DVDs -- where do you get the time?

Ding ding ding! We have a winner!

 

Easy for me.

1. I cover high school sports. 40 hours per unless it's tournament time.
2. No kids.
3. My wife and I have no social life.

 

I only watch two TV shows, so the rest of the time I watch DVDs of TV shows and regular movies. My wife and I also don't go to movies because it is cheaper and easier to watch them at home.
The only thing that keeps me from watching more DVDs is watching sports on TV.

 

We usually watch boxed sets on the weekends, particularly Saturday nights. We've watched the first five seasons of Gilmore Girls over the last two years and we're about halfway thru season six. My wife is TIVOing season seven so I can watch it when we catch up. (lighting myself on fire)

After I got hooked on One Tree Hill last year, my wife bought me the first two seasons so I could catch up. We're now in the middle of season two.

I got My Name Is Earl this year, but that's a half-hour comedy so it should be easy to race thru that. And 90210 is just a classic of my youth that I had to have.

 

Treadmill.

 

Because prime-time television is just plain atrocious, I signed up for Netflix and watch DVDS instead of suffering through network shows. I'm also slowly going through the first two seasons of Homicide: Life on the Street on DVD.

 

First of all, I have a lot of DVDs because I get them so cheap (usually $3-5 at Half.com, or $5-7 at Target, or $7 used at Hollywood Video.) Only once have I paid full retail price for a DVD, and that was for a set. But I also use them a lot, too, so the DVDs pay for themselves.

I'm weird in that I can pick up any movie that I like, at any point in the film, and still not get tired of watching it over again. I was that way with books as a kid, too.

I've popped in my Indiana Jones DVDs at least 20 times apiece (well, maybe 20 for "Raiders" and "Crusade", but about 2 for "Doom" : ... btw, the Indiana Jones set is the one that I paid full price for, the day it came out. Couldn't wait any longer for that one. ) I'll regularly pop in a bunch of movies I like: "The Untouchables," "The Rock," "Fight Club," "Matrix Reloaded," "Bull Durham" ... all depends on what kind of mood I'm in.

For instance, "Gladiator" is my movie to fall asleep with. If I want a good night's sleep, but I'm too restless after getting home from work, I'll pop that baby in, turn the lights off, and be crashing in half an hour. That music just does something to soothe me.

But the thing about DVDs is:

I like to use my seen-'em-a-hundred-times DVDs as background sound. Helps me concentrate on what I'm actually supposed to be doing. I get more done that way than with just music playing. That's just me.

Again, I don't have to watch the movie from beginning to end to enjoy it. And I don't have to see a movie I've never seen before in order to enjoy it. (I'll make time to pay attention to a new movie I want to see -- like "Good Night, and Good Luck" when that came out -- or wait for it to come on one of my movie channels instead of spending money on it.)

But usually, I get started writing or I'm on the computer or doing stuff around the house, and I get a lot done while the DVD's playing. The time's not the issue for me, because of my style of watching movies. Doesn't work for everybody, but it does for me.

 

I'm the same way buckdub. Familiar dialogue will center me and I will usually get what needs to be done, done.

When I was living alone, my fall asleep movie was always Center Stage or A Cinderella Story. I know, they're stupid and girly, but the memorized dialogue helped me fall asleep very quickly.

 

Homicide is my favorite show ever.

http://www.amazon.com/Homicide-Life-Street-Complete-Megaset/dp/B000H5U5TY/sr=8-1/qid=1167264047/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-9027028-7899049?ie=UTF8&s=dvd

That's at the top of my wishlist right now. Won't happen anytime soon, but an Omar can dream...

 

When it comes to buying a TV series on DVD (particularly HLOTS), check out eBay. Homicide is arguably one of the most brilliantly written shows in television history. Of course, I'm biased being from the Baltimore area.

 

Ooh. I got that last year at a MediaPlay close-out sale. I'd forgotten how great that show was. Watched those two seasons, but no more yet. For now I'm hooked hard on The Wire. Hard to say which is better, but I'm trying to ration my David Simon shows as best I can. Maybe when I'm done with Season 3 of The Wire I'll go back to Homicide.

 

I'm not sure if this is one of these threads if people will get all pissy about movies, but I don't own a single DVD.

I have a few tapes, but they rarely get watched. If the cable's out (or hasn't been turned on yet during the summer) I might watch a couple.

I may watch my Chinatown tape this weekend simply because the movie is on WGN Friday night, and it will be hacked to hell to fit into a 2-hour block.