Boxing Day Shop-a-Thon

As per usual on Boxing Day, I and the rest of the family head out and grab some decent bargains on the kinds of things we enjoy: DVD/BD for me, electronics for the wife, games for the boy, and clothes for the girls.

Among my many other acquisitions, I finally managed to complete the Star Wars saga on DVD for very cheap. I have always had the prequel trilogy and the box set for the original trilogy, but when they last released the original trilogy in the two-disc packs with the theatrical releases included as a bonus disc, I only bought Episode IV. I felt the whole 'Han shot first' thing was important to have since the Special Edition version of events drive me batshit crazy. I passed on the other two, however, due to their few alterations and figured I would pick them up when they became available for a reasonable price (reasonable for a double or triple dip, anyway). Four years later, here we are.

One thing I have enjoyed about the box set and these discs is the fact that they are covered with different kinds of Star Wars art, poster or otherwise. The covers are photo mash-ups of the original poster art, then there is different poster art, or possibly production art, on the sleeve inside, and more art on the discs themselves. I remember there being a very expressionist style to the inserts on the box set. Just very nice efforts on the packaging, overall.

So, I now have one set of original trilogy on VHS and two on DVD, but I have a strong suspicion that the BD release in the next year or two will not include the theatricals as a bonus feature since George would rather they be forgotten, hence my desire to grab these while I still can.

Among my other boxing day treasures, I mostly upgraded many of my DVDs to BD versions. I always make sure there is something different about the BD before I do so, otherwise I just feel like a tool for spending money again. There has to be new features, or exclusive features or being totally remastered or something to justify it. So, I grabbed the X-Men trilogy, the first 30 Days of Night, Star Trek II, IV, VI & First Contact, V For Vendetta, The X-Files: I Want to Believe, Chocolat, Hellboy II, Terminator Salvation and a couple others I'm probably forgetting.

Also grabbed some books over the holiday season like Joe Sacco's Footnotes in Gaza, the second book in Stefan Petrucha's Timetripper series, and George Lucas' Blockbusting, which I've had my eye on for a while.

Oh, and Jen bought me Homicide: Life on the Street as my Christmas present this year. A good haul, overall.

Until next year!

mike

To Return Or Not To Return

Last week I ordered a couple of books through Amazon.ca and they both arrived today, albeit in a damaged box. There was a big gaping wound in the corner, probably from someone putting a heavier box on top of it and it just popped. As a rsult of this packaging malfunction, the corners of my book are a little beat up and I'm trying to decide whether or not to return the book and, hopefully, get a new un-crunched version, or if I should just suck it up and keep the book as is.

I'm sure most people would look at the 'damage' and just shrug it off, but I'm a little anal with my stuff and it was an expensive coffee table book, so my expectations are a little higher than if it was a $5 paperback. I'm dying to rip the plastic off and check it out but I need to make the call before I do that, which leads me to this post and my very public ruminating on the subject.

I may leave it 'til the morning to decide.

In the meantime, I think I'm gonna go watch some Fringe or Clone Wars or something. I may even play the new AvP demo I downloaded.

Take care!

mike