I Wish I Could Get Paid to Buy Vinyls

Went to Amoeba Records today to buy some vinyls.  It was literally the perfect day for walking around San Francisco and browsing through the mecca that is Amoeba Records.

It's a converted bowling alley, which naturally  makes it ideal for stuffing it with vinyls and letting people like myself run loose and splurge on new additions to my collection.

Seriously, mecca...

While I was looking around I got to thinking.  What I wouldn't give to take a shopping cart into this store and just go nuts for like 10 minutes, Super Market Sweep style.  For 10 minutes, I can go around the store grabbing any vinyls that I want, and after the time is up, I get to keep whatever I could fit in my cart.

Side note: how awesome was Super Market Sweep?  Seriously, just people going around throwing anything and everything in their carts, trying to ring up as much money as possible.  I'm even pretty sure they got to keep what they put in their cart.  I remember watching marathons of that and always getting pissed when the contestants did anything but go after the Butterball turkeys.  Everyone knew those things were worth like $30 a pop!  As a 10-year-old, I was convinced I could beat anyone in that game, because I'd go straight for the turkeys, and pick up any of the bonuses on the way.

Anyhow, I digress.  After about an hour and a half of browsing, I left the store with the following bag o' treats:

*  Bon Iver - Bon Iver
*  The Black Keys - Rubber Factory
*  Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin III
*  Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin IV
*  The White Stripes - White Blood Cells
*  Deerhunter - Cryptograms


When I'm shopping for vinyls, there's always an internal conflict that involves me wanting to (1) complete collections of certain artists I have (see Black Keys purchase above); (2) buy new release vinyls of albums I've heard lately that I consider to be really good (see Bon Iver); or (3) expand my collection of classic albums that I ultimately want as part of my collection (see White Stripes and Led Zeppelin).  At the end of the day, I'm usually just very happy to be able to grab some new vinyls to listen to and stack on my shelf.

Speaking of which, here's the current vinyl collection:

There's about 90 or so LPs (12-inch), 20 or so 45s (7-inch), and three 10-inch albums.  I'm pretty proud of it thus far, but here's the space I ultimately need to fill:

Three shelves under the window to be filled.  After about a year I am about 3/4 of the way through the first.  Gives me something to shoot for, I suppose.

Someday, I'm hoping to have a room that looks like this: