VHS tapes and me

People think I am crazy when I tell them I still do this. But really I could care less.

Before the age of DVR, TiVo, Netflix, Youtube, and the ability to download shows to your computer, there were only two ways to watch things. You could either watch it on live TV, or you could set up your VCR to record it onto a VHS tape and watch it at a later time.

Back in the 90's, this was normal. No one would look at you weirdly or frown upon the practice if you told them about it. I recorded shows and movies from live TV like anyone else. Either because I wasn't going to be home and didn't want to miss it, or because I knew that whatever I was watching was something that I was going to want to see again at a later time.

Most of the stuff I would record, I didn't keep. I would just tape over it at a later time. This changed in 2000 with Survivor. I was so enthralled by the show that I recorded the entire series onto VHS and would watch it over and over and over again. I would do the same for subsequent seasons as well.

Eventually, I had recorded all the way up through Survivor Micronesia, which was the 16th season of the show. That's right, at one point I owned 16 seasons of Survivor on VHS tapes. They have since been recorded over since I own a lot of the DVDs, and can easily watch online all of the seasons that couldn't be found on DVD.

The practice may have begun with Survivor, but it didn't end with it. In 2001, I was pretty much living full time with my girlfriend Colleen at her apartment. But every once in a while I would return home for a weekend or so just for a change of pace. While at home, I thought it would be a great idea to record some funny random stuff on cable to bring back to her since we didn't have cable at our apartment. And she loved them.

Thus began my real obsession. I recorded random crap like Reno 911, The Jamie Kennedy Xperiment, COPS, I'm With Busey, America's Funniest Home Videos, Inspiration Time, and random clips of funny moments from movies and commercials as well. It didn't stop with one tape, I recorded mutiple tape after tape. All loaded with crazy random nonsense that would basically only make sense to me and a few other people in the world.

Eventually Colleen and I broke up, but this didn't stop me from continuing this practice. Over the years not only did I keep on recording Survivor, but I kept on adding tapes to my "mixed" collection. In addition to recording random clips and episodes of shows, I also started adding world news and sporting events to the mix. My tapes have become like a time capsule of sorts.

This practice has waned greatly in recent years. I haven't recorded much since 2009 or so. With Youtube out there, and the ability to pretty much find anything you want online, I guess I kind of thought it was pointless to keep recording stuff. But every once in a while I will. I think the last thing I recorded was a news clip about the "Fail Mary" call in a Packers vs Seahawks NFL game a year or two ago. I estimate to have about 60 to 70 VHS tapes full of crap. Perhaps even more. When my grandma died, we went through her things and I discovered that she basically did the same thing I did. So I have added some of her tapes to my collection as well.

I like things to be organized, so in the last few years I have been going through each tape in order of which I recorded them. I have been writing down what is on each tape, time indexing them, putting them in their proper order, and posting their contents in Facebook notes.

However, I recently have started to worry that Facebook notes may expire after a time. What happens if they do? I will have to go through and watch every single tape again. And most of them are 8 plus hours long. That is not something I am looking forward to. I am already up to tape number 40 something. That's a lot of hours I have put into this.

So now I will be adding the contents of each tape to my blog as well. Why not? If it is in two places at the same time, chances are I am not going to lose these any time soon. I also plan to print up some physical copies of these lists as well.

You can say I am obsessed. Call me crazy. You are probably right. But it is something I must do. People likely aren't even going to read these. They are mainly here for me. Not for you.

So if you see these tapes start popping up on the blog, look no further than this post for an explanation of what they are. You have been warned.