The "Seinfeld" DVD.

Somehow, I couldn't help buying the first "Seinfeld" DVD collection. I stopped by Borders for another purpose and there it was on one of the front tables, with an excellent price, so I picked it up. Once I decide to buy one thing, the chances of my buying any given other thing in at the store skyrocket. For some reason, I have no problem leaving with nothing, but I hate to buy just one thing. So if I'm going to buy one thing, it seems I have to find something else. Every other item near that item I've choosen suddenly becomes more desirable. Once I find the second item, I'm able to back off of this mania. It's basically an anything-but-one mania. Yesterday, what I picked up, from the same table, was "Eddie Izzard, Unrepeatable."

I sat down to read a few things for a while, because I had 20 minutes or so to kill before I needed to be at an appointment. A woman slumping in a chair near mine was reading "The Bush Survival Bible." She looked very glum. I tried not to let my get-over-it-already reaction show. The Democrats need to win new converts. How do they expect to do that as the Party of Deep Depression? And why mire yourself in books about your own oversensitive psyche? I thought the point of being on the left was your deep concern about other people. Sigh.

(I'd like to put in some Amazon/Borders links, but can't reach the site. Is Amazon down?)[UPDATE: Finally got through and have added links.]

So, the "Seinfeld" DVD. Seasons 1 & 2. That sounds like a lot, but it's just the first eighteen episodes. I watched the original pilot episode, with the written commentary on. These subtitles give you all sorts of trivia. It takes some doing to read this commentary and watch the show at the same time, clearly not the best way to savor the comic energy of the show, but there are lots of cool facts to absorb. Like: not only are they calling Kramer Kessler in this episode (because they haven't cleared the name Kramer with the real-life Kramer) but they considered calling Kramer Bennett. And: why Kramer had a dog just that one time. You can also get distracted trying to spot the 1 to 2 minutes of material that has been missing from each episode since its original airing. Unless you watch the DVD alone, there's sure to be a lot of talk in the room along the lines of: "Hey, that's it," "No, that's not it," "Yeah, I don't remember that," "Well, I do, that's not it."

This DVD collection makes a great Christmas gift, if you can avoid buying it now as a gift t0 yourself, as I did. If only I had one of those shrink-wrap re-wrappers and the will to resist blogging about the DVD, maybe I could have "re-gifted" this to one of my sons.