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Petty Things That Get On Your Nerves...


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1 hour ago, scottsdad said:

I remember there being 2 video rental places in Alloa. One on the ring road, which was tiny. It shut and became a funeral director's place. But the main one was the Video Drive-In, which later added sunbeds. 

I used to love going there and picking up a movie for a couple of days. Browsing round, looking at video covers to see what you fancied. 

But no way would I bother with it now. I have more movies and TV shows that I could watch at my fingertips than I could possibly watch in my lifetime. 

I'd no idea that wee building on the ring road used to be a video shop. It was kinda interesting to see Video Drive-In slowly morph into a tanning salon chain over 5-10 years or so; they're called Indigo Sun these days. Smart business move. Eventually there was a Global on the high street too, which is now the Dnisi cafe. Have vague memories of that chain being dodgy as f**k for some reason. From time to time I still run into one of the guys who worked the counter, which fills me with weird waves of nostalgia  :lol:

15 minutes ago, Stellaboz said:

We had a Blockbuster (took over Ritz)'and then later a Video Express opened up right round the corner. VE was far superior, cheaper and a wider range of games to choose from. I also think you could could games for 5 instead of 2 days, meaning even better value for money.

I remember Ritz being decent - it was our local in the mid Nineties. They'd do a thing where they'd shut down during the holidays and run a deal where you could rent ten tapes for a fiver and keep them for a few weeks; manager told me it was to minimise the stock on the premises in case they got broken into.

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Game rental seems even stranger than video rental now. If you were a kid with a free weekend, you could play right through a lot of games in the Nineties, but imagine renting something like Skyrim or Cyberpunk 2077 now; you'd barely be scratching the surface.

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20 hours ago, throbber said:

When you go to the effort of sending an informative message and someone replies with a thumbs up emoji.

I take your thumbs up and raise it with the response 'K'

Can't even be bothered to type OK, has to be abbreviated to K*

*1st smart arse to respond with K gets a green dot.

 

Edited by MEADOWXI
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Yes well if it’s just to acknowledge something like a pick up time as someone had said it’s better than nothing but it’s just good manners to respond with actual words when someone has sent a full sentence worth of information. I don’t know why people would opt for text speak anyway when you have autocorrect.

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We had a poster years ago who communicated exclusively in txtspk. Genuinely had no idea what they were saying.

That was something that didn't hang around long, did it? There were columnists claiming that was how everyone would communicate in the future. Naw mate, we'll just stop charging by the character, if that's alright with you.

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Just now, Melanius Mullarkey said:

Johnny's Mobile Video van was the go to in Elgin circa 1987. Some tremendous fair to be had from Johnny if you asked kindly. 

Kid I went to school with in the late Eighties had a father who bet the farm on Betamax being the format of choice and refused to admit he'd made a mistake. Their local video rental van kept a small supply of about a dozen Beta tapes just for them to rent.

Told me that they'd watched Top Gun hundreds of times. Could've just saved the money and bought a VHS player and their own copy.

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18 minutes ago, BFTD said:

Game rental seems even stranger than video rental now. If you were a kid with a free weekend, you could play right through a lot of games in the Nineties, but imagine renting something like Skyrim or Cyberpunk 2077 now; you'd barely be scratching the surface.

Game rental would never work now, but in the 90s it was brilliant. A new game every weekend, and could usually play them right through if they were that type of game. I loved Global Video, it was a ritual every Friday after school to go pick up a film and a game for the weekend.

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8 minutes ago, BFTD said:

Kid I went to school with in the late Eighties had a father who bet the farm on Betamax being the format of choice and refused to admit he'd made a mistake. Their local video rental van kept a small supply of about a dozen Beta tapes just for them to rent.

Told me that they'd watched Top Gun hundreds of times. Could've just saved the money and bought a VHS player and their own copy.

My dad bought V2000 (it was the other version).

Think it was a Phillips/Grundig thing.

The tapes were double sided like audio tapes so you could record more in better quality, but never caught on especially for video rental,

Video 2000 - Wikipedia

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1 minute ago, Craig fae the Vale said:

Game rental would never work now, but in the 90s it was brilliant. A new game every weekend, and could usually play them right through if they were that type of game. I loved Global Video, it was a ritual every Friday after school to go pick up a film and a game for the weekend.

