Rarebird's Rock and Roll Nest

It is the end of (another) era. After 25 years, Netflix has mailed out DVD movie rentals for the final time on September 29, 2023. Netflix began their service of renting DVD's by postal mail in March of 1998. The company says that Beetlejuice was the first DVD title rented through the service, at a time when DVD was a new medium, and only about 300 DVD titles were available. The company has posted a video on YouTube bidding farewell to their DVD-by-mail service, also known as DVD.com: As depicted in the video, the company's DVD service began way back in the days of dial-up internet. My personal Netflix experience began in 2005, when I signed up for the service after a long-running brick-and-mortar video store in my city finally closed down. When that store ceased to exist, and I no longer had access to its reliably large selection of hard-to-find video titles, I did not think I would find a good replacement for it, since a brick-and-mortar video store of the same caliber...

Haircut One Hundred were a fairly short-lived English band from the early-'80's new wave era. The sextet's 1982 album Pelican West -- their only album released in the U.S. -- spawned two American radio hits in "Love Plus One" and "Favourite Shirts (Boy Meets Girl)", which were infectiously droll ska-influenced pop numbers with irresistable hooks and horns. "Fantastic Day" (a U.K. Top 10 single) and "Calling Captain Autumn" are almost as good, but most of the other songs on Pelican West are less catchy and memorable, especially when they venture into funk territory (where "Love's Got Me In Triangles" plods). Although it falls short of essential new-wave classic status, the album is still a pleasant happy-go-lucky pop offering, particularly well-suited for late-summertime listening. In any case, Haircut One Hundred have reunited (not for the first time) as of 2023, with a lineup featuring four of the six members who pl...