Non Otaku collections?
(Titled this 'Non otaku collections. I know the term otaku is a general term, not one limited specifically anime and games, but I wasn't sure what else to title it XD)
We all know that people here collect a lot of Japanese stuff. It could be dolls, anime figures, video games, idol magazines, cosplay outfits or anything else Japanese, but ultimately we gather here through our love of Japanese culture. But I've been wondering, what other stuff do you collect? What non Japanese influenced things do you collect? Or maybe you don't collect anything else so you can concentrate your spending? Lets chat about it. Make your own posts too!
My love (other then anime, figures and dolls) is Tatty Teddy. Tatty Teddy is a character created by Carte Blanche in the UK. He's a character used in greetings cards, and celebration gifts. I've loved Tatty Teddy for a very long time, but they make many things for many occasions and since they can be quite large, I have to limit myself for buying them, otherwise they'll overrun the house! Instead of collecting too many of the Teddy's, I've began collecting the Tatty Teddy ornaments instead, they're much smaller and easier to display XD
Heres a portion of my collection. There isn't everything in this pic as its older photo's, but for now, my teddy's are packed up, waiting for us to move.
Ah, books.
A [url\http://geekorner.wordpress.com/2009/08/23/my-room-july-2009/]nearly endless amount of books[/url].
I love books, and even when I no longer had room for books, I kept getting them. Then I made some _more_ room for books :)
http://geekorner.wordpress.com/2009/08/23/my-room-july-2009/
Dag nabbit.
[url=http://geekorner.wordpress.com/2009/08/23/my-room-july-2009/]test[/url]?
That's an impressive book collection. Have you really read all of it and/or do you plan to do so?
I did notice one thing, which I will bring to your attention.
This is a bad idea. The UPS is a surge protection device and in severe cases (like lightning strike) it will break itself in order to protect the computer, kind of like a bodyguard taking the bullet. When it does that it can radiate electromagnetic radiation and kill all electronics within half a meter or something like that. If the computer is exposed to that it will wipe your HD clean (or at least unreadable). You might have broken hardware as well since it can kill ROM, flash and stuff too.
O_O I knew surge protectors killed themselves (*sobs* noble souls!) but I never knew they had an effect on other things...good thing mine's under the desk then.
You shouldn't be within reach yourself either. The EM field is more than the allowed limit if you are within 30 cm or so.
Mine made ticking noises once in a while so I moved it far away, which is basically into a closet. THe darn thing kept me awake >_<
Yeah I know now I violated the max distance of cables between the UPS and the stuff I connected to it, but I mainly got it because I was tired of unplugging every time we had a thunderstorm. Even if it can't keep it's strict voltage level through the entire wire it will protect against lightning. Also voltage drops are spikes and the PSUs have enough capacity to compensate for that.
Also remember that you need to shield your computer completely for surge protection to work. It's no good to say connect the scanner directly to the wall outlet because then the surge can go through the scanner and USB cable into the computer and fry it. The internet connection needs shielding too. This can be solved by using wifi, but I use the UPS to shield the phone line (ADSL). This way I can also put the DSL modem on the UPS and my internet connection works during power failures ^^
UPS is a great thing but you really need to read the documentation because they have restrictions and their insurance only covers if it's set up correctly.
Yeah, I'll have to think where else to house it.
My house was hit by a lightning when I was like 2-3, killed the electricity, heh.
I read 95% of the books in my room. I like having about 40 unread books at all times, so that if I want to pick up a new book I would have ample choice :)
I have a thing for coffee mugs and antique coffee paraphernalia, e.g. coffee presses, dutch globes, vacuum brewers and such.
Aside from that, back before my old home burned down, I had 132 teddy bears of different sizes shapes and types. One of which, was my Roosevelt teddy bear which had a light balsa frame where its limbs and head could rotate on it's axis. And I still remember my first Teddy bear which I got from a park and shop in Hong Kong back when I was about 6 years old.
Balsa frame? Sounds amazing.
And so unfit for a small child, heh.
My brother went through 3 Bert (from Eric and Bert) figures as a toddler.
