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Old 02-23-2017, 08:41 AM   #155
Snakeadelic
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Join Date: May 2015
Posts: 660
Clod, the big problem with Blu-Ray is cost. I think between the two of us we get about $1500 a month, and my sweetie has a payee and must keep receipts and do monthly budget paperwork. It's worth it because the payee is legally responsible for making sure our rent and utilities are paid on time (the bill goes to them, not us), which is a huge relief since we both have occasional memory problems. We're already looking at replacing 2 computers, plus I need to buy a new external drive and pay the local shop to clone the old one onto it before I lose my several thousand pages of creative writing and a photo archive that's over 150,000 images. The external drive will be cheap; the shop help not so much. My tower, however, was not new 4 years ago when my dad up and gave it to me, and it only has an 80-gig hard drive. The fact that it won't even complete startup with my terabyte external connected leads me to suspect it doesn't have the power to copy that much data over even in small bursts. The terabyte drive is rapidly approaching 60% full, and I have over 2,000 images still on my big camera that I need to add to the burden.

Our TV is a "what can we afford" from K-Mart that we bought when our old wide-body developed a severe screen discoloration. That had been, we were warned, the LAST wide-body TV our area stores were stocking. The pawnshop does NOT have the ability to test big electronics--not enough space to arrange the store so the outlets would be accessible--and they do not offer any return or guarantee of functionality on anything. Plus, watching Forensic Files or some such and realizing they were profiling the brother of one of the married-couple owners for identity theft and credit fraud has made the notion of keeping a straight face in that place...unlikely.

Maybe once all the ancient computing equipment (my tower is the second-youngest device in the house behind my sweetie's gotta-replace-the-failing-tablet from last year) is dealt with we can look around for Blu-Ray compatible entertainment electronics, but we'll have to get a ride to the next county north to find a store big enough to carry those electronics. Our K-Mart is the only store in town with major electronics, and it is smaller than both of the grocery stores flanking it. Wal-Mart, Target, and Best Buy are all a 50-mile one-way, and neither of us trust our luck with electronics enough to order big ones online.

So maybe eventually we trade the Blu-Ray Potter set, or maybe eventually we buy the DVD version and regift the Blu-Ray, or maybe we eventually switch out the entertainment system for something a little less 2010-style. Only time will tell.
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