A local video store is going out of business, so I bought a DvD there a few days ago. (It was Man on the Moon, and had special features like extra Andy Kaufman footage, which I was eager to see because I was nostalgic for the biography.) Last night I thought I'd watch it, but it was scratched and didn't work. I had to go return it but I couldn't get my money back, so I ended up with a random DvD replacement (Army Of Darkness-- a classic, but the special features consisted of a trailer, 4 very short pages of text notes about the production, and a short text bio of the 4 main actors. I'd have preferred my nine dollars back).

    What kind of world is it where the stuff I download for free works fine and the things I pay for don't? It certainly doesn't increase my desire to pay for things, I'll say that.

    Speaking of paying for things, Tom got his quarterly bank statement today. Banks oft don't keep up with inflation, and I know mine doesn't, but Tom went a step worse. He read his statement and found that after the monthly fees were subtracted from his interest, he had five cents less than he started with. He lamented that he would have been better off keeping his money in a mattress.

    This gave me an idea for my next email to the Nigerian, which has been added as an update to the previous post.