The search is over
Today, Ben and I went to the DI -- Deseret Industries, the Utah/Mormon equivalent of Goodwill. We were donating some clothes at the store, which is brand new inside a remodeled Circuit City. After dropping off the clothes at the donation drive-thru (I kid you not), we parked and went in. I love going to resale stores and yard sales and looking for old board games/video games. I've picked up Bonkers, Gambler and Triple Yahtzee in the last year, and I was hoping for similar success at the DI.
Though we bought two games (a infernally difficult puzzle game with blocks that Ben likes, and Spy Alley, which is recent) for a dollar each, no classic games jumped out at me. The new store is infinitely nicer than the old one (which I rarely went to): brighter, more spaced out, cleaner. In the back was a rack with used bowling balls, and I so wanted to test one by rolling it down the aisle of the new store. Fortunately, I resisted.
As we walked through the new DI, I couldn't help but think of the Circuit City that dwelled in the building previously. Circuit City was a less frenetic version of Best Buy that, ultimately, went bankrupt. I never went to Circuit City much here in Utah, but in Madison, it was a favorite and a nice alternative to Best Buy.
Back in the late '90s, I used to love to search for music to pad my CD collection. And not so much new music, but classic songs (mostly '80s) that I didn't own, wouldn't buy an entire album for, and wanted to make killer mix tapes with. Back when I made mix tapes, I would often group them into specific time periods (e.g., "Summer 1984"). I got many of these songs from compilations. And Circuit City often had quite a collection of compilations for sale. Cheesy compilations that might include songs by Men Without Hats, Split Enz, Nik Kershaw and Donnie Iris. For single-band CDs, I'd go to Exclusive Company or maybe even Best Buy, or find it used. If I got the itch to buy a compilation, I spend a half-hour at Circuit City.
MP3s made my CD quests obsolete. First, in the early 2000s, I used Napster to fill in a lot of the gaps -- mostly songs never released on CD -- in my collection. Then iTunes came along and I was able to buy single songs quite easily, thus filling in more gaps. iTunes has become more and more complete over the years, and eMusic has gotten much better as well. As a result, I went from buying a couple dozen physical CDs a year a decade ago to barely five a year now. There aren't many gaps left in my '80s collection either. Sure, I discover some new songs once in awhile (classic "American Top 40" episodes always produce a few), but usually, those new songs are easy to find and buy online.
Oh, along the way, Circuit City went out of business. But it wasn't like I was buying new music there anyway. Though I was never too much the type of music consumer to go into a record store, see a album and think "Hey, I'll give this a try," I never went to Circuit City to discover something new. I was always looking for something old. In our advanced digital age, I can decide whether I like something without leaving my computer, thanks to Spotify, Pandora, YouTube, iTunes and my smartphone. And, if I like something new, I don't have to actually go to a store to buy the record, either.
Still, I miss the search. Searching for a song on iTunes or eMusic just isn't the same, perhaps because now, I know what I'm looking for. I never knew what I'd find on a compilation CD at Circuit City when I walked in the doors into the red interior. Perhaps that's why I like searching for classic board games. Maybe my music collection is complete, but a gaping hole remains in my game collection where Star Wars: Escape from the Death Star should be.
Though we bought two games (a infernally difficult puzzle game with blocks that Ben likes, and Spy Alley, which is recent) for a dollar each, no classic games jumped out at me. The new store is infinitely nicer than the old one (which I rarely went to): brighter, more spaced out, cleaner. In the back was a rack with used bowling balls, and I so wanted to test one by rolling it down the aisle of the new store. Fortunately, I resisted.
As we walked through the new DI, I couldn't help but think of the Circuit City that dwelled in the building previously. Circuit City was a less frenetic version of Best Buy that, ultimately, went bankrupt. I never went to Circuit City much here in Utah, but in Madison, it was a favorite and a nice alternative to Best Buy.
Back in the late '90s, I used to love to search for music to pad my CD collection. And not so much new music, but classic songs (mostly '80s) that I didn't own, wouldn't buy an entire album for, and wanted to make killer mix tapes with. Back when I made mix tapes, I would often group them into specific time periods (e.g., "Summer 1984"). I got many of these songs from compilations. And Circuit City often had quite a collection of compilations for sale. Cheesy compilations that might include songs by Men Without Hats, Split Enz, Nik Kershaw and Donnie Iris. For single-band CDs, I'd go to Exclusive Company or maybe even Best Buy, or find it used. If I got the itch to buy a compilation, I spend a half-hour at Circuit City.
MP3s made my CD quests obsolete. First, in the early 2000s, I used Napster to fill in a lot of the gaps -- mostly songs never released on CD -- in my collection. Then iTunes came along and I was able to buy single songs quite easily, thus filling in more gaps. iTunes has become more and more complete over the years, and eMusic has gotten much better as well. As a result, I went from buying a couple dozen physical CDs a year a decade ago to barely five a year now. There aren't many gaps left in my '80s collection either. Sure, I discover some new songs once in awhile (classic "American Top 40" episodes always produce a few), but usually, those new songs are easy to find and buy online.
Oh, along the way, Circuit City went out of business. But it wasn't like I was buying new music there anyway. Though I was never too much the type of music consumer to go into a record store, see a album and think "Hey, I'll give this a try," I never went to Circuit City to discover something new. I was always looking for something old. In our advanced digital age, I can decide whether I like something without leaving my computer, thanks to Spotify, Pandora, YouTube, iTunes and my smartphone. And, if I like something new, I don't have to actually go to a store to buy the record, either.
Still, I miss the search. Searching for a song on iTunes or eMusic just isn't the same, perhaps because now, I know what I'm looking for. I never knew what I'd find on a compilation CD at Circuit City when I walked in the doors into the red interior. Perhaps that's why I like searching for classic board games. Maybe my music collection is complete, but a gaping hole remains in my game collection where Star Wars: Escape from the Death Star should be.
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