I don't know about you guys, but I have largely stopped collecting LD's recently. Simply put I got too many expensive hobbies and had to prioritise. Retro games ate large part of my LD budget and then I decided to buy a classic VW Beetle as a project car, and now all the money is basically spent on that. Anyway has something like this happened to some of you? And if it has what hobbies took away collecting LD's?

Why on earth would you want to come near a Nazi mobil like the bug ?

And no, I can easily giggle between hobbies. And my hobbies include: expensive travel, retro computing, retro gaming, high end audio / visual equipment, action figures and cigars.

I don’t go stupid deep into things so this doesn’t happen to me. I pause one thing to do another and go back to them after a while. Moderation and a mindful existence is key in all aspects of life.

When you say “retro games” to be honest I wince…both at the term itself and also at the truly stupid prices people pay for this stuff now. All my stuff in that area was retail or less, often pennies on the dollar. I don’t buy horror LDs or late 90s Hollywood crappla for $500 a piece either. LD has been a pretty affordable hobby for me since 1992. Aircooled VW used to be a very cheap hobby but I’m sure it’s possible to ruin that too. I was always a water cooled guy.

Get into stuff when nobody is doing it, not when everyone is doing it.

Happens all the time.

I basically took an unofficial holiday from LD around maybe 2005 to 2016 (not 100% sure) to get back into slot cars with a focus on the newer digital systems. I had to take a break from that hobby due to space and time issues so I needed something to keep me busy again and LD was the perfect option since it was a lot cheaper than slot cars and somewhat more space friendly (basically, they are both kind of bad).

As of the last five years or so, I probably expanded my LD hardware and software collection by about 1/3 from what I originally had. And it keeps growing with my recent acquisition of a Pioneer LD-W1.

However, big change for me this weekend was the birth of my first child so now it appears I’ll be slowing down the LD hobby a tad bit to focus on diaper changes. I’ll probably make a return to slot cars in about five years time for my son so that will be really fun

Congratulations

My new hobby that takes up all my time and money is finding deals on fuel and food.

My laserdisc acquisition pace has slowed to a halt, but not because of any other hobbies, rather that I simply have the titles that I was really interested in having, and in that sense my collection is already complete, and will stay complete until something really grabs my attention. A collection should only ever be the natural consequence of the specific things you happen to want to find and keep (Not "Laserdiscs," but "This laserdisc, and this one, and this one"). I don't believe in collecting for the sake of collecting.


Huzzah!

I've bought a fair number of LDs with my kid in mind. You may watch more than ever but lose the patience to mess with video settings, black box doodads, etc.

Yeah… almost forgot about spinning some LDs’ for the little tike . I have a lot of kid friendly titles that might entertain him. I’m not totally concerned about messing with settings since my TV remembers them for different inputs (even though LD does need to be tweaked more depending on the title).

Yeah, that’s exactly the sort of thing you won’t give a CRAP about after a year of sleeping two hours a night. Your eyes will barely work at that point.

Nope, not getting in the way one bit.

I pace myself in all my hobby ventures moderately.
There is an ebb and flow over the decades however I find spicy pearls in the mud from time to time that remind me why I collect my various hobbies of interest.

I do believe to be moderately happy, one must use moderate restraint in all areas of life.
To contribute a moderate amount of time and energy to things that interest me is the reason I am planetside.
That and eating broccoli and kale.

I revel in the dawning of our electronic age and look forward withe moderate enthusiasm to what is to come.
Sneak peeks to DARPA hints for the future is both moderately disturbing and exciting at the same time.

With neurolink and space-X evolving so quickly, the world is going to be a busier place then I can imagine.

Some are all or none with resources, so I respect people's choices to fetter out or change minds about hobbies.
HOWEVER -
My love affair with LaserDisc is still hot and heavy all things considered !
So NOPE !

Cheers mates

Don’t let me be the one to burst your bubble, but Neurolink isn’t going anywhere and SpaceX has probably already peaked and found their main niche, heavy lifting to orbit. Starship is an outright lie and playing video games in your head isn’t going to happen in this lifetime.

