Sunday, March 04, 2012

Lots of Stuff

I spent a good amount of time in front of my television. Watching shows (cable and Netflix streaming) or playing video games. The TV occupies a large portion of my life. Good? Bad? Who knows. But that isn't the topic for today...

Lately, I've been fascinated watching the show Hoarders on A&E. The show is like a train wreck -- you just can't stop watching. It is a bit sad once you truly understand that hoarding is a psychological disorder, but it is so hard to stop watching. The things that people collect, that get hoarded, the condition of the house, etc ... there is always something new on the show.

But here is where the "Stuff" from my post title comes in. There are a number of shows on that focus on "stuff". Hoarders is one show, but TLC has a similar show named Hoarding: Buried Alive. The show title is a bit crazy, given that it actually happens.

It doesn't stop there. Those two shows are about people collecting. But there are shows on the other side of the equation, too. Hoarding is about acquiring, but the stuff (sometimes) needs to go away, too. Storage Wars is about lockers that get auctioned off when people don't pay their bill. In many cases, the lockers were owned by hoarders, and all kinds of awesome stuff is found in there.

And then you have the show, American Pickers. The show is extremely fascinating. Mike and Frank find lots of stuff in peoples' hoards, but they concentrate on old items, and the history behind them. As a big History Channel fan, American Pickers is an interesting lens into history. Old cars, music legends, bicycles, cars, and other memorabilia.

The stuff that people accumulate is incredibly fascinating, and these shows provide a broad view into history, people, and an endless variety of "stuff".

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