February 2004 Archives
Got Angel Season 4 today on DVD. Quite a good looking collection with 7 commentaries - mostly joint ones as in Firefly. Also a rather pointless complete collection of Buffy/Angel DVD trailers. Look out for "What makes a great DVD" though.
Talking of which Firefly is release on Region 2 DVD in April. Looks like the same contents as the R1 set, although there is mention of special limited edition packaging.
Lastly Amber Benson and Christopher Golden's eNovella Astray can be bought in a limited edition from Subterranean Press.
The Anorak's Guide to Sapphire & Steel features an interview with the creator P. J. Hammond.
I am one of those people who thinks that an afternoon taken up by alphabeticising my CDs (for example) is a constructive way of spending my time. I like lists, especially when they're of things that I own. I kinda have a list of CDs now - although I do wonder whether it would stand up if used for insurance claim purposes - and have been wondering about the DVDs. A while ago I started building a list but it quickly got derailed by an inability to decide on various issues. Should box sets by listed by disc? Or only if the discs have their own cases? Should I list year and region? etc, etc.
So this is all leading up to this afternoon's cataloguing session where I entered 288 DVDs in about two and a half hours. The results can be seen here. Pretty, huh?
So this is all thanks to two things.
DVD Profiler is a windows app that manages a DVD collection and does it pretty well. The list above is my collection uploaded to their web site. It's free or you can register for a pretty petty amount - which I will be doing shortly. You can enter DVDs by using the UPC number on the back or by title.
CueCat is a barcode scanner originally given away for free in the US by a company now out of business. I picked up a USB version for $12 plus postage. When you scan a barcode it outputs it as if you'd typed the numbers in and then presses Enter for you.
Together they're just magic! We'll never forget what discs we own again. And hopefully we won't end up with even more copies of The Simpsons Season Two (2 copies is probably enough I feel).
"For to love cats is to know deep down that, were they 10 times the size, they would chase us down and torture us to death. After all, who wants love that's all sweetness and light?"
Hehe.
(1) US father names son 'Version 2.0' or "Why nerds shouldn't be allowed to reproduce".
Most unsurprising line: "Mr Cusack admitted that it took months to persuade his wife, Jamie, to accept the idea."
Most irritatingly unexplained line: "Besides, I had picked out the theme of the baby's room."
(2) Teen hacker avoids jail sentence or "Is there a picture of you under 'nerd' in the dictionary?"
I like Siobhan Redmond and Bill Paterson - but this is really going to have to get a lot more interesting if it's going to get a second series. The supporting characters are so far uninteresting and irritating, which is a bit of a feat in itself. It seems a bit of bad idea to spend your first episode ignoring your regular characters and concentrating entirely on the guest cast. Unless of couse that is the plan for the series.
And please, enough with "The English X-Files" already. It's a bit spooky... and that's about it as far as connections go. Anyway as Joe pointed out if it were the X Files they'd have been clones not twins :-)
