Sane Canadians for Sanity (and/or Fear)!

So I was at the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Keep Fear Alive in Washington DC. It was a reasonable amount of crazy, to say the least. Getting there was an experience in and of itself (thanks Torontoist!) and I can't say I recommend sitting down for 12 hours, standing up for 6 hours and then traveling for 12 hours again. It was exhausting, but in the best possible way.

The more I read about people who wound up too far back to see or hear anything, the more pleased I am that I was close enough to catch (admittedly not very helpful) glimpses of the stage while being directly in front of one of the giant screens and speakers so that I could see and hear everything. While waiting for it to start, it was pretty much impossible to get a sense of how many people were there. A few times I held up my camera and snapped a picture pointing back towards the Washington Monument trying to see what the crowd was like. 

The crowd behind me at about 11:00am

We stood there for a solid two hours while a recap of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report leading up to the Rally played on the jumbotrons along with musical segments from both shows and some trivia type things. I was particularly happy when Colbert's epic 'Remixing is Okay' video came on. A huge part of the experience was just looking around for the signs people were carrying. Some of the best ones from where I was were:

"Palin/Voldemort 2012"

"Pizza is Delicious."

"Make Awkward Sexual Advances, not war."

Although I think my favourite was this one:

REAL AMERICA: It is everywhere!

Finally, a countdown to the rally appeared with 2 minutes to go, but the screen cut out with about 30 seconds to go. It was kind of odd, everyone was waiting to countdown to the moment of sanity restoration, (and some nobly tried anyways) but the countdown disappeared before we could all freak out for freedom together.

The pacing was a little strange, especially at the beginning. Half an hour of not particularly engaging musical performances probably not the best choice. The Mythbuster segment was better, as it engaged and united the crowd. At least the part of the crowd that could hear the instructions. Throughout that segment the chant of "LOUDER! LOUDER!" kept working it's way from the back of the crowd towards us, which was the first indication that there were more people here than could hear what was going on. But still, it was much more efficient at uniting the crowd as a crowd (ever jumped up and down at the same time as 150000-250000 people? It's delightfully bizarre). I'd wanted to see the crowd do the wave and it happened, so I was very happy.

The wave

It wasn't until the Rally started that the screens showed shots of the crowd. The first of the shots of the crowd gave us the first real sense of scale. It was pretty awesome to hear everyone around me reacting to the first views of SO. MANY. PEOPLE.

My first real sense of the crowd size (although I still had no idea the crowd wasn't just on the Mall.)

Finally Jon Stewart appeared on stage and the crowd went a reasonable amount of crazy. I was super grateful for the jumbotron at this point. I was less grateful for the 6 foot 3 man who was standing in front of me. Then Stephen Colbert arrived from his Fear Bunker (in pants that cracked me up every time they appeared on screen) and the Restoring Sanity/Fear contradiction was up and running.

Awesome view was awesome. 

But seriously though, it wasn't a bad place to be at all. 

The rally itself was pretty darn awesome. It was most entertaining when Jon Stewart couldn't quite hold it together. When Colbert and the guitarist had a little difficulty starting a song at the same time, Jon Stewart started laughing, and never fully recovered as he gamely launched into his half of the duet. By the time Stewart and Colbert (at this time wearing matching american flag polar fleece sweaters) finished their song Stewart apologized through his giggles for making us listen to him sing saying that it wouldn't happen again and that "It worked in rehearsal".

The overall tone of the rally moved from ridiculous towards sincerity. By the time Colbert, his fear-based news montages and his giant fear puppet were defeated by John Oliver in a Peter Pan costume and the crowd cheering, it was time for Jon Stewart to address the crowd. He spoke about the importance of the little every day compromises that we all make, using traffic merging to highlight that Americans who disagree with each other get shit done every day. The strongest statements that were made were those made against the mainstream news media and its endless focus on fear and extreme personalities. 

"When we amplify everything, we hear nothing." -Jon Stewart

His speech is absolutely worth 12 minutes of your life. Watch it.

Rally to Restore Fear/Keep Fear Alive

I'm weirdly terrified that my iPod will die sometime on this epic road trip and I will be left cradling its lifeless body in my trembling hands.

And um YES. This is about to happen. Waaaaaaaay too many hours on a bus. Twice as many hours than I will be in Washington DC for. Totally. Worth. It.

