Blockbuster's Last Store Closes: Thoughts

     The last movie to be rented, in the last Blockbuster franchise open, was "This is the End". Fitting isn't it.

     I think they had a pretty good run. Let's take a quick trip down memory lane, explore the awesome things I remember about our popular rental store in a pros and cons(?) mash-up.

     God, where to start. I grew up in a small town in the middle of nowhere Vermont, that had no Blockbuster franchise available. Not that I could not watch the commercials on Sci-fi, and dream about the ultimate selection of games and movies available for just a few measly dollars. I shortly thereafter moved to Florida.

     It was a production really. My father would announce we are going out to eat or get ice cream at Ben & Jerry's down the street, and hit the Blockbuster and pick up some movies after dinner. He never really cared about how many movies or games, or combination of both that I picked up, and he even let me grab some candy and soda to take with me. To complete a really good night you had to finish up at Blockbuster.

     When we got home it would be a movie night. My parents would sit in front of the big TV in the living room, while I would go and park in front of the smaller one in my bedroom and watch the crappy movies I just rented. I was never interested in mainstream movies, so I always rented the worst B movies- sandals and sorcerer flicks I could get my hands on. Real crap.

     Deathstalker was the best kind of shit there was to watch. There was at least four of them I can remember without doing research. There was nudity. Sometimes the main character was the same, sometimes not. More nudity, and extreme violence. My parents would ask me what I rented, and I would always tell them something like, "The Secret Garden", or "Drop Dead Fred". Old movies at the Blockbuster by my house were $1.00 for three days. Three days! What a deal.

     Other local rental places were popular in pockets around town. One particular rental establishment was called Prime Time Video, and honestly, was much better than your average Blockbuster rental store. Unfortunately, I can't find any pictures or video of Prime Time Video, as it closed several years ago. They had a Game Trader section where you can sell your old games and get a new one for a decent price. Popcorn was free, and they had arcade machines and vending machine all over the place. Movies played on TVs around the store and you could test any video game you want to buy on one of their provided consoles in the game area. They were the only place I ever went to that had rare, obscure and PC games for sale and for rent in the same place. Prime Time Video: A relic of the past that will be missed.

     I will conclude this drunken rant with the following: Don't forget the rental places that first introduced you to certain movies and video games. Before Netflix and Google existed, you had to read the back of the box to make a choice of what you wanted to watch. God help me I can remember the carpet at Camelot Video in Cape Coral had special carpet that glowed under blacklight, and had movie-film-popcorn pattern to it.

The Bimini Road

Everyone has heard the story of the lost city of Atlantis, but what about the Bimini Road? In 1968 an underwater rock formation was found near North Bimini Island in the Bahamas. It is considered by many to be naturally made, but because of the unusual arrangement of the stones, many believe it to be a part of the lost city of Atlantis (first spoken of by Plato).

Another curious element of this mystery is a prediction made in 1938 by Edgar Cayce: “A portion of the temples may yet be discovered under the slime of ages and sea water near Bimini… Expect it in ’68 or ’69 – not so far away.” In a more recent expidition, amateur archeologist Dr Greg Little discovered another row of rocks in the same formation directly below the first, leading him to believe that the road is actually the top of a wall or water dock.

I'll explain why i posted this. Several weeks ago i read the book, Bermuda Triangle.

The entire contents of the book point out how fucked up Bimini Road is, why there are castles under water, and why no one has made a huge deal about this and explained it better. I live in Florida, I'm not far away and i'd love to see it for myself. Maybe ill spot some water zombies or something. Ancient power source? Sure.

Wiki Article on Bimini Road

Voynich Manuscript

This one is a hard pill to swallow. Almost as hard as flying Indian Nuclear powered death machines.

The Voynich Manuscript is a book written in an unknown language in the 15th century, and has never been deciphered. It contains pictures and diagrams split into chapters like Astrology, Botany, Cosmology with extensive maps. No Big deal right? Tons of old maps and things have been found over the years.

Nothing in this book makes any sense whatsoever. The pictures of plants alone are enough to make your nose bleed, with pictures of trees with unknown fruit, star clusters that don't exist, maps and formations that have never ever been found to exist on our world. The writing is nothing like anything we have ever come across, and has not been translated as of yet. Tons of money has pumped into programs to have it translated and its diagrams deciphered to no avail.

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Wikipedia Entry (super detailed) View the complete Manuscript here

Antikythera Mechanism: What!?

The Antikythera Mechanism is believed to be an ancient mechanical calculator (also described as a “mechanical computer”) designed to calculate astronomical positions. It was discovered in the Antikythera wreck off the Greek island of Antikythera, between Kythera and Crete, and has been dated to about 150-100 BC. It is especially notable for being a technological artifact with no known predecessor or successor; other machines using technology of such complexity would not appear until the 18th century. While a century of research is finally answering the question of what the mechanism did, we are actually no nearer to answering the question what it was for.

It's been shot with gamma radiation, taken apart, x-rayed and shown to have thousands of microscopic moving parts, gears, springs...

Okay so its way ahead of its time, and it tells time.. Does not belong in history anywhere at all.. I.. Umm.... . . .

Scientists can't explain it..

I'm confused.

Wait i think i figured it out. If the vikings... Sega Dreamcast.. Teen Wolf 2... . .. AHh!

Wiki Article

Vimanas: Ancient Indian Flying Machines

Vimanas are the mythical flying machines chronicled in the ancient Sanskrit epics of India. The story of the Vimana predates Christ by many thousands of years, and the Hindus of today’s India believe the existence and usage of Vimana to be historical fact. There is a plethora of ancient Indian literature which deals with the Vimana and its many aspects. Most of the epics await translation. One epic, titled Manusa, gives clear instructions on how to build the craft and the proponents that make them able to fly. Other texts have names such as ‘The secret of making Planes invisible’, ‘The Secret of hearing conversations and other sounds in Enemy Aircraft’ and ‘The secret of making Planes motionless’. There are many other texts about Vimana which are spoken of in the epics, but have not yet been discovered. Many texts speak of ships and planes with nuclear capabilities and a great nuclear war that took place. In the ancient ruins of Mohenjo-Daro, once part of the Indus Valley Civilization, 3000 year old skeletons where found with radioactivity levels that surpassed that of the bodies at Nagasaki and Hiroshima. The ruins themselves also emit high radioactivity levels. It is a documented fact that the city was destroyed suddenly.

The wording of the texts is highly technical, and speaks at a high level of intellectual maturity in areas such as physics and aero dynamics. One text of the Vaimanika Shastra, which translates as ‘Science of Aeronautics’, includes 230 stanzas, concerning aviation matters such as construction, take off, cruising for thousands of miles, normal and forced landing, protections of the airships from storm and lightening and how to switch the power source to solar energy from free energy. The same text describes at great detail the construction of the mercury vortex engine, which is the forerunner of the Ion vortex engine used today by NASA. In 1895, a Sanskrit scholar named Shivkar Talpade designed an aircraft based solely on the Sanskrit document concerning the mercury vortex engine. The unmanned craft reached a height of 1500ft.

Apparently these machines have been written about and discussed in great detail for thousands of years. Hell, someone made one and flew it.

Wiki Entry on the subject.