Since starting this little experiment in January my first home appliance took a digger and died. My DVD player kept getting stuck at 15:11 and would go no further, wouldn’t stop, wouldn’t chapter forward or backward and generally just gave up the ghost. In today’s throwaway world it would cost more to fix the player than it cost to buy it 8 years ago so I was left with the DVD player on my laptop. I thought, ‘fine, I can deal with watching movies on my laptop.’
Since I already cancelled my cable months ago, the red envelope has taken on a monumental importance in my casa. The only thing to watch on the 5 channels I do get is “American Idol” and truly, I’m just not that into it. The DVD watching on my laptop lasted about 3 days and then my aunt suggested I visit a pawnshop. My aunt is a genius! I don’t know why I didn’t think of this earlier!
A few days ago I tripped on into my local pawnshop in search of usable, cheap DVD player. I hadn’t been in a pawn shop for about 17 years, back when I pawned my camera three times – I kept going back to get it out of hock. I had my choice of 4 DVD players and a Blu-ray player. I don’t really get the whole Blu-ray thing. Is it like 3D - totally a waste of time? Of the 4 players available, there were two in my price range. Neither had a remote so I picked the $15 model. An Apex. I’ve never heard of Apex but as I mentioned, I don’t get the Blu-ray thing so what’s in a brand name to me anyway?
I took it up to the counter and they plugged it in and showed me that it worked – sold! I was feeling that now familiar smug feeling I get when I feel like I’ve pulled one over on ‘the Man’ by not buying anything new. The nice woman at the counter rang me up and only charged me $10! I reminded her that it was actually $15 and she tells me that she gave me a discount – just because!
I’ve watched 3 movies on my new-to-me/used DVD player and except for wanting to watch the special features or chapter through something, it’s all-good! Now I’m waiting for the used universal remote I just bought on EBay to arrive.
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