The Hobbit!

YES. Hobbit casting. Shit is happening.

And it's Martin Freeman as Bilbo. Scheduling conflicts must have been resolved (and if this means he's not going to be in Sherlock series 2 I will be SAD PANDA. But I'm pretty sure that wouldn't be the case, so awesome).

Still no official word on Ian Mckellen or Andy Serkis apparently.... And I need both of them to be in it. NEED.

Phone interviews: Doing it Right

The phone rang just as I was dropping my backpack and guitar in the front hall after three hours in the car. I was in my pyjama pants and cottage clothes and really had to pee and I picked up the phone assuming it would be for anyone but me. But no. SURPRISE JOB INTERVIEW over the phone.

Internet Vacation in 5...4...

Legit, my only real goal for this weekend is to have as many campfires as possible. Wish me luck.

I disagree with you, but I'm pretty sure you're not Hitler

Thanks to the majestic Torontoist and their noble efforts, I'm going to Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert's Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear. I'm so excited, you have no idea. I was so worried that I wouldn't get to be a part of this mass of ridiculousness/ surprisingly earnest attempt to inject a voice of reason into the current discourse. And yes, as a Canadian, my reasons to be there are slim, but they are also awesome. This will be my second pilgrimage to Stewart and Colbert this year (I attended tapings in New York in April) and I have high hopes for similar levels of epic.

I swear every time I go looking for reference pictures of whatever I'm attempting to draw I end up giving up and staging the reference photo myself.

Usually it's just to solve something boring like "how to arms work when someone is standing in this way?" or "where would your feet be?" but on some occasions it results in me hanging upsidedown off a chair to recreate a birds eye view shot by rotating the staging 90 degrees because the camera at my disposal is attached to my laptop.

I'm confident it will be 1000000000000% better than the Star Wars Holiday Special

There's going to be a Cabin Pressure Christmas Special!

I'm betting most of you don't care about a BBC radio sitcom that you've never heard of, BUT YOU SHOULD because a) I've just told you about it and b) it's hysterical. The writing is tight and tremendously clever and there's something magical about the simplicity of the set up (the adventures of tiny, single jet airline crew) that lends itself to sitcom gold. There are four main characters (a good pilot, a safe pilot, an excitable steward and their boss), each vivid and ridiculous in ways that only comedy can allow. I've spent a lot of time trying to stifle giggles when I'm listening to an episode on the train.  Cabin Pressure has also become a staple of any family road trip lasting longer than 29 minutes, with both my mom and I reaching to hook up our iPod's to the radio the moment listening to an episode is suggested.

I really can not praise it highly enough. It's easily one of my favourite sitcoms of all time.

"I'm mad at you. You're still so hot."

I like to write about the representations of sexuality in pop culture. A lot. And today I watched Glee, so this was pretty much inevitable. Sexy Spoilers for Glee, up to and including today's episode Duets.

Yeah. That's right.

I watched Van Gogh: Painted with Words last week. And you know what? I enjoyed it. I was watching it and was all not interested for about the first three minutes and then that documentary voice kicked in and the dramatization was suitably engaging and I was bloody FASCINATED. I was very depressed when the train ride was over but I still had 40 minutes left to watch. But the next day another commute awaited me! I've never learned so much about Van Gogh while commuting. Thank god for ipods.

And I threatened someone with a 50 question Quiz on Van Gogh: Painted with Words, and frankly, this is the kind of threat I keep.

Technology Holidays

Sometimes I take vacations from certain electronics in my life. Today I woke up and didn't even touch my cell phone. I left it lying on the floor turned off. There was nothing in the world it could do to get my attention. It was awesome.

I also take internet vacations, although they are usually determined by my physical location rather than my mindset. If I am away from internet access I embrace it, and am often surprised by how much I enjoy this disconnect. However, forced internet vacations caused by say, the neighbours having landscaping done that cuts off the cable... those are significantly less relaxing.

It's just enjoyable to leave something so crucial behind, if only temporarily.

I think we should take bets on when/if this movie *actually* gets released

Oh man, I made the mistake of trying to catch up on The Hobbit movie news.

I'm pretty sure that movie is inventing new levels of development hell. (Yes, I linked to TVtropes. Say goodbye to the next few hours of your life.)

