A happy holiday was had by all. I got some very cool stuff. Lots o CDs, DVDs n Books. The kiddos got sweet stuff as well. I took the week between Christmas and New Years off this year, so it's even sweeter.
The clouds finally cleared this evening so I was able to spot a few satellites. Yay! It was cold and I swear that my watch is off by a few minutes, but I sync'd up my computer using Tardis and the watch shows that it is within 20 seconds or so. So I dunno.
Here's the time-line for the evening of:
Date: 27-Dec-2010 Monday
7:03 PM - Cosmo-SKYMED 1 - 2.6 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2007-023-A
This is my eighth sighting of SkyMed 1, the Italian earth observation satellite.
7:06 PM - Cosmos 1603 - 3.6 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1984-106-A
This is my first sighting of Kosmos 1603, a Russian Tselina-2 ELINT satellite. This was the first Tselina-2 satellite to be put into orbit. It was put into orbit using a three stage Proton-K rocket with a Blok-DM-2 upper stage.
7:22 PM - Cosmos 1536 Rocket - 3.8 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1984-013-B
This is my first sighting of this Tsyklon-3 rocket which was used to put the Russian Cosmos 1536 Tselina-D ELINT satellite into orbit.
Monday, December 27, 2010
Saturday, December 18, 2010
Family Fun and 1 sat
Tom and Amy came over with their wonderful kids. We all got to run and jump and play. We also had tasty pizza. Papa Murphy's really is da bomb (though this one seemed a bit greasier than usual.
After they left the Mrs gave our kids a bath. I put lil A to bed.
I went outside, armed with a list of 10 satellites to look for, around 7:10pm. It was probably in the teens. Luckily, I managed to find a scarf that I've had since I was 10 (it was way too big then, but fits pretty good now). It is a good scarf and it kept my face warm. However, there were some spotty clouds, the moon was fairly bright and the sky was a bit whitewashed, so I only saw one satellite this evening. Glad I saw one 'cause I would have been a bit preturbed to stand outside for a half hour to see nothing.
Here's the time-line for the evening of:
Date: 18-Dec-2010 Saturday
7:35 PM - Cosmos 1125 Rocket - 4.2 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1979-078-B
This is my first sighting of this Kosmos-3M rocket, which was used to launched the Russian Stela-2M military communications satellite. Of note, the Kosmos-3M rocket has been involved in a few accidents. In 1973 a Kosmos-3M rocket exploded and killed 9 people. In 1976, another Kosmos-3M exploded killing another 9 people. Overall, however, the Kosmos-3M is fairly reliable with 424 successful launches and only 20 failures (a 4.5% failure rate). The first flight of a Kosmos-3M occurred in 1967. The most recent flight of a Kosmos-3M occurred in April 2010.
=-=-=-=-
Also, I just read that Captain Beefheart (Don Van Vliet) passed away due to multiple sclerosis. RIP.
After they left the Mrs gave our kids a bath. I put lil A to bed.
I went outside, armed with a list of 10 satellites to look for, around 7:10pm. It was probably in the teens. Luckily, I managed to find a scarf that I've had since I was 10 (it was way too big then, but fits pretty good now). It is a good scarf and it kept my face warm. However, there were some spotty clouds, the moon was fairly bright and the sky was a bit whitewashed, so I only saw one satellite this evening. Glad I saw one 'cause I would have been a bit preturbed to stand outside for a half hour to see nothing.
Here's the time-line for the evening of:
Date: 18-Dec-2010 Saturday
7:35 PM - Cosmos 1125 Rocket - 4.2 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1979-078-B
This is my first sighting of this Kosmos-3M rocket, which was used to launched the Russian Stela-2M military communications satellite. Of note, the Kosmos-3M rocket has been involved in a few accidents. In 1973 a Kosmos-3M rocket exploded and killed 9 people. In 1976, another Kosmos-3M exploded killing another 9 people. Overall, however, the Kosmos-3M is fairly reliable with 424 successful launches and only 20 failures (a 4.5% failure rate). The first flight of a Kosmos-3M occurred in 1967. The most recent flight of a Kosmos-3M occurred in April 2010.
