Recently, the TV slot machine paid off in that wonderful way it sometimes does, namely the Free Pay Channel Weekend. You’ve gotta be on the lookout for these things all the time; they’re slippery. (If you really wanted to advertise one, how would you? On the channel your target audience doesn’t get, or on one of your competitors?) I personally tend to stumble onto these at about 4:30 Sunday afternoon, forever missing my chance to catch Big Momma’s House 2 in high-def, but this time I had plenty of time to scan the listings in advance and record everything interesting, thus making it unnecessary to subscribe to Showtime at all.

Perhaps not as effective a marketing strategy as it could be.

Because I’m too fond of HD (it’s still so new to me that I will watch 10 minutes of anything in HD, from hated Grey’s Anatomy to footage of the sun rising) I took the opportunity to record The Shawshank Redemption. I noticed a few days later that there was a copy of The Shawshank Redemption on DVD sitting on the shelf in our living room. Presumably it is my wife’s. Before DVD, I had The Shawshank Redemption on VHS sitting on the same shelf.

I saw The Shawshank Redemption in October 1994 at the Esquire theater with my friends Chris and Brian, and I have never seen it since. I have no idea for the life of me how any copy of the film got into my house. I’ve kept them; I’ve organized and shelved them; I’ve boxed them and moved them; I have never watched them. I can remember almost every detail of the moviegoing experience in 1994 (we sat about 20 rows back, behind a couple of fortysomethings on a date that were carrying on like a couple of grabby teenagers; we were in one of the smaller auditoriums over on the left, I want to say #3) but virtually nothing about the movie itself.

I would estimate that 75% of the movies I have seen in my life would be completely new experiences to me if I saw them again today. Sommersby: saw it at the Galleria with the Viz Academy League at one of the late shows in the far left auditorium, must struggle to even remember the name of the movie. Hercules: same theater, opening weekend with Kelly and the 3M cohort, the film broke and jeopardized the late shifters’ ability to see the whole film and get to work on time. Like Water For Chocolate: saw it at the Hi-Pointe, suffered through one of the most Kafkaesque teenage romantic episodes in history, can only remember the phrase “magical realism” and that the movie was in Spanish. Rumble in the Bronx. Matrix 2: The Dumbening. Under-f***ing-world. On and on and on.

It reminds me of a joke my friends used to tell in junior high: “the nice thing about Alzheimer’s is you get to hide your own Easter eggs.” On the one hand, I did have many memorable nights with my friends as a result of these movies, and I do have the satisfaction of knowing I will never get bored. On the other hand, I sure wouldn’t mind getting back that money. This may be why the fact that I’ve been to maybe four movies all year– a startling, jarring change in behavior– does not bother me.

Time:

Every time I recycle or throw away a plastic bottle (almost once a day) I first screw the cap back onto the empty bottle.

Why do I do that? What is wrong with me? Am I afraid the emptiness is going to spill into the bin?