DVDs, stores and my hermit status increasing

One of my absolute favorite things to do is this: You got say $100-300 of disposable income so you gather the wife and kid and go to a neighboring town with lots of used CD/DVD stores and big chain book/DVD stores and spend like mad. You take in a list of CDs and DVDs you keep putting off buying. You grab em, come home and dissect the hell out of them.

But this, like many other things is going the way of the do-do. Most of my old favorite CD places like this are dead and gone. "Mom and pop" stores are all but extinct. Now all you have are these buy and sell type of places that seem to be struggling as much as my old favorite stores used to. And their selection is at the mercy of the general public. hundreds of copies of dumb movies you'd never spend $$$ on, or non special edition versions of a disc you know has a better edition there.

I recently complained that BEST BUY's selection has started to suck hardcore. They got millions of copies of a CD that today's generations likely will just download for free via the internet (Cause they can and likely will. Today's generations do not have our values of supporting art), and hardly any copies of someone who is good. And I know, thats a statement of preference. But-take for example, I went to my best buy to buy a Paul McCartney live CD released last year. They did not have ANY Paul McCartney Cds. PAUL..... McCARTNEY..... But they did have 44 copies of the new Miley Cyrus CD. FORTY-FOUR! I counted. And anytime you get asked "You finding everything okay?" and you state your issue, they always say "Well, order it online." Order it online. Order it online. I'm always told that by them, which leads me to the idea of WHY THE HELL DO YOU EVEN WORK HERE IN THE FIRST PLACE??!?!?!?!!?!? Just so you can stand there to inform me in so many words of "Yes, we have very limited selection so if you want what you came in for, best to have never left your house and just order what you want, EXACTLY what you want online and never have to see my face."

And I learned something interesting from the inside. Certain large chain stores are indeed beginning to "phase out" their CD/DVD sections in favor of downloading to digital versions instead. So they might as well have an itunes gift card store. Shelves and shelves of itunes cards in varying colors and size. So the idea of going to a store and searching for what I want will be gone and to find what I want, I will HAVE to order it online. To never see sunlight again.

I know, its the time we are going to but still, I'm a classic type of guy. I like shelf porn, as its known. I like to display my CDs and discs and books I've bought and dissected in conquest. I've always thought that its like having little parts of me on display. But people like me are going away. So it goes. Fine. Amazon.com? You have my money for good from now on. Fuck every other store.

For me, the CD/DVD has to have lots of extras. Thats what is appealing about the format. Better picture and sound, attractive packaging, great extras. If you only wanted the movie, download it via itunes or rent it on netflix or ON DEMAND. But to own the best possible edition is paramount. Some things I've bought over and over, no matter how many times they release it.

I've got better over the years on that. I've passed up the "Insert quote from movie here" editions of movies simply because I didn't like the packaging or the new extras were not appealing at all. I've also upgraded from format to format simply cause of the extras. I most of the VHS versions of original TREK, only to buy all the seasons on DVD. Then when the remastered and new extra versions were added, I upgraded to HD DVD. Then to Blu Ray when the HD DVD format became obsolete. What scares me is that they will do it again. I've spent almost a grand at this point on a 45 year old TV series that was cancelled!!!

Take now the STAR WARS movies. They released em on DVD and enough fans of the "classic" version (as the originals are now called) complained enough that they didn't want the SE version so they reluctantly released them in barebones, no remastering at all discs. Now they are doing the BR versions and finally including some deleted scenes! (Even I, whose love of STAR WARS as a kid has been darkened over the years was excited by that. Again, its all about the extras for me.) but Lucas as of course asked which version of the classics will be on there, to which he replied the SE. BUT-The cost of remastering the old classic untouched versions is expensive, so he said that if enough people buy the regular SE versions, he will release the "classic" versions. See what he did there? Jedi fucking mind tricks folks! And of course, I'll have to buy them. To see deleted scenes from STAR WARS? A must. I know there's almost an hour of cut stuff from Episode IV (as featured in pics and descriptions in a few magazines I have). To finally see what originally was and what it became is interesting shit to me.

SO--I guess I am at the mercy of alot of things. Remastered/better extra disc releases and I am now chained to my desk and have lost the pleasure of the store run. I hereby fully endorse and support amazon.com, who have EVERYTHING I could ever want. Everything. I've never looked up something and came up empty handed. Also their stuff has a great discount. And if you pre-order something, it usually arrives a couple days before release date or the day of at the latest. Indeed, gone are the days of the brick and mortor stores. and as I sit here at my computer, deteriorating from lack of movement (or reason) to get out of my nerd cave to get anything I desire, I am comforted. In that behind me on my shelves I have the best versions of something I love possible, and that they will provide my offspring with money once I am dead that they can pawn off for a pack of futuristic nuclear cigarettes and soda. And the arguement I fight in my head, and the reason you even read this far into this blog will be long gone. So, you are welcome kids.

Luvs, T

(P.s. Go out and hug your old DVD/CD store today. Cause its like polishing the brass on the Titantic. Its all going down. Here's to the new nerd hermits!)