My Favorite Items in My Physical Media Collection | May Bearblog Carnival
For this month's carnival, my friend Kami is hosting. Her prompt being Your favorite ____ in your niche hobby. So, I'm talking about my favorite items in my physical media collection.
Now I know that collecting physical media is sort of a seemingly common, but IRL most people don't collect anything. Back in the day during the era of Blockbuster, physical media collecting wasn't really a hobby. It was just normal. It'd be like saying you're a food collector today. But in the era of streaming, it very much is a hobby to curate your media library, so I wanna talk about mine in a sort of show-and-tell fashion.
Music
Nothing makes me go from pissed to happy quite like music. I got into collecting music when I was in my mid-20s, starting with CDs and moving into vinyl at the beginning of 2025. I've collected some rarities, and have tons of sentimental pieces. So here they are:
Saviors - Green Day (CD/Vinyl)
This was the first CD I ever bought. I heard "The American Dream Is Killing Me" THE DAY the music video dropped on YouTube in 2023 and immediately got flooded with all the love I had for this band that had been laying dormant for a decade. When I first got it, I actually didn't care for it that much, just thought it was "meh" on first impression. I realized I was expecting American Idiot 2, which is just an impossible task. So, reframed my perception around it and it grew on me to be a top 5 personal favorite. I listened to this album so many times when I was anticipating on going to Saviors Tour in 2024. I own it both on CD and Vinyl, and the vinyl version is the deluxe edition which contains a poster with a collage of pictures from Saviors Tour, adding a little nostalgia to it.
MM.. FOOD 20th Anniversary (Vinyl)
The first record I ever physically owned. I technically bought the American Idiot Box Set first, but this one was the one I had physically. One of my favorite albums. The splatter is absolutely gorgeous with the translucent pastel coloring and the artwork on the sleeves is just so cool. I played this record so much until American Idiot finally came. I had gotten A.I. before I even had a record player, so I bought the record player, but it arrived like a month before A.I. had arrived, so I went out to get me a record and found this beauty at a local record shop.
Enema of the State - Blink-182 (CD)
My particular copy of Enema of the State is pretty unique. It's the original pressing that has the red cross on Nurse Janine's uniform. It got removed in later pressings because it was a violation of the Geneva Conventions. More like Geneva Suggestions.
Green Day Box Sets (Vinyl)
I currently have every Green Day box set released on Vinyl. The first box set I ever purchased, and the first record I ever purchased, was the American Idiot 20th anniversary box set. I love it so much. Coming with a flag, posters, stickers, DVDs, art book, and a tie (which I do wear on special occasions). The nimrod. box set contains my favorite live album, Live from the Electric Factory 1997. As well as a cool slipmat that I used for a while before I upgraded to an acrylic mat. All the records are a beautiful silver, pressing. Dookie's 30th anniversary came with the infamous Woodstock concert (the one where the band and the crowd got into a literal mud-slinging war), an awesome outtakes album containing my favorite versions of Christy Rd. and 409 in Your Coffeemaker, J.A.R., and On the Wagon. It also came with a "Welcome to Paradise" postcard, stickers, doggie-poop bags, a cutout airplane (of the plane dropping the bomb on the cover, and an art book. Warning is probably the least impressive of the 4, containing a live record, the main record, a demo record, a patch, some stickers, a poster, and an art book.
Madvillainy - MF DOOM (Cd/Vinyl)
The first MF DOOM album I ever bought. I popped it into my car stereo after walking out of the music store and was in love ever since. It's largely considered one of the best hip-hop albums of all time, right next to Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp a Butterfly, and there's a good reason. Just a great album. Might not be your taste if you think Eminem is the best rapper of all time, but when you eventually get past the age of 16 and actually get into rap/hip-hop, you'll love it.
Hybrid Theory 20th Anniversary Deluxe Box Set (Vinyl)
Hybrid Theory is my 2nd All-Time-Favorite album. When I had bought this, there were only listings online for close to $500. I found it at a local record store for $220. I saved up some money, sweating that someone would buy it, and managed to get it for a steal of a price. Nowadays there are more listings for cheaper, but I still bought it for generally $50 less than what is being listed now.
The box set itself is absolutely PACKED, and is probably the most impressive box set I've ever owned from a pure "stuff" perspective. The vinyls are the main Hybrid Theory Album, Reanimation, and the Hybrid Theory EP. There's 5 CDs containing the aforementioned 3 records, as well as 2 B-sides/rarities CDs, 3 DVDs, a Cassette tape of 2 singles, art printouts on cardstock, and an artbook. All of that AND a download for all the CDs on FLAC files.
One-Steps (Vinyl)
I own 2 One-Step records, American Idiot and Hybrid Theory. For the uninitiated, One-Steps are basically premium records that are pressed in limited quantities. They even write the exact number you have out of the total pressings.
