes which you attached to the antenna screws on the back of the set? They were a punched out and formed metal box with a small plastic slider for selecting the source.

tcrosse said...

I thought I could hate nothing more than I hated WordPerfect, until Lotus Notes came along.

madAsHell said...

No, seriously......think of all the whirs, pops, and clicks that we endured while loading MS-Word?

....and AOL shipped a symphony on a CD!!

Kathryn51 said...

Ann Althouse said...
'I don’t think I ever wore either button. The only button I remember wearing in my entire life was in the 1960 election when I was 9 and didn’t know any better. It hurt my feelings that my guy did not win, though some say he really did win but chose, for the good of the country, not to challenge the reported result.

Like Althouse, my first political act was in 1960(when I was almost 9) for Nixon. I helped my dad doorbell his precinct. I held the pamphlets and my dad talked to the voter. They were polite since I was standing there. Also wore the button.

This means I am a "life-long Republican". :-)

CWJ said...

Best campaign memorabilia I had (now gone) was a 1976 republican national convention t-shirt. All it had for a graphic was an elephant sitting under a tree gazing at the then Kansas City skyline with no words except a thought balloon over the elephant containing an in-the-shell peanut.

Wince said...

...no words except a thought balloon over the elephant containing an in-the-shell peanut.

Is that because elephants like peanuts, or a premonition Jimmy Carter would win?

Jupiter said...

I was looking through some old shit I had lying around, and I found something no one wants any more;

Honest elections

reader said...

Going through my mother’s things I found WWII ration books and stamps for her, my grandmother, and great-grandmother that I have kept. There was also a poem about rationing toilet paper. It seems that people have long had a need to ensure access to t.p.

I heard it over the radio -
The point I almost missed
Our closest friend — Scot Tissue -
Is on the ration list.

When war cut short our coffee
That merely was a caper
But the most unkindest cut of all,
Was to deprive us of our paper.

We hear the people crying
In long and mournful tone
From the hobo in the jungle
To Grandpa on his throne.

Like Patrick Henry’s shouting
With all his strength and breath
Give us back our tissue —
Or give, oh give us death.

If this rationing continues,
As sure as you are born
I’ll forget about the shortage
And raise a patch of corn.

And if the crop should fail me
As crops so often do.
I’ll buy a crate of oranges
And use the tissues, too.

Leland said...

Over the weekend, we visited my mom. She picks up this nice leather case and ask what it is. I open it, and it is a CD-ROM case full of software for Windows 95. I swear there was a similar copy of USA Street Atlas in that case.

On a related note, I am proud of my copy of Flight Simulator for a Timex Sinclair on cassette.

ga6 said...

Ann, get your camera and cover the Kenosha festivities, Evers just turned out the National Guard.

ga6 said...

Campaign memories? I still have my blue helmet from 1968 in Chicago.

Howard said...

Ros: you can recycle electronics at Gray Bears on Chanticleer.

Churchy LaFemme: said...

copy of Flight Simulator for a Timex Sinclair...

RMc said...

It hurt my feelings that my guy did not win, though some say he really did win but chose, for the good of the country, not to challenge the reported result.

#winkwinknudgenudgeifyouknowwhatimeanifyouknowwhatimean

NCMoss said...

It's hilarious that modern software still uses the disk icon to Save.

Big Mike said...

@Althouse, do you even have a computer that can read a floppy disk? The first time we bought a home computer without a floppy reader was out cue to pitch all our old floppies.

I think we have the record — when we moved in the mid-1990s we found box after box of the data collected by my wife for her doctoral dissertation back in the 1970s. All of it was on 80-column punch cards, and even back then it was essentially impossible to find a card reader outside of a museum. Easy decision to pitch in the trash.

Rusty said...

Ann Althouse said...
"How many drawers in your house are essential trash bins that you’re just not emptying?"
The woman who lives in my house is currently hoarding sewing machines.
Myself. I'm trying to get rid of a life time accumulation of tools.

Assistant Village Idiot said...

What are these disk things you people are talking about? You just go onto your Dartmouth time-share account and start typing away in BASIC. (John Kemeny died for your sins.)

BUMBLE BEE said...

Off Topic... Chad of Chad and Jeremy, the Duke of Wellington's grandson, died December 23, 2020.

NorthOfTheOneOhOne aka Doug Emhoff's Pimp Hand said...

wild chicken said...

Yes and Reveal Codes!

Can I get an amen?!

Mike of Snoqualmie said...

