Watch Where You Stand

I'm getting down to the last few holdouts in my quest to replace all my VHS videos with DVD copies. All I have left are the movies I was in no rush to replace and a few harder-to-find films, while the rest are old Celtic or Patriot games I'm going to have to copy over with a DVD burner. Now, among these harder-to-find movies is an old Steven Wright comedy special I recorded off of HBO when I was like 10. I was originally planning to burn it over to DVD myself, but the tape quality has really gotten worn out over the years and I'm not sure how good it would look if I did manage to switch it over. I was concerned about being able to finding the special on a DVD until I discovered Newbury Comics (which has really been helpful in this quest because of their huge used DVD selection) has a section of comedy special DVDs, separate from the rest of the regular-length comedy movies. Armed with a gift card I received for Christmas, I went down and wandered around until I found myself standing in front of the comedy shelves, at which point I started to look through them alphabetically and pause to take out a couple that caught my eye. (They might not have been the one I came looking for, but that doesn't mean I wasn't still interested.)

After the third shelf of comedy DVDs, I continue my browsing to the fourth shelf, at which point I notice a dramatic shift in content. Apparently, right after the comedy DVDs on the same rack come the adult movies. It is at this point I realise that not only am I standing in front of the porn shelves, but I've been standing there for a few minutes. This looks bad. Even worse, I appear like the kind of person who has no problems buying porn DVDs from an otherwise normal store, someone who is very selective about their porn, and who also has no qualms about buying it in the middle of the afternoon on a Thursday. I immediately began wildly looking around the store in case anyone I knew was in there and I was filled with the urge to yell ouy, "I'm just looking at the comedy DVDs!" Instead I high-tailed it out of the section and just ended up buying a used copy of Ace Ventura. I didn't find the Steven Wright and don't expect me to look again soon. (I think if you spend to much time in the porn section you end up on some kind of list.) Also, next time I go back and look I think I'm going to make a loud show of asking someone who works there if they could show me where the comedy special DVDs are. At least then people will know what I'm doing over there.

-Earlier this week it was announced that the field in this year's NBA Dunk Contest will consist of the Clipper's Blake Griffin and three other people. Alright, maybe that's not what the announcement said, but from the way people have already declared Griffin the winner it may as well have. Look, I get their excitement: Griffin is a great athlete and a freakishly good dunker. He doesn't jump around guys - he goes over and through them. He is this generation's Shawn Kemp. That being said, I don't expect him to wow us in the dunk contest. Griffin's best highlights are the ones where he jumps so high his eyes are above the rim and he throws the ball in on the heads of three other people. In the flow of a game, his dunks can be awe-inspiring. The thing is, the dunk contest doesn't work like that. Instead you run up and try to put the ball through your legs and behind your waist (or something to that effect). It's more style than power and Griffin is a power dunker. What works in a game doesn't translate to a dunk contest. (Which is half the reason the dunk contest stopped being cool three years ago.) I'm happy Blake is at least willing to give the contest a try and because a lot of NBA fans are sheep who go for big names over the best players he might even win behind the strength of the fan voting. I just don't expect him to unleash some sort of sport-altering dunk and neither should you.