The DVD In Black

About six years ago I went to a pawn shop in Jacksonville, NC and bought a generic DVD player for $50.00. This year, the Little DVD Player That Could, finally decided that it couldn't anymore. After a couple months of procrastination I headed on down to Best Buy to find a new movie watchin' companion. I wandered around the store, compared bells and whistles, compared prices, and finally settled on a Toshiba DVD/VCR combo. I grabbed the box, a couple CD's, and headed to the register to pay for my new forms of entertainment. When I got home I untangled all the cords and hooked it up to the TV and stereo, so far so good. I then put a disc in to make sure all systems where go (Remote response? Check. Picture? Check. Sound? Check.) so far so good. I didn't watch the whole movie, I just watched long enough to make a function check. The new DVD player sat idle until Tuesday, the whole reason I replaced the other player this week, the shortly awaited release of Walk The Line.

I never got to see Walk The Line while it was in the theaters, and after discovering Johnny Cash's music this past summer, I wanted to check it out both for the subject matter and because of the rave reviews it has been receiving since it's release. Tuesday came around and I picked up the movie, got it home, and put the new DVD player to work, and work it did, for about 15 minutes. The picture froze, which isn't a big deal as long as it recovers and moves along. However it didn't come back. I ejected the disc and tried again, with no luck.
Mr. Toshiba says, "There is no disc in this player!"
"But there is a disc Mr Toshiba!"
"No there isn't!"
Now I'm getting angry! Now I'm starting to curse inanimate objects! I try again! Nothing! I ended up watching my new shortly awaited movie on the 11 inch screen of my portable DVD player, that I got for Quentin and our road trips, propped upon the coffee table, not on my 36 inch TV with surround sound.

Wednesday when I got home from work I packed up Mr Toshiba and headed back to Best Buy. I wasn't angry at the Best Buy folks, as some Oblivions would be, it isn't their fault. I walked to the customer service counter where the associate told me to go get myself another DVD player. This time I decided to go to Sony. While I was looking at the DVD/VCR combos again, I got to thinking, am I really going to use the VCR side? No, I won't. So, single DVD it is. The Sony was $20.00 cheaper than the combo which was put back on my card and I, of course, spent it right away on another couple of Johnny Cash CD's, it just seemed appropriate.

I'm overjoyed to report that the Sony is working like a charm and Walk The Line was a great movie, the story was great and the fact that the actors played the instruments and sang the songs themselves, not pulling a Milli Vanilli, made it all the more enjoyable and I hope it does well at the Academy Awards tonight. I'm also starting to understand why someone once said there are two types of Johnny Cash fans, those that are and those that will be one.