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Digital Killed The Video Store

Taken from The Ewing Observer

By Ryan McLelland

No longer can a Ewing resident look at someone and say, “Let’s go rent a movie.” Why? Because Hollywood Video, long a staple adjacent to the Shop Rite on Olden Avenue, and the last video store in Ewing Township, has gone out of business.

In the mid eighties, you couldn’t turn a corner in Ewing without running into West Coast Video, Star Video, the video store at Glen Roc or Blockbuster Video.

There was a huge celebration when Choices opened across from the old GM plant. The massive rental store brought in Philadelphia Phillie Von Hayes and the clown prince of baseball Max Patkin to celebrate the grand opening of West Trenton’s first video store. Over the years, Choices became Moovies which morphed into Video Update before being bought out by Movie Gallery who closed the store because they also owned Hollywood Video.

As a kid, I would walk down aisles in awe, looking at each videotape, wondering what I could rent this time around. Renting a movie was just as great as going to the movies, it was just as great as ice cream, and almost as good at getting McDonald’s.

But in the last few years, video stores have become obsolete. We can rent movies on demand the very same day they are available in stores. We can go to the grocery store and rent a new DVD from the Redbox for a dollar. We can shoot over to the Ewing Library and check out three DVDs for the weekend. Wal-Mart is selling brand new movies for $5 apiece. Even stores at the mall sell used DVDs so cheap that it is sometimes cheaper to buy than it would to rent the very same film.

One by one, the video stores dried up in Ewing. West Coast Video moved across the street only to close just a few years later. Blockbuster opened a second store near Marrazzo’s but just as quickly went away. The Blockbuster on Olden Avenue, where I worked at as a teen, was next. The places I revered so much growing up were suddenly dinosaurs in the modern technological world.

Customers weren’t allowed to walk down the aisles on the store’s last day. The shelves were near barren, quite an eerie sight for a place where you are supposed to go for movies. Anything left in the store was 12 DVDs for $10 - an amazing deal that I myself had to take part in while visiting the store. Some were in the store looking to buy the fixtures, completely unaware that they were picking the bones of the last place in Ewing to go rent movies.

The clerks behind the counter looked sullen. When I asked them if they would miss the video store, they said that they were glad the store was finally closing. After weeks of liquidation and hundreds of questions about their own futures, they would finally be moving on. When I asked them what their plans were they just shrugged, simply happy about this chapter coming to an end before going on to their next endeavour.

With Hollywood Video’s closing, Ewing residents have little choice but drive to Princeton or Trenton if they want to rent a film. Or they can do nearly a dozen different ways to watch a movie. Even my iPhone is filled with Pixar movies so I can hand it off to my son Tyler to watch while we are driving around in the car. When Tyler wants to go rent a video game for the weekend it kills me to have to tell him no. The thrill of walking down those aisles, looking at all those film and game boxes in awe, those days are now gone for all of us.

I got a few comments on the Role Models review about LARPing, women, and breasts.  Someone even pointed out 'The Real Girls of Gaming 2010 Calendar' to me.  Which, of course, ROCKS. 

So for those who want to see what some hottie LARPing women look like...and perhaps pick up one of the calendars, CLICK RIGHT HERE or visit http://www.alliancecrossroads.com/page/show/the-real-girls-of-gaming-2010-calendar

Jeff and Ryan are making a movie!

The flick is an urban zombie flick called ‘Reunion’ and we are trying to raise 10K for funding!  How can you help?  By clicking here: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/776564122/reunion-a-feature-length-horror-film

You can give a little, you can give alot, you can get a little out of the experience, or you can get ALOT!

Please give today…we really want to see this film come true!!!

I originally started this site as a blog for myself - just to talk about me and post up stuff that I like.

That's all about to change.  Over the next few months I'll be overhauling the site design and RIGHT AWAY will be stopping everything about ME.  Eye Wannabe is now going to focus on reviews.  TV, DVDs, Comics, Books, Music & MORE will be featured here on the site by a bevy of great reviewers (including myself!).

Should you follow the Electric Eclectic blogging on here - a blog has opened up dedicated to the radio show.  It can be found here: http://electriceclecticradio.wordpress.com/.  You can also find us on Facebook.

Should you have any questions feel free to drop some comments or hit up with an e-mail!

-Ryan

Here's out new promo for WTSR - put it to some pictures!!!

ALSO - we have a blog that Jeff set up for the show.  You can check it out at http://electriceclecticradio.wordpress.com/.

Bess Rogers will be LIVE IN STUDIO for our Christmahanukwanza show on December 19th!!!  Check her out at http://www.bessrogers.com .

I surely don't care that this is straight-to-DVD...it looks so kickassish!!!

Although (series creator Amy) Sherman-Palladino declines to detail her intended journey for Rory, suffice it to say it would not have involved her joining Obama on the campaign trail. And while she’s also mum on what she had in store for the rest of the Gilmore gang, she does hint that she “had planned different paths” for them, too. “I don’t want to totally say [what my ideas were], because if there is a movie in the making, I’m going to be basically delving back into where I left off, and then I’m kind of [screwed].”

PLEASE LORD...PLEASE MAKE A GILMORE GIRLS MOVIE!  Going to go get a super-large coffee, a shitload of Chinese food, and wait in line for it RIGHT NOW!

While it was actually revealed that the voting process was RIGGER (and NOT in Tara Normal's favor) - Tara Normal went on to win NEW COMIC OF THE YEAR at WebComicPlanet.com's People Choice Awards.

Congrats to Tara Normal!!!  And check out the comic FREE at www.taranormal.com.