What's this? A studio making a good decision?

Warner Bros has ditched the 3D version of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1. Rejoice!

Converting something filmed in 2D to 3D just doesn't fly (Clash of the Titans, I'm looking at you). I'm so relieved. This means I can watch this in Imax without fearing retina-burning 3D effects on a way too big screen.

I'm shamelessly obsessed with books that gleefully and actively admit they lie

Graham Chapman's autobiography: A Liar's Autobiography (Volume IV) finally arrived!

It's pretty much the House of Leaves of autobiographies. There are multiple authors, who all contradict each other or lie outright and then admit their lies in the footnotes. There are crazy footnotes that include one of the authors asking the others if they can have a day off. And yet amongst the haze of lies are some delightfully vivid truths.

Naturally its arrival led to me starting to read House of Leaves again. This week I'm all about the literature that lies.

Rented a guitar that is NOT BROKEN today. How awesome is that? A guitar that isn't cracking down the middle and is capable of playing all the notes! Also: it smells like vanilla.

Naturally I celebrated by learning how to play Don't Stop Believing.

At this exact moment in time:

I am watching what I was told was "A musical adaptation of Macbeth starring Sir Patrick Stewart."

It's not nearly as musical as I was led to believe.

The game is once again afoot!

Sherlock Holmes 2 started shooting today!

Between this and series two of BBC Sherlock 2011 is going to be an awesome year for Sherlock stuff. Not that this last year has been in any way disappointing... Keep up the good work universe!

Best news ever!

Carrie Fisher's one woman play Wishful Drinking is coming to Toronto!

The audiobook of the book based on said play is one of the funniest things I've heard in my life. I could not be more excited for this!

It's...

It's the 41 anniversary of Monty Python's Flying Circus first airing on the BBC!

Arbitrary Appreciation: Multiple Fields of Gravity on the Millennium Falcon

In Star Wars: A New Hope when our heroes are escaping the Death Star Luke and Han gun down some attacking Tie Fighters we're treated to several shots that show the Millennium Falcon has at least two directions of gravity working simultaneously.

It can be quite difficult to understand the gravity of the situation

I have high hopes that other parts of the ship have other directions of gravity. Can you imagine how epic a game of hide and seek would be?

It's like a crime scene up in here

I cut open the bottom of my foot without realizing it. I then spent 10 minutes cleaning up the bloody footprints I'd left everywhere.

This sounds far more extreme than it actually was.

Vacation from gender. Please?

The statement "I need to take a vacation from gender" is very often floating around my brain. Any drama or angst caused by the cruelness of the gender system I did not sign up for but have to deal with on daily basis inevitably reaches the point of "I need to take a vacation from gender".  This happens often enough that when I found the awesome genderfork website I submitted it and it was posted (huzzah!). 

It's strange and sad that it is absolutely true and utterly impossible all at the same time. 

Art!

I'm suitably exhausted from Nuit Blanche last night. I attended my own funeral, lay in a pile of 1 million pennies and walked between two naked people. I also got my fortune from a giant fortune cookie and was told I look a bit like Justin Bieber (I need a haircut...). All in all, fun was had, although I'll admit I'm rather looking forward to an artless but restful night.

Harry Potter and the Cycle of Anticipation

Sometimes I just stop and think about how happy I am that I got to grow up with Harry Potter.

There's just something about an entire generation of people spending 10 years wanting nothing more than the next book that makes it more awesome. I loved those agonizing waits between books, the inevitable countdowns to release dates, the sleepless nights leading up to the midnight book launch and then the marathon reading sessions that followed. The Harry Potter cycle of anticipation was second to none and parallel only to Star Wars. Years containing both a new Harry Potter book and a new Star Wars movie felt like the universe was giving me everything I could ever ask for.

The secret to not being disappointed by sequels you are excited for:

Expect it to be 10-20% worse than the previous instalment in the series.

This way a) you are prepared for said movie to not be as good as the movie(s) that came before it and b) if it totally kicks ass, it's an extremely pleasant surprise.

It should be noted that this will not always save you (Spider-man 3, yes, I am looking at you.)

I need to see The Social Network

Aaron Sorkin (The West Wing, Sports Night) wrote it.
David Fincher (Fight Club, Zodiac, etc) directed it.

OH. HELL. YES.