I remember Basic, 10-in floppies and 9-track, 9(?)-in tapes. My group at the Boeing Wind Tunnel had an HP mini-computer that used HP Basic and 10-in floppy disks. We also used boxes and boxes of punch cards and fan-folded, 18-in wide, striped printer paper. The punch cards always had a sequence number in the last 8 columns, so if you dropped the box and the cards went everywhere, you could sort them back into sequence with the card sorter. Those were the days when 100K memory was a lot, and a program might have to use overlays to make it fit in the available memory.

Leland said...

And it is the original case and cassette.

Tomcc said...

My tech cleanout was inspired by my divorce six years ago. I knew I'd be moving to an apartment, so needed to chuck a lot of stuff. OS disks, backup disks, harddrives, cables (oh, man, the cables...), monitors and my original Mac. (The hardware got recycled.)
I still have a Nixon/Agnew button in my collection of miscellany. I wonder if it has any value?

BudBrown said...

Whoa. Wait. That stuff is gonna be worth big bucks some day. See, everyone's tossing it now,
so yall hold on to it and it'll be scarce. I got a friend, 50 years ago he was already annoyed some of the shit he'd tossed was worth something. So he started saving everything.
Last I saw him 20 years ago he'd bought a storage building to cram it all into. But then he was the one not only didn't eat his halloween candy, he'd hide it so we didn't. By the time he remembered it the whole bag was this congealed glob. Pre ac days, I suppose.

Oh Yea said...

The USAF relied on 8-inch floppy disks and a 1970s era IBM Series/1 mainframe computer to launch nuclear missiles until 2019.

Eric said...

Ann, you're worse than me. I'm a pretty bad packrat and I had almost all of these things but tossed them long ago.

RichardJohnson said...

My political campaign stuff story: The day after the 1960 election, I found a Kennedy poster on the side of the road across from our house. I wonder if it had been thrown there as a jab at my father, who was a Republican for local politics but often or usually voted Democrat in Presidential elections. My mother voted Democrat.

I kept the Kennedy poster on my closet door from elementary school days until I went off to college. My going off to college coincided with my father working out of state for several years and renting our house. In the moves and getting the house ready for the renters, my Kennedy poster got tossed. Too bad. It would be worth some money today.

The Kennedy dream died for me after a childhood friend worked at the Kennedy's Hyannisport compound one summer in the 1970s. As he put it, the Kennedys present themselves as rich people with a conscience, but they are merely rich people.


I bring my old computer stuff to Goodwill. Goodwill recycles or sells it.

One old software regret is that my sister gave me some Tetris floppies. At the time, I had an old computer that had a floppy port, which would have enabled me to transfer the Tetris floppies to a hard drive, or to a CD/DVD/flash drive. But I never got around to it before I lost one of the floppy disks.

MadTownGuy said...

While visiting our Dad in California we came upon a case full of floppy disks. Ordered a USB floppy reader from that online place, and copied them to a DVD-ROM.

My workhorse laptop bit the dust a couple of weeks ago. I despaired because my favorite midi authoring programs worked on Win 7 but not on my Win 10 desktop. We have another laptop, also running Win 10, and I decided to try loading the programs on it. Wonder of wonders, they work. Glad I didn't toss those program discs!

Fritz said...


Blogger Oh Yea said...
WordStar, a Toshiba T1000 laptop and a dot matrix printer got me through my MBA program.


Did my PhD dissertation on a one floppy Apple II+ using Apple Writer, and printed the final copy on a daisy wheel printer in the Marine Chem. Lab.

rhhardin said...

I always used ALGOL on Dartmouth time sharing, not BASIC.

CWJ said...


"Is that because elephants like peanuts, or a premonition Jimmy Carter would win?"

Wince, that's one reason I loved that shirt. It worked on both levels. I'm sure the R's meant that elephants liked devouring peanuts; i.e. Carter.

Rosalyn C. said...

@Howard -- thanks, LOL! People around here would freak out if they ever entered Grey Bears -- the very essense of an electronics junk museum.

rcocean said...

I have tons of Lan Cables and TV cables not to mention old monitors that were "cutting edge" once and now are worthless. I Think we still have our tV antenna up on the roof waiting for an analog signal.

rcocean said...

I don't think excel and MS word have really made much improvement over the last 20 years, even though the price keeps going up. So, I'm keeping my old versions

Kathryn51 said...

I'm trying to get hubby to help clean out. Today was the day I attacked the media unit in our office. Three DVD players (one with VHS so hubby says we must save because. . . .). Boxes of cassette tapes. One box contains TEN remotes (TVs and video recorders long gone).

100 years ago, hubby would have insisted on saving buggy whips because. . . . . .

MountainMan said...

rhhardin said... "I always used ALGOL on Dartmouth time sharing, not BASIC."

I haven't heard anyone mention ALGOL in 50 years. I last wrote an ALGOL program on a Burroughs B5500 at Georgia Tech in 1969-1970. Never used it again.

iowan2 said...

