’tis the season to be jolly… bla-bla-blah, Humbug!
Watched and trashed another batch of old VHS cassettes, that’s what it’s time for.
What struck me most was the amount of effort, patience, devotion and care that I had actually invested in those tapes (some of which were even purchased… you know, for money) — and now they’re just forgotten media that gathers dust, worth little more than landfill.
So there I was the other night, watching my old, worn 1991 copy of Mad Max when it occurred to me how stupid people “in the near future” are made out to be: filthy, illiterate, violent, and just plain dumb.
Even though post-apocalypic visions (whether dystopian or utopian) often picture those with some degree of steampunk technology to be the “bad guys”, they are all invariably unwashed and inherently stupid — with the notable exception of their leader: he’s the well-spoken one. He’d be overtly sadistic, have a wicked sense of humour and may even quote Sheakespeare or Yeats.
One of the most ubiquitous and successful electronic consumer products ever was the video cassette.
The BetaMax vs. VHS (Video Home System) format (war) notwithstanding, just about any civilised household in the modern world had (or still has) a VCR. Dropping costs and the superior quality of DVD (and its own successors, complete with a new format war) have, in recent years, all but caused the demise of the VHS format, and it is almost with a tear in my eye that I, too finally bid farewell to my own old VHS collection.
In retrospect, it was only in around 1989 that our household finally purchased a VCR — a second-hand Siemens FM 560 model from a couple of emigrants in Wendywood. Now earning my own salary, I let myself get coerced into forking out the cash to buy the item, along with some monstrous Grundig TV set that packed up soon after.
Nevertheless, what good is a VCR without any media to play on it?
Rentals, copies, porn, camcorder recordings… you name it, we got it, and we watched it. In fact, some of the media was so good it was worth watching again and again, and there you have it: Piracy. Home taping. Illegal copies. Yeah!
Having taken two weeks of “forced” vacation certainly does take its toll on the online world at large.
Unlike this fellow, we’ve been cleaning out the house a little and in doing so posted a whole lot of junk for give-away that currently serves no purpose other than to provide space for dust to collect on. Similarly, several other media carriers are available for sale as well — but unfortunately much to the detriment of recent moderating duties at discogs.com itself.
Personal reminder: Sunday is modding day!
On a more humorous note, some of the more entertaining items that have arrived in my in-boxes over the last few months have been honoured with a permanent display on the site. Yes, we’ve made up another page of humour.
Next up is getting rid of a few more old VHS cassettes (now that DVD seems to be nearing the end of its career thanks to the indecision of HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray and the affordability of combo-players), and then we’ll be tackling the good old audio cassette format, too.
Life exists online. Between the conceptualisation and the final product that is “Cyberia 15”, numerous remnants from the previous life as a fleshmeatdoll were discarded, given away, or sold — online, of course. Now is the time to concentrate on the basic necessary physical entities and hardware necessary to complete the journey and transformation into the digital realm, leaving only the ghost of a shell behind.
Salutation: None
“Regardless — shouts to the missus, the usual unnamed DJ, TigerSpirit, the singing neighbour, Douglas Rushkoff, castro69, DJ Purity Control, and everyone else who makes a pitstop en route to Cyberia.”
Originally written October 27th, 2007. Revised and updated March 2015. See background story here.
According to the US Social Security Administration, Jacob, Michael, Joshua, Ethan and Matthew were the five most popular baby boy names of the year 2006, respectively. The top-5 baby girl spots were filled out by Emily, Emma, Madison, Isabella and Ava.
Since I’m somewhat lagging in my irregular spurts of blog postings that nobody ever reads, consider this just another brief journal entry by a certain someone with an unpopular name — one that barely makes the top 1000 for the past ten years (in the USA, at least).
Particularly interesting is that even “Mohamed” is a more popular name than mine, cutting in as the 467th most (and rising) popular baby name of 2006, whilst even “Jesus” (the name) continues to hover around the No. 74 mark. This may help explain why their “birthdays” are celebrated annually while my own (earlier this month) went by unnoticed.
Clearly, I’m doing something wrong. Or nothing earth-shattering at all.
Oh, it’s such a pity I haven’t the time right now to devote some of it to this blog, let alone spend (waste) any significant time writing out or posting jokes and the like. As far as the human being behind the blog is concerned, there’s actually quite a bit to report to my imaginary readers.
Life is a hectic adventure that’s better spent living instead of reporting on.
Worth bragging about is that recently money, time and effort was wasted on a new PC, finally graduating to WinXP.
Truth be told, that exercise is worth its entirely own and separate article, and there’s neither time for that, let alone interest in it. Strangely, I still miss my old PIII running trusty and robust Win95B — particularly when it involves whatever musical projects and sonic endeavours I keep busy with. Somehow WinXP does not harmonise too well with some of the elderly (non-certified) hardware and parts of the software used.
But the 1680 x 1050 px wide-screen resolution is swee-eet!
