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I grew up in the day and age of video stores (wow, that dates me big time). Whereas I used to have all the time in the world to peruse shelves of movies and going to the video store was sort of an event unto itself, I am now reduced to RedBox at the end of the check out line at my local grocery store. Then, there is the RedBox outside of this grocery store near this gym I go to. You have to brave the elements to get a movie at that one. Am I now relegated to picking out movies while bird's shit on me? Is this what it has come too?
Such is the modern world of technology and progress. Still, movies are movies. RedBox or Netflix or OnDemand or whatever, the movie itself seems fairly safe as a unit of entertainment and I am glad for that. Movie entertained me growing up and some of my fondest memories as a child involved my Dad taking me to see Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark and a bunch of others. I am glad movies seem to have remained unchanged. I am reminded of somethign George Lucas said a while back they he believed moves were going away to be replaced by small vignettes of film and the days of the big Hollywood blockbuster were numbered. Hmm. I don't see that happening and it does not appear to be happening. Good entertainment takes massive amounts of money to do well. Who wants to throw all that money into small vignettes? Somebody got to pay Robert DeNiro? Are you going to give him millions to do a small digital sliver of a movie? I don't think so. But back to my gripe today. It is about RedBox. I simply am unsure of the proper etiquette to obtain your DVD. Case in point: the other day I am at the RedBox and there is a line of people behind me all looking annoyed because I am going throw the preview screens reading about the movie I am renting. I am starting to wonder if there is some sort of etiquetee about standing at the RedBox. I mean, should you give the person so much space in front of you? Should you twiddle your thumbs and make impatient noises when someone repeatedly has to "start over" or can't seem to find their debit card at chekcout time? And should you really be reading the fucking preview description? Shouldn't you come to the RedBox prepared to select from a small list of predetermined movies you want to see? New technology calls for new etiquette. We no longer have the video store but we have a box. How do we think inside the box? That is what got me all unspooled.
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