I will be so happy when this new place adds subscriptions and alerts of friends’ posts, etc.

Patience. In due time. As WelshPixie says, they are big projects, and with any big project it’s better to be methodical to make sure it’s done right. That’s my usual approach, too.

Actually, that’s all right, because I think I’m dealing with a bit of writer’s block right now. Not that I am unable to write–obviously that’s not true–but I’m just not satisfied with what is appearing on the monitor. It seems my more creative thinking nowadays is in inverse relationship to my proximity to a keyboard. I don’t know. Maybe I’m being too hard on myself. Maybe I should just sit there, put on some music and let it loose.

Well, I can tell you about an experience I had today that I haven’t had in, oh, five years.

I had an eye exam.

It all started because the local optometrist asked me to come over a few weeks ago to do an article about a new piece of equipment he’s got that does a better job of detecting the warning signs of glaucoma. So I did that and got a picture and wrote the article. And while I was there, I decided … what the heck? I scheduled the exam.

I know, I know … five years is a long time. Next time, said the doctor, make it two years. What can I say? Sometimes I have more money than other times.

That was this morning. He said he liked my article. I told him how my vision seems to be changing–its’ getting harder to adjust from really bright conditions (sun on snow; oncoming bright headlights) to darker conditions (the office; the road at night). That’s part of getting older, said the doctor. Both my eyes and the darkening function of the lenses–they don’t darken as well over time, either, taking longer to adjust.

On to the exam itself. He discovered my prescription for near vision has to be strengthened … and the prescription for distance vision needs to be weakened. The frame selection was brief–the new frames are nearly the same as my old ones (light brown) with more rectangular lenses. The current ones are more rounded at the bottom. The new glasses should get here in a week to 10 days. Or thereabouts.

* * * *

Alice Springs. Wolverhampton. Duluth. Oaxaca. Buenos Aires. Mozambique. Yemen. Bangalore.

They are all places. But what do they have in common?

The answer: If you go there and buy a DVD and take to my house and stick it into a new DVD player I bought recently, it will play. It probably won’t play in yours.

This is my first “major” purchase in quite a while, bought about a month ago. I have wanted something like that for quite a while–but I didn’t know if such an animal existed.

It does. It is. And now it is hooked up to my TV.

Technically, it’s an all-region progressive scan DVD player. “All-region” means it will play a DVD from anywhere in the world–whether they were made for NTSC TV systems, like the U.S., Canada and Japan, or PAL systems, like in Europe, Australia and much of Asia.

I bought it–it cost well under $100–to watch DVDs from other continents.

I’d guess that 98% of the DVDs you see on the racks in U.S. stores are Region 1–which includes the U.S., Canada and Japan. The U.K. and the rest of Europe are in Region 2. Australia is in Region 4. Discs from those countries won’t work in a U.S. player–unless it’s an all-region DVD player like mine.

The other 2% of DVDs are Region 0 discs, which will play in all DVD players.

Why the different regions? According to Wikipedia, “The purpose of this is to allow motion picture studios to control aspects of a release, including content, release date and, especially, price, according to the region.” You can look at the different DVD regions in that article . Maybe too much information.

My fondness for cricket is behind my purchase. Just a few matches and events are available on Region 1 DVDs. The 2005 Ashes series between the U.K. and Australia being a notable exception along with various matches featuring India and Pakistan, for the ex-pats living in North America. But the 2007-08 Ashes series, played in Australia, is now only available in Region 4 (Australia–since England lost the Ashes again, they felt there was just a limited market in the U.K.).

It’s not that I plan to buy a lot of foreign discs. But I did buy a 1984 Australian TV miniseries about the notorious “Bodyline” Ashes series in 1932-33. And I have gotten two annual English “summer of cricket” multi-disc sets.

The Australians will be back in England this summer to defend the Ashes, and I’m sure someone will put out a nice multi-disc set after that, too. Even if it’s a Region 2 or 4 set, I’ll be able to see it–assuming I find a place that sells it, which really isn’t too hard.

But lest you think I’m only interested in sports, I’m also interested in foreign films. I have some favorite kinds. One are the Kurosawa samurai films. A lot of them are available on wonderfully restored DVDs here now, but I was also interested in several different versions of the 47 Ronin story. I have one from the ’60s “Chushingura,” in color) and the Japanese version from the 1940s–the first part was supported by the Imperial Japanese government in hopes it would rev the Japanese people up for World War II, but Kenji Mizoguchi (the director) made a very different story from what the government had expected. Part 2 was never made until after the war, in occupied Japan.

One other film genre I am particularly fond of are the German “Expressionist” films from after World War I and the early ’20s. Directors like Fritz Lang, F.W. Murnau and so forth. Thanks to DVDs, many restored films are available again, even to ordinary sorts like myself.

So I’m obviously fond of foreign films and the stories behind them. The sad thing is that I only can watch them by myself. My wife just isn’t interested. If I could ever find a “special friend” to do things with, watching movies together would rank at the very top of the list.