When you look at how much games cost at the time, you can see why rental was so popular. The SNES was particularly bad; I don't think I ever bought a new game for that machine. Stuff like Super Star Wars was about £70 IIRC; that's almost £150 now.

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13 minutes ago, BFTD said:

Kid I went to school with in the late Eighties had a father who bet the farm on Betamax being the format of choice and refused to admit he'd made a mistake. Their local video rental van kept a small supply of about a dozen Beta tapes just for them to rent.

Told me that they'd watched Top Gun hundreds of times. Could've just saved the money and bought a VHS player and their own copy.

My old boy appeared home one day with a top loader from Radio Rentals, hired for the weekend. He had two video tapes in a bag.

One video was An American Werewolf in London (so looking online at release dates must have been shortly after June '82), which I watched about 3 times with my sister (I was 10 at the time so a bit of an eye opener).

The second video tape, to this day, remains a mystery but needless to say, my folks invited a few of their friends round on the Saturday night to watch it.

2 weeks later, he hired a Betamax and about a month after that, he went and bought a VHS player second hand from somewhere.  I'd never seen so many of our  neighbours turn up at 10pm on a Saturday night before. 

ETA: Pretty sure it was one of these bad boys. Recognise the sticky out buttons on the front. 

Vintage VHS video recorders. The JVC HR-3300, HR3300, The JVC HR-4100,  HR4100, First VHS video recorder. History

Edited by Melanius Mullarkey
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1 minute ago, Melanius Mullarkey said:

My old boy appeared home one day with a top loader from Radio Rentals, hired for the weekend. He had two video tapes in a bag.

One video was An American Werewolf in London (so looking online at release dates must have been shortly after June '82), which I watched about 3 times with my sister (I was 10 at the time so a bit of an eye opener).

The second video tape, to this day, remains a mystery but needless to say, my folks invited a few of their friends round on the Saturday night to watch it.

2 weeks later, he hired a Betamax and about a month after that, he went and bought a VHS player second hand from somewhere.  I'd never seen so many of our  neighbours turn up at 10pm on a Saturday night before. 

Were your folks fully paid up members of the 'Upside Down Pineapple Club' ?

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13 hours ago, BFTD said:

One of the few circumstances where read receipts might actually be useful.

 

The system my company uses shows me every time someone reads an email I've sent them and if they've looked at attachments, clicked on links etc - without them knowing that I know. 

 

Useful when they say "Oh I never got your email/haven't read it yet/there was no attachment"

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Just now, MEADOWXI said:

My dad bought V2000 (it was the other version).

Think it was a Phillips/Grundig thing.

The tapes were double sided like audio tapes so you could record more in better quality, but never caught on especially for video rental,

Video 2000 - Wikipedia

I remember seeing V2000 on the video cases that would accept multiple formats, but never even knew what it was  :P

9 minutes ago, Melanius Mullarkey said:

My old boy appeared home one day with a top loader from Radio Rentals, hired for the weekend. He had two video tapes in a bag.

One video was An American Werewolf in London (so looking online at release dates must have been shortly after June '82), which I watched about 3 times with my sister (I was 10 at the time so a bit of an eye opener).

The second video tape, to this day, remains a mystery but needless to say, my folks invited a few of their friends round on the Saturday night to watch it.

2 weeks later, he hired a Betamax and about a month after that, he went and bought a VHS player second hand from somewhere.  I'd never seen so many of our  neighbours turn up at 10pm on a Saturday night before. 

Ah, the early Eighties. Just as well Orwell never lived long enough to try renting Animal Farm.

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30 minutes ago, BFTD said:

When you look at how much games cost at the time, you can see why rental was so popular. The SNES was particularly bad; I don't think I ever bought a new game for that machine. Stuff like Super Star Wars was about £70 IIRC; that's almost £150 now.

Aye, MegaDrive games were like £40 minimum, which there was no way my family could afford at the time other than for a special occasion. £3.99 to rent the game for the week, brilliant. Got to play so many games I would never have been able to play otherwise.

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