Out with the old

Pile of Zip Disks

Ah, the first day of a new year. A time for reflection and for clearing the decks. And thus it was finally time to don protective gear and dig in to the stack of ancient electronics gathering dust in the dreaded Closet in the Study.

Electronics are hard to throw away, at least for a cheapskate like me—even though I know in my head those SCSI cables are worthless now, my heart still remembers how much I paid for them back in the day. If nothing else, going through your electronic leavings makes you realize just how freaking expensive it is to be a nerd.

Sound cards, PCI SCSI cards, video cards that were once state of the art enough to run Quake, five keyboards, a mountain of 100MB Zip disks, a wriggling mass of assorted cables, ancient hard drives, the list goes on.

How the hell do you end up with that many USB cables, anyway?

If you’re looking for something to do to soothe the mid-winter blues, I highly recommend a thorough hack-and-slash through the detritus of the past gathering dust in your house.

Plus, hey, USB cables!