Black Bear Video: So Much Better Than Blockbuster!

Back in the early days of iBlog, I was working at Blockbuster.

You remember; once or twice a week I would bitch and complain about the customers or the company or whatever.

Ah, the good old days.

Turns out, moving to Kimberley further proved just how absolutely ridiculous Blockbuster Video and all the other corporate video stores truly are...

See, I now rent my movies at Black Bear Video and Books. Yeah, they have books too and by books, I don't mean magazines and I certainly don't mean porn like customers used to ask all too often at Blockbuster.

They also let me bring Luke into the store, provided he doesn't pee on anything like he tried to do today before Sarah whisked him out of the store to whiz.

Oh, they also sell the most incredible, homemade gellato I've ever tasted. Yeah, gellato, as in "better than ice cream" and they make it right there and it's cheap and delicious and awesome.

But the capper - you know, besides the clerks not wearing uniforms, trying to sell you everything from a $20 coupon book you're sure to forget and the annoying loop of crappy trailers blaring in the background - comes down to money.

Monday to Thursday, two new releases... $7. Yeah, seven dollars, also known as 93 cents more than it cost to rent one new release at Blockbuster. It's not like the price skyrockets on weekends either. That extra dollar they charge me certainly isn't going to break the bank.

And previously viewed movies aren't stickered arbitrarily and placed on a giant display wall; they're in a couple cool old milk boxes and are $5 each. Old, new, whatever. $5, as in "Today I bought Pineapple Express and Max Payne for $5 each."

One and for all, Black Bear Video has proven something that I knew all along: Blockbuster Video sucks balls.