Category: entertainment

A couple of weeks ago, some idiot stole the intercom panel from my building’s front door. Not only did that mean that nobody could beep me, but it also meant that the

postie couldn’t get in to deliver any of the mail. Sure, I didn’t get any bills for two weeks, but I’ve also been deprived of my DVD movie rentals, which come by Canada Post.

Finally, today the mail started flowing again, and I found two weeks of envelopes packed into my mailbox. That’s two weeks of movie rentals, plus the director’s cut of The Return of the King.

So there’s nothing to do but accept the challenge and catch up on 724 minutes of movie-watching — and that doesn’t include the DVD extras. I’ll be a wreck when I’m done later today.

The funny thing about being sick, other than the hilarity of losing control of your bodily functions, is that it actually makes me want to go to work. After a week of watching daytime television, surfing the web endlessly, and staring out the window at passers-by like a crazy old man for a week, I think it would be really nice to be anywhere other than at home.

But I do have television. Television is my friend. It gives me those daily three-hour doses of Star Trek and a few doses of Stargate SG-1. And those hourly comedy shows on channel 37 are hilarious — they have this running plot about this guy who looks like a chimp winning a presidential election. What’s that show called? Oh, yeah… CNN. His dialog is just over the top. “Gonna hunt’m down. Bring’m t’justice.” Hoo, that kind of cheesy acting can have me giggling for hours.

Thankfully, I also have Zip DVDs arriving by mail. Like that Vin Diesl movie about the mass-murderer who becomes the movie’s hero. It warms the heart to see Hollywood promoting those kind of values. In the 35-minute animated sequel for children, however, the Riddick character only disembowels and otherwise dispatches people who are are clearly villains. I suppose that children’s stories have to be toned down appropriately.

So I’m not short of entertainment at all, while I’m spending time as a sickly shut-in. I have the TV, I have the computer, I have the Penguin Wordmaster Dictionary. That’s a great read. All the same… it might be nice to see what the real world looks like. Before I completely bloody insane.

… except that today, I actually did something constructive. Yes, for the first time third time in my newfound career as a guy pretending to be a writer, I actually wrote something. Well, to be more specific, I wrote a thousand words of something, then wrote a few hundred more in notes that highlighted the fact that the first thousand words were completely wrong and that I should have written the notes first, then written the first thousand words. Well it’s a learning process, I suppose.

When I was done writing, I messed around in the metaverse game, Second Life, long enough to create an entirely new type of airplane that consistently crashes shortly after takeoff. It’s sure to be a big hit.

That done, I settled into watching a movie — Hercules, starring Steve Reeves. Yes, it’s another unfortunate movie where the men wear shorter skirts than the women and the main character’s voice is dubbed in a gravelly bass that never quite synchs with the picture. Actually, I found it hard to watch and fell to writing a rambling blog entry to fill the time.

Tomorrow, I plan to revisit my new story and then avoid entirely any movies set in ancient Greece. It’s a hard life, but thank goodness I don’t have to see the grey interior of a cubicle. Not until Thursday, anyway.

Alright, so I’m heading into the weekend well-armed with movies. I have Star Wars on DVD, Farscape episodes, and a couple of MST3K movies. I may not see the light of day.

On March 5, I complained that Netflix, the internet video rental service, wasn’t available here in Canada. Well I didn’t have to wait long for someone else to fill the void. In comes Zip.ca, which claims to let you rent an unlimited number movies, four at a time, for about $25/month.

So far, I’ve built a “Zip List” of a couple dozen DVDs that I’d like to see, and I’m very impressed with their catalog. Zip has lots of movies that the local video shop wouldn’t touch (i.e., anything that requires you to think). I especially like their specialty lists (top 25 Canadian films, top international films, etc.) and their sub-categories. The science fiction category has eleven sub-categories! Geek heaven!

Here’s how it works. You create a large list of movies that you’d like to rent. This “Zip List” shows their availability and lets you prioritize them. When the movies are available, they’ll send them out by Canada Post along with a postage-paid return envelope. When you feel like returning them, mail them back, and Zip sends you next movies in your list.

I’ll see if this works out. Already I can see potential problems with ordering multi-part DVDs. I put the first five Farscape discs on my list, but Zip mailed #4 and #5 first. Doh!

The best part for me… no late fees. Ha! Take that, Blockbuster!