is Betty Draper misunderstood?; the end of cable TV?; why never to throw away someone else's action figures; more: leftover links

Blockbuster bankruptcy? Good riddance to bad rubbish. Between relentlessly running small mom-and-pop video stores out of business (the same boo-hoo to you, too, Borders and B&N), Byzantine rental policies, and the need to censor what a customer wants to watch, the only downside I see here is more empty real estate.

OTOH, a dead Hollywood video here in Tucson will soon be the new home of a Five Guys Burgers and Fries restaurant.

Between relentlessly running small mom-and-pop video stores out of business (the same boo-hoo to you, too, Borders and B&N), Byzantine rental policies, and the need to censor what a customer wants to watch, the only downside I see here is more empty real estate.

So an increase in unemployment stats in the midst of a questionable economy is a good thing?

Incidentally, it's worth noting that the same market forces that are putting Borders and B&N out of business (for example, the growing popularity of Amazon.com and Kindle) are also forcing independent bookstores out of business. So much for win-win scenarios.

Perhaps in a little while we can go completely to software-generated women and stop pretending that the images on posters are of human beings. (When Burn Notice feels it has to edit the belly of Gabrielle Anwar - not, by anyone's metric, a fat or ugly woman! - things have gone ridiculously too far.)

The BBC is horribly mired in its move to DAB for radio broadcasts - a standard that for most people gives lower quality than the existing FM system, and which was obsolete even more they committed to it - and wants to avoid another such TARFU.

I will be surprised if newspapers last that long - not because of the physical format, but because they have become nothing but recyclers of other people's stories (either the TV news or press releases). They no longer have anything to offer. They mostly don't bother to employ journalists now!

Expecting toy companies to be anything other than hyper-reactionary is a mug's game. Remember the Barbie Liberation Front?

"wherein any woman who was sexually active got axed (or knifed or strangled or garroted)" ... seen an episode of CSI recently? Any woman who's sexually active outside a "normal" marriage is usually either the victim or the killer.

Can't cry over Blockbuster, but I suspect that the demise of shopping-mall DVD rental will give even more power to Wal-Mart (as the biggest mall DVD sales outlet) to push down the acceptable ratings of films.

The Barrowman article links to a mention of the Doctor Who split season, and "An enormous game-changing cliffhanger that will change everything". No, Steven. Too much. Just for once, let's have a baddie who doesn't threaten the entire friggin' universe.

The Fall of Blockbuster is much like the fall of the old record stores: my teenage years were spent at a wonderful little mom & pop used record place (Dunedin's Record and Tape Outlet) that specialized in British imports and bootlegged audiotapes from live concerts. It survived the advent of CDs to some extent, but when CD-Rs came about the store seemed to up and die. I'm pretty sure if they'd survived that, the MP3/iPod revolution would have wiped them out.

@RogerW:

(When Burn Notice feels it has to edit the belly of Gabrielle Anwar - not, by anyone's metric, a fat or ugly woman! - things have gone ridiculously too far.)

is there a link to that article somewhere?

bronxbee, I'd misremembered it - they were making her look fatter.

http://thecathoderaychoob.wordpress.com/2009/02/07/gabrielle-anwars-freaky-naked-torso/

@RogerW: just opposite sides of the same coin -- no matter what kind of body a woman has, the media has to muck around with it.