By “inexpensive,” I mean, “less than two hundred bucks.” When my current TV dies, I’m not going to want to spend more than that on a replacement.
Daniel
Oooo! Me too! Only I’m listening to The Hobbit instead of listening to our vacuous AM rubbish. 
I’m still trying to decide if I want to read the LOTR trilogy after I’m done with The Hobbit or if I want to listen to them. Although I will say that Andy Serkis kind of ruined me for Gollum’s voice - the reader on the tapes doesn’t sound like Gollum “should” at all.
If we rent movies that are those two-sided DVDs, chances are great we won’t be able to clean it enough to be able to view the whole thing. Holding DVDs and CDs by the edges is har-rrd!
(“Licked” it - looks like they dipped it in ice cream and let the dog lick it off, more like.)
BwanaBob, I see you’ve met my b-i-l. Never lets logic or facts get in the way of a good argument.
I just ripped an audio book from the library (not to steal it, but to play once in my mp3 player and delete afterwards), and sure enough there was an unreadable track. Goddammit, this is a mystery book, there could be something vital to the plot in that bad link. PISSES ME OFF!
That’s when you whip out your clipboard and say, “So you’ve downloaded this before? And what’s your address? Are there any other Microsoft products you’ve downloaded at home?”
You’d probably see a guy-shaped cutout in the wall…
-Joe
If your TV lasts two or three more years or so, there will likely be some in that price range by then.
Sweet!
Daniel
Up until a couple of months ago, I would have stood with you, defending full screen because wide-screen was just too small for my poor eyesight. But I joined the ranks of the large, wide screened (HD, no less) and haven’t looked back. Go Widescreen!
Same with me, more or less. I haven’t got a widescreen TV yet, but as my TVs have gotten larger, I’ve enjoyed letterbox movies more and more.
This may, in fact, be the single wisest two-liner I’ve ever seen on this board.
A little library humor. If you haven’t discovered “Unshelved” yet, hie thee to Overdue Media . You can subscribe to it and have it show up in your inbox daily.
My DVD player has a magnify button - if you press it once when watching a widescreen, it blows up to pretty much the same size a full-screen movie would be (if the movie’s at a 1.85:1 aspect ratio). Best of both worlds!
I work in a museum which has a research library. It never fails to surprise me how many people are outraged they can’t “check out” an illuminated manuscript dating from the thirteenth century, or a box of letters written by a president.
“This is a library, isn’t it?” We’ve also gotten the “my tax dollars!” speech, but sorry, that don’t play here: we’re funded by private donors.
Our librarians have to watch patrons diligently because people will rip pages out of old record books to take home (like a phone book in a booth!) They will also try to underline or highlight in two-hundred-year-old books.
On my list of college “incidents” that just about everyone I know has heard me rant about involves an 1841 copy of Henry V that I found in the stacks at Alexander Library at Rutgers University (They had a LOT of old books in regular circulation). I was delighted to find this book, checked it out and took it home. I sat down in my dorm, opened it up, and discovered. . . .
Someone had covered it with blue highliter! A 170 year old book, and someone saw fit to highlight it!
Congratulations… you’ve caused a bigger shudder in me than any of the maggot threads ever did. Ewwwwwwww…
(We really DO need a pukey smiley, dammit)
In R.A.Heinlein’s The Number of the Beast the protagonists are, at one point, in a world that has “punishment to fit the crime” A quote from the book says “Arsonists are burned to death, poisoners are poisoned, and I won’t even describe what’s done to a rapist.”
So what would be a fitting punishment for someone who commits sacrilege against books? It would have to really hurt. Maybe being squashed in an old fashioned printing press?
For someone that highlights an antique book, you could write “MORON” on the moron’s forehead with magic marker. Permanent magic marker. This person would not be allowed to grow bangs.
For tearing pages out? Tearing off skin.
No. Tattooing the word “FOOL”.
Ah, you have to wonder at the people who feel they’re entitled to something. I work in a hospital which has a private medical library attached, intended for our staff and our students. It is located in an office/academic building that is part of the complex, but not typically a place for patients. The other day I was in the computer section of the library when I overheard a librarian talking with a woman on one of the computers. Apparently a student worker had mistaken this woman, either a patient or someone who walked in from off the street, for a staff member and had given her information on one of the “how to search on the Internet for medical info” seminars that the library holds. The librarian was trying to explain the mistake and that these seminars are for staff/students only. This woman was insistent to the librarian that since she’d been given the slip of paper with the information on it, this wasn’t her fault and that she would be going, and stuck with that argument like she was clinging to a sinking ship. I finally saw the librarian just (literally) back away slowly from this woman using the equivalent of a “finders keepers” level of logic. Lady, just because you found your way through a non-patient building and got someone to tell you about something does not mean you’re entitled to it.
The Nose-in-the-Book punishment!