Sunday, July 31, 2022

Cheap is just the new “normal”

This evening, we sat down to watch a couple of movies that we haven’t seen for a while. First, we watched “A Knight’s Tale”, which is one of the first movies we ever purchased on DVD. This was back in 2001; over twenty years ago already! After that, we decided to watch one of the more recent DVDs we’ve purchased, X-Men Apocalypse. When I picked up the box from the shelf it almost flew right out of my hand!

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Monday, July 18, 2022

The nostalgia for VHS

Last night, my wife and I watched one of our movies from our collection, which we haven’t watched in a long time. The movie was “Red Dawn” and it was a real pleasure to watch it again. Best of all, we watched it on VHS and that always brings us a lot of pleasure on its own, for the nostalgia we have for this video format.

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Tuesday, July 12, 2022

Today’s technology is so advanced, it’s utterly boring

You could say that I’m a “gadget guy.” I really enjoy electronic gadgets, at least electronic gadgets before the days of the all-in-one “smart” devices. Today’s consumer devices may be the most technically advanced and functionally diverse gadgetry ever to exist, but let’s face it: they’re boring.

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Sunday, July 10, 2022

The Franklin eBookMan: Tech that deserved better

Today, we have our smart phones and tablets and Kindles and iPads, and all these other modern day marvels that monitor us and govern our lives. But, you know, I still prefer my good ol’ Franklin eBookMan to handle all of my mobile computing needs.

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Saturday, July 9, 2022

Fun with low-resolution digital cameras

Sometimes low tech devices can be a lot of fun and can push your creativity limits, simply because of their own limited capabilities. I find this is most apparent when taking photos with my old tech, low-res digital cameras. I have a few of them, which include my ViviCam 3545, Sharper Image SVC555, Kodak DC-215 and EeePC 701 webcam.

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Our Neuros OSD is still a cornerstone of our video library

Over fifteen years old and this little piece of technology has been a cornerstone of our video library since we bought it, back in 2006. Our Neuros OSD has been a reliable workhorse, providing us with countless hours of care-free movie watching and recording; and this is my little tribute to this overlooked and under-appreciated media player.

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Saturday, July 2, 2022

I didn’t realize snap case DVDs were a “thing”

We have a fair sized collection of DVDs, but until just recently, I had no idea of the hoop-la that surrounded those DVDs sold in the cardboard “snap case” packaging. These are the DVD cases that have the plastic disc holder and cardboard front cover.

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