I purged out a lot of my video stuff. I'm down to like 7 VHS tapes and that's stuff that I was involved in the production of. I was part of the tech crew on a local PBS production that is no longer in production. There are also a couple of other VHS that are not available in DVD... But pretty much all the VHSs I had are gone. And since I purged my old VHS player and never felt compelled (yet?) to replace it, I really would love to get what I do have on VHS onto DVDs and then I can actually watch them :) I also have (but it's in offsite storage and about to be purged in this next 30 days) a complete full set of pre-recorded VHSes of the Red Dwarf series. I'm giving these to a friend who really wants them and is a huge Red Dwarf fan. I've started to get them on DVD as they become available from the BBC. For DVDs, while I love movies, I'm not really good at re-watching a lot of movies. So unless it's a huge favorite, I find that I'll just rent them through my Freedom Pass thing at Blockbuster. But I own about 7 DVDs. When my ex and I split up in December, he took the lion's share of the DVDs that we had gotten together. He's much more of a movie watcher and also some of the titles were family or kids stuff that are for his kid or we watched as a family. For storage, I have a simple 5 shelf media rack that holds CDs, DVDs, and VHSes. It's not the best. But it's simple wood, with open slanted shelves. Stuff sometimes doesn't "sit" it in very well. But it seems to fit my needs. I've taken to putting those small "crate" looking like wood things on the shelves for cd storage specifically. This totally avoids stuff on the ends (cds) from sliding off (and falling) sideways through the bottom of a shelf. Most of what I have are CDs (music CDs). I have software CDs as well but those are stored in my home office and there's not many of them (under 20). Most have tar images online and often it's only install media that was burned just for a specific install. Which means I should purge them :) But music CDs, I do really need to purge. Between what I have in my office at work and what I have at home, some 200+ If I brought what I have at work home, I would be overflowing that rack. Time to purge. I also find my music tastes vary over time and season and moods, etc. So something that I'm not into this month, I've love the month after. I have started to rip and burn my own music. I have a subscription to Rhapsody.com. I just haven't mastered the whole process and often find that I simply love some of my favorite albums (on CD) that are bought as-is from the usual outlets. And many, many were bought YEARS ago. All the way back to the 80s :) I do play MP3s on my PDA. But nothing beats cranking up my old fashioned stereo at home. At work the speakers on my computer are "okay" but I listen often with headphones anyways. I eventually see that I will have a basic MP3 player plugged into my home stereo system. I'm in no rush though. It will happen when that time comes that I'm doing more rip'ing (to MP3) only and not as much burning to CD. Right now when I do rip something off a music streaming service, I tend to burn it onto CD as well. Well basically my media storage is a simple open rack. I too have a TiVo (in fact 3, including retired ones that I need to purge) and that is most of my TV viewing. I have all my shows set up and what doesn't get watched gets replaced automatically by newer incoming content. It is a wonderful way to go. Cheers, --jans

I have two rather radical suggestions -- they've been wonderful for me: DVDs: I was constantly irritated that my family'd remove a DVD from the case, watch it, and instead of returning the DVD to the case, they'd pile up the cases and DVDs on the edge of the entertainment center 'til the towers grew tall and fell over . . . and even when a few favorite movies were stepped on /broken from this lazy behavior, they just wouldn't take the necessary seconds to join the items back up again. My husband was the worst offender. So I threw away the cases. Yep, threw 'em away. Tossed all second-disks that include junk like interviews with the cast, etc. Now all our movies are all housed in those zippered cases that hold 40-60 CDs. Removing the cases means they take up MUCH LESS space. Movies are arranged by category; we have zippered cases for various categories: - Family movies - Disney movies - Action and Adventure movies - Adult comedies - and we store series DVDs together; for example, the entire 24 collection is housed together with the West Wing series in one large zippered case. The Sopranos shares space with the Little House TV series, and Game of Thrones is in a new, mostly empty case eagerly awaiting the arrival of more DVDs. We have NO TROUBLE finding movies in their cases. My family still refuses to put them away, but without the cases they don't pile up as high, and they don't spill over onto the floor as quickly. I can put them away without searching for the right case -- just the right category. I briefly considered cutting away a portion of the colorful colored title page from the cover and slipping them into the squares behind the DVDs . . . but ultimately I went for the easiest route. When I find a certain movie left in the machine, all I have to do is pick the right case and plop it into any of the empty slots. Oh, I should add this detail: I have nice, homemade matching zipper pulls on the DVD cases that let us know whether the case holds Adult Dramas or Action and Adventure. I made them from laminate samples swiped from Lowes' Home Improvement. Shhhh. They're sturdy and will last a lifetime. Now, books . . . ask yourself, Do you love books, or do you love reading? Me, I love reading. I always had piles, piles, piles of books. Finally I faced the fact that I simply didn't need -- or even want -- to keep them all. I had so many books that I rarely re-read, and it wasn't really hard to let them go to the library and to Goodwill. When I laid them all out on the floor and looked at them, I admitted to myself that they fall in the same category as the size 5 jeans I wore in high school/college -- things that I enjoyed very much at one time but will never use again. Oh, I still have some favorites, but the vast majority of books really have no monetary value, and they are easily and cheaply replaced. Furthermore, keeping them isn't free: Bookshelves cost money, and you have to dust them. And they deteriorate over time. Letting go of things that I honestly won't read again was the right choice. New fiction I'm buying on my Kindle. Digital copies are almost always cheaper, and they're so much more portable. I've been a Kindle-reader for 6-7 years now, and I have about 900 books on my Kindle. When I travel, I can bring all 900 . . . in my purse. These books do not break down over time, and if my Kindle is lost/destroyed, they will automatically re-load to a new Kindle machine (I know this for a fact because I am now on my second Kindle, having WORN OUT the first one!). These books take up no space on the bookshelf; and if I lend them to a friend, they cannot "forget" to return them. I MUCH prefer reading on a Kindle: It keeps your page number, and the book doesn't want to "close on you" as you near the end and the pages are very much out of proportion in your hand. The price of Kindles has gone down-down-down, while the quality has gone up-up-up. Disclaimer: I didn't get rid of reference books. That is, gardening books, fix-it books, etc.

Socks -- We have library cards for Maui. However, the library there are stuck 'somewhere back in time'. LOL I found a more current collection of books at the Salvation Army store in Kihei! We are very spoiled with the collection of DVD's at our hometown library. Norar -- We've enjoyed all the "Touch of Frost" episodes -- along with most of the things I see on the Netfix 'menu'. What's new there is old to us. Maybe we'll try Redbox during January and February. All suggestions for our 'tropical teatimes' greatly appreciated!

Yep - you're getting very close to what I'm talking about. The ship decorated with the ... things ... OMG, so EWWWWW! You really do witness some scenes in this series that you cannot UNsee! I confessed to DH (he and I watch together - part of our nightly ritual) that I read ahead online (might have been IMDB) and knew of one particular plot twist that I wasn't too keen on. I didn't spoil it for him, although when it finally happened it was easy to see it coming all along.