Past!Me was clearly leading quite the investigation here...

Totally just found an epic "how do feelings work?!" chart I made when I was younger. 

Kay. So when I was 13 I watched Episode 2 significantly more times than was necessary and I absolutely could not make sense of Padme falling in love with Anakin. It just didn't make sense. There was no logic to it at all. Being me, I set out to solve this using, wait for it, a two page chart documenting Anakin Skywalker's emotions and personality traits across episode 1, episode 2, and the original trilogy.

Stay with me here, cause this made, and to a certain extent, still makes a lot of sense to me. Here I could cross-reference his developing personality with Padme's, as well as mathematically add up desirable traits against the undesirable ones. Here, surely, was the logical answer to her falling in love.

I remember the look on my mom's face when I told her what I was doing, proudly showing her the list I was composing as I complained that I still hadn't made sense of it. 

She told me this: "Feelings don't have to make sense."

I was confused, insisting that I could figure this out. The answer was out there somewhere, perfectly sound and logical, just waiting for me to find it.

But no. "Feelings don't have to make sense," she said again, "And a lot of time they don't."

To this day I have to stop my train of thought to remind myself that feelings don't have to make sense. I still expect them to though. My first reaction to feelings being a rather logical analysis of the factors at play, solving for the emotion by examining the factors that affect it. Once I've identified the emotion and then the factors, it's easy enough to change the factors to change the emotion. Right?

I can't get a handle on feelings that people around me don't have control over. I know they don't have to make sense, but that doesn't make it any easier to understand. 

Jar Jar is about to enter another dimension of annoying...

The Star Wars films are going to be theatrically released in 3D. Unfortunately, it looks like they're releasing them in story order, which means we have to sit through all three prequels before we get to see Luke destroy the Death Star. According to this, Episode One will drop sometime in 2012. I dread to think how long we'll be waiting to see a certain metal bikini in 3D.

Completely unsurprisingly, I'm so totally excited for this. Any reason that gets Star Wars back in the theatres so that crowds of people who love them can experience them together is absolutely fine by me.

Arbitrary Appreciation: Movie Posters that use the "tilt head down and make eye contact" pose

Ray Park as Darth Maul demonstrating the "tilt head down and make eye contact" pose.

This poster was the first poster I owned that used the "tilt head down and make eye contact" pose in order to make someone look epic. This shortcut to epicness is used in countless posters, some deserving, some really really not.

There are more. Lots more. 

Warning: Trying to recreate this pose without a marketing team, reasonably high budget, brand name or certain level of fame is a surefire way to look very silly.

Adventures in Androgyny: Hesitate

There's this moment when strangers address me, a moment of hesitation before they pick a pronoun when they trip over their words or awkwardly pause because they're unsure which to use. I always enjoy that moment because it feels like up until they had to consciously pick a pronoun they were just seeing me.

Damn you Zelda!

I do not need another copy of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.
I do not need another copy of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.
I do not need another copy of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.

But the 3DS screenshots are so damn pretty...

Arbitrary Appreciation: Tony Stark's Fierce High Heels

Iron Man 2 comes out on Blu-ray and DVD today. This means I can finally throw a viewing party where we high five every time we spot the glorious heels. It'll be like Where's Waldo but fiercer. A lot fiercer. 

Look at them!

I'm also pretty sure the official drinking game for Iron Man 2 will be based around Tony Stark's ever-changing sunglasses... 

No Spoilers

Dexter's back!

And it remains the only TV show that catches in my throat when I watch it. There's a physicality to watching Dexter, a tension that lingers even after the credits roll. It's so fantastically human. Is it Sunday again yet?

Anyone have a sharpie?

I bought new shoes today.
They are Star Wars shoes.
They have a spot on the underside of the tongue for me to write my name.

I swear, one day my feet will be big enough for adult sized shoes...

FINALLY

Dexter. Tonight.

Adventures in Androgyny

Laser tag tonight:

Kid 1: "He's right around the corner! Shoot him!"
Kid 2: "She's a girl!"
Kid 1: "Then shoot her!"
Kid 3: "He's clearly a boy."
Me: *shoots them all and runs away cackling*

BRB getting excited about December 16, 2011

Stephen Fry is going to be Mycroft Holmes in the Untitled Sherlock Holmes Sequel. This pleases me greatly. You have no idea.