=-=-=-=-
Also, I just read that Captain Beefheart (Don Van Vliet) passed away due to multiple sclerosis. RIP.
Friday, December 17, 2010
1979!
Got to go out for about 10 minutes (which was plenty 'cause it was COLD outside, probably around 20 F. Brrrrrr. My goal was simply to see as specific object which was launched in 1979. And I got it. Take that space junk! Only 10 more years to go!
Here's the time-line for the morning of:
Date: 17-Dec-2010 Friday
7:09 PM - Resurs 1-4 Rocket - 2.1 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1998-043-G
Ahhh, another sighting of ye olde bright and faithful. This is sighting number 23 of this Zenit-2 rocket.
7:12 PM - Meteor 2-5 Rocket - 4.2 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1979-095-B
This is my first sighting of this Vostok-2M rocket, which was used to launched the Russian Meteor 2-5 meteorological satellite into orbit. Some Vostok-2M trivia for ya: 1) The first Vostok-2M launch occurred in 1964 to launch Kosmos 44 (one of the original 'old' satellites I was trying to see) 2) In 1980, a Vostok-2M scheduled to launch Kosmos 1169 exploded on the launch pad during fueling, killing 48 people.
7:12 PM - IRAS - 4.8 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1983-004-A
This is my second sighting of the Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS).
I still need to see satellites from the following years: 1958, 1959, 1960, 1962, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1973,and 1979.
Here's the time-line for the morning of:
Date: 17-Dec-2010 Friday
7:09 PM - Resurs 1-4 Rocket - 2.1 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1998-043-G
Ahhh, another sighting of ye olde bright and faithful. This is sighting number 23 of this Zenit-2 rocket.
7:12 PM - Meteor 2-5 Rocket - 4.2 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1979-095-B
This is my first sighting of this Vostok-2M rocket, which was used to launched the Russian Meteor 2-5 meteorological satellite into orbit. Some Vostok-2M trivia for ya: 1) The first Vostok-2M launch occurred in 1964 to launch Kosmos 44 (one of the original 'old' satellites I was trying to see) 2) In 1980, a Vostok-2M scheduled to launch Kosmos 1169 exploded on the launch pad during fueling, killing 48 people.
7:12 PM - IRAS - 4.8 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1983-004-A
This is my second sighting of the Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS).
I still need to see satellites from the following years: 1958, 1959, 1960, 1962, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1973,
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Geminids!!!
The Geminids (a December meteor storm whose focal point is the constellation of Gemini) peaked on the morning of December 14th. I had kinda planned on trying to see a couple on my way out to the car to go to work. However, around 5:30am the Mrs came in and told me to get up with lil N who had been up since 4am (ugh!). At first, this was a big drag. However, it was a blessing in disguise. I went into the kitchen which faces west and looked out the window. And that's when I saw my first Geminid meteor. Looking through the window was a bit difficult at first since the lamp in the other room was in the wrong spot and was reflecting regardless of where I was. I finally went in and switched which lamp was on. Eventually lil N inquired what I was doing. I said "I'm looking for shooting stars". And she said enthusiastically "Reeeeallly?" And I said, "Yes. Do you want to sit with me and watch some?" She said "YeahhhhhH!". So I turned off the TV and all the lights, opened up the blinds on the sliding door which faces west, put two chairs right in front of the windows, sat her down and pointed towards Gemini (just above Orion) and said "Watch right up there". I no more than sat down and "woooooosh!", a bright white shooting star streaked to the west, leaving a smoke trail (which quickly went away) in its path. Lil N exclaimed "I saw it, I saw it!". I was so happy that she got to see one. And it was the best one of the morning. Yay! After about 5 more minutes, lil N started freaking out a bit. Turns out she was a little scared of the dark. So, I turned back on the TV and watched for a another half hour. Also of note, this was the first time I spotted satellites from inside as well, one of which happened to be my 300th object. Good stuff!
