Operation Physical Media

I once had a physical media collection, mainly DVDs. It wasn’t that big either, the collection took up one shelf of a Billy bookcase from Ikea. But it was still a collection, a little library of films that I adored.

This was back in university. When I returned home after I finished school, my DVD collection was banished to a box in my closet. The box was then heavily purged during one of my decluttering sprees and I remained with literally five DVDs, the ones I would call my favorite movies if you were to ask me or simply mean a lot to me.

At the time, I was at peace with letting go of my collection because I had trusted in digital streaming. My mindset was, “I can find them online.”

That is no longer the case. Unfortunately, we can no longer rely on streaming. And among the many nuisances of digital streaming emerged the grave concern of lost media, one that I took to heart as I would be devastated to never again experience the films and music that I loved.

So now I am on a mission to build a library again in an effort that I call Operation Physical Media.

Operation Physical Media is composed of three parts: films, music and pictures. (Books are not listed as I already have an ever-growing library ;P)

For films, I still have my old Blu-ray player from university, plus I still have the tiny collection I had kept and can build from there. I don’t intend on restoring the little library I had film-for-film, I don’t even remember all the films I once had. The ones I do remember, I consider ones I genuinely loved, and will definitely be getting my hands on those old favorite as well as new ones.

For music, I am literally starting from zero and will focus on collecting CDs, at some point acquiring a nice CD player too. While vinyls are more popular and widely available, I am truly not interested in collecting vinyls. I also want to build a personal digital library again and get my hands on an mp3 player. I have been trying, in vain, to track down my old iPod nano among my parents’ things but to no avail.

For pictures, I would like to order photo books, not assemble albums. I feel like this is less hassle and the final result will be more sleek. I had ordered a photo book for my wedding pictures and it is gorgeous! Imagine a row of bound books of pictures <3

These are the intentions for Operation Physical Media. To fill my home with the things I love.

Nowadays when I go to a big box store, I will peep by the electronics section and see if anything from the movie or CD selections tickle my fancy. I’m also on the lookout from drops from my favorite artists.

I don’t want to buy for buying sake, at the end of the day these are still purchases and I want to remain mindful of what I spend my money on. This mission will take time and little by little I will build my physical media library that is genuine to me.