This weekend, we stopped at Family Video. The stores are closing, and they are liquidating all their stock and fixtures. Everything must go. And the boys had fragmentary gift cards from Christmases past.
So once more, I browsed the remaining shelves of DVDs and Blu-Ray discs. I spotted a couple that I had previously rented. But the prices were not, in fact, desperate–the DVDs were $4.99, the prices they would have listed when the tried to sell the DVDs as they rotated them out. But I bought a stack anyway.
Because, gentle reader, this will likely be the last time I browse DVDs at a video rental store or any store for that matter.
I know, gentle reader, I suffer more last times for everything than actually occur (for example, the bottle of Mr. Bubble mentioned in The Future Forgotten Bottle of Mr. Bubble actually got used up, another secured, and that one used up, so there is currently no half-empty bottle of Mr. Bubble to be forgotten, but the bath toys are long gone now).
But the industry changes that killed Family Video–that studios are starting to bypass physical media for their own streaming services–will kill what remains of physical stock are in movie shops. I mean, I used to browse Best Buys on Friday nights to pick out a couple films to watch over the weekend, but when I was in Best Buy recently, I looked over their very thin movie section. I guess I could browse Vintage Stock/Entertainmart, but their videos tend to only show the spines, whereas the video store showed them face out. Maybe it’s a change in me as much as anything.
But, yeah, it’s probably the end of something I’ve done with increasing intermittency, for, what, thirty-five years?
Yeah, it’s been a maudlin weekend.
Although, given my pace for film watching these days, the six that I bought will last for four years or so.
