Why do all my high-end electronics hate me?!
so i finally broke down and decided to get rid of some of my old video games and DVDs i never play/watch anymore. so i gathered up the crap i could stand to get rid of (about 10 PS2 games, a standard xbox game, about 10 DVDs, and like 10 anime DVDs (mostly the shitty boring ones i got on the cheap, or single volumes that i bought the whole series of and didn't need anymore), and brought them over to Rock 30 Games. god i love that store! they buy/sell used DVDs and video games, and specialize in old/rare games. they have a HUGE collection of classic Nintendo/SNES, Sega, and N64 games! oh but that's just the beginning, they also sell frolf discs! and they're only about a block from my home, so i have to be careful to avoid them so as not to blow all my money there! anyway, i brought my dvds in and while the guy was getting everything together i was looking around. he totaled everything up and i was given the choice of about $65 cash or $111 store credit. i looked at the stack i had in my hand, and realized i had about $145 worth of DVDs and said , "well store credit obviously!" and begrudgingly decided to put back a few things including some new releases that i already have downloaded and can buy cheaper if i wait a bit, and a copy of Once Bitten starring a very young Jim Carey. in the end i paid 29 cents for:

- Batman the Animated Series: Vol 3 & 4
- The entire series (all three volumes) of Batman Beyond
- Fifth Element: Ultimate Collector's Edition (someone stole my copy a long time ago)
- Spirited Away (seen it plenty, but i don't know why i never actually bought it before)
- Ghost in the Shell: SAC Vol 6 (the only volume I was missing)

anyway, i went home excited to watch some Batman and you know how my xBox 360 is b0rk3d? well that also means the HDDVD attachment i use for my everyday DVD player is inoperable. I never thought about the possibility that my xBox might not work someday when i decided to go with that instead of buying a real DVD player when my old one crapped out on me (not it's fault, it was super-old and kinda on the cheap end). i mean it was nice at the time and up until a couple days ago, to get a good upconvert for cheap and it's convenient (usually).

so i was just going to use my old PS2 as my DVD player so i hooked it up and dug out the ol' PS2 DVD player remote and settled in to watch one of my new movies, and guess what? my PS2's DVD laser is burnt out! it won't read DVDs anymore (thank god it still reads games just fine!). i mean i can understand it finally going out i've had that almost since the PS2 was released! it was like a couple months after they came out that i got mine, and nobody in my household had a DVD player at the time so i used it as a DVD player for YEARS, so it's not a big surprise that the DVD laser would finally go out, but it was certainly sucky that it happened like 2 days after my xBox got the red ring. :(

also, the HDTV antenna i bought doesn't work, and i can't figure out why. i think i might just need to buy an amplifier for it, but i'll probably take it back for a new one if that doesn't work.

so no TV and no DVD player and a pile of new DVDs that I'm dying to watch. what am i supposed to do, watch them on my computer? eff that noize!! so even though i don't have much money to spend, i went to Best Buy and bought a new DVD player. w/ my discount the cheapest one was about $30, and it was kind of a shitty one, so i went with a Phillips upconvert for about $45 instead. i figured the upconvert capability and the reliability of the Phillips name was more than worth the extra $15! I still bought the 2 year Black Tie Protection Plan just in case though, as it was only like $8 extra. so now i got it all set up and it's working and i can once again watch my DVDs in glorious upconverted HD! and when i get my 360 back i'll just hook up that DVD player to the TV in the bedroom so i can watch movies in bed! although, on that little 20" tube TV it'll be like driving a sports car in first gear! :P