Every bit the collector

I’d say I was obsessed, but I think that’s burying the lede a bit.

I’ve always been a person who enjoys collecting things: comic books, Magic: The Gathering cards, withered looks of derision. You get the drift.

As an adult, it’s not too hard to hide these kinds of obsessions (or the resulting clutter they bring with them). Or you could move on to bigger, more appropriate objects of desire: cars, single malt scotch, Apple products.

Me? I’ve cast my lot for something tiny, cutesy and – with the advent of cloud services and abundant wi-fi – nearly useless flash drives: Mimobots.

I’m a bit of a zealot, too (natch). I’ve certainly mentioned them before on Facebook & Twitter and likely here as well.

But here’s my heretofore unspoken admission: I own some rare, out-of-print, “special” Mimobots that were never actually for sale.

Here, then, are the BFG Mimobots:

Designed by Adam Sidwell & Josh Barrett (among others), I actually own two full sets of 3.

Lucky guy.

BFG Mimobots
BFG Mimobots

I was going to characterize them as anachronistic but I think I’ve been abusing & misusing that word. Let’s just call it “yestertech” for the sake of argument.

I have oodles of the little “thumb drives” littering my desk at home but I didn’t have one this week when I needed to transfer some photos from my in-laws’ cameras. Luckily they bailed me out, technologically, but I think my days of moving data on battery-sized sticks is done.

I’ve almost convinced Jenn that a combination of iPhoto/Aperture and Photo Stream is the way to go & the shared photo streams I’ve already deployed to our extended family is making me a lot of headway.

I’ve also transitioned a ton of my “work” (read: not work) and actual work to Dropbox and/or iCloud which renders devices like these kind of moot (you know, for cows). So they’re mostly just for my own joy & amusement and maybe every once and a while they’re useful – like sending in schools projects and presentations.

In the end I doubt they’ll be as collectible as the comics as mindlessly entertaining as Magic: The Gathering or as delicious as the Single Malt Scotch, but I love them just the same.

Maybe that’s the real lesson of the collector: it’s not even in the monetary (or practical) value they achieve, but the sheer joy of finding some hidden treasure amongst another man’s trash.

Until next time, I’ll see you trolling eBay.

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