My partner and I were in Steamboat Springs and the Blockbuster there was closing down and having a sale. We were fucking thrilled and bought heaps of DVDs. Be Kind Rewind actually was one of the films got on bluray! I know we got two blurays and a DVD of the Joseph Gordon Levitt/Michael Shannon bike messenger movie, Premium Rush, as part of an ongoing gifting prank. I also remember getting Persepolis and I know a few more too I just can't remember.

I feel weird guilt, some shame, and some sadness around that night. We were so thrilled to be getting these great deals, but in retrospect it feels like such a cheap way to be excited. I'm sure we only watched half the DVDs we bought, and while we still have them, they're packed away somewhere now, probably never to be used. It seemed like within a year we were streaming everything and I didn't appreciate that moment for what it was; the last time I'd ever step foot in a Blockbuster, somewhere that was very special to me and a place from my past I can never go back to.

In 2017, my favorite and the last remaining video/dvd store in town closed. The Village Vidiot had been in business  in Fort Collins for 25 years and sadly closed due to the property owners selling the land for a student apartment complex. My son and I went to their closing sale and bought a few classic movies we had always wanted.. The owner of the store, Scott Shepard knew his movies and could advise and recommend some of the more obscure but excellent films. Unlike the chain video stores  the Vidiot carried some awesome and obscure cinematic treasures  including foreign and  hard to find sci- fi movies.  It was the final blow to a short but wonderful  era when you could go to a video store, wander the aisles and search for a movie. I have fond memories of those first video stores in the  1980's I visited with  my young children. It was so exciting to actually see the boxes of movies on the shelves and wonder what magic  they would bring.  We were the ones looking for those movies in Beta format!! LOL