Back in 1982, video tapes were expensive — $10 each if you got them in quantity, and that was back when $10 was a lot more money than it is today. So we taped everything at 6-hour speed, and whatever tape happened to have room on it got used; we made no attempt to put related items together. Some of our compilations are truly weird, such as the tape with two episodes of “Flickers” (from Masterpiece Theatre) surrounding Gorilla at Large (in 3-D!). I’d like to be able to consolidate the good stuff (yes, I realize that is a relative term), but the recordings I have are pretty bad already, and copying them would probably make them completely unwatchable.

I found a bunch of old episodes of SCTV, too, and I enjoyed going to the episode guide — reading the descriptions there made me chuckle. I wonder if the shows themselves are still funny, or if they’ve aged as badly as so much of Saturday Night Live.

The computers stayed off all weekend, partially in deference to Shabbat and Passover, but mostly because we had better things to do with our time (including Shabbat and Passover). We attended services on both Saturday and Sunday morning at Shir Hadash, a rather abbreviated Seder with our Havurah on Saturday night, and a complete Seder at home on Sunday night. Technically speaking, Reform Jews only recognize one Seder, on the first night of Passover, because there’s only one day of full holiday (just as in Israel), but most years, we go to at least two Sederot, one at our house and the other(s) elsewhere.

Wine of the Day

We had Baron Herzog Chenin Blanc at our Seder at home, and quite enjoyed it; it was fruity and somewhat on the sweet side, which went well with the salmon we had for dinner. We’d had Baron Herzog wines in previous years and hadn’t been very happy about them, but I’d managed to forget the bad experiences when I picked this one up; and at any rate, I was sure we’d like this far better than the traditional Manischewitz!

Movie of the Weekend

I made the mistake of not leaving the room when Jeffrey started watching the MST3K version of Hobgoblins yesterday. When Pearl took it out of the protective cabinet to inflict it on the Satellite of Love crew, I should have heeded the warning: “May cause blindness and death” — it certainly killed a couple of hours I could have spent doing something more productive, like collecting belly-button lint.