How Do You Decide to Buy Criterion Collection DVDs?

Great lit­tle post over at Pul­lquote about how to ratio­nal­ize adding even more Cri­te­ri­on Col­lec­tion titles to your per­son­al DVD library. Trust me, I feel this guy’s pain. When I was real­ly a movie hound, espe­cial­ly when I start­ed tak­ing advan­tage of Deep Dis­coun­t’s mas­sive bian­nu­al sales, I would ago­nize over which titles to buy. To wit, I still haven’t pur­chased a copy of Resnais’ Hiroshi­ma Mon Amour because I felt it was too expen­sive for one disc AND that it would sure­ly go out of print when a new print was invari­ably dis­cov­ered. This is the exquis­ite pain that only tru­ly insane observers of the DVD remas­ter mar­ket can feel.

Con­verse­ly, how stu­pid do I feel for hav­ing ever bought Equinox, which I watched exact­ly one time? I think I’d has­ten to add a fol­low-up to Pul­lquote’s post: how many DVDs do you own that sit on a shelf or in a draw­er that are untouched? I con­fess to more than my fair share of these.

I feel sheep­ish even tak­ing part in con­ver­sa­tions like this now. I used to eager­ly await reg­u­lar emails from Cri­te­ri­on about their lat­est titles and then make notes in pri­or­i­ty order about which I’d buy when they went on sale. Now that I’m less bull­ish on buy­ing any sort of phys­i­cal media, they’re hard­ly a blip on my radar. I will admit that I near­ly jumped for joy when I read that they were releas­ing Red Desert, which is pos­si­bly my favorite Anto­nioni movie, even though I always say it’s L’Avven­tu­ra.

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Have You Been to Kraftwork?

I’ve been to Kraft­work a num­ber of times now and I think I like it. I mean, it’s okay. There’s that one sand­wich that’s real­ly deli­cious, but not much else that real­ly stands out on the (recent­ly recon­sid­ered) menu. The draught list is amaz­ing, although it’s like doing surgery with a shot­gun; put enough beers on tap and you’re sure to get some­thing right, no?

But you can fix menus and curate beer lists to make it seem like you know what you’re doing, rather than not want­i­ng to get it wrong. What you can’t real­ly change is phys­i­cal plant. If you want to be clubbed over the head with con­cept, Kraft­work is the place. With­out even men­tion­ing the clunk­er of a name, you know it’s styl­ized to a fault, which real­ly dis­tracts from the things that prob­a­bly brought you there in the first place. Did I men­tion how NOISY it is? Now, I know I’m get­ting old­er, but when you have a DJ spin­ning dance music dur­ing din­ner, at a place that does­n’t have a dance floor, you’re going out of your way to seem sil­ly. I mean, at least the Abbaye had sen­si­ble brunch DJs.

Thing I hear from fans of craft beer and gas­trop­ubs in gen­er­al though is that the prices are sim­ply too high. I can get a pint of Russ­ian Riv­er Blind Pig for less than I can a tulip of the same at Kraft­work. And while the taps are more plen­ti­ful than oth­er neigh­bor­hood bars, I don’t get the sense that more thought went into select­ing what’s on them. Instead of feel­ing like you’re get­ting a deal on some­thing that’s been care­ful­ly con­sid­ered, you know you’re over­pay­ing for some­thing you can prob­a­bly get some­where else in town.

Will I keep going back? Absolute­ly. I have faith that Adam Rit­ter will get it right and, hell, who I am to say any­thing: the place is usu­al­ly full to over­flow­ing, which is a good prob­lem to have in this econ­o­my. If they can build a tasty, inex­pen­sive menu around their beer can chick­en sand­wich, then they’re already on the right track. Where else can you get a Mikkeller Break­fast Beer Geek Impe­r­i­al Stout at 10:30 on a Sun­day morning?

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Who Do You Follow?

Tell me who you fol­low! I feel pret­ty com­fort­able with Google Read­er and Twit­ter; I’ve amassed quite a col­lec­tion of per­son­al­i­ties there and enjoy them immense­ly. But I find myself awash in end­less reblogs on Tum­blr and I would­n’t know the first thing about who’s worth watch­ing on YouTube.

Do peo­ple still get into pod­casts? I’ve down­loaded DJ Rup­ture’s Mudd Up, Doug Hen­wood’s Behind the News, and Two Guys on Beer, but I have to admit that I’m not a reg­u­lar con­sumer of pod­casts. Are there any you check out? Do you think video pod­cast­ing may final­ly break through now that we have the devices that not only sup­port it, but make it sexy?

Last­ly, what are your favorite blogs? In this age of microblog­ging in all forms, is there any­one else out there who still likes to read thought­ful pieces? My Google Read­er is stuffed, but I’m always look­ing for new sources to check out. I’m always look­ing for local folks, as well as great peo­ple cov­er­ing music, tech, Phillies, food, and media. Share your favorites!

So, who do you fol­low and where do you fol­low them?

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The Rolling Stones’ Exile on Main Street

I’ve been read­ing about this set all over the web, most recent­ly at An Aquar­i­um Drunk­ard. Unsur­pris­ing­ly, under­stand­ably, every­one’s fall­en in love with one of the great­est albums ever all over again.

I got the deluxe remas­tered edi­tion for Father’s Day and I’m still work­ing my way through it, but some­thing real­ly struck me as I lis­tened: do we have the Stones to blame for Blue­sham­mer and their ilk? I mean, would Ken­ny Wayne Shep­herd and Jon­ny Lang have been pos­si­ble with­out the Stones paving the way for guys like Ste­vie Ray Vaughan?

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Will the Real Phillies Please Stand Up?

I spent a love­ly day with fam­i­ly in the Penn­syl­va­nia hin­ter­lands, which means I’m read­ing Beer­lea­guer com­ments to get a feel for today’s unlike­ly win over Ubal­do Jimenez and the Rock­ies. One read­er shared this gem from today’s Philly Inquirer:

Putting a nice lit­tle bow on the pro­ces­sion of no-com­ments, Phillies gen­er­al man­ag­er Ruben Amaro Jr. was not avail­able to talk about the change in hit­ting coach­es or to update his com­ments about the rotation.

After the Phillies optioned Kendrick on Tues­day, the gen­er­al man­ag­er said, “I think we know exact­ly what we’re going to do [Sat­ur­day]. I just choose not to tell you.”

We now know why. Who would have believed him if he said Kendrick was being replaced by Kendrick in the rotation?

Ouch, Ruben. That’s got­ta hurt.

You know what will hurt more? The Phillies acquir­ing Roy Oswalt, going on a tear, yet falling just short of the wild card. As always, the Phils will prob­a­bly have to win the divi­sion to make the play­offs. The NL West is doing the oth­er two divi­sions no favors.

Thanks for noth­ing, Padres! Why did­n’t you just suck like every­one expect­ed you to so we could grab Heath Bell for our run to the World Series?

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