A realization: I need not buy CDs or DVDs

I’ve decided in this era of modern media to never buy another CD or DVD again. What’s the need? I’ve realized that with On Demand, Netflix and Blockbuster Online there is just no time to watch my movie collection over and over again.

This will surely be good news to my wife Mary, who calls me a pack rat and hates my collections — comics, sports cards, DVDs, CDs and plenty more — than are piled around the house collecting dust.

I was at Blockbuster Tuesday at 11 a.m. to rent a copy of “Tinkerbell” for my daughter Stephanie. She had been watching the commercials — played about every 6 minutes on Disney Channel — for the movie and was begging for us to get it for her. The fact that it was from Blockbuster and that she may not be able to watch it next week, too, didn’t seem to bother her at all. And if she does want to watch it again in a few weeks, it’s just a quick trip to Blockbuster — where I get free rentals in exchange for my mail movies with the online service.

As far as music, I’ve started getting all my tunes — singles and albums — from Amazon.com. The price of a full CD there is always under $10 and you can pick up any song for less than a buck. So why go to a retail store and spend $10-15 for a CD?  Not to mention the bulk of my music listening now is done on my iPod, so the need for a CD only comes about when I’m traveling in my car.

Sadly, this is the very thing that a nostalgic person such as myself hates to see happen. Some of my greatest memories are of our ’78 Camaro and the in-dash 8-track or my Winnie the Pooh turntable (with built-in speaker — that’s right, just one) in my bedroom when I was young. I had quite a collection of vinyl — both 45s and 33s — and I miss those days.