Does anyone else go to their local library to rent videos? They often have uncommon or unique things to watch. I've been renting As Time Goes By, which is an extremely cozy show for just enjoying with tea. Highly recommended.

>>1
I used to a lot, but these day I pretty much get anything I want from the internet.
My town still has a couple video rental stores, though, and I like going with friends. We all walk around and look until we agree on something we want to watch, then get fast food and beer and hang out.
I've seen As Time Goes By several times over the years. Great show.

My town has one of the last Blockbusters in existence and they're going out of business this week also.

>>3
That's too bad. I was sad when my local Blockbuster closed. One of my friends lived near it, so we'd always end up there when we were bored.

>>3
That's crazy! You know that there are only 9 remaining franchises, right?

God. I cannot believe that I will never walk through a Blockbuster ever again in my life. Time destroys mercilessly.

That's a great idea, thanks! I'll see if there are any movies in the library next time. They do have CDs.

When I was at uni the music college library was my go to place for renting cds. They also would have a sale twice a year to make room for newer materials, I ended up getting some pretty rare albums that way.

The great thing about libraries, blockbusters and stores is that you can peruse and find things that you didn't know you wanted. When you're looking through the call numbers for your book you'll see plenty of related and unrelated material depending upon how the place is laid out. Sure to some extent internet places have got this with showing other items in the sidebars but that's not quite the same: if you wanted a hose in a hardware store you'd (potentially) walk through unrelated departments and see tons of items that might catch your interest but were in no way related to what you were looking for. and even when you got to the hose section there'd be a variety of hoses and hose related materials that you didn't even know existed. online shopping is usually "specific search term" sorted by lowest price.

>>5

Correct. Its like seeing an elephant die.

>>9

Correct. Online browsing really is quite limited in actual "browsing" especially with ad tracking these days
>:(!

>>11
This right here is a sad state of affairs.
Any potential countermeasures?

My solution usually lies in curation/personal recommendations, although that's still not the same as browsing and serendipity. I'd be interested to hear other peoples' ideas.

I tend to stumble upon directors that interest me and then watch their whole filmography. Jim Jarmusch has at least ten worth watching films for example. My favorite being Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai, or Dead Man.

I remember there was always something really special about going into a Blockbuster, to either rent a game or a movie. Maybe i'm romanticizing.

My best friend and his dad used to take me to this little, local video rental store back in 2003 or so. We would get candies and rent Twisted Metal Black and Timesplitters. Maybe a bit romanticized but who says that's bad?

I miss my old blockbuster. mom used to make sure we had something to watch whenever we went. we never had much money when I was younger but she always made sure we had a little something to treat us to.

I miss my old blockbuster. mom used to take us so we had something to watch. never had much money but she always made sure we had something.

>>9
good comment

>>9
Because you can easily find and obtain exactly what you are looking for now, things like libraries and department stores need to be totally reimagined for the modern age.
They should be curated like museums, full of specific assortments of things chosen by a specific individual or group.
They should be intentionally mazelike, a place to more than metaphorically get lost in.
This sort of magic of the unknown and unexpected is being lost and it's a real shame, we should make an effort to get it back.

My mom used to work in a small town grocerie store that had a little area to rent movies/games. When I was young she used to always bring me home nintendo 64 games; they had all the new ones before anyone else did! I miss looking at all the cover arts and that small towm grocerie smell. I also miss having a relationship with my mom.

>>20

this is the sweetest thing i've ever read.
i miss my n64 and mom so much

I haven't been inside of a Blockbuster since 2006.