1,000 Hours 7" Vinyl (Sealed)
This was a birthday gift from my step dad. He found some guy who had this in his collection and bought it. It's kinda funny, because my mom had told me he got me a Paul Anka japanese pressing, which I mean I like Paul Anka... not enough to own him on vinyl. So when I saw this I about cried. 1,000 Hours is the EP that launched with 39/smooth containing the songs 1,000 Hours, Dry Ice, Only of You, and The One I Want. Need to get my hands on Slappy one of these days...
Games
My first love, and the first thing I ever started collecting intentionally. Been collecting video games for years at this point. Mostly keeping the sentimental stuff. My collecting spree has largely subsided in this department with all my modded consoles, but I still like to occasionally grab a classic just to keep.
Halo 3
C'mon, you knew this had to be here if you've known (of) me for any length of time. Halo 3 is my favorite game of all time. What makes my copy particularly special is that it's the copy I've had since I was 8 years old. My dad got it for me for my birthday, and I've kept it ever since. The booklet is worn from all the times I flipped through it, infodumping to my poor mother in a restaurant. Despite trading off most of my collection at some point throughout my life, I always made sure to keep this one. It's in surprisingly good shape for a game that was once owned by a woefully disorganized Pirate, and old enough to vote.
War of the Monsters - PS2
A fun little monster fighting game. I played this game quite a bit as a kid. While I don't have my original copy, I wanted to get it to be able to have a physical copy of every game I had as a kid. What's interesting about my particular copy is that it's a Blockbuster copy, so the case has that sort of matte finish to it and the Blockbuster logo inside. It's pretty neat if to preserve it for no other reason than for posterity's sake.
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion 5th Anniversary - XBOX 360
This game got me through a rough period in my life. My dad and I were living with my grandma when my parents separated for a few months when I was in middle school. I was sleeping on a couch, and my uncle set me up with a big-ass CRT and handed me this game in all of it's steelbook glory saying "you have to beat the main quests before you can play Skyrim"... so I did. I 100% this game. Before I even TOUCHED Skyrim, and when I did play Skyrim I hated it at first and went back to this. I have so many nights falling asleep to the bonus DVD playing on loop hearing Todd Howard saying how he was in the chess club.
Ocarina of Time/Super Mario 64- N64
Having physical cartridges for Nintendo games will never fail to scratch an itch in my brain. My first 2 N64 games I ever bought were the certified hood classics that are Ocarina of Time and Super Mario 64. I had played these both on Wii and Switch virtual consoles, but nothing feels quite like having the OGs in your hand, playing on authentic hardware on a CRT. SM64 aged quite a bit, but is still fun. OoT is a timeless classic in spite of the dated graphics.
Movies & Books
I'm lumping books and movies into one category because it's the section I have the least to say about it.
A Short Stay in Hell - Stephen Peck (Book)
This book is a existential horror that plays with the idea of living an actual eternity. The premise is that the characters are sent to an Zoroastrian hell in which they must find a book that tells their life story in the Libary of Babel (if you'd like to do a virtual version of this task to get an idea of how insurmountably improbable it is to complete... here you go). I actually got the chance to meet the author at a book signing and had him sign my particular copy. I finished the roughly 150 pages in a single afternoon. I recommend it.
Sam Raimi's Spider-Man (DVD)
This particular addition to my collection is a nostalgic one. I watched this movie and the bonus features so much as a kid. The bonus features had little tips for the first few levels of the movie tie-in game that I also had. I got the DVD version specifically for the bonus features on the disk.
Harlan Ellison's Greatest Hits (Book)
If you want an idea of where I got some of the quirks in my writing style. Look no further than Harlan Ellison. This book in my collection contains 500-ish pages of his best works, with his most famous being I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream. I read through the whole thing on my train rides to and from work. It's got some deeply disturbing works like the aforementioned short story about having no mouth and the urge to scream, and some funny ones. Like a Djinn who is stuck in a lamp cursing this couple who stumbles upon him, driving the guy into lunacy, only to have his now wealthy spouse bust him out because she managed to get the Djinn out of the lamp using a technology that didn't exist when the Djinn was trapped... a can opener (seriously what is it with Ellison and can openers?). There's also the story about extraterrestrial Jews where 90% of the story is told from the perspective of one of them talking a butterfly.
The Crow (1994) (DVD)
One of my favorite movies of all time. A tragic anti-hero story pedestaled by an even more tragic behind-the-scenes. In case you've been living under a rock for the last 20+ years, Brandon Lee, the actor playing Eric Draven, was tragically shot and killed on set when filming a stunt. The Crow is basically cursed. The entire IP. Between the development hell and killing of Lee, to every attempt to do another Crow adaptation sucking ass. Nothing tops this movie. The only thing that has ever come close to capturing the magic/atmosphere of this movie is Robert Pattinson's The Batman, which I consider to be a spiritual successor.
Conclusion
I've been collecting physical media for a while. Long before it became a sort of counter-culture movement. I love everything in my collection, but there are one that stand out for me for a personal coolness/nostalgia perspective.
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as of writing this...
At work, forgot my headphones. Got into a philosophy discussion with one of my coworkers. My wife made me an amazing breakfast/lunch for today. Slept in a little later than normal, but no complaint there.