Three Monkees & Me

It seems like the end could be drawing near for Three Monkees and myself.

I've loved running the shop for the last 3+ years.  It's been a lot of fun.  I love the various conversations I have through the day.. it tends to flip from Movies to Music to Games to Motorbikes and anywhere in between.  Unfortunately, there is one small group of people that just love to bring me down with their talk of piracy, illegaly downloaded movies, burning, copying etc etc, and I've finally gotten so worn down by them that I'm having a problem getting motivated.

I know I probably shouldn't let these people get to me, but it's hard to avoid it.

The other group is those who thing I am unjust in charging overdue fees.  If I charged ridculous amounts, then sure enough, but I get a two or three copies of a movie, and these people come in on a cheap day ($4), hire a brand new movie on the first couple of days it's in, and then don't return it for many days.  When I ask if they want to sort out the overdues, they whinge about how much it is... I only charge the amount that I've lost out on, it's not like I charge the full rate on cheap days etc.  Keep it 3 days, I charge the $12.  That's what I lost by them keeping it...I think that's pretty fair eh?

Rant, Rant Rah Rah!!  It's pointless... but it makes me feel better!  :^)  Just ask me about Telstra and ANZ!!!  B@st@rd5!!

Anyway.. I've also REALLY been missing my daughter.  I was her main carer for her first three years, and I loved every moment of it.. I thought taking on the business would be good while she was at school, and I could still do some web work on the quiet days, but it's getting more and more of a wrench every day, paticularly when I feel like I'm losing the fantastic bond we had.

So 2 + 2 + 2 = 6 and with a party that was interested in taking the shop on, I started to look into selling.  I should know within a week if they are going to proceed, if not..  there are going to be some pretty major changes ahead.

Yesterday, 14th August, Movies finally arrived in the Australian iTunes store.  But all wasn't well.  Most people probably wouldn't have even noticed that the upcoming Drillbit Taylor (with Owen Wilson) was available for purchase, although rental wasn't available until November 15th.

So what's the problem here?  Drillbit Taylor isn't actually released on DVD until 4th September. The implications of this are many, but from my perspective, they could have just killed off most rentals of this title.

The way I see it is this:  iTunes Movies are not a bad thing, I can't see it removing the need for traditional dvd rental stores just yet.  People still like to browse a library without using a mouse, and the prices are still competitive too, at least at my store :^).

What does concern me is that millions of people already have iTunes, which instantly means the piracy possibilities are increased.  A quick google search turns up tools to remove DRM from movies, and so the magnification of possibly piracy is many-fold.

In this particular instance, Drillbit Taylor could have been downloaded, un-DRM'ed, burnt to DVD and handed out amongst mates and family before we knew what hit us... and it's not out on DVD for another 2 or 3 weeks.

A lot of whinging to Paramount, Leading Edge and Apple saw this particular movie quickly removed from the iTunes store.. but I wonder if we hadn't kicked up a stink, whether it would still have been there.

I'd love to know who was at fault here.  Is this Paramount trying it on?  Or is this an honest mistake?  I guess we'll never know.

Did you know that we can order pretty much any CD/Game or DVD you may be after? Did you also know we stock (or can order) various musical accessories, including guitar, bass & mandolin strings, capo's, guitar leads & straps, slides etc. Did you know you can buy strings for guitar, bass and mandolins?  Or that you can access the internet too? Oh, and we can also offer Mac support!!!!

Games can often be cheaper than the likes of Big W, EB Games, WOW etc.  Because we order games direct from the suppliers, we get the latest prices, whereas reductions in the price of games are often not passed on directly when you buy from the main stores because they usually need to recoup their costs.  A recent trip to a game store in Coffs had games retailing for $99+, which I know for a fact had been reduced to $40.  It doesn't hurt to give us a quick call and ask us how much a game is to buy before travelling down to the coast.

Recent new games for rental include:

Grand Theft Auto IV (PS3 & XB360)
Ironman (PS2)
Bourne Conspiracy (PS3 & XB360)
Lego Indiana Jones (PS2 & PS3)
Metal Gear Solid 4 (PS3)

We are expecting a few more to come in this week, including:

Alone In The Dark (PS2)
Kung Fu Panda (PS2)
World Superbike 2008 (PS2)
Battlefield Bad Company (PS3 & XB360)

Once again we seem to have a large amount of movies arriving into the store...  as is usual, in amongst lots of average movies, there are a few worth watching.  The main movies this week are:

Dan In Real Life (Steve Carrell)
Walk Hard - The Dewey Cox Story
The Invasion (Danial Craig & Nicole Kidman)
Martian Child (John Cusack)
Blonde Ambition (Jessica Simpson & Luke Wilson)

My current pick of the newly released DVD's are:

Bella (Winner of Toronto's Peoples Choice award) and Noise (Tim Robbins).