So...this is my first post (besides my simple 'Hello' post) since joining, so I thought I'd try to kick it off with something good.

Before I get to my rambling memories, I'll set out the main topic of this post first: I'm interested in knowing if anyone here has any active goals or ideas to try to relive some of their nostalgia from earlier decades?

Let me explain.

Of course I would hope that (most of us) are enjoying the present. Families, friends, relationships, jobs, school, etc....we all have our day to day lives. But I'm assuming that most of us here have joined and posted for similar reasons - maybe some just wanted to remember a product, TV show, song, commercial, etc. that they had forgotten, simple as that. Maybe there are people who have a much stronger feeling of nostalgia and are just looking for a place to trigger some great memories and share some of their own.

I fall into the latter group. While I definitely enjoy my life now, I constantly feel this attachment to my younger years. I was born in 1986, so I grew up in the heart of the '90s. Nostalgia really is the best word to describe the thoughts and feelings that I get. Nothing bad has happened to me in the present to necessarily make me want to go back in time (if that were possible  ;D) or anything - it's just more of a collection of fantastic memories that relax me, make me feel happy, and fill me with a sense of yearning for that simplicity.

I can hear a song and instantly be hit with the memory of what I was doing when I first heard that song. A great memory I have is hearing Tool's "Forty Six & 2" for the first time, on a family camping trip, with my cousin Zach using a Walkman cassette player and us sharing the ear buds. I can hear his voice telling me "Dude, you've gotta listen to this," that opening riff, the feel of the summer, even down to smells.

I remember watching Reservoir Dogs for the first time on VHS when I was waaaay too young to be watching it. I didn't see it again until 10 years later when I heard "Stuck in the Middle With You" on the radio and went out and bought the DVD that day. Rewatching it, I could remember the exact room, my friends I was with at the time, what we were doing, etc.

And of course the morning/after school cartoons, my Nerf gun and Lego collection, my old NES/Gameboy/Sega, etc.

I guess I should reel myself back in to the point of the post here - besides having great memories, does anyone actively try to create a more nostalgic atmosphere to maybe "relive" some of these memories? By relive, I mean basically surrounding yourself with music, movies, TV shows, games and other things (within reason) to maybe, at least while you're in your own home, make it feel like you can still enjoy those times?

A specific goal that I have is to at some point have a home theater with walls lined with framed movie prints (like you would see outside of a theater) on the walls. Some of my best memories come from seeing a movie with a bunch of my friends (everything from Disney movies when I was younger to laughing my ass of at Anchorman and Wedding Crashers when they first came out), and I think this would be a simple, and pretty cool, way to relive that. My friends and I even had a Matrix: Overloaded day (we were obsessed with the movies at the time) where we watched all three Matrix movies and discussed theories, etc. (nerd-alert).

Or what about trying to recreate a TV show lineup from Kids WB or TGIF from the mid 90s? That would be a cool thing to get some friends together and watch. Even something as simple as a Goldeneye 64 multiplayer tourney, or N64 Mario Kart.

Hopefully there are some people out there who think this is a cool idea, or who even do this currently to some extent. Would love to hear other ideas!

If you've stuck with my post for this long, many thanks for your attention!

This can apply to any period before, getting more difficult the further you go back in time. In the case of the '90s (let's leave the '00s out as this is the '90s board), in addition to simply viewing old stuff, try to have the complete package just as it was done in the '90s. For example, watching TV on a CRT monitor instead of a flatscreen or listening to '90s music on CDs by discmen and stereo systems of that era instead of digitially on an i-whatever or modern computer. View photos in a photo album, not a digital frame or computer. The good news is that most '90s stuff is cheap and not old collectibles, so its easy to get the equipment.

If you're looking for used pop culture items from the 90's and 00's then I'll bet you can find lots of them at thrift stores (Goodwill, Salvation Army, etc.) and especially garage sales. It seems like used pop culture items don't start becoming collectible and or/valuable until it's 30-40 years old, until then it's just considered junk by most people.

If you're looking for used pop culture items from the 90's and 00's then I'll bet you can find lots of them at thrift stores (Goodwill, Salvation Army, etc.) and especially garage sales. It seems like used pop culture items don't start becoming collectible and or/valuable until it's 30-40 years old, until then it's just considered junk by most people.


Certain types of items become collectible though at a different age. For instance, most action figures still in their original packaging from the '90s are now already considered collectible since so many were opened with, while most Easy Listening and Country vinyl records from the '50s have very little value due to low demand and good preservation. Be sure to know how to store well and don't overdo it; sell/donate the junk/lesser value items to make space for more valuable/potential valuable items. Also, be sure to look for stuff in Very Good to Excellent condition since those items will always appreciate in value the best.

One final note is that on technologically dependent items, it will only get more and more challenging to find the proper parts/software that will operate a machine. Be sure to get some spare parts.