This is the first of my series of posts that will salute the passing or pending death of a technology entity. It could be in computer or entertainment form. Either way, it has changed how we view or use things.
The title of this post refers to Father Ted. Father Ted was a television show about three priests living on a remote island off the coast of Ireland. The show was friggin hillarious. I do encourage you to check it out. Here you can find a lot of clips on Youtube from the show. If you can just find a DVD set if it's available and watch it. Father Ted was a priest who wanted to be famous and used to lie a lot to get himself out of a bad situation. (A lying priest. Go figure!)
Father Ted was played by Dermot Morgan who died unexpectedly and so did the show after only three seasons. Therefore when we send off a technology legend, we will ask them to say "Hi" to Father Ted for us. (That show deserved at least another 4 seasons.)
Today's post honors Blockbuster Video. They are in ICU right now and will likely meet Father Ted in late 2011.
One can say that Blockbuster video is another casualty of the advancement of technology or the laziness of America. Depends on how you look at it. Blockbuster Video is dying a sad death. The one video store that had every movie that you missed and ever wanted to see and spawned more copycats than Britney Spears. The only thing that kept you away was that you had to actually get up and return the video before they charged you out the ass. I want to feel bad for this franchise that has been a part of America and beyond for twenty years but the fact is, they did not update itself to keep up with the increases of people who turned to the internet for entertainment. A sure sign should have been the amount of people who embraced and used Napster to get music and movies. Unfortunately, Netflix beat them to the punch and offered a product that could be accessed 24/7 and in some cases cheaper. What is even worse is that this whole situation with Blockbuster is sudden. Blockbuster sank just as fast as the Titanic since it was still a big competitor as late as 3 years ago. Instead the latest attempt to save itself is to offer the same services as Netflix with online movies as well as video on demand on your smartphone (my HTC HD2 has this installed). It's too late really. As far as the online video business is concerned, Blockbuster is Christina Aguilera and Netflix is Lady Gaga. Yes you are talented but we need something that is a bit more exciting and new and not currently making a sad attempt to keep up.
No matter what, it is another part of my childhood that is disappearing, which gives me sadface.
One last look:
As a very notable line from Father Ted would say:
"*Shaking fist at the sky* You bastard!"
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