For a skeptical kind of guy, I seem to put a lot of stock in biorhythms. I guess this because I do see a correlation between the squiggly lines and my day-to-day. I don’t check them every day, but on a day unlike today – when elm trees are releasing their own special brand of nerve gas in an attempt to kill me – on a normal day when by all indications I should feel great I still feel like a building has fallen on me, if I check the rhythms – why, yes, lookie there, my physical curve has cratered.
And then there’s this week, when I feel stupid and surly. It’s not the inevitable disintegration of old age, my intellectual curve is scraping barnacles off the bottom of the chart. Oh, yeah, this was a good time to do some subbing. It’s remarkable I didn’t leave my stone axe in somebody’s head. I still might, new negative numbers need to be invented to communicate how bleary and muddled my thoughts are now. New disciplines of math, even.
I collected my pay from the sub gig and bought the hard drive enclosure I mentioned yesterday, as I need access to some of the files that resided on my now-motherboard-less old computer. The capricious nature of fate is also much in evidence as there are no fewer than three DVDs out this week that I desire. The remaining money I should have socked away for the new computer, but noooo, I had to buy one of those DVDs. Well, and some groceries, which sort of goes without saying.
And I took the path of least resistance and got Iron Man 2, which was at least available everywhere, even corner fruit stands. I also spotted Superman/Batman: Apocalypse, but I must have the deluxe edition of any disc I buy. I demand the behind-the-scenes, oh-look-at-this-graphic-render extras. When given basic discs as a gift, I die a little inside, knowing I will always pine for whatever documentaries reside on the extra disc of that special edition that got away. Whenever I get the single disc DC animated movies, I always wind up haunted used disc racks for years, eventually picking up the deluxe editions. I might as well cut down the wait by getting what I really wanted in the first place.
Recriminations set in almost immediately. Iron Man 2 is going to be in the pre-viewed rack in a month or so. Ah, but not the two-disc version, I betcha. And that’s if my local Blockbuster is still around.
One of the hardest things to give up in my new save-for-the-new-compy drive was my Amazon Prime account, which I also call The Great Enabler. Getting free handling and two-day shipping was liberating. Being able to pay just the quoted price on a product page unlimbered my acquisition urge like nothing else. The last couple of years, it’s taken something extraordinary – a Criterion sale here, a liquidation sale there – to get me to order from anywhere else but Amazon. That was damned cagey strategy there, but I truly feel that I got my money’s worth out of that annual fee – but the annual fee needed to go elsewhere this year.
Of course, the only place I’m likely to find the two-disc version of Apocalypse or my other dream date, the VCI release of Dark Night of the Scarecrow (that rarity, a made-for-TV horror movie that was actually scary ) is Amazon. Once I get compy squared away, I need to re-up the Amazon Prime thing. It seems I’ve gotten too old to enjoy the hunt at retails stores, as I once did.
drfreex.com 