Purchase Diary 2013 – March

Skyfall (2012)


Mar 4th – €12.99 @ Drogerie Müller

Collection no. 1027

Men in Black 3 (2012)


Mar 4th – €9.99 @ Drogerie Müller

Collection no. 1028

The O.C.: Season 1 (2003 – 2004)


Mar 5th – €0.00 ($18.00) @ Amazon.com (paid via gift certificate)

Collection no. 12335 – 12341

Argo (2012)


Mar 27th – €9.99 @ Saturn

Collection no. 1029

Looper (2012)


Mar 27th – €12.99 @ Saturn

Collection no. 1030

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DVD Statistics 2012

2012 End Statistics:

New Purchase Items: 193 (144 in 2011)
New Movies: 185 (thereof Blu-ray: 121)
New TV Seasons: 59 (thereof Blu-ray: 7)
New TV Specials: 3
New Special Interest: 7

Money Spent: 2,302.31€ (1,755.48€ in 2011)
Money Spent on Movies: 1,413.72€
Money Spent on TV Seasons: 839.59€
Money Spent on TV Specials: 22.61€
Money Spent on Special Interest: 26.39€

Avg Spent: 11.93€ (12.19€ in 2011)
Avg Spent on Movies: 7.64€
Avg Spent on TV Seasons: 14.23€
Avg Spent on TV Specials: 7.54€
Avg Spent on Special Interest: 3.77€

Running Time: 62,355m (43d 7h 15m)
Running Time Movies: 21,056m (14d 14h 56m)
Running Time TV Seasons: 40,043m (27d 19h 23m)
Running Time TV Specials: 456m (7h 36m)
Running Time Special Interest: 800m (13h 20m)

Cheapest Item: Clerks (2.07€)


Most Expensive Item: Bond 50 (111.51€)

First Item: (500) Days of Summer (3.33€)

Last Item: Smallville: Season 10 (16.73€)

Purchase by Locality:
United States: 25
Canada: 13
United Kingdom: 75
Germany: 80

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Purchase Diary 2012 – October

Burn Notice: The Fall of Sam Axe (2011)


04 Oct – €7.27 (£3.92) @ Amazon.co.uk

U.S. Marshals (1998)


11 Oct – €4.80 (£2.98) @ Amazon.co.uk

Bond 50 (1962 – 2008)


11 Oct – €111.51 (£89.23) @ Amazon.co.uk

Leverage: Season 4 (2011)


11 Oct – €0.00 ($24.28) @ Amazon.com (paid via gift certificate)

UHF (1989)


11 Oct – €6.04 (£3.96) @ Amazon.co.uk

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TV Season 2009/2010 Diary, CW 12

Deutsche Version | CW 08-11 | CW 13

Gossip Girl 3×15 The Sixteen Year Old Virgin
Ah, curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal! Sometimes things are very predictable. OK, I did not see Chuck’s mom in league with Jack but since she is an adult, she wasn’t to be trusted in the first place…
But at least I’m into this show again and can enjoy all their plotting and scheming again.

Chuck 3×11 Chuck Versus the Final Exam
Chuck has lost something. If I had to put a finger on it, I’d say it lost its fun. Why does Chuck have to kill someone to become a real spy? He isn’t a Double-O agent (Was the bathroom scene a reference to the one in True Lies or Casino Royale?) and I can’t imagine that a kill test is part of the initiation ritual even in a TV show CIA. And if he fails they fire him? What about the Intersect in his head? Since when isn’t that a problem anymore? In the first season they wanted to throw him in a dark place in Nowheresville if they couldn’t protect him where he lived.
And what about Rome? Chuck living alone in Rome? Away from his friends, his family AND Sarah? What’s the point of being in Rome then?
Why does he need to be a “real spy” anyway? In a real-world scenario Chuck would be a great analyst; someone who stays in the Van and is the eyes and ears of Sarah and Casey in the field. He sees what they see and when he sees something important he flashes, informs them and they take out the bad guys.
I want the show be lighter again, more of the humour that made it so fun during the first two years. You can’t take it seriously anyway since there are enough plot holes in it to build a second Grand Canyon – I choose to ignore them as long as I enjoy watching the characters. But when they fail to shield me then the holes become even more visible.