I'm also very happy that The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo's Noomi Rapace is playing the female lead.

Yes to all of this. Just. Yes.

Adventures in Filmographies

I love movies. And I love the process of discovering new movies (and TV shows and books and radio plays and audiobooks and…)

Star Trek 2009 blew my mind and made me want MOAR. Which was totally fine, because there's more Star Trek around than I could ever want. So off I went, watching the Original Series and enjoying the hell out of the awesome life lessons offered (Rule #1: Don't wear red shirts). But at the same time, I was also going through the actors filmography, adventuring into their past in film and TV series appearances, some of which were far more entertaining than others. The unquestioned winner of the Star Trek phase was Incubus: a movie filmed entirely in Esperanto starring William Shatner from the 1960's. 

By including an actor's past work in the excitement of "Yay new movie I love!" I'm introducing a highly random element. Sherlock Holmes (which has the original stories as well as literally hundreds of adaptations to pick through) also started the Robert Downey Jr filmography phase, which led to me discovering one of my favourite movies (Kiss Kiss Bang Bang) and sitting through some of the most bizarre films I've seen (Rented Lips, Hugo Pool.)  I'm pretty confident no actor or actress will be able compete with the sheer bulk of WTF that ye olde Robert Downey Jr films can provide. 

And the tangents that come from these adventures in filmography are unexpected and delightful. I ended up spending a couple weeks appreciating a bunch of "Patrick Dempsey films made before 1997", which I can truthfully say is a line of interest I could not have predicted. It's also cool to see what films keep popping up. Seven separate quests led me to Bent, a film which has somehow become the Kevin Bacon of my movie world.

The best part of questing through past works is, without doubt, finding something AMAZING that otherwise I would never have come in contact with. Cabin Pressure, a BBC radio sitcom that I listened to because Benedict Cumberbatch was in it, is now one of my all time favourite sitcoms. Of course, the danger of such  method is that there are fantastically awful movies and TV shows waiting to be unearthed. But dodging or suffering through movies that define "why was this made?" just add to the experience and to the joy of finding something awesome.

Arbitrary Appreciation: Carrie Fisher with a shotgun

I watched Sorority Row last night. Why you ask?

The trailer promised Carrie Fisher with a shotgun. And I can't say no to Carrie Fisher with a shotgun. 

Exhibit A: Carrie Fisher with a shotgun

SPOILER WARNING: It was awesome.

Not the movie. The movie was bad and I could actually feel my brain cells dying as I watched it. But Carrie Fisher with a  shotgun? Hell. Yes. 

It's not that you're not sexy, it's just that I don't care.

It's Asexual Awareness Week!

Somewhat ironically, I wasn't aware of this until today. I'm assuming I just missed the memo and the large, bat-signalesque spotlight asexuals use to communicate with each other.

Anyways, on to the awareness. An asexual person is someone who does not experience sexual attraction. Asexual is a sexual orientation like homosexual, heterosexual, bisexual, pansexual, etc.  Asexuality is NOT the same thing as celibacy (celibacy is a choice, asexuality is an orientation). Do not mistake a lack of interest in having sex for erotophobia or repression. There are lots of sex-positive asexuals. 

Consider yourself a little bit more aware! As with anything, there's a lot more to it than that. The Asexual Visibility and Education Network and the Asexuality wikipedia page are good places to start.

Brief awareness shout out for the term "aromantic"  which, while lacking a concrete singular definition (some define it as lack of desire for a romantic relationship, others as lack of romantic attraction) it still opens up discussion around romance, romantic attraction and actively works to untangle them from sexual desire. (There are aromantic asexuals and romantic asexuals). 

And finally, some really simple advice for anyone who has someone come out to them as any of the countless non-normative sexual identities and/or gender identities:

When someone tells you who they are, believe them.

My The Legend of Zelda Success/Moderate Success/Epic fail list

Zelda games I have beaten:

Ocarina of Time

Majora's Mask

Link's Awakening

Wind Waker

Twilight Princess

Zelda games I have almost beaten (got to last dungeon or further):

Phantom Hourglass

Spirit Tracks

Oracle of Ages

Zelda games that I suck at and will quite possibly never beat:

A Link to the Past

Four Swords

Zelda games I haven't played yet:

The Legend of Zelda

The Adventure of Link

Minish Cap

Oracle of Seasons

It feels like I've played more than this list shows. Probably because I replay the top five with alarming frequency (hello minimum of 30 replays of Ocarina of Time). Also: can you tell my first system was an N64? Anything not 3D is way more difficult. 

