Sorting Out the DVDs

This was one of our few moments of sunshine over the past several days. I think that's why the golden afternoon light and the shadows caught my eye -- it was a rare sight! Our forecast is for rain, rain and more rain right into mid-January.

Dave and I went to work on the cabinet in the dining room that's been damaged by the leak from upstairs. We emptied it out, and almost everything was fine, except some paperwork stored on the bottom shelf (next to the floor) that felt slightly damp. We took the opportunity to go through all the CDs and DVDs and some other stuff, and wound up with four bags to give to charity. I carried it all down to Oxfam.

Dave was reluctant to get rid of all the DVDs, though, so we still have quite a few. Every time I showed him one he'd say, "Oh, that's a great movie!" Well, yeah, but why do we need a DVD of it? Can't we just stream "Monster" or "Swordfish" if we want to watch it?

Apparently not.

You may remember that we don't currently have a device to play DVDs. We were playing them on one of my old laptop computers, but this computer (which I bought when we lived in New Jersey almost 12 years ago) has suddenly decided of its own accord that I must enter a password to access it. I never set the password, though, so how to get past the log-in screen that now appears when the machine is turned on is a complete mystery. I took it to a computer repair shop yesterday and the guy insisted I must have set the password and forgotten. I told him, trust me, it's never required one before.

He offered to erase the whole system and re-install it, and said that might work. If it did, he said he'd charge me £50. But I decided instead to just buy a dedicated DVD player on Amazon. We could get a brand new one for about £35. I know, I know, this is not a particularly eco-friendly solution but I really think that old computer is on its last legs anyway.

Now I have to figure out how to safely dispose of the computer. The repair guy said he'd take it for free but that makes me nervous -- I'm sure it still has traces of data on it. I think I may take it to school and have them dispose of it. I'm sure they have a data-secure method for getting rid of old machines.

So, all of this is a long way of saying we are making progress on cleaning things out around here.

One of our orchids, our Cambria hybrid known as Nelly Isler Red Velvet, has decided to bloom once again. It seems a strange time of year for an orchid to bloom, but who am I to question why? It last bloomed a little more than a year ago.

Last night I watched a movie called "If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium," from 1969. I have been curious about this film for ages -- it has a cast of thousands including Suzanne Pleshette, Norman Fell, Peggy Cass, Mildred Natwick, the folk singer Donovan and even Luke Halpin from "Flipper." I've never been able to find it in the past, but now (like everything else) it's on YouTube. It's a sort of humorous look at the early days of American package tourism to continental Europe. Many of the so-called "stars" barely have any lines, and it's not deep or meaningful by any means, but it's diverting.