Streaming is fine and all, but in all honesty?
Video rental stores are just the best…I felt this way as I was driving to get my morning coffee from Sidecar Coffee, and I had to stop by and drop off my movies I rented this past weekend at my local Family Video (John Wick and A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood). You know what’s special about that? Iowa is actually one of the fewer states left in the country that can STILL go to a video rental store as they pretty much don’t exist anywhere else.
It blew CC’s mind when I told her there was a video rental store still here, she even did a whole thing about it if you CLICK HERE.
Heading to Family Video was easily some of my favorite childhood memories…renting VHS tapes, Super Nintendo and Sega Games…and something about the atmosphere for the video store. Being surrounded by countless adventures on a disc and cartridge. Heck even when you rent a video game and look in the brightly colored box, you will see relics of gaming past where outlines labled how an NES, Genesis, and even Nintendo 64 game was supposed to fit…I love it so much.
Is streaming more convenient? Well duh…everything is at the click of a button…but something it missing when you are just sitting on your couch thumbing through an endless list of crap. Also with streaming, the more and more companies are jumping on the bandwagon of it all? The more money it is costing you in the long run, cause now you gotta sign up for 76 different streaming services. Think about it, do you REALLY want to pay $14.99 a month JUST to watch ONE TV series? Once you do the math…it’s a total waste, but you pay for convenience. This is why I have the DVD’s of Seinfeld, Futurama, and F.R.I.E.N.D.S…and most of the time, streaming CUTS CONTENT! For a time, there was just ONE…and that of course was Netflix, it had everything! Now? It’s just this, that, and some show I will probably never watch.
But at a video store? There is a sense of discovery…a one stop shop for your weekends entertainment, and with some Family Video’s even having Marco’s Pizza attached to them! Order your pizza, browse for your movies and video games, grab some candy and popcorn, and you’re all ready to go! It’s an experience that can’t be matched, and sadly has faded away from the majority of the country. But here in Iowa, we still have the luxury of Family Video in some towns.…sadly a good portion of them closed down recently (converted to Dollar Generals….ugh….no offense DG), including the one in CC’s area in Cedar Rapids, but in the Cedar Valley where I am at? I still have one just a few blocks up the road.
If that doesn’t convince you, consider supporting them as a business…who employ Iowans…Netflix, Hulu, etc don’t give a s*** about you…but the local video shop does.
Now go rent some movies, and make it a Blockbu….ummm…..Family Video night.
