Day 53/365 - Confessions of a Retro Boy

This is a replica of an old GE cathedral-style radio from the 1930s. My parents got this for me as a Christmas present years and years ago. I've loved big band jazz and old-time radio (or OTR as it's more familiarly known among we geeky collector types) programs ever since I was in high school. When everyone else at school was getting into Poison and Motley Crue I was discovering Glenn Miller and Benny Goodman -- music that was already old by the time my parents were my age. Even though I'm a self-confessed dance-phobe, I really wish I knew how to swing dance. That looks like fun.

It's a bit blasphemous to admit this, but I think I like OTR better than tv. Old radio programs are like tv shows without the pictures, kinda like the opposite of silent movies I guess. I think imagining the action going on in the program in your head even beats HD. There are many different genres of radio shows, but mostly I focus on collecting the adventure, spy, and detective programs (albeit with a few children's, western, science fiction, and horror programs thrown in as well). I have nearly 200 different programs comprising several thousand individual episodes in mp3 format in my collection. They're great to upload to my iPod and listen to at the pool or when I'm travelling. My favorite programs are probably Jungle Jim and Orson Welles' run on The Shadow.

This is probably my single-most nerdy area of activity. It doesn't get much geekier than collecting OTR. I don't just stop there, though. Noooooo. I also design album covers for each program I collect. I enjoy that almost as much I do listening to the programs themselves. Why settle for being simply nerdy when you can be absurdly nerdy?

BTW -- if your curiosity has been piqued, you can find a huge inventory of old radio programs available for free download from the Internet Archive.

(Taken with my Nikon D80)

Day 32/365 - Collage á Moi

Whenever I go to a peforming arts production, museum, zoo, sporting event, or historic building, I save my ticket stub and program or brochure and then I make collages out of them. This is seriously nerdy arts and crafts type stuff, but I enjoy it and it gives me a free souvenir. I don't have to buy a t-shirt, mug, or fancy booklet and I wind up with a cool memento of the places I've gone and the things I've seen.

This is my 16th collage. I used to hang them all up on my walls. Now though I've got so many of them that they would monopolize all the wall space in my apartment, so I just hang up the current collage. The others are all stacked up in my closet. I've got them going back to 1994, so I guess this was an early form of 365 Project for me. The current collage covers stuff I did from February 18th to September 6th of this year and encompasses things I went to in DC, as well as trips to Las Vegas, San Diego, Charlottesville, Branson, Dodge City, and Kansas City.

This collage is all full now and I need to get started on a new one. I've already got a stack of tickets and programs sitting on my desk that I need to get glued to a new posterboard.

(Taken with my Nikon D80)