Midweek Musings

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The weather is here, I wish you were beautiful, as Jimmy Buffett once sang. Because of the threat of severe weather all over the places that I would probably go to get away from Derby insanity, I decided to stay home. Now, if I’m going to be home I’ll be home because the traffic will basically be an insane asylum for the next three days (“Thurby,” the newer day for the locals at the track; Kentucky Oaks day, which used to be the day for the locals at the track; and Kentucky Derby day). So I decided to treat myself to a new television. The old one was so old that it had RCA cables (those red, white, and yellow cable connectors where you could hook a DVD player up). New TVs don’t have that. I still have a DVD player (more on that in a moment), so I got an adapter that plugs and converts the DVD hookups to HDMI. Problem solved! As for my old DVD player, it’s what is known as a “region-free” DVD player. This is an evil plot that you may not know about: DVDs, although they all look alike, have a “region code” built in the information. Ostensibly, this is to keep people in Mongolia from seeing the latest Marvel Comics franchise movie on DVD months before it makes it to the movie house/cinema in the country. Not only does this make the moguls more money, it drives people who like TV shows or movies from other countries crazy. All is not lost, though, because for every nasty block there’s an answer. (Don’t know if you know this, but there are usually “jailbreaks” available for new iPhones almost as soon as the iPhone hits the street! ) DVD players can be programmed to play the region in the nation it’s sold in (North America is region 1, the UK and EU is region 2, Australia is region 4, etc.)….or some smart computer geek can get in there to program it for NO region. That means that it’ll play a region 2 DVD (like one of my favorite TV shows from the ITC world in England, The Champions) and a region 4 DVD (like the U.S. TV series The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, which was issued on DVD in Australia but has never been released in America!! ) just as easily as it’ll play my DVD of Animal House. I know, that’s a lot more information than you ever wanted to know about DVDs, DVD players, and region coding. Sorry. Anyway, I got a new microwave today as well. The old one didn’t seem to be working as well as it had been, so I thought I’d replace it while (a) it was a mild issue and not a dire emergency, and (b) able to get 12 months same as cash at Best Buy. So I’ll pull out the region 2 DVD of Christy Moore (Irish folk singer) and watch it this weekend while I’m here at home…and get some microwave popcorn to enjoy with it! The photo is my new TV, showing the tornado coverage from KTUL in Tulsa, Oklahoma. On the shelf below (this is an old computer desk) you can seem my DVD player.