He loved it so much that every time one died we had to get someone to get one from the USA...
ha ha, yes, bert and ernies :P
Ernie, right. I keep forgetting his name in English.
We call them "Arik" and "Bentz", heh.
It sounds horrible that all your teddy bears (and other stuff) burned D:
yes, I also 200+ Gunplas to complement my teddy bears :P
Well I has my cuddly toys... my TY beanies... my big DVD collection... amongst other stuff lol.
I have a collections of bags/pouch/luggage/suitcase~~~~~~
I don't collect anything nonjapanese... usually if i like it or think it's cute, I'll buy the stuff, but not necessarily collect it. I love getting artbooks, but most (if not all) are japanese ^^;
:D I love grey bear, have one as a phone charm :D
Does Lightsaber counted?
Hmm... non anime related?? I have to say it's Manchester United jersey, books, magazine, and other memorabilia...
Looks to me like you are a Tatty Teddy otaku ^^
My collection... well I do not collect to make a good collection of anything. I just get stuff which I want to get. The result is that I ended up having quite a collection anyway because once I get something I keep it.
I have quite a lot of books. A lot of them are for my engineering studying, but I also have books, which I got just for pleasure reading. Those are astronomy, Greek/Roman/Norse mythology, ferries, railroads and books on people like Einstein and Leonardo da Vinci. I also have a decent collection of dictionaries (for several languages). Funny enough I lack fiction in my book collection, but then I have VNs ^^;
I collected dinosaurs as a kid. Kept everything but aren't really buying new stuff. I might buy books about them though because they are still interesting.
I have a model railroad. I'm not really buying stuff to extend it anymore but I plan to do so once I move to somewhere where I have room for it.
I have a small collection of something I never imagined I would collect or even care for. That's irons for ironing cloth. It started when I went to a huge antique shop. It was full of ridicules expensive stuff but in the back corner I found an iron. It was only like $10 and it's an old one where you add burning wood/coke/coal to heat it and it's burning inside while you use it. It even has a small chimney. They charged an arm and a leg for those kinds of irons, but they were all brass, except this one, which looked like cast iron. I realised it was special so I bought it even though at the time I didn't really know much about it. It was clearly mislabelled though. Turned out that it's a heavy duty iron for ironing flax, something the brass irons couldn't handle and that only a few remains because they were usually not valued like they should. Great find and I got interested in fire heated irons but they were expensive everywhere. I did find one brass one which I know I can sell for 10 times the value I paid for it and I'm actually not interested in extending this collection much more than that. It goes with the story that my granddad talked about his mom using fire heated irons when he was a kid and that he looked at the smoke coming out of the small chimney. Somehow that fascinated me as a kid.
Used to collect Magic the Gathering, but I haven't played in years. Once I had a decent collection everybody else stopped playing D:
This got a bit long, but it tells what I collect or collected and I guess it also gives an insight into what technical geeks (aka engineers) cares about ^^;
Forgot to add that I have a huge collection of Donald Duck magazines. It's not because I really want to get every number from a given year or anything like that, I just enjoy the stories. I don't buy new ones but I do buy used ones (from the 70s and 80s) because the stories in the new ones have been updated to a modern world and the duck universe spirit didn't really survive that change.
You...are very interesting to read about. ^^; Never thought irons were remotely interesting, though you've piqued my interest now. Might go google a bit later.
I've had various mythology books since the fourth grade, but I cycled them :)
I gave the older ones with two pages per story, and pictures, which were actually quite good to my siblings, and then cousins, and as time progressed, I changed to semi-academic mythology/folklore books, 300 pages a pop with no art, heh.
Mythology is good :)
Well I have a huge Mario Collection if that counts. I have like figures, plushies, and all other stuff that was Mario before I discovered anime. I still have the stuff in my room!
Well, if you want an example of how widespread non-geek "otaku" can be, if you only change your viewpoint, think of Carrie Bradshaw, the main protagonist of Sex and the City, that one episode realizes her shoe collection is worth $400,00.
:D