Castle 2×17 Tick, Tick, Tick…
Whoa. What an end. Great episode. Even though I knew that the bad guy wasn’t dead the moment he moved away from the window I enjoyed this episode and Castle’s childlike excitement about all these new toys very much. Now I wonder how Beckett saved herself – I’d’ve jumped into the bathtub, it worked in Lethal Weapon 2. 😉

Life Unexpected 1×10 Family Therapized
If at first you don’t succeed, … This was definitively an interesting “re-start” of the show. Now the big question is what the characters will do differently now. But it was a good idea to let Lux burst a bit, the “Why did you leave me?” question had to come up at some point.
I’ll have to admit that I had my doubts but I enjoy this show more and more (with Lux and Baze being far in the lead in regards to character liking).

LOST 6×09 Ab Aeterno
When I read the year I was a tiny bit disappointed: 1867. I always imagined that the Black Rock was from the 17th or even 16th century. But he’s barely 160 years old!
And does this mean that the island was once in the Atlantic? We know the island can be moved but it was never established how far. But if the Black Rock sailed from Tenerife and wanted to get to America it hardly ended up somewhere in the Pacific (where it would have to be to “allow” a plane crashing on it that flew from Australia to L.A.).
This episode gave me not so much answers but more confirmations of theories. And that’s what worries me now. What if there’s no surprise anymore? There are so many theories about the island out there someone was bound to have the right idea. What if I already read the solution without knowing it?
I hope there are still one or two surprises on the road now that we’ve reached the halftime of this final season.

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TV Shows – A Decade in Retrospect

Deutsche Version

Since everybody seems to be starting to count at zero instead of one the first decade of this century and millennium is now over. So it’s time to recap these past ten years and take a look at the TV Shows it has given us.

Let me give my résumé at the beginning: Of the four decades I know TV Shows from (70s – 00s) this was without question the best decade for us TV junkies. When you read my review you might say in the end “Hey what about <insert your favourite here>?” (e.g. The Sopranos, Dexter, The Wire, Six Feet Under, …) but that’s exactly my point. This decade has given us so many outstanding shows that it was impossible to watch them all. Also, everybody has a different set of favourite genres but I’d say that every genre got their fair share of excellent series in the last years.

But let’s face it: There’s rarely any series (if there’s one at all) that could keep up the quality and its appeal for its entire run. Some had a bad year in between, some fell short at the end. But even in these “bad years” they had more quality episodes in it than entire shows from previous decades. So all the shows I am going to name have of course aspects that can be criticized and I invite you to do so.

For me the most outstanding characteristic of this past decade’s shows is that they are more often than not more about the “journey” of the character(s) than the actual events. It’s not the character who shines a light upon the unfolding events but it’s the events that shine a light upon the character and his development. I have to say that shows (hereby excluding comedy shows that work with stereo- and archetypes) that don’t have a real character development don’t interest me at all. But if the character development is interesting I might even watch shows from genres that usually don’t interest me at all.

If the character development is interesting enough I might even set the fact aside that my second favourite characteristic is missing: A real story-arc. The first TV Show in my TV universe that had a real story-arc, was Babylon 5. Later Star Trek: DS9 did the same albeit not in that quality and complexity. But these shows were two of the rare exception in the 90s (another famous exception would be Twin Peaks, but I never watched it). It seemed that viewers weren’t interested in either developing characters or story-arcs.

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TV Season 2009/2010 Diary, CW 43-44

Deutsche Version | CW 42-43 | CW 45

White Collar 1×01 Pilot
Someone mentioned that Chuck‘s Bryce Larkin would play a con man in the style of the epilogue of Catch Me If You Can. And I thought that I’d give it a try. So far I have to say it’s OK. As of yet I am undecided whether it’s a show for long-term watching, I will have to watch a few more episodes to decide that.

Castle 2×05 When the Bough Breaks
Richard Castle as possible author of James Bond books. That’d be the day 😀 I loved it how Kate’s and Rick’s relationship was developing forward without them actually doing anything in this regard.

Castle 2×06 Vampire Weekend
Despite all the references to the Whedonverse and Vampires, Lycans and co. in general, it was only an average episode. As I said before, Crime isn’t really my genre and this show has the disadvantage that there isn’t any additional drama outside the current case. I had hoped there would come something out of Castle’s discovery regarding Beckett’s mom’s murder, but they put that back in the box and forgot about it.

Two and a Half Men 7×05 For the Sake of the Child
This was a great episode, the two brothers worked very well as this old couple. I haven’t laughed that much for a while on TaaHM. “Things you would change about me? – Your address!”

Dollhouse 2×04 Belonging
A really great episode, written by Jed Whedon and directed by Jonathan Frakes. Again Echo is not in the spotlight, but Sierra and – especially – Topher. And it was one of the episodes where they seriously question the ethics and morality of the Dollhouse itself. They should do this way more often because therein lies the conflict potential of the show.

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