I had a friend (still have the friend, though we don’t have regular access to each other anymore) who liked to “show off” how obscure some of his possessions were, possibly to achieve the “wanderlust effect” (i.e. the reaction of “how did you get these here”). Something about the anticipation that his inventory was alien to whoever he showed.
One day, he was asked to bring games and a console and he brought one of those extremely rare knock-off bootleg gaming consoles they sell in Asia, which we’re not even remotely near.
“What the heck is that” asked my other best friend?
“It’s the Mega Duck. I brought CFGP with me too.”
“Why can’t you be a normal Upstate New Yorker? We literally got Playstation.”
“What fun is that?”
It wasn’t some small quirk either. One day he took a long walk and came across a part of the area nobody had been to in decades and took pictures with my camera which he happened to have. Also having hyperthymesia, he came back and was all like “I took these photos of a place that seems like it was out of a fantasy painting and also recognized someone there who was on the missing persons list when I came back”. Like a boss.
In contrast, alas, ever since moving, my possessions have become overwhelmingly mundane enough you’d expect most of it to be in an 18th century post-colonial American home, the exception (if you could call her that), ironically, being my dog who is of a rare breed.
What’s the most wanderlusty thing you own, something that would be the absolute opposite of mundane if in your possession?
I have some computer memory I’m still learning the the right terms to describe. It’s a criss-cross of wires with spinning ferro magnetic beads. I also know it’s not only volatile (the information gone on power down) but destructive (information gone on read). It’s about the foot print of an index card, with a ton of connections on every side, maybe 1.5-2cm thick.
Neat little bit of how it used to be.
Magnetic core memory?