Monday, September 01, 2003



Li and I have one major weakness in life.

Personally it is not that terrible but it is a tad expensive at times and does take up a large amount of space.

We love movies.

We used to head out to this video store near the bowling alley once a month and stock up on any new movies we could find. It was cheap - only 500yen a video. The problem is that videos take up too much bloody room. Half of the limited wall space in our living room was videos. I finally bought some more little Ikea type book cases and made some wonderful shelves in the closet. Most are in there now.
Then we were given another VCR by my student who moved into a new house. We took it happily and started being really nasty and recording rented videos. Not legal but what ever. It saved space because we could put three movies to one tape.
Still they were tapes and they took up room.

When we went to Shanghai last year we had had Tsu (Lis friend) living in the house for a month before we left. Not the happiest moment in my life. It put my marriage to a test. The plus side was that Tsu has a DVD player and we hooked it up to the TV and enjoyed. I started really liking DVDs after that.
While in Shanghai we went DVD shopping. We only picked up about 15 of them but it was great and sooooo bloody cheap. I was hooked.
One of the first things that Li and I did when we got back was buy a DVD machine. We ended up buying a DVD and VCR together in one as our other VCR was making some funny noises. Cost almost 300$ but we have put it to very good use.
Since then, when ever Lis friends go back to China to visit family they are sent with some cash and instructions to buy a lot of DVDs. At one point we sent money to his parents and a specific list that were ordered and a friend brought them back for us. That take was 50.
They dont always all work. A Japanese DVD player wants a code. If it is a good copy the code has been removed but sometimes it is just too new and the code is there.
We manage and we are happy.
The best is when we had Lord of the Rings 2 on DVD before it even came to Japan on the big screen.
Living in Japan and having the DVD connection is the best. This country is SOOOOOO slow about releasing movies and they are only dubbed in Japanese so any cool looking foreign, non American films, that I want to see, I cant. That and the ticket to go to a movie is 18$. Too damn much!!!
AND it takes forever to get them on video here. Lord of the Rings 2 is only just being released on video this month. In 2 weeks I think. AUCH!

Well the story behind my rambling is that last night Li and I spent over 2 hours on the Internet looking up tons of movies. I made this 4 page list, probably 80ish movies, then gave the list to Li to translate. The list included new and old and some of the movies that we now have on video that we would prefer on DVD. Li had a hell of a time translating as the name in English is not necessarily the name in Chinese. He started Internet searching so that he could find their real names. He types so damn slow that I ended up doing it for him. Took a long time but we found them all. Lis friend Gu (who finally got his drivers license by the way) has a connection with this guy who will order us good copies. Computer-boy is heading to Shanghai on Thursday with the list. By the time we get back from Canada we should have one DAMN good hall of movies in our living room.
I am very excited.
I put 'Willow' and 'Lady Hawke' on that list.
Hehehehe
1 DVD China costs about 100yen or 1$. About 200yen for a higher quality one.
hehehehe
And it is not illegal to bring them here because we are only bringing in one copy for personal use and not selling them. Hell we dont even lend them out. People watch them at our place instead.
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Posted by (Top)Andrea::9/01/2003 :: 0 Comments:

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