Stacks And Stacks Dept.

Over at Jim Hines's LJ, there's been a fascinating thread about the economics of e-book piracy. Among the things that came out which didn't have direct bearing on the main topic was an observation I made about people who pirate anime chronically. Not just, say, episodes of a show not yet in general release, but who download tons and tons of the stuff, far more than anyone could ever appreciably expect to make time to watch.

I had to wonder if what I was seeing was an adjunct to another behavior many of us are familiar with in other forms: hoarding.

I'm not a stranger to hoarding, if only in a minor way. Until a couple of years ago, I had a bad habit of buying most every newly-released DVD that looked remotely interesting — whether or not I'd rewatch it, and even whether or not I'd be bothered to open it and watch it within any reasonable span of time.

By the time I'd accumulated a stack of unopened discs half as tall as I was, I knew something was wrong. I sold off most of my collection, bumped up my NetFlix account to a four-at-a-time plan, and — most importantly — stopped kidding myself.

There's only so many books you can read, records you can listen to, movies you can watch, and experiences in general you can have at any one time. More than that, there's only 24 hours in a day and only one of you. Have a little self-respect.