Here's the time-line for the morning of:
Date: 14-Dec-2010 Tuesday
5:30 AM - Geminid meteor - Heading SW
5:37 AM - Geminid meteor - Heading WSW
5:37 AM - Geminid meteor - Heading WSW
5:44 AM - Geminid meteor - Heading SW
5:44 AM - Geminid meteor - Heading W
5:45 AM - Geminid meteor - Heading SW
5:53 AM - Geminid meteor - Heading W
This was one that lil N and I saw together; the bright one that left a smoke trail
5:56 AM - Geminid meteor - Heading W
6:11 AM - Yaogan 1 - 2.6 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2006-015-A
This is my first sighting of Yaogan 1. This is a Chinese remote sensing satellite. While China stated that this was for "scientific experiments, land survey, crop yield" and etc, most speculate that this is actually a reconnaissance satellite named JB-5 1 and utilizes SAR. Also of note, supposedly Yaogan 1 broke up back in February 2010. This satellite was 'twinkling' so maybe that was the reason for this. Other satellite observers believe that something internal when wrong because if it was hit by another satellite it would be in many more pieces that it is.
6:17 AM - Geminid meteor - Heading NW
6:22 AM - Geminid meteor - Heading S
6:22 AM - Geminid meteor - Heading W
6:11 AM - Cosmos 1937 Rocket - 4.2 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1988-029-B
This is my second sighting of this Kosmos-3M rocket. This particular rocket launched Cosmos 1937, a Russian Strela-2M communications satellite.
6:24 AM - Geminid meteor - Heading NW
Here's the time-line for the morning of:
Date: 14-Dec-2010 Tuesday
5:30 AM - Geminid meteor - Heading SW
5:37 AM - Geminid meteor - Heading WSW
5:37 AM - Geminid meteor - Heading WSW
5:44 AM - Geminid meteor - Heading SW
5:44 AM - Geminid meteor - Heading W
5:45 AM - Geminid meteor - Heading SW
5:53 AM - Geminid meteor - Heading W
This was one that lil N and I saw together; the bright one that left a smoke trail
5:56 AM - Geminid meteor - Heading W
6:11 AM - Yaogan 1 - 2.6 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2006-015-A
This is my first sighting of Yaogan 1. This is a Chinese remote sensing satellite. While China stated that this was for "scientific experiments, land survey, crop yield" and etc, most speculate that this is actually a reconnaissance satellite named JB-5 1 and utilizes SAR. Also of note, supposedly Yaogan 1 broke up back in February 2010. This satellite was 'twinkling' so maybe that was the reason for this. Other satellite observers believe that something internal when wrong because if it was hit by another satellite it would be in many more pieces that it is.
6:17 AM - Geminid meteor - Heading NW
6:22 AM - Geminid meteor - Heading S
6:22 AM - Geminid meteor - Heading W
6:11 AM - Cosmos 1937 Rocket - 4.2 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1988-029-B
This is my second sighting of this Kosmos-3M rocket. This particular rocket launched Cosmos 1937, a Russian Strela-2M communications satellite.
6:24 AM - Geminid meteor - Heading NW
Monday, December 13, 2010
Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrr, it's cold!
I got to do my first shoveling of the year. I think we had about 3 inches in the driveway. While shoveling I managed to see one satellite. Yay!
Then I drove to work and the car turned over 100k. And somehow, with only .7 miles to go from when I had last looked at it, I missed that magical moment. I had to do the clover leaf at 33 and needed to pay attention to the yay-hoos who were driving REALLY slow. I didn't realize it until I got to about Sr 42 and I looked down and it was at 100004.something. I was so excited about it too. I thought MAYBE that it would roll over on my drive out of the neighborhood. But nope. Oh well. Sometimes life goes like that. You miss something that you think will be the greatest thing and then a day or two later you realize it wasn't that big of a deal in the first place.
It was clear this evening so I got to go out and shiver me timbers off outside. I only spotted 3 this evening. I should have had 5 but just at two satellites were going to cross in the sky, looking straight up, as little patch of dense clouds came through 5 minutes before they satellites would have been overhead and stayed there until 2 minutes after my window had past. By that point my cheeks were frozen since I wasn't smart enough to put on a scarf, so despite having another 1/2 hour worth of things to check out, I went in. I was cold.
But even seeing those 4 today was more than I've seen probably in the past 3 weeks.
Here's the time-line for:
Date: 13-Dec-2010 Monday
6:45 AM - Lacrosse 2 - 1.6 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1991-017-A
This is my third sighting of Lacrosse 2, the NRO recon satellite.
