Strange packages from persons unknown should always be regarded with suspicion, but as I am a curious person by nature (my great-great-grandfather was a cat) I couldn’t help but open it, which proved to be a long and arduous task as I opted to use only my tongue, rather than the more versatile and saliva-free hands I keep at the end of my arms.

Inside the package was a cassette tape, painted a variety of colors, but without any linguistic explanation as to its purpose or content. I assumed it was a gift from one of my fans, but then I remembered they were without capacity for thought, incapable of free will and basically only good for circulating air. No, this cassette tape was almost certainly from a human, probably a living one, and almost certainly residing somewhere on this planet!

I have really fallen in love with the Blu-ray. I tried to resist for a long time but I have given in! I am not proud of it. I often give myself a couple of years before I succumb to a new format. I was still buying cassettes in 1993 -- I didn't really trust the whole CD thing! I loved my late 80s and early 90s cassettes and wasn't really ready to jump to compact discs yet. I couldn't really afford it, really. I had spent years putting together my collection of cassettes, and I owned every Depeche Mode album on tape, as well as every Cure album and every album by The Smiths and Morrissey. I did finally switch over in 1993, long after most of my friends had moved on to CDs. One of them got me Staring at the Sea by The Cure as a gift, my first CD. I was, of course, hooked now. I loved that you didn't have to flip over the cassette! Most exciting was that you could skip to whatever track you wanted. And it did sound amazing. No more hissing of my old cassettes! This was still a while before digital music so I was still making tons of mix tapes, but it was now so much easier to make mix tapes from CDs. I remember how it was always hard to get the cassette to the right spot for each song when making a mix tape. I could now even program my CD player to play certain songs or play at random and I loved my new CD player! The same thing happened with DVDs. I was a big fan of VHS -- I still actually really like it. I grew up on VHS! Most of my first time viewing of some of my favorite movies was on VHS. I loved going to rent movies from various rental stores in all the different places I lived. I even worked at a VHS rental shop in San Francisco in the 90s. I loved buying cheap VHS from swap meets and thrift stores. I am a collector of my favorite things; I like to glance at my bookshelf and see all my favorite books alphabetized in front of me. The same goes for my VHS, cassettes, and vinyl. I never really gave up on these old formats. I just added the new format to the list of one of the things that I collected.

There is a new Nas album out this week, but that is about it. Nothing much else for me to share with you. The big albums might not be coming out every week, but the big summer movies continue to come out. Both the new Batman movie, The Dark Knight, and the movie version of the musical Mamma Mia! come out this weekend. As a huge fan of both Batman and ABBA, I will be seeing both of these movies as soon as I possibly can. The week after this weekend is the release of the new X-Files movie, I Want to Believe. Some people may not like that they keep making movies out of old TV shows, but I would much rather see an X-Files movie with the actual cast than a remake 10 years down the road starring new 20- something actors in the roles of Mulder and Scully. You know it is going to happen. They did just remake Get Smart into a new movie with new actors, and Hollywood seems to be constantly turning old TV shows into new movies. But they usually don't work out so well-- The Dukes of Hazzard with Jessica Simpson and The Beverly Hillbillies with Jim Varney are two bad examples. It did have both Lily Tomlin and Dolly Parton in the cast, so I guess it wasn't all bad. Still, sometimes these remakes work out beautifully, like the big screen adaptations of Charlie's Angels. I also have to admit that I like the Brady Bunch Movie as well, and I am looking forward to the Wonder Woman and A-Team movies. I just hope they don't make Jake & the Fatman or Head of the Class into big screen movies. But a Murder She Wrote movie is not such a bad idea. I bet it would actually make some fantastic money among the senior set. Unfotunately I think they waited too long to make a Golden Girls movie. The Get Smart movie actually worked. I know there were a few people out there that did not like it or decided to not give it a chance, but I think Steve Carell and Anne Hathaway could do no wrong. Without them in it, I seriously doubt I would have even seen it.