reports from a video collection

[Guest guest]

This is my summer update, sort of.I am still doing the summer project, trying to bring some order back to the video (vhs) collection while putting it on dvd in the same process. Now, with less rain and substantially more heat it may seem less perfect, but it's still funny. Let's face it, I am not a beach loving person... In fact, it's even more fun than I expected. To start with it was more a case of: It needs to be done, and I have, finally, both the energy and inspiration to do it, and the time on my hands, so let's get it done. But re-watching all those recordings have been enormously entertaining (not that I am even close to be done yet...).I started with the tapes that has some sort of labeling on them, saying something of what's on them. That way I figured I could make sensible matches, or try to (like: Ok, this tape holds the summer Olympics 1996, and on this tape it's Olympic soccer 2000, let's combine that into an Olympic theme). Of course, the labels are not always complete or even reliable. Quite often there is something extra, something that I have recorded but not bothered putting on the label (because the information would be in that video database I had anyway...). And sometimes something else has been recorded over what was once there. But it's at least sort of correct in most of the cases. And I dreaded the half of the collection with no labels whatsoever...However, I came to feel that since I dreaded the no-label part of the collection so much I would probably lose inspiration to go on once they were all that was left... So this week I started working on that half instead. But already day one with that I discovered that not knowing at all what I'd find was even more fun (believe it or not), and my once dreaded part of the video collection now goes under the name "The surprise tapes"...For instance, I came across a recording of the news from 10 years ago, where you can see and her family having a picnic at an outdoor concert... I recorded the news for other reasons (I didn't know that story was going to appear). was with her family on her own because I was working and couldn't go with her, she went down there because of someone's birthday I think. And I still remember both how much fun it was to completely unexpectedly see her and the others in the evening news (the story was on the concert), and also how confused and perplexed was when she called that night (when we are away from each other we call each other at least once a day...), and I said something like: "Looked like a nice picnic you had outside the castle, with your mum's barbecued chicken and all, wish I'd been there..." was like: "What...? How...?" And I made a joke about having spies everywhere, usually disguised as TV-crews... But I actually did not remember that I still had it on tape somewhere. And then there is the fun in trying to second-guess your own "clever" markings from several years ago. That is, some tapes I have, while not labeled, "marked" somehow. In ways that probably did make sense when I did it, but... Like on one tape there is a sticker reading "E-240" (that's the type of tape). And the only possible reason I could have had to put it on the tape is to mark it as "this is the tape that..." (but what?) or maybe just "don't record anything on this" , and the "E-240" thing was probably the only sticky thing that could create an identifying mark, within reach at the moment. Several years later though, the message does not come through quite that glass clear... But it IS fun to guess, and once I see what's on the tape I usually either remember or can figure out what the marking stood for...Hope everyone else is having a great time too!love/Reb - who had to interrupt the writing of this to save the kitchen from being completely flooded (one of the windows was wide open) in a sudden but much longed for thunder storm. And it's windy, too, I had almost forgot about the possibility for air to move at all... Could THIS be what's going to bring us cooler weather...