Another Haul

In recent weeks, I have not bought so many VHS tapes really. I have bought one here and one there, but no place I went seemed to have very many that caught my fancy. That changed yesterday, when I hit up the used bookstore downtown for the first time in a while. They are richer in desirable tapes than abut any place I would go to outside of the Amoeba record store in Hollywood (which, it seems to me, I am overdue to revisit).

Initially, I grabbed eleven or twelve tapes, but managed to talk myself out of a few and ended up with a mere seven. I appreciate that I have done a somewhat destructive thing, because while it's true that I am being constructive in growing my collection, I am undermining my efforts to get on top of those tapes that remain unwatched. I have made strides, but they were all but wiped out with this shopping trip, I'm afraid.

I hit a few different genres. Three of the tapes fall under fantasy (Excalibur, Ladyhawke & Prehysteria), a couple under comedy (Reckless Kelly & The Sure Thing), and the balance under crime drama (an episode of Columbo & The Protector). Altogether it amounts to seven tapes, which I figure to take at least a week or two to get through. That is on top of the existing unwatched tapes, which I have no current count of. They are certainly some multiple of this purchase.

I really must put the brakes on my purchases until I can get even or at least close to it. The trouble is that my whimsy is very powerful, and my will is all too often very week. I can, as I did yesterday, resist the more marginal tapes, but the really promising ones will always master my best intentions of remaining austere. One must have flaws, this is one of mine, and it is nowhere near as bad as that of other collectors and other practitioners of more infamous vices.