Laserdisc collection one step closer to being complete

My Terminator 2 laserdisc arrived today! Easily the best $1.03 I've spent on ebay. Past!Me is terribly happy that I now own most of my favourite movies on laserdisc.

Movies I own on laserdisc:

Star Wars
The Empire Strikes Back
Return of the Jedi
The Lion King
Goldeneye
Terminator 2
Priscilla: Queen of the Desert
Batman Forever

I'm very pleased with this.

First Official "Arbitrary Appreciation" Post

First up: Benedict Cumberbatch's name.

Holy shit guys. Look at this name. I am still not over how epic it is. Like really, KNOWING your kid is going to have "Cumberbatch" as a last name you go with "Benedict". Brilliant.

My name will never be that ridiculous/awesome. I'll never forgive my parents.

Tis a very special day

Happy Birthday Frodo and Bilbo Baggins!

You Shouldn't Have Done That

I really enjoyed Jadusable's Majora's Mask ghost story (crash course HERE). Stories of haunted games have drifted around the internet for years. This one was different.

Careful and planned yet somehow chaotic. I loved the truth claim and the obviousness that it could not be true. And I loved the fact that the question "Why?" burned so brightly, more so than the "how?" or the "who?". Was it viral marketing? It was too dark for Nintendo and it why would someone market something with an old zelda game? And the the direction of the story moved away from the marketable, not towards it. Someone was, most likely, doing this for fun.

But what I loved most was the gentle invitation to the audience, first to read the story, but then watch, download and interact with the ghost himself via a learning bot and a website and an ominous countdown to "The Fourth Day". The escalation of reality, as the narrative spiralled away from the ghost simply being in the game to one that was actively tampering with the various pieces of the story. Jadusable told us a story that caught our attention and then, only once we were listening, asked us softly, "Hey, you wanna play?"

And we did. We really really did.

Once the ghost was out of the game, so to speak, the internet was abuzz with people dissecting each aspect of the story for clues, breaking it apart to search for the "truth". Not the truth that this was a made up story told through clever use of the internet, that one was too simple. No, the internet went looking for the "truth" within the story. The one where a lifeless statue told us every step of the way, "You shouldn't have done that."

Well done sir, I thought when "the truth.txt" told us that BEN communicated through CleverBot. A bot that learns as people interact with it. When hundreds of people talk to the bot associating "BEN" and "drowned" and "Majora's Mask" the bot began to do it automatically. Simple, effective way to let the audience experience the haunting themselves.

He brought the creepiness of Majora's Mask, and the ghost that haunted it from the game to the internet at large  putting up a countdown clock and telling us only that it was counting down to "The Fourth Day". By including a website with ties to Ben and parallels to the apocalyptic moon in Majora's Mask, he brought his story a little closer to "real".  Suddenly there was a nagging doubt, was this the work of someone desperate for attention before committing some horrible act in the real world? The question again, was "Why?". The increasing sense of reality forcing us to wonder, if only for a moment, if this was a warm up for something much worse.

It wasn't of course, but that's not the point. He played with our anticipation and our doubts to the point that what we knew (this was not real) mattered less than how we felt (intrigued and unsettled). Well done sir. I'll look forward to the next haunting. 

Laserdisc Appreciation Post

Laserdiscs are awesome. This should not need saying. But it does. It really really does.

The Best Things About Laserdiscs:

1. Their size: A laserdisc looks like a giant double sided DVD.

2. Flipping the disc: Each side of the Laserdisc only holds about an hour of video. Get excited.

3. The Name: LASERDISC. Enough said.

4. They were delightfully ahead of their time, and were around for way longer than you'd expect. 1978-2000?!

5. The untainted unmodified version of the Star Wars Original Trilogy is available on Laserdisc.

6. A laserdisc player is 8 times the size of a DVD player and weighs significantly more than you're expecting.

7. LASERROT. It's a problem, but it's a cool sounding problem.

8. Laserdisc cases are big, which means lots of room for epic cover art.