theloneliestmonk's Profile

I've been using my laptop for watching movies and television since before I digitized my CDs and sold 'em, since before I got rid of my land line, since before blu ray became the next betamax.

Unless I come up with the dough to build a theater style screening room, I'm planning on sticking with the laptop.

And I love what Netfix is doing with movies/television on demand.

First let me just say that when I wrote my top five list it didn't even occur to me that I should include "clean your damn apartment" on the list. Cleaning the place up just didn't seem like a "thing" to me; a thing to do perhaps but not a thing. Plus, as Anthony Bourdain said, if a restaurant can't be bothered to clean its bathroom -- and they know we are going to see that disgusting mess -- we can only imagine whats going on in their kitchen, which is kept out of our sight. In other word, if your potential lover's bathroom is a polio pond, you can pretty much guarantee that his junk is gonna smell like cheese.

Secondly, I really had no idea the turntable comment was such a raw nerve. But I'm glad to see that its caused a nice, sometimes heated but civil, discussion. Let me clarify my own position. I am a lover of music in all its glorious formats. I own several ipods and my laptop connects directly to my stereo and pumps tunes throughout the apartment. In fact, I most often listen to music digitally. That said, I think any serious music lover will agree that when we put a record on the turntable we simply listen to it differently -- giving it more of our immediate attention -- than when we have music playing off a laptop or ipod. I think the movie analogy that was made earlier in the thread is apt. There are many ways to watch a movie, in fact I sometimes even watch them on my iphone because it is convenient. But seeing a movie on the big screen, where we know we can't pause the action, forces us to give ourselves over to the experience, allowing us to fall more deeply into the story and thereby rewarding us with a richer experience. In this way it is a more sensuous experience, similar to the way we look at a new lover, giving them our full attention and not taking them for granted... yet.

Reasonable people can agree to disagree about these things, the lists were personal, and I've enjoyed reading all of the idiosyncratic things that others have suggested. There is only one post that I feel the need to address directly, because this person is so wrong it hurts. Hurts to the very core of my being. And that is the sub-human that referred to Al Green as "cliche." You my dear are beyond hope. I should wish a pox on you, but for the fact that if you can't appreciate that the first five tracks of this album are as perfect a movement of music as has ever been created in the beautiful idiom of soul, then you are already suffering the worstes of curses.

- Russell