Boredom Buster
By craftcatcher
@craftcatcher (3699)
United States
October 5, 2008 12:36pm CST
Me and hubby are sitting here on a Sunday afternoon watching a bunch of old movies on VHS tape and having so much fun! Our cable went out last night about 10:30 and as of noon Sunday still isn't back on. It's the second time in a week this has happened. So with no TV to watch and no money to go anywhere, hubby and I decided to get out a box of old movies on tape from the closet. We've been watching movies that we haven't seen in years and talking about what was going on in our lives when a particular movie came out or why a movie was our particular favorite at the time.
So far we've watched "Outland" "Dragonslayer" and right now we're watching "Ghostbusters". After Ghostbusters we're going to watch "Monty Python and the Holy Grail", one of our all time favorites, and there are a few more in the box to watch as well.
The funniest part of all this is our discussion of why these movies were so cool at the time they came out. Some of the reasons seem rather silly now but made perfect sense at the time! Sometimes it's the story line, sometimes it's the special effects, sometimes it was relevant to world issues at the time.
Do you still have a VCR and a bunch of old movies on tape? Do you ever have an "old movie day" in your house?
1 person likes this
10 responses
@Lakota12 (42600)
• United States
5 Oct 08
We have 3 VHS boxes and a closet full of old movies and show we taped and some times when cable is off during the day we watch some thihng or if we have nothing on the DVR to watch we get out the old movies to watch good pass time to watch them again!
2 people like this
@craftcatcher (3699)
• United States
5 Oct 08
It really is fun! I found movies that I taped back in the late 80's. I can't believe the tapes still work.
1 person likes this
@craftcatcher (3699)
• United States
7 Oct 08
They do wear out, I can vouch for that. Hubby has hundreds of episodes of MASH on tape and when he first moved in with me 10 yrs ago I have never seen someone so obsessed with a tv show in my life! Every night he had to watch at least 2 episodes or he couldn't go to sleep... no kidding.. it had become THAT much of a habit for him! Now don't get me wrong, MASH was a great series but I really didn't want to watch it every single night before bedtime. It took me about a year to break him of that habit. He still watches them every once in a while if nothing is worth watching on tv, but these tapes are soooooo worn out. Some of them are almost impossible to see anymore. They are almost nothing but static snow on the screen. One of these days I'm gonna toss them all in the garbage and just buy him the whole series on DVD. We've already got a couple of seasons on DVD but the show was on for 11 yrs. That's a lot of money but if I can throw away those nasty scratchy tapes it'll be worth it!
@sedel1027 (17846)
• Cupertino, California
5 Oct 08
Unfortunately we don't have a VCR LOL Heck we have a DVD player w/ surround sound and my husband refuses to set it up. He wants a new one and says if we hook up the old one we won't replace it. Thats all fine and dandy but we have no money for a new set!
2 people like this
@sedel1027 (17846)
• Cupertino, California
5 Oct 08
Meh. Not THAT motivated lol. It is really easy to set up, just a pain to actually set up because you have to get behind the TV. I have a feeling the set will soon be up on ebay anyway (which is find by me)
2 people like this
@craftcatcher (3699)
• United States
5 Oct 08
We have the DVD player and my computer hooked up with surround sound. It's great for watching action & sci-fi movies that are made for surround sound. Some movies the sound will shake the whole house! 
Set the DVD player up yourself! It's not difficult at all. Surprise your hubby one of these days. 
Set the DVD player up yourself! It's not difficult at all. Surprise your hubby one of these days. 1 person likes this
@ronaldinu (12422)
• Malta
5 Oct 08
I have an old vcr but its not connected since DVD have taken over. I have transferred old videos on DVD;s so I don't have to use a video.
2 people like this
@maddysmommy (16230)
• United States
6 Oct 08
Haven't used a VCR in three years. Our last one broke and now we use a DVD player and have bought the occasional movie, we usually rent through. I think we got rid of our Video cassettes when our VCR broke and it was too expensive to fix.
@craftcatcher (3699)
• United States
6 Oct 08
We were going to do the same when our last VCR quit working but we have SOOOOOOOO many tapes. Hubby was out at WalMart one day and they had a special on VCRs for $45 so he got one. Couldn't beat it for the price and now we can still enjoy our tapes without having to re-buy all the movies on DVD.
@craftcatcher (3699)
• United States
5 Oct 08
We don't have quite that many but I'd say we easily have 300 tapes and about 200 DVDs. We don't get out the tapes too often but it's always fun when we do.
2 people like this
@drannhh (15219)
• United States
6 Oct 08
We have to many old movies stored up on tape to watch in case that might happen. In fact, somewhere I have tapes from a DangerMouse weekend marathon. Those are my favorite cartoon shows and watching them for 20 minutes a day is what kept me sane the year I spent writing my dissertation.
2 people like this
@craftcatcher (3699)
• United States
6 Oct 08
That's great! Sometimes you need a little fantasy to interrupt reality to stay sane! Thank goodness for cartoons! 
1 person likes this
@rusty2rusty (6751)
• Defiance, Ohio
5 Oct 08
No, we don't have a vcr. After the last one we had broke. We never replaced it. We gave away all of over VCR movies as well. I do however have a good collection of movies on DVD's. As I do enjoy watching a good movie when nothing else is on.
@craftcatcher (3699)
• United States
5 Oct 08
I wasn't going buy a new VCR when the old one stopped working but we have so many movies and tv shows on tape that aren't and may never be available on DVD. The player we have now only cost us $45 so it was worth it. One of these days I'm going to have to burn all these tapes onto DVD so we don't lose the shows.
1 person likes this
@rusty2rusty (6751)
• Defiance, Ohio
6 Oct 08
Good luck burning them all to DVD. I wouldn't even have the first clue on how to do that. My confusion is when it comes to the blue ray DVD's. What is yup with them? Or they more special or something?
1 person likes this
@ycanteye (778)
• United States
5 Oct 08
We sure do but all of our VHS tapes have been stored in the basement in box's with those stay dry thingy's in them. We do go dig one out occasionally though because we have some that you can't get on DVD yet and maybe will never be able to.
1 person likes this
@craftcatcher (3699)
• United States
5 Oct 08
I have a lot of old tv shows on tape as well. Many will probably never make it to DVD so I'm glad I have them. Now I need to burn them all to DVD in case the tapes start crumbling.
@tamarafireheart (15384)
•
6 Oct 08
Hi craftcatcher,
Sorry to hear your cables went down, we had a power cuts the other night and I was so miffed because I couln't get onto Mylot. I have old movies on those tapes but I cannot play them as my video player has broken down and now days you cannot buy them anywhere as every thing is DVDs players so they all lying here idle.
Tamara
1 person likes this
@craftcatcher (3699)
• United States
7 Oct 08
It is getting difficult to find tape player anymore. When our last VCR quit working I was worried that I'd have to buy a used one on Ebay or something but hubby found a cheap one at WalMart. When this one stops working we may have a tough time replacing it!
@craftcatcher (3699)
• United States
6 Oct 08
Exactly eztuner! Looks like I get to have another day and night tripping down memory lane since they won't be here to fix the cable until tomorrow.
