Where do you get your home video fix for movies and TV series? On demand? iTunes? NetFlix? At a Redbox kiosk? Whatever your answer, it’s becoming less and less likely that you’re renting them from Blockbuster video. The company, which still relies heavily on old-school retail outlets, announced yesterday that its third quarter earnings had dropped 21 percent to $910.5 million. It already closed 216 stores last quarter and expects to close 115 more this quarter.
The local Blockbuster was a family staple for me, growing up in suburban New Jersey, but I honestly can’t remember the last time I’ve been in one. Every time I walk by a Blockbuster and look in the window, I’m reminded of one of those gargantuan chain drug stores, with its over-bright neon lights and overwhelming displays. The problem is, no matter how unpleasant the shopping experience, there are still plenty of things people need to buy in a drug store — these days, with all the options available to us, there’s no reason at all to shop at a Blockbuster. Still, I started doing something recently that is either kind of radical or just self-indulgent: Going to my local mom-and-pop video store. (Hey, Get Reel Video!) I was catching up finally on the first season of True Blood, and instead of downloading episodes from iTunes, I found myself taking the short walk to the corner store when I was ready for another disc. I like the small space, neatly stuffed with titles; the quirky staff picks; and the quick chat with the checkout person as I paid. I’m not going to do that all the time now — iTunes and NetFlix are just too easy — but it did make me wonder if there’s a space for local video stores now that there wasn’t in Blockbuster’s block-busting heyday. What do you think? Am I just being nostalgic?
Photo Credit: Grave: Daniel Smith/zefa/Corbis
When I first saw photos of Booth in a wrestling ring with a little person, I feared we were looking at a mistake the size of last season’s circus episode. I’ve never been so happy to be wrong. This could be my favorite hour of Season 5. The “midget wrestling” was a little wacky, but it produced a classic Brennan moment as she realized the Iron Leprechaun they were watching be defeated by Bumble Bee Man was not the real Iron Leprechaun, whose body they’d found in a sink hole: “Boo! That man is not The Iron Leprechaun! Boooo! Fake! Fake!… Fraud! Look at his femur!” she shouted. Also, I did laugh when Booth jumped in the ring to nab the impostor, who tried various wrestling moves on him that I could have identified when I was in the sixth grade and a Rock ‘n’ Roll Express fan. “What do you expect me to do, he came at me like a rabid ferret,” Booth said after flattening the suspect, raising his arms to celebrate, and being booed. 
Just like that, Community was back in tip-top form, delivering one of its sharpest episodes thus far. So much for 
Leave it to Michael Scott to turn the potential worst day in company history into a goofy murder mystery game: “Murder” had all the Dunderheads together, with almost no sub-story save for the minor developments in the Andy/Erin romance. I do declare! 
I have a weakness for grieving men on TV — you experience the vulnerability without having to deal with the palpable pain. Hence me finding Damon Salvatore extremely attractive in this episode. Definitely his best hour to date, and he didn’t even murder anyone (though, of course, he tried to).
First off, I want to thank all of the Survivor fans who voted for the People’s Choice nominations. Thanks to your support we were nominated for Best Competition Show. Survivor previously won the Peoples Choice Award in 2001, 02, 03, 04 and thanks to our loyal fans we are once again nominated. If you have time and want to vote for us to win, simply go to:
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 put up some killer numbers when it went on sale Tuesday: Activision announced earlier today that it sold 4.7 million copies in North America and the U.K., which translated into a cool $310 million at the cash registers. In the videogame world, these are historic numbers — Grand Theft Auto IV was the previous one-day sales record holder with 3.6 million sold in May 2008.
