Friday, November 18, 2022

Swedish Death Cleaning

It is an ongoing process. I need to be rid of cassette tapes, but there are treasures there. I've discarded most of my 'questionable' video collection on 8 and 16 MB USB sticks, consolidated to a couple of 32/64 and 100MB sticks. Much has just been deleted. No need to save special moments nowadays. They are there at the click of a button.

Some years ago R mentioned we needed to buy a new sound system to replace our 1990s sound system. I again put my foot down with a hard hand and said no. Firstly, we haven't used it for years. Secondly, it has a cassette player. As the unit wasn't used, apathy played its part.

I've made a start, by checking if the cassette player still works. Amazingly after not being used for perhaps fifteen years, it does still work. I have heaps of cassette tapes that I need to check before discarding. I will record some using my phone. Prominent on one cassette case is the word Jew. This refers to my audio recording from tv of a film called The Lucky Star. 


31 comments:

  1. We really, really need to do some of that cleaning. And we also still have a cassette player - and a myriad of tapes...

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    1. EC, how long since you have used the cassette player. I was surprised ours still worked.

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  2. Blogger is being a PITA for leaving comments. I finally got this to work by signing into Incognito (as recommended by another blogger)!!! I did a lot of that when we downsized. But lately am back on a kick of getting stuff out of my life. I even *gasp* threw some plants away. Even the pots, if I need one I'll buy one! I gave all our DVDs to a concierge in our building last year, he loved it. There are still some CDs hanging around. Was thinking the other day that we don't need our iPOD any longer, you can find everything online.

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    1. Jackie, I didn't know PITA but quickly worked it out. I am not having problems commenting, so I can't really say what is happening with comments. iPod! I never had one but I think they were just for music. Actually I did, a gift. It was a random player, so annoying.

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    2. It must have been set to "shuffle" and they could be reset to play through alphabetically by song or by singer, but I don't remember how to do that now.

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  3. The Stalker
    Andrew, go modern and get a couple of home pod minis. We transferred all our music onto our computer/ iPads and also have a sub to Apple Music and so now at our command Siri plays from either our music or Apple Music..I am sure androids also have similar product,..It’s a great doggie minder when we go out as well. Streamed music for them…they love Doris Day and Ella Fitzgerald in particular Good wishes

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    1. Stalker, I no longer like music much. I know I can say 'Hey Google' to my phone and things happen, but I am not fussed to do that. Your dogs have good music tastes.

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  4. Siri, at your command will also play radio stations

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    1. Androis mp3 players work well with windows media for music. Movies too, although I never did that, just the music.

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    2. So ABC Melbourne radio reminds me. Ask your device to play ABC Melbourne.

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  5. I finally got rid of my cassettes. My only player for them had passed away. I still have a few music CD's and my car has only a radio with CD player, no bluetooth or connection to the Cloud. I sitll have my old Ipod though and a player it will work in.

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    1. Strayer, I am pretty ignorant about iPods but as long as it works for you...

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  6. I did the same. A lot of DHS thrown out without back up. Feeling quite sad

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    1. Roentare, like videos on tape thrown out? I moved ours to dvds. What you had was part of you and your history but who else would be interested.

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  7. We had a similar stereo system. Very cool we thought it was, too. Remember when you couldn't drive anywhere without seeing reams of cassette tape strewn over the median strips? I haven't had a cassette for yonks. Don't even have CDs or DVDs anymore. I think we have moved once too often.

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    1. Caro, especially on Saturday and Sunday mornings, there would be lots of cassette tape discarded in fury from the night before. Our machine will play cds. Dvds? Ah yes, we have a player for them. We never use it.

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  8. The aim of death cleaning in your own lifetime is to reduce the time and effort spent decluttering by your grieving heirs, after you die. I can tell you that Swedish death cleaning is a time-consuming process, but I am doing it slowly so that the children won’t have to.

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    1. Hels, death cleaning can be hard. You rid yourself of your treasures that you know no one else will be interested in.

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    2. You are a treasure yourself, Hels, from all I gather. Best wishes to you and yours, both Hels and Andrew.

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  9. Having a good clean up then. Has to be done I expect. Have no idea where all my tapes are gone, think most of the songs came out on a CD at some stage so still have them. Records I recorded onto computer long ago as some of the songs were not on a CD! Times change.

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    1. Margaret, times indeed change. You and I have done so well with tech stuff but truthfully, I struggle a bit with it now. I was once on the cutting edge.

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  10. As far as tapes go, we have none now. My Walkman died so I walked in silence and after I passed Lance mk1 onto his new owner there was nothing left to play the tapes on so off to the op shop they went.
    SDC has been in full swing here for a little while now…..obviously we aren’t going to die anytime soon because there’s still an awful lot here still

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    1. Swedish Death Cleaning - been happening but there’s still loads more to go

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  11. JVC is a good brand. I had JVC headphones for my portable cassette player, the sound was amazing. The player is long gone and the cassettes too, now I have cd's but no player, so I bought an external player to plug into the laptop and I barely use it. I have no VHS tapes left either, all movies are now on DVD or usb sticks. I had an mp3 player with headphones, which also died and it was only about 15 years old! I have the miniature apple type, but loaded it with all the music in my i-tunes thinking I would edit the playlist later, but they are obsolete now and not recognised by windows 10 or by the latest upgrades to i-tunes so if I listen I have to fast forward past what I'm not in the mood for, so I barely listen to that now.

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    1. River, I forgot it was JVC. It sounds like you can't be bothered too much with music now, like me. But I do like seeing music clips on YouTube.

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    2. Still listen, but via playlists on i-tunes or windows media.

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  12. For many people - myself included - it can be so hard to clear stuff out of our homes. I usually end up just moving things around or there'll be a "to go" pile that looks tiny next to the mountain of "to keep".

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    1. YP, the question you need to ask yourself is, 'Will this be at all interesting to my children or anyone once I am gone'. You should take pride in your blog and ensure it there for the youngers like Phoebe to peruse.

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