How many drawers in your house are essential trash bins that you’re just not emptying?


Hah! Drawers as trash bins.

4 years ago I built a second garage. Right now I have just enough room, barely, to put 2 vehicles under roof. I got real problems. Drawers are way down the list.

cassandra lite said...

But Ann, do you have your original MacWrite disk?

Kevin said...

We're moving and purging old stuff. Opened a box a couple of days ago and found a Walkman. Not a Discman, but a cassette tape and AM/FM radio Walkman. It still seems to work!

daskol said...

Well I've still got a BeOS machine in my basement, hidden from my wife, so there.

daskol said...

If we were all using BeBoxes now, I can't imagine we'd have had to deal with COVID19.

daskol said...

My car still takes a DVD for the nav system, and they're still making new ones, the updating of which is one of my favorite things to do each year.

Rt41Rebel said...

A rolling stone gathers no moss.

I was fortunate to be able to purge in my separation 10 years ago. At one point in my life immediately after, I owned a car, some guns and ammo, a dog, two guitars, and some clothes and toiletries.

I managed another purge two years ago when I transferred to Miami and helped my fiancee sell her house. What we didn't take or donate filled three 30 cubic yard dumpsters. And when we moved from Miami to Naples less then a year ago, we downsized even more.

Having lived through both of those experiences at my age prompts me to encourage friends and family my age and older to go through the process now, in small waves, even if you're not moving yet, because the volume continues to grow and your energy to deal with it diminishes. And it also makes me wonder why couples in their 60s and 70s continue to live in their original 5 BR 3.5 BA family house.

JMW Turner said...

This has been fun. In the early seventies, I would drive around Atlanta, my eight track player blasting, say, "All Things Must Pass", or maybe, "Led Zeppelin IV". Of all the titles I possessed, two remain tucked in a drawer; Badfinger "Straight Up", and a well worn copy of Firesign Theater "Dear Friends" radio show. Fortunately, I still have a eight track component player in the garage. Hmm. Why, I think I'll plug it into my stereo component amp and take my elder self back to cruising some fifty years ago.

Mike of Snoqualmie said...

My wife was a big soap opera fan and would tape two or three soaps every day. We must have had 75 paper-boxes of tapes. Finally got rid of them when we moved.

Churchy LaFemme: said...

Still Cruisin' After All These Years

JMW Turner said...

Man, thought I've heard every decent Beach Boys song ever recorded. Kinda reminds me of "Kokomo". Cruise music fer sure...

Joe Smith said...

"I have only 2 political buttons: McGovern and Jesse Jackson."

Good old Jesse...when it was OK to hate Jews.

Damn...guess it still is.

eddie willers said...

Decide if the StreetAtlas brings you joy.

It says, "Take a left at the World Trade Center...."

eddie willers said...

I have only 2 political buttons: McGovern and Jesse Jackson.

I have only one. I was a liberal Democrat living in Austin and was inadvertently sent in the mail a HUGE Reagan button with him smiling under a cowboy hat.

I kept it as a joke.

It is now one of my prized possessions.

eddie willers said...

Off Topic... Chad of Chad and Jeremy

OUCH! They made (as everybody did ) a serious, psychedelic[ish] record after the Beatles did Sgt. Peppers.

Most sucked, but they (C&J) came out with one that was cruelly ignored but really good called The Ark.

I found it as an expensive Japanese import CD but now it is available on Amazon as an MP3 download or free with their streaming service. Still holds up and "Paxton Quigley's Had The Course" is still a gas.

Rt41Rebel said...

You wanna know what piece of ancient electronics technology isn't obsolete yet, and probably never will be? The radio.

I have a portable AM/FM/SSB/WX/AIR/SW radio that I take to the beach, but I consider it as valuable as a firearm in a survival kit.

BUMBLE BEE said...

Hey people, E-bay could be your friend. Sold my 1982 Walkman couple years ago. Worked like a champ. Years ago I was amused to find some Young staff at my favorite hardware looking at an AM-FM * Track portable Panasonic player. It was like the apes seeing the monolith in 2001. Said they found a pallet of them in their warehouse.

BUMBLE BEE said...

I was working in a major urban hotel when Jesse was running. His secret service detatchment. They weren't very happy campers.

Mr. Forward said...

Half empty drawers. Half empty workbench. Balance.

Steven said...

rhhardin said...
I have a couple of boxes of 10" floppies of UNIX-PC backups,


No, you don't.

Mike of Snoqualmie said...
I remember . . . 10-in floppies


No, you don't, either.

Guys, the first floppy disks were 8-inchers made by IBM in 1969. They only shrunk from there. (Do women know about shrinkage?)

