I Could Use a Good Movie

We had a minor tragedy at the Herndorosa last week.  Nothing requiring prayer or sympathy cards, just a huge irritation.  Our DVR dumped its contents.  Some good movies, several stand-up comedy specials and dozens of classic car shows from the Velocity Network gone with a simple, “I hate you so I’m reformatting the hard drive…please hit OK.”  (That’s the screen message as best I remember it.)

After a couple of years of 100+ temps and no rain, this has been a cooler, wetter summer so I’ve been thinking the winter would follow suit.  Just a few days ago I saw the Farmer’s Almanac agrees with my meteorological prophecy.  And since cooler, wetter weather over winter means there will be plenty of stay in the house days, I’m thinking I need to lay in supplies.

Precipitation in my stretch of the woods comes in bursts leaving me to assume we have a higher likelihood of blizzards and ice storms this winter.  I mind neither, so long as there’s nowhere to go, trees aren’t broken and power stays on…but I know that’s not a winning bet.  I may need to keep the fireplace blazing for a day or two while the electric crews earned their money, climbing poles, cutting downed branches and patching lines in weather fit for penguins and polar bears. In prep I’ll stockpile some firewood and maybe a good book or two.

But I recall the Christmas Eve blizzard a few years back.  The family sat at the kitchen table, sipping cocoa, watching snow fly horizontally and playing board games while the lights flickered occasionally, never going out.  It was awful for many but we managed to get home before it hit and got to watch nature in all her glory out the kitchen window.  It was days in the house keeping one’s self busy.  While naps are glorious, in extreme situations like that a person might find themselves fully rested and in need of something to do…like watch TV.

We were fortunate to have a few shows stockpiled then but because of the minor calamity I find the DVR empty today.  My satellite provider’s equipment requires the TV show that’s being recorded also be on the set so I’ll need to do a bit of searching for overnight showings of movies and series.  If you’ve never searched the listings of shows on at 2:30 AM, I can tell you, it’s the audio/visual equivalent of the people in WalMart at the same hour, interesting to view initially, but then you find yourself slightly nauseated.

Repopulating the recovering hard drive could take some time.  I’ve been advised on several series I ‘should watch’; crime dramas, one about zombies and another the person wasn’t able to relay in wording I understood.  But these will be watched when there’s absolutely nothing else to do (sick/bad weather days) so I don’t want to take any chances.  I’ll try for a few documentaries (my inner nerd feeds on them), maybe some sitcoms from the 70’s and 80’s and any show on Velocity about classic cars.  And since there’s a chance I’ll want to settle in and hear an engaging story I could use a good movie.