Bringing Entertainment Home

After a long week of staring at code, I finally had some time this weekend to sit back and enjoy my new computer.

It was time to take the superdrive for a spin with some DVDs.

As previously reported, a branch of Blockbuster has opened up just down the street. On Saturday night, Jessica and I went down there to find a nice mindless piece of popcorn entertainment.

We rented Starship Troopers which fit the bill perfectly. One the one hand, it’s a shallow, mindlessly entertaining movie about soldiers fighting giant insects. On the other hand, it’s a delicously clever satire on youth, the military and how war makes fascists of us all. That’s how I like my popcorn.

To rent the movie, I had to become a member of Blockbuster. I filled out the form and got my little piece of plastic. As I was putting it in my wallet, I noticed another, older piece of plastic in there: my library card.

It stared at me from the forgotten depths of my wallet and seemed to scold me for my shallowness. I’ve been a member of the Hove library for months now but I’ve never actually gotten around to going there and taking out some books. And now, here I was in a branch of Blockbuster that had been open for less than a week and I’m not only a card-carrying member but I’m renting DVDs full of explosions and mindless violence.

I slipped the Blockbuster card over the library card so I wouldn’t have to see its accusing plastic face.

Have you published a response to this? :

Previously on this day

23 years ago I wrote The ugly world of PCs

Jessica and I got plenty of exercise today. We walked to the far end of town to look at the wares at PCworld.