Just the thought of the big crowds in the movie theaters this weekend made me glad to have four DVD rentals to watch. The movie I really wanted to see was playing everywhere, on multiple screens at multiple multiplexes. I’ll just let everyone else see it first, then sneak away during the week some time soon, when I have three or four hours to spare. It’s not as if any surprises are going to be spoiled, since I’ve already read the book and know what happens.

So you can imagine my dismay when two of the four rentals turned out to be defective. I thought there might have been something wrong with my player, but the other two were fine. Both of the bad ones were recently released classics from India, so I can’t believe that too many people have had their hands on them to scratch them up so badly. Just a run of bad luck, I guess.

It’s probably for the best, since I have a hard drive load full of programs that TiVo has recorded for me. I never seem to get around to watching everything I record before the machine takes a notion to start deleting. It’s a tradeoff that I’m forced to make. I can’t spend all my time watching TV, so I lose something here and there. I get this tremendous sense of satisfaction when I get all caught up and there’s nothing left on the hard drive to watch. It’s weird, I know, but I can’t help it.

Both of the bad DVDs were two and a half hour movies, so I suppose I could say I saved myself five hours. That’s five hours that can be put to better use sleeping, especially since I have to get up alarmingly early tomorrow. And maybe it’s better to be caught up on EastEnders. (Caught up through the fall of 2001, that is. That’s how far along the local PBS station has brought us, what with interruptions for pledge drives and Peter, Paul and Mary marathons.)