Hi, there, Dear Reader. It’s early afternoon here in New Hometown, Florida on Saturday, December 5, 2020. Right now the temperature is 71˚F (22˚C) under cloudy skies. With humidity at 88% and the wind blowing from the north at 4 MPH (7 KM/H), the feels-like temperature is also 71˚F (22˚C). Today’s forecast: Partly sunny skies and a high of 73˚F (23˚C). Tonight, the skies will be partly cloudy, and the low will be 48˚F (9˚C).
Now that my Samsung 4K UHD TV and its compatible Blu-ray player are set up, I decided to treat myself to one UHD disc for my video library. I wasn’t going to do that until January; I have to send at least $300 to the credit card I used to buy the TV set with (It cost, more or less, $615) to keep my interest rate low and pay it off quickly. But when I saw that Saving Private Ryan was on sale at Amazon for $17.99, I ordered it.
Now, I already have Saving Private Ryan in the two older disc-based home media formats – DVD and Blu-ray[1] – but even though I don’t plan on replacing all of my 1080p Blu-rays on a 1:1 basis, I will probably get 4K UHD sets of my favorite films, including the upcoming 40th Anniversary re-release of the Indiana Jones films. Whenever possible, I’ll try to get new releases on 4K UHD discs, since many studios also include the “standard” Blu-ray disc and digital copy codes for Movies Anywhere.
According to Amazon, I will receive my 4K UHD Blu-ray of Saving Private Ryan tomorrow, which means that my UHD collection will consist of 16 titles. They are:
- Jaws
- Rogue One: A Star Wars Story
- Solo: A Star Wars Story
- Star Wars: The Last Jedi (Steelbook)
- Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
- Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga (9 films)
- Saving Private Ryan
- Superman: The Movie (1978 Theatrical Cut)
Oddly enough, when I ordered my UHD copy of Saving Private Ryan this morning, I felt a memory flit across my mind like an unwelcome intruder coming into my house – or, rather, the house where I live – through an open window.
It was an aural memory, which I don’t often have, in which I heard the voice of my half-sister Vicky saying, “Oh, Alex, couldn’t you have picked another title? You only watch war movies!”
This isn’t the first time that Vicky’s sardonic – and inaccurate – comment has crossed my mind, and it probably won’t be the last. I probably remember it because almost every time that I invited her to stay over and watch a movie from my video collection – which now consists of 316 titles – she would say that. It bugged me then, and it still bugs me now, so when I learned that Blu-ray.com has a Statistics page for members’ collections, I decided to see what percentage of my movie collection falls into the War category.
According to Blu-ray.com, this is how my collection is categorized:
In the genre labeled here as Other, I must include Biography, Teen, Musical, Documentary, Supernatural, Western, Coming of Age, Music, Heist, Holiday, Film-Noir, Dark Humor, Erotic, Imaginary, Foreign, and Martial Arts.
If you can’t see the label on the pie chart in this screenshot from Word, War only accounts for 3.4% of my movie collection.
Aside from that, I don’t have anything much to report. I did a bit of tidying up in my bedroom; mostly, this involved putting books and computer software that was “orphaned” when The Caregiver arbitrarily replaced an Ikea desk which was attached to a bookcase with a similar but smaller Ikea desk without the attached bookcase module. Of course, this means that many of my possessions are now in boxes – where they are of little to no use to me – or in various piles with some sense of organization.
Now, I freely admit that I am not the tidiest person in the world, but I don’t like my room to look messy and uninviting, either. So this morning I put all of my software discs in a plastic shopping bag and found nooks of my room in which to neatly stack my “orphaned” books.
See, this is why I regret not having the financial tools I need to buy – and maintain – my own house; I don’t mind living with other people. I lived with my mom for nearly 52 years, after all, and you could say I’m hard-wired to cohabit with others. But since I do live in a house that I do not own, I have to accept certain conditions that, if I had been able to remodel/renovate/keep my house, I otherwise could say “No” to.
Supposedly, I will be getting a slightly larger desk from The Caregiver at some point, but we’ll just have to see.
Anyway, this brings us to the end of another post in A Certain Point of View, Too. I hope that you, Dear Reader, are safe and healthy on this first weekend in December 2020. So, adios, amigos, and I’ll catch you on the sunny side of things!
[1] Saving Private Ryan was one of the first DVDs I purchased circa 1999, the year that I started my existing home video collection.
A Certain Point of View, Too 
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