playing technicalities
Quickie today -- I spent the morning doing mostly actual work! Let's keep that between you and me though, I don't want anyone to get unrealistic expectations in the future.
What did I do last night, then? Well, I walked home from work, and since Shobhit had had a late lunch and wasn't hungry, I made myself a sandwich for dinner, which was quite tasty. And then we watched my Netflix copy of 12 Monkeys, which I don't believe Shobhit had ever even heard of before -- but he was clearly into it, as I predicted he would be. He even asked if Brad Pitt was nominated for an Oscar for that performance, and as it happened, that was indeed his first Academy Award nomination.
The Blu-Ray disc did stick and freeze several times, and twice I pulled it out of the player and re-inserted it. The first time, Shobhit was ready to give up on it, but I gave it a minute or two and we powered through it until the damned thing would play normally again. Once we were more than about halfway through, he was all about sticking it out as well, because he was too into the story. I bought that Blu-Ray player in 2012, for no other reason than there was a special Blu-Ray release of Jaws on which the special features included an extended making-of documentary unavailable anywhere else.
I got the player for super cheap at Target, though, for like $75, and seven years later, its cheapness shows. I'd say maybe half the time when I play a Blu-Ray on it, no matter how unblemished the disc itself seems to be, this bullshit happens. When the movies come in standard DVD format it almost never happens. And what's the point in having a player that ostensibly can provide the far crisper image of a Blu-Ray if this sticking and skipping shit keeps happening? Sometime soon I should replace that damned player.
I did also think last night about how much less the quality of actual discs getting mailed through the postal system is going to be over time, though, what with most people over-relying on streaming services. The only place to rent a DVD on Capitol Hill anymore is a Redbox kiosk, which never offers older movies. The older movies is why I continue to pay for two discs at a time in addition to streaming from Netflix. And you know what? This only occurred to me just now: I watch actual mailed discs from Netflix so seldom, it may very well be that even though renting a movie from Amazon costs $3.99 a pop, it might very well still be cheaper just to do that for any title I can't find streaming, and finally cancel my Netflix DVD membership. The problem with that is I would then no longer be able to play said movies in the Braeburn Condos theatre. Well, it's something to start considering, anyway.
I'm also encountering a lot of new technical issues with my Apple TV, which I also purchased several years ago now so it is also pretty outdated. It keeps dropping the wifi connection, which it never used to do but is now frustratingly common. I haven't yet looked for message boards for possible solutions yet, though, and I should do that.
It was because of that issue, though, I gave up halfway through the season premiere of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. Maybe I should set the new DVR to record that; had I done that already, it would have been a non-issue last night, since we upgraded our cable package.
I still found a secondary remedy. Once Shobhit and I got into bed, I just opened the HBO Go app on my iPad and we watched the rest of the episode together in bed, with both the cats with us, before we went to sleep.
[posted 12:27 pm]