Week 33: Why VHS?

Decades ago I had some of my long lost relatives take some home movies documenting family, things they did, and places they may have gone.  They did this on a very, very old type of camera.  I’m not even sure what the camera looked like, or where it is now.  They would have to mail the film off to have it developed and they would get back 8 millimeter film. 

I don’t even think they had sound for these home movies.  If I remember correctly, it was just video and nothing else.  I found a bunch of these movies as a teenager and also found the video projector that would show the 8 MM film.  I set it all up in my basement room and was watching the videos, fascinated by what I was seeing.  And then it all came to a crashing halt.

My mother walked into my room and saw what I was doing.  She went into hysterics yelling and screaming at me that I was ruining the home movies!  She took everything away and mailed it off somewhere so I couldn’t watch them anymore. 

Decades later I now find a bag of these home movies sitting on my living room floor.  I don’t know what to do with them.  Even if I could manage to watch them now, I would have absolutely no idea who any of the people in the movies were.  They would all be just strangers to me. 

I’m sure I could take these somewhere and have them put onto a DVD or something, but again I wouldn’t know who any of the people were, and it would be like watching strangers to me.  Moving on, I grew up in era when the VCR was invented.  It was a luxury item and everyone wanted one!  Eventually my family did get one and I absolutely loved it!  I could now record things on television and watch them whenever I wanted!  Eventually we ended up with cameras that could record onto VHS tapes!  This was wonderful and we could now have home movies with sound!  And we could watch them on our VCRs! 

That era seems like just yesterday to me.  We never seemed to have enough blank VCR tapes for what we wanted to record.  And we did plenty of recording, too!  Again, I have quite a few VCR tapes in my living room.  We no longer live in that era anymore, though.  I no longer have a VCR, or a camera that records onto VCR tapes.  So for a while I was looking at these things like I was looking at the 8MM reels, no knowing what to do with them.

The VHS tape I’m holding there isn’t labeled.  I have no idea what’s on it.  The only way to find out is to put the tape in a VCR and see.  I don’t have a VCR.  Thinking about it though, last Christmas I had spent about $120 on a gift for my brother.  It was a small thing that converts VHS tapes into digital media!  He tried using it once and the VCR he was using at the tape.  He was angry and hadn’t used it since.  I could go over and see if there was another VCR and maybe see what was on the tape!

So I did find a VCR that worked and did figure out how to convert the VHS tapes into digital files.  I can now play or edit them on a computer!  This was fantastic!  I had only taken 3 VCR tapes with me to check (who knew how well the conversion thing would work?), but after looking at what was on the VCR tapes, it wasn’t really anything that interested me.

And so another family member asked if I could maybe convert some VCR tapes for her.  No problem.  It became fun to plug in a tape and then start the conversion process ending with the video being moved to a computer and also one of my jump drives so I could take the videos home, too!  We converted some old VHS tapes that were purchased at Walt Disney World and Disneyland from way back when the VCR was king!  The earliest video I converted was from 1989 and was taken just after I had gotten out of the military.  My Dad and I drove around and did a video tour of Bullhead City, Arizona and Laughlin, Nevada.  In the video the cars now look so old!  You can see signs for a Steak and Lobster dinner for $6.99 and one for a steak and egg breakfast for $0.79!  That brought back such memories!

We converted a Walt Disney World trip planning video from 1993, a video about the Disney Hollywood Studios park from 1995, and a Disneyland vacation video from I’m not even sure when!  The Disneyland video still shows the Sky ride, so I’m sure it’s pretty old!  *chuckle*

I stayed up much later than I wanted to converting video and I plan to do more next week.  This is like a trip into the past for me, now being able to watch these old videos on my computer.  So why VHS?  Because the videos we made hold so many memories!  I may not know the people on the 8MM stuff, but I do remember the VHS folks!  Until next week, find an old VHS tape and show it some love!  And keep asking why!

Week 28: Why I'm starting to dislike Disney

I grew up loving Disney.  When I was a kid, my parents even took me to Disneyland quite a bit.  We had wonderful times there!  I’ve been there so far back that I can remember when we had to use tickets.  Tickets as in A, B, C, D, and E.  You only got 2 E tickets and so you would have to plan out what E rides you wanted to go on for that trip.  Oh those days were so fun!

Disney parks are still fun, but things are changing.  They’re changing and not for the better.  At least that’s my opinion.  There are good changes and bad changes, but I think the bad changes are becoming more prevalent than the good ones.

One good change is the Magic Band.  At Walt Disney World in Florida you can now get a Magic Band to wear around your wrist that will be your park entrance ticket as well as your room key if you’re staying at a Disney hotel.  You can attach a credit card to the band and even use it to charge things in the parks.  So basically you don’t even have to take a wallet or anything with you to any of the parks, you can just wear your Magic Band and you’re all set!  These things are even water proof so no more trying to keep track of your room key while you’re at the pool swimming.  You just wear the fantastic Magic Band, grab a towel, and head out!  This whole system sounds fantastic to me!

The bad changes, though…ugh.  They hit pretty hard.  Disney is deciding to take things away.  They’re deciding to make things more “PC” in the parks.  One of the first changes I was unhappy about was years and years ago.  Someone decided that in the Pirates of the Caribbean ride it was “sexist” for pirates to chase women.  The ride was changed around so that pirates no longer chased after women, but now the women chase the pirates around.  It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me.  There is a whole scene in the ride where the pirates are auctioning off women, but they’re now supposed to be afraid of women? 

