March 23, 2007
… DVD.
Ten years ago tomorrow, the DVD format officially launched here in the States.
For the record, a little history: March 1997 was the big month here in the States for DVD (though technically it first went public in Japan in November ‘96). The first DVD players from Panasonic (the DVD-A100 and DVD-A300) became available in the U.S. on 3/1, but there were no movie discs available until a handful of DVD titles from Lumivision arrived in a select few stores on 3/19 (I believe they were Africa the Serengeti: IMAX, Animation Greats, Antarctica: IMAX and Tropical Rainforest: IMAX - all in those horrid Polygram slider cases as I recall). The format’s official launch in seven test markets (Chicago, Dallas, L.A./Orange County, New York, San Francisco, Seattle and Washington, D.C.) kicked off on 3/24 with the release of the first DVD players from Toshiba (the SD-2006 and SD-3006). An initial wave of movie titles from Warner, New Line, MGM and HBO trickled out on 3/24 or shortly thereafter.
Ten years ago, I was working at Blockbuster Video. The store I worked at was one of two in Maryland (both in Columbia, if I recall correctly) selected by corporate to begin carrying DVDs for rental and sell-through. It was, I believe, quite some time before people actually rented any of the DVDs.
(Well, before anyone rented them intentionally — kids would rent them to play on their parents’ computer’s CD drive, and at least one old guy through the case contained a VHS tape - huh?!)
Thank you, DVD. Thank you for your slim format, your not ever needing to be rewound, and most especially thank you for box-sets of TV shows.
(Yes, I still have all of my laserdiscs).
CNN.com:
A 24-year-old man has been arrested, suspected of cutting the head off of a 17-year-old girl’s pet dog and leaving it at her front door in a gift-wrapped box.
The man, who is expected to be arraigned Friday, was being held on suspicion of terrorist threats. Police said he may be charged with animal cruelty.
“I think I can sleep a lot better now,” said Crystal Brown. “It will make me feel way safer. Now we can walk around the whole block.”
Crystal was devastated last month when Chevy, her 4-year-old Australian shepherd mix, went missing.
Two weeks after the dog disappeared, a gift box addressed to Crystal was found at the front door of a house she shares with her grandmother.
Inside, Crystal found Valentine’s Day candy and a garbage bag containing her pet’s head.
Police said the man they arrested lived a few blocks from Crystal and may have had a romantic interest in the girl.
But if it had been me, the dog who I did this to would be my neighbor’s, and its head would’ve gone to them and come with a note which would have said “FINALLY NO MORE BARKING!”
I drive a Celica. This isn’t really relevent to anything, except that this story features another Celica. It is, you could perhaps say, a tale of two Celicas. One dirty and blue — mine! — the other silver and shiny with black hubcaps and an idiot for an operator. Although, the situation wasn’t entirely his fault.
I was coming back from a delivery, northbound on York. The strip-center the Indy is located in is positioned on the east side, just past the intersection of a road called ‘Ashland.’ Anyway, so I get through the light at Ashland, and I put on my blinker just past the gas station. There’s a silver Celica trying to get out of the center, or at least, I assumed so — no turn signal on (big whooping surprise there). What the hoo do I care?
Here’s why I care. There’s a bunch of jackasses who are also trying to get out of the shopping center. They’re driving a big oversized rig, but until that silver Celica moves, they’re stuck blocking the entire “right of way” of passage through the parking lot. Here’s where things get fun: I can’t get past them, and my options are um, 1. wait for oversized rig to move and 2. park my car in the middle of the lot and walk away.
Meanwhile, silver Celica is having issues of his own. There are cars behind me trying to get in, and the cars that can’t get in are blocking the northbound right-hand lane of York Road. Meanwhile, there are people trying to get into the shopping center from York Road southbound. These people are, also, blocking the silver Celica’s ability to turn left.
Okay, who the fuck tries to make a left-hand turn across York Road at noon on a weekday? RETARDED PEOPLE, that’s who.
Anyway, so people can’t move into the parking lot until I get to move forward. And I can’t move forward until the silver Celica makes its turn. And it can make its turn until I can move forward. It’s a Catch — er, Celica — 22.
It really wasn’t the fault of the silver Celica’s driver — seriously, what fucking retard tries to make a left onto York? Moron! — it was the fault of the driver of the oversized rig who decided to pull out of his spot before he could get his stupid truck from blocking everyone.
BAH!
Anyway, I assume the silver Celica driver realized he was in a Celica-22 situation, and made a right hand turn, or something, because the oversized rig finally pulled forward enough for me to get past.
Merv is the idiot who thought melting ice cubes were diluting his water.
He claims he got 1300-something on his SATs. I think he’s full of shit. Anyway, the other night, I take an order and the woman requests two sides of thousand island dressing. So I start making the salad, and Merv is stepping out of the walk-in. I ask him to bring me two cups of thousand island dressing. I don’t phrase it like that, of course, I said something like, “Hey, Merv, grab me two thousand-island dressings while you’re in there, huh?”
So he disappears back into the walk-in, and I finish prepping the salad. Meanwhile, Merv is just now leaving the walk-in. He comes up to me and says, “Dude, I can’t find any of the two-thousand island dressing. Is one-thousand okay?”
My initial response was a long incoherent string of cuss words and insults on his parentage.
Then I pulled out my cell-phone, opened it, and waved it slowly up and down in front of his face while making a rthymic ‘beeping’ noise. When finished, I turned to Mark, who walked away chortling after I told him, in my best mock-Russian accent, “Keptin, there is no sign of intelligent life.”
Well, I mean, hell, like I needed a fucking cell phone to tell me that.
