The Bus to the Train to the VHS to the DVD-R

Tedium, tedium everywhere.

On the Internet. In real life.

On the Internet you can try desperately not to end up obsolete, by downloading the latest dodgy OS system, updating the browser, and buying yet another fucking computer.

In real life...oops, how LONG have I had these VHS tapes? Long enough that I no longer have a means to dupe them, aside from taking them to some overpriced prick who'll charge a FIVERRR a minute.

Some have ended up haunting BOOT sales and other dubious places to get another player. Often they discover that people have chucked their obsolete shit rather than trying to sell it, and most charity shops REFUSE to take old electronics at all. Ebay? The last refuge. You hope to get a seller who actually DOES have a machine in "great condition" and it doesn't arrive broken.

Say you've got the VHS player. Maybe a few of them, since sometimes the heads aren't aligned, and what was recorded fine on one machine doesn't play back unless the OTHER machine has a similarly worn head. Great, you have a machine that plays the sound without a strange buzz, or the picture without some distracting problem. NOW what?

Maybe "you'll need a MiniDV camcorder with pass-through features or an analog-to-digital converter." Then you connect your VHS to your computer, and somehow capture everything in SOME file form or other.

You might spend half your day checking advice in a forum, or going to GooTube where some unsightly geek will tediously natter in a droning voice, and NOT get to the point. NOT for several minutes. When he finally does, it turns out he's obscure, illogical and inept.

Eventually the jerk either puts you to sleep or makes you want to knock every tooth down his throat.

There are crappy VHS-DVD machines out there, that supposedly are "easy" and "Good quality." You stick your VHS in one port, and your DVD-R blank in the other and...you get something pretty lousy as the result.

The old school digitizing method? Get one of THESE.

Run the VHS to the DVD-R like you'd run from the bus to the train, and make sure to make a SECOND copy on a different brand of DVD, so that you won't kill yourself if the first one gets scratched or gets some kind of fog on it or ages into extinction. And yeah, then run a DVD player into your computer and make a file copy at the best possible conversion your cruddy software allows. Which MIGHT mean that when somebody moves their hand, you see a ghost image of it. Or everything's just SLIGHTLY pixel-blurry if you have a very big computer screen. Go spend your life on a forum trying to get the "specs and codecs" just right.

Such is the fun of archiving, made even more fun by NOT really wanting to see this shit ever again anyway, and being reminded how long ago you exercised in the futility of making the recording and NOT ever watching it since.

But what else will occupy your time? Farcebook? Twatter?

It's enraging enough when you become acutely aware of some Barren Cock or Basket Case and have the urge to put on the Guy Fawkes mask and destroy them. But that's hardly possible most of the time, and dangerous. So you ignore.

And then there are people you THINK are on your side. Part of the team. Only they end up embracing a Barren Cock or some Demented jerk, and you have to let go. OR, they just become too inane and pesty to follow. An uncomfortable truth, is trying to explain WHY you were so treacherous as to STOP following some pal on Twatter. (The idiot, is of course compulsively anal about checking the FOLLOW/UNFOLLOW dashboard, and has noticed your awful-awful action and retaliated by NOT following you, AND by sending you a scorching email of anger).

Er, uh, well: "You post, like, 20 times a day, and often you reply to any of a dozen conversations you're having with your OTHER followers, and I can't keep track of it all. You Tweet 'I agree,' or "OK, how about five,' or "Lol, the sky's not yellow it's chicken!' - and I have no idea WHAT it refers to. Meanwhile, I only post ONCE a week and only something that IS an actual TWEET, and not something that could be handled by email."

FUCK OFF, you have made a mortal enemy for the rest of your life. Your "friend" is not likely to understand your LOGIC.

Or that YOU ARE BUSY.

And Farcebook? Same thing. Your "friend" is enraged because you haven't left NICE comments supporting every drivel-post, and "it looks like you aren't even READING my posts." Er, uh, well, YEAH, you got it. I put you on "don't follow, but don't un-friend, so I can read your garbage when I've taken enough drugs or alcohol to tolerate it and be prepared to be offended or bored." Not good enough. You're supposed to read the crap as soon as the asshole spurts it.

So it's back to digitizing. Christ, it's been a long time since I checked my VHS of going from the bus to the train. I wonder if it still plays.