Playing video games in your head is a ghastly prospect to begin with even if the tech were to work perfectly (which it won't, and instead of a Blue Screen of Death you'll get a seizure or a coma). Who knows what kind of neurological side effects it could have even when working as intended? Direct brain interfacing in general is only ever going to make sense for severe paralysis victims; for everyone else it's going to be all risks with no worthwhile benefits.

Firehorse thx for reminding me, I got my tesla slice today.
At least they aren't producing 25 EVs in the last quarter........ ROTFLMAO

All considered we still do not 100% know the consequences of being in close proximity to microwave ovens or eating what comes out of them.....

All technology is still in trials mode,.....

Neuro link chimps playing pong is a long way from an OASIS scenario where people drop out of this reality to opt into that "alter - reality". I am given hope by the amputees spinning up their new appendages with mere thought.
You may be right zeta, though I hope your wrong on neurolink score.

Starship is a daunting project. I listend to Elon tick off just some of the hurdles facing that team. It may not manifest due to sheer physics however if anyone can do it ..... Musk has good odds !
I fear zeta is right about that speculation regarding starship, however again I hope your wrong.

STARSHIP would change EVERYTHING about launch / recovery and mining system moons of the gas giants, not to mention our own luna colonization future.

All this current potential is quite awe inspiring to be sure.
Think of where we were 100 years ago !
Now think of 100 years ahead, s**t is hitting the fan on all cylinders !

And there's the possibility of the many calculating we are already in a 3d sim adds another skin to the onion layered matrix ....
One thing is certain, many things are brewing for humanities future potential in real time.

Liked this twist to the thread ! ! !

Cheers mates

Starship, and the Mars project it’s made for, aren’t just not going to work, they are a scam. It’s not even %1 there. The only people who are saying it’s an actual plan are SpaceX and the company’s cheerleaders. It falls apart completely under the *slightest* skepticism. But people want to believe so badly that they don’t have the slightest skepticism. It’s not going to happen, a million people on Mars by 2050…no way. Not half a million people or 1000 people, not 2060, 2070, or anything like it. There’s no way to get them there, feed them, or protect them from radiation. It’s total nonsense. It’s not that the idea of colonizing Mars could never work, it’s that this just isn’t the plan at all in any way.

There is a LOT of writing on this as well as videos to explain why what they are doing would never work. You don’t have to take my word for it, you can listen to way smarter people than me.

I'm in a similar boat to some of the other users that have already posted. I got all the stuff I really wanted to get (Angels Egg, GitS, Gunbuster etc). Everything else is just a matter of buying when it makes sense. IE buying lots, classic movies when they are cheaper than the blu ray, or buying Criterions that didn't even make it to BD yet. But also...



The whole point of LD for me is that it's mostly cheap. I definitely see absolutely no point to buying $500 versions of a movie available for $2 on BD if I even want that movie (typically I do not). By and large the entire premise of horror movies doesn't appeal to me but that's another discussion.

RE Video games: The best time to buy for any system is when it's on the way out and people are dumping. This is less of a thing now that basically everyone left buying physical games is a collector. PS3/360/Wii is the last era this might be fully true for. The buy and dumpers have mostly moved on to just buying digitally which has made for a pretty dry used market and near dead trade scene. NES/SNES era games actually had a longer window than most. Up through even as late as 2007 or so only a few really had big value. Chrono Trigger, Drac X, Earthbound etc and even then it wasn't nearly as insane as after. As someone that used to be into hunting at garage/yard sales and sold multiple copies of it, pretty sure Earthbound wasn't even triple digits until maybe 2010 or 11.

There has NEVER been a better time to play though. No one actually needs to pay $200 to play Chrono Trigger. There are flawless emulation options that offer the same experience. Even if you are just dying to play it on an original system on a CRT, flashcarts are a fraction of that price.

Yeah after all the funds going into the car, I found out that you can save a lot of money by using everdrives for cartridge systems and burning for disc based systems. PS3 is also the last era of consoles I ever got into. I barely bought any ps4 games and probably won't get the ps5. So perhaps I should start getting some ps3 games now that they are still somewhat affordable. But who knows what the lack of updates for ps3 games means for their future value.