Remember the VHS?

On Monday, I referenced an article that discussed the importance of expressive writing when dealing with difficult events.  The article also touched on writing about positive experiences and it determined that the timing of your writing is also very important.  It said that people should only write about happy thoughts on Thursdays at 9:00am.  Just kidding

The story brought up a study that showed that people who counted their blessings once a week increased well being.  The participants who counted their blessings several times a week did not.  According to the study, counting blessings too often led people to become bored with the practice and they found it less fresh and meaningful over time.

Although I think you can never spend too much time thanking God for your blessings, I can understand what they mean.  I can see how writing about blessings too much would lose some luster after awhile.

So I have decided to dedicate Thursdays on this blog to counting my blessings and I will be calling it Thankful Thursdays.  Another alliteration Adam? Alright, already.

Here goes the first Thankful Thursday:

Today I am thankful for DVD players.  Why DVD players you ask?  Seems like an odd thing to be thankful for, you say?  Yes, I suppose that it is a little odd, but let me explain.

I am currently in the process of helping my parents convert all of their old VHS tapes to DVDs.

On a side note, my parents have a VHS tape from as recently as 2011.  I didn’t even know that was possible.  I thought after YouTube was invented, VHS cassettes became illegal.  And it gets better…the thing that my parents thought was important enough to preserve for all of history and needed to be recorded onto a VHS was, get this, the 2011 MTV Music Awards.

Yes, you read that correctly.  I am surprised that my parents could find MTV on their television.  I think it is more than a few channels away from whatever station Diagnosis Murder is on.

Why on earth did they need to record this particular MTV Music Awards?  As far as I know, it has never been a family tradition to watch this any award show, much less this one.  The only thing I can think of is that they saw LL Cool J and thought it was an episode of NCIS: Los Angeles.

But that is enough about how hip my parents are, let’s get back to why I am thankful for DVD players.

Since I am converting dozens of VHS cassettes to DVDs, I have to rewind all the VHS tapes to make sure I record from the beginning.  Does anyone remember how long it takes to rewind a six hour long cassette?? About 12 hours, I think!

I’ve spent most of the other day just rewinding.  And after that I felt the need to unwind from a tough day.

Thus, I am thankful for DVD players which allow us to skip chapters at a time and also hit a menu button and automatically go back to the beginning of a video.  I already know the menu button will come in handy when my parents have a nice relaxing night of watching the 2011 MTV Music Awards.

That’s all for the first Thankful Thursday.  Let me know what you are thankful for in the comments section below.  Now it’s time to get back to rewinding!