November 27, 2004

• The Middle of Limbo. I just got back from lunch. $11.97 plus tax and tip. Whitefish with a salad, potato and green beans at the South Bay Grille. It’s overcast, and rain is predicted. I came to the conclusion a couple of weeks ago that I can’t afford to just “charge it” anymore, until I reduce some of this debt. I’m finally at a point where I have to be a lot more frugal. ($11.97 for lunch doesn’t seem like frugal, I know, but it’s the only meal I’ll eat today.)

  
  

  Can’t afford to say “to heck with money” anymore, or else I’ll be like a dog eating his own tail, I’m afraid. I’ve been staying home for the holiday, viewing some of my old laserdiscs. (while the player still works, it’s making strange noises every time I put a disc in for almost a year now, so it’s probably going to expire soon). Just looking at the price tags on these discs, which we movieholics purchased in the pre-DVD era, is making me sick to my stomach. I’d think nothing of spending $40.00 to $50.00 on a single movie. Now that kind of money would buy me four or five DVD’s, but laserdiscs were a “collector’s medium” and DVD’s are for the general public.

  
  

  While at the restaurant, I couldn’t help but overhear the people in the booth next to me debating the plusses and minuses of the DVD format as if it had just made an appearance in their lives. Since my first trip to the Good Guys as a laserdisc enthusiast who was invited to “preview DVD” many years ago, I knew that eventually even the DVD format would probably be superseded by even smaller discs in my own lifetime. Looking over my vast collections of movies on four different outdated formats now makes me cringe. I wonder if the old folks discussing DVDs now aren’t the model I should have shared all along instead of being an “early adopter” in all these formats. Perhaps technology is just passing too quickly.

  
  

  The laserdiscs I watched were Arthur Penn’s “The Chase” with Brando from 64 I think, “Welcome the the Paradise” from Alan Parker with Dennis Quaid, and “2 Days in the Valley” from 97 with Danny Aiello and Charlize Theron. I think that movie was the first time I ever saw Theron. DVD rentals were about 10 episodes of the Seinfeld television series, which I never saw when it was broadcast initially, in the 90s, and the documentary disc from the 2nd Star Trek movie, “The Wrath of Khan”, which served us some useful information. Also Spielberg’s “The Terminal” with Tom Hanks, a pleasurable film which I missed in the theater. I’ll be missing a lot of films in the theater this coming year.

  
  

  Seems like I’m grousing about money a lot in the past couple of posts. I’ll have to stop this whining. Usually Christmas time means a bonus, and mine is needed to pay off more credit card debt. I don’t think I’ll make it to Vegas for the CES this year for the second year in a row. Just can’t afford it. I could probably stay in a far cheaper hotel room, but when I go to Vegas, half the fun is staying in the themed hotels. I want to stay in the Aladdin with a view of the Bellagio’s fountains next time I go, whenever that may be.

  
  

  Oh well, as I am apt to say. Now I’m going back into the living room (Joel has to WORK both today and tomorrow, and didn’t get Friday off, poor fellow) to watch the rest of “Meet Me in Saint Louis” the Vicente Minelli musical from 1944 with Judy Garland and Margaret O’Brien. I recorded it from TCM on the Tivo. Everytime I see “Meet Me In Saint Louis” I remember going to the theater in college to see it and “The Wizard of Oz” on an actual theater screen as a double feature. It was the first time I had seen either on the “big screen”. At least when I view my movies in either the media room or the living room, it’s on a mammoth 60″ projection television, so I get to fool myself into thinking I’m at the movies, with the size of the screen in the dark helping to fool me. And it’ pretty dark today because of the storm.

  
  

  I really should begin assembling my latest video, but not having Joel around the house is nice for movie viewing. (He doesn’t like the dark, and is the chief reason, behind the screaming kids from next door, why I established the media room in the back of the house in the first place.) When he’s not at home, I can view my Tivo in the living room. I’ve got the Renaissance Day tapes right here, and they’re not going away, so I can always get to that in time.

  
  

  I’ll try to put up some more photos or poetry for the next post. I just haven’t felt too “creative” lately after a long creative bend so I’m just relaxing and exercising my passion for watching old movies on my bigscreens. (I’ve even found and easy way to make captures from the Tivo/laserdisc setup and could have included a couple from the movies I mentioned above but I’m too lazy today, there’s a storm coming and I don’t feel like making the connections/disconnections I have to on the puter in order to accomplish this right now. Too much like work, and that will be coming up before I care to think about it.

  
  

  Signing off now, and back to the movie.

  • 5:08 pm
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