Project: movie clearance

I have a lot of movies/shows that I've taped off of tv or cable. Sometimes it was because I thought it would be a better movie than it was, sometimes it was because I had to be elsewhere (work, school, out having fun, sleeping) when the show aired so I taped it to watch later.

This has been going on for more than twenty years. Seriously.

Well, at long last, it's time to purge them. However, the problem I face (and one of the reasons I've been dragging my feet on this project) is that I still watch some of them, and there are some real treasures amidst all the clutter of tapes. ('Treasures' being a relative term here and indicating, in this case, a movie so bad that only I, in my unique insaneness, would watch it once let alone repeatedly.) The only real solution I've been able to come up with is to go through them, watching one movie a day and adding to a wish list (link to come) those that I REALLY want to own. With any luck I can replace my taped copy of such movies (often littered with outdated commercials which I find entirely too funny) with a DVD (or if necessary a VHS) copy. I already know a few titles that will be on that list, but I won't spoil the fun of discovery just yet.

This is not a project that's going to take a few weeks. This is going to take... months. I'm sure of it. Most tapes hold no less than two movies. Some hold three. Some of the tapes have hours... and hours... of tv shows that were taped so I could watch them later, then were taped over weeks later as the cycle was repeated until I have no earthly idea what's on those tapes now. There are days when I may get through two or three movies, and there will be days that I get through none. I do not see me getting through more than one tape in any 24 hour period, though, because I'll have to really sit down and focus on the movie/show I'm watching to be able to determine if it's a keeper or not. For me, that's nearly impossible, and it's going to take no less than a two to four hour chunk of time out of my day, depending on how many movies I watch. (That's another reason I've been dragging my feet on undertaking this project.)

And I will have to fight, and fight hard, to resist the creative little sparks firing up all over my brain as I watch some of these movies. A lot of them made me want to write something based on the basic plot premise (or more precisely, re-write the story). Perhaps a reward-type system can be created and set into place so that I can get back to writing. I miss it.

I've already started on this project. Today.

Just one movie though, since I didn't start until after noon. Today's (cheesy) movie: Deadly Game. (Amazon link here, husband of mine, because yeah, I think it's going to be on that wish list.)

Maybe this not sleeping at night thing can be used to my advantage, because is there anything more satisfying distracting than watching cheesy old movies when you can't sleep?

Now, if I can just find that VCR remote so I can fast forward through the commercials...