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Further Death Celebrations

As Fall turns to Autumn, I begin thinking about death a lot. Especially when eating multiple pounds of bacon. I wondered why we hadn’t heard about the struggles of the movie rental giant, Blockbuster, recently. Last I heard, they were going to declare bankruptcy. For the last few years. I went to Wikipedia and – you won’t believe this – they’re totally out of business!

Image stolen from CDN videogum dot com!

That’s really a shame, when something that was once such a big canker in your life has died, and you didn’t even know it. I missed the celebration!

I can’t recall the last time I went to Blockbuster. I do remember when the first Blockbuster opened up near my house. They closed it years ago – probably before 2010, when the mass closings started. It’s now a sausage place and 2 or 3 Subways. Anyways, it was something of an event. 2 or 3 times the selection of the other video stores, and no big fat greasy guy eating greasier potato chips working the counter. I felt like our town had finally “made it.”

Blockbuster was the Wal-Mart of movie rental. Too big for its own britches, basically. I always feel like I’m abetting some kind of crime against humanity when I go to Wal-Mart. Can we, as a species, afford such low prices? What happens to capitalism when there’s only one store? But at least Blockbuster didn’t have those damn smiley faces everywhere. They smile, but not with their eyes.

Back then, if you wanted to buy a movie, it was around $70 to $120. Who wouldn’t want to pay $70 for a copy of Student Bodies? Ron didn’t. So we rented it somewhere else and dubbed a copy. My mom had the best setup. We had one VCR upstairs, and two downstairs permanently hooked together. She would rent stuff and record it, then not watch it. She even bought one of those little gadgets that removed the anti-piracy encoding, even though the encoding only really worked on JVC VCRs. If somebody wants to sue her, I’ll tell you which graveyard she’s buried in. Say “Hi!” to the snake handlers for me.

I don’t recall ever having to pay late fees. I do recall holding the “OUT” door for someone to enter by mistake.

Blockbuster tried to have a more “Family Friendly” store. No porno. I think no NC17 either. This had two effects. One – it always felt sorta lame to go to Blockbuster. Two – the local dildo shops got even more business. Damnit, I just realized something. Other than kiosks, the porno store is the only local place where you can still rent movies!

Blockbuster also rented video games. I don’t remember renting anything specific from there. I’m sure I did, though. Honestly, we usually went to a different store out in the middle of nowhere. Cheaper rentals, more obscure titles, and a poorly guarded “adult” area. I think I was old enough to go in, or close enough, but my friend Jon wasn’t. We snuck him in anyway, then acted like we were going to rent some gay porn. A night to remember! (We just rented some Genesis games or something).

To sum it up, Blockbuster is dead and I’m fucking glad.

 


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