If you ever saw or held a ten-inch "floppy", it wasn't a floppy disk.

Marcus Bressler said...

Ann Althouse said...
How many drawers in your house are essential (sic) trash bins that you’re just not emptying?

So true. Great question. In fact, I just quoted you in a Facebook post instead of just stealing the quotation outright, so you've got that going for you. But I did add the -ly to "essential".

THEOLDMAN


Marcus Bressler said...

One of the many reasons I don't throw enough stuff out: "maybe someone could use this...."

THEOLDMAN

rwnutjob said...

I loved Street Atlas USA. Used it when managing a US sales team. Pissed when it was discontinued.

Ann Althouse said...

"So true. Great question. In fact, I just quoted you in a Facebook post instead of just stealing the quotation outright, so you've got that going for you. But I did add the -ly to "essential". "

Thanks for fixing the typo!

DanTheMan said...

When we cleaned out mom's house after she moved to assisted living, we discovered just how much stuff she had been keeping "just in case". There were dozens of old calendars, thousands of Christmas cards (if I ever see another cardinal in the snow with a holly branch, I'll scream!) ancient date books, cancelled checks from the 70's tabbed by month in neat little boxes. It was an amazing amount of clutter.

The best: We found her IRS tax return from 1965, showing she paid about $20 to the IRS. Mrs DtM and I had a good laugh over that one. As if the IRS would call her up in 2018 and say "We think you cheated on your taxes 53 years ago..."

The little old lady living across the street came by to say hello, and we shared the story about the tax return, as we were still chuckling about it.
She said "Oh, I think you have to keep those things forever."

It was an interesting moment... two very different generations and two very different ideas about what is important.

Marek said...

Ann Althouse said...
How many drawers in your house are essential (sic) trash bins that you’re just not emptying?

In the mid '00s I moved from Milwaukee to Europe for a 2 year work rotation. I packed only the essentials and put everything else into my condominium storage unit and rented the place out. Rotation turned permanent. When the current renter leaves I think I'll sell and will need to clear that out. I'm sure I'll find that tech + time = trash. The question is really at what point it became trash. It was great stuff that I was saving, and legitimately thought I'd need when I was expecting to return two years later. A bit of a schrodinger's cat situation. It wasn't trash when it went in, most of it will be when it comes out. At what point did it turn? Was there a point where it was both?

Rusty said...

Blogger iowan2 said...
"How many drawers in your house are essential trash bins that you’re just not emptying?


Hah! Drawers as trash bins.

4 years ago I built a second garage. Right now I have just enough room, barely, to put 2 vehicles under roof. I got real problems. Drawers are way down the list."
You can fit cars in your garage? Lucky bastard.

Paco Wové said...

I once wrote a sonnet for the Spam Haiku Archive. <checks> Yep, still there.

DanTheMan said...

>>My Commodore Amiga and its accessories are down in my basement.

I owe my career in IT to a guy who wanted to return a defective copy of "Deluxe Paint" for the Amiga to the computer store where I was working.

The manager gave him a hard time, and refused to do the return. I caught up to him on the way out and told him to wait a few minutes, and I'd take care of it. He had a graphics business and was basically out of business, as the software had copy protection and you had to use the original disk.

I got our demo version, and gave him the disk. He was grateful, and came back a few times to buy more Amiga stuff. We became friends, and a year later he recommended me to an IT headhunter who got me a great job with AT&T. My career took off from there.

All due to that one small moment of decent customer service.

Known Unknown said...

I have a Nixon pin and a Ford/Dole pin from my grandparents. The prize of my political ephemera is a Barry Goldwater bobblehead.

daskol said...

my favorite part of visiting grandma and grandpa as a kid was running into their house and heading straight for the "junk drawer." They kept a ton of old strange things in there, from stamps to compasses to medical and office supplies, and they'd usually throw a few new things in there for us like a couple spaldeens, balsa wood model airplane, marbles or jacks or one of those rackets with a ball attached.

tcrosse said...

I still use Microsoft Word 2000.

PM said...

Got a Selectric II in the garage. And several type balls.

Freeman Hunt said...

I have an IBM Personal Computer and an IBM PC Jr. in my bedroom closet. Will not be giving them up.

ccscientist said...

In 1978 I worked for a company programming in Fortran. They were already wondering what to do with their entire store room full of punch cards.

Marcus Bressler said...

In my home, as I was growing up, it was referred to as "the junk drawer" no matter what was in it.

THEOLDMAN

madAsHell said...

They were already wondering what to do with their entire store room full of punch cards.

In 1992, I worked to de-classify the weapon delivery software in the aft-center section of the B2 bomber at Boeing field.

That last 25GB of the deliverable software looked daunting. Today, it's a thumb drive.