This one isn’t so bad, the old pirate running away from the “large” woman.  It does seem to make fun of large women, though. Then we have the iconic women auction in the ride.  There is a line of women being sold and a very large woman on the selling block.  Nearby stands a redheaded woman as the pirates all around yell “We wants the redhead!”  They’re clearly waiting for her to hit the action block and it’s a funny, iconic scene in the ride.

I LOVE this scene!  And now they’re going to take it away.  I’ve heard it’s been decided to make the redhead a pirate.  Maybe she’ll be running the auction selling off the other women?  I don’t know, but I don’t like it! Why would you change that scene?  What will be next to go?  Will they take away the burning of the town part?  Maybe that promotes riots and someone doesn’t like it?  Eventually Pirates of the Caribbean is going to become just another Small World ride where everyone is happy and singing and dancing!  I won’t even go into the Johnny Depp changes!  Oh, why can’t they just leave good things alone?

They took away the iconic hat at the Disney MGM Studios…or Hollywood Studios…or whatever the hell it’s called now.  They can’t even decide on a name for the park!

I loved the hat and the pin shop that was underneath it.  Too bad, because it’s been torn down.  People didn’t like that it obstructed the view of the Chinese Theater.  Did people like the Chinese Theater?  TOO BAD, that’s going to be refurbished now and the Great Movie Ride inside of it is going away, too!  Did you really like that ride?  TOUGH!  Better hope you have some video of it like I do!

New parks are being built for Disneyland and Walt Disney World.  Walt Disney World already has Pandora in the Animal Kingdom park.  That is based on a movie about a company trying to destroy a native people and steal their resources.  And now it’s featured at Disney!  HOORAY!  Did I like the movie, yes.  Do I think it should be in a Disney park?  No, not really.  Who the hell thought this would be a good idea?  Apparently it’s a success because the park is now jammed with people waiting hours to get on the two new rides.  I’m personally just not thrilled about it.

Did you like the Tower of Terror at Disneyland?  Too bad, that’s gone.  It was turned into a Marvel Comics Guardians of the Galaxy ride.  You can still ride Tower of Terror in Florida, but for how long? 

The next big thing will be Star Wars Land and Toy Story Land.  A Star Wars Resort hotel is supposed to be built.  They’re getting away from Disney things and moving on to things like Star Wars and Marvel Comics.  I wonder what the parks will look like in another 50 years?  Will there be any Disney stuff left?  So much of it seems to be going away now.

People sometimes ask what time period you would go to if you had a time machine.  I think I would go back to maybe 1980 or so and visit Disneyland.  Maybe go back to 1987 and visit Walt Disney World.  Am I sounding really old not liking these changes? 

So why am I disliking these changes to a theme park I can’t afford to go to more than once every few years now?  I don’t know.  Until next week, keep asking why.

Week 27: Why is vacation ending?

I’ve been on vacation for the past week.  It was fun, but why does it have to end?  Well for one thing, I think I need to get moving and not just lay around and relax all day.  That’s nice, and I may enjoy this for my “twilight years”, but for right not I’m not retired.  I need to get out and do something besides play video games and watch YouTube.

Now don’t get me wrong, I really enjoyed my time off from work.  It was a lot less stress and I didn’t really have to deal with a bunch of stupid people.  But I didn’t really go anywhere and just stayed home and relaxed.  I’ve had vacations that were much harder to go back to work after they were over because I was exhausted after a long trip and needed a vacation from my vacation.  Take this vacation for instance:

Oh yes, that is a helium balloon taking me high up into the sky!  I was a little stressed during that ride as I kept imagining the cable in the middle holding the balloon in place snapping and then the balloon floating away with me in the basket.  Would I end up in Oz?  Maybe dead after the balloon went too high and popped and I plunged to the ground with all the other screaming people in the basket?  It was both quite frightening and quite a thrill at the same time!  You need a rest after things like that!  Here's a good shot of what the balloon I was riding in looked like:

That was during a vacation trip to Walt Disney World in Florida.  Trips there are both very fun and very exhausting!  Yes it was fun going up and seeing everything from high up, but it was also a bit stressful. 

I didn’t do too bad eating while I was on vacation this week.  I had a bit of fast food, but nothing crazy.  While on my trips to Florida and Walt Disney World I would pretty much eat whatever I wanted!  Even crazy stuff like this:

I don’t even remember what that was called, but it was huge and delicious!  I finished every last bite, too!  I was full to the brim!  I didn’t get anything like that this vacation.  I had a bit of chicken and some pork chops, but nothing like a pork shank!  Sadly they no longer serve these at Walt Disney World.  I don’t know why they stopped because they were my absolute favorite meal that I’ve ever had there!

Enough about food.  Yes, I ate a bit more sensibly this vacation than I would have on a fun trip somewhere.  And I relaxed more and wasn’t walking here and there trying to go everywhere and see everything during my week off.  I relaxed and it felt great!

Anyway, to keep this from getting too long, I didn’t really go anywhere for my vacation.  I did take a short trip to an IKEA store and that was fun for the 3 ½ hours I was there with my niece.  Maybe it was just fun because my niece was there?  We always have fun.  But I really only needed to decompress for a week.  It’ll feel good to get back to work, even if I’d rather be lounging around.

So until next week keep asking why, and I’ll try and figure out why vacation had to end.