6:22 PM - Zi Yuan-2B (or JB-3) - 3.0 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2002-049-A
This is my 6th sighting of Zi Yuan 2B, the earth imaging satellite from China.
6:33 PM - Spot 1 r DebY (or SPOT 1 Rocket Y) - 2.2 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1986-019-Y
This is my first sighting of this object. This is a piece of rocket debris from either an Ariane 1 rocket which launched two satellites: SPOT 1 and Viking. First, about the rocket. The Ariane 1 was ESA's (European Space Agency) first rocket. It was designed to put two satellites into orbit at a time. This particular launch was the last for the Ariane 1, which gave way to the more powerful Ariane 2 and Ariane 3. The Ariane 1 was a four stage rocket. I'm not sure if debris Y is one of those stages or what. There were quite a few pieces of debris associated with this particular rocket launch. Dunno. And now a little bit about the two satellites: SPOT 1 was the first of five French remote sensing satellites. SPOT 1 had imaging capabilities and had a resolution of 10 to 20 meters. The other payload was Viking, Sweden first satellite. According to Wikipedia, "Viking was used to explore plasma processes in the magnetosphere and the ionosphere." Yeah, I really don't know what that means. Read up on it because learning about how a satellite "could measure the electric field of the earth in all three dimensions" sounds kinda cool to me.
6:34 PM - Cosmos 2428 Rocket - 4.9 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2007-029-B
This is my third sighting of this Zenit-2M rocket body which launched a Russian Tselina-2 ELINT satellite.
Just out of curiosity, I still need to see satellites from the following years: 1958, 1959, 1960, 1962, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1973, and 1979. I figure out of those 11 years, probably 7 of those years have satellites or rocket bodies that are visible with the naked eye. The others will probably require binoculars or maybe even a telescope to see. It could be that the winter months will provide me force me to be more selective and if I have a something specific to see (such as something from the years I haven't seen yet), that will help me make a more 'educated' decisions... unlike tonight when I had an hour and a half's worth of satellites to see when it was 20 degrees with a wind chill of something like 10 degrees.
Then I drove to work and the car turned over 100k. And somehow, with only .7 miles to go from when I had last looked at it, I missed that magical moment. I had to do the clover leaf at 33 and needed to pay attention to the yay-hoos who were driving REALLY slow. I didn't realize it until I got to about Sr 42 and I looked down and it was at 100004.something. I was so excited about it too. I thought MAYBE that it would roll over on my drive out of the neighborhood. But nope. Oh well. Sometimes life goes like that. You miss something that you think will be the greatest thing and then a day or two later you realize it wasn't that big of a deal in the first place.
It was clear this evening so I got to go out and shiver me timbers off outside. I only spotted 3 this evening. I should have had 5 but just at two satellites were going to cross in the sky, looking straight up, as little patch of dense clouds came through 5 minutes before they satellites would have been overhead and stayed there until 2 minutes after my window had past. By that point my cheeks were frozen since I wasn't smart enough to put on a scarf, so despite having another 1/2 hour worth of things to check out, I went in. I was cold.
But even seeing those 4 today was more than I've seen probably in the past 3 weeks.
Here's the time-line for:
Date: 13-Dec-2010 Monday
6:45 AM - Lacrosse 2 - 1.6 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1991-017-A
This is my third sighting of Lacrosse 2, the NRO recon satellite.
6:22 PM - Zi Yuan-2B (or JB-3) - 3.0 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2002-049-A
This is my 6th sighting of Zi Yuan 2B, the earth imaging satellite from China.
6:33 PM - Spot 1 r DebY (or SPOT 1 Rocket Y) - 2.2 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1986-019-Y
This is my first sighting of this object. This is a piece of rocket debris from either an Ariane 1 rocket which launched two satellites: SPOT 1 and Viking. First, about the rocket. The Ariane 1 was ESA's (European Space Agency) first rocket. It was designed to put two satellites into orbit at a time. This particular launch was the last for the Ariane 1, which gave way to the more powerful Ariane 2 and Ariane 3. The Ariane 1 was a four stage rocket. I'm not sure if debris Y is one of those stages or what. There were quite a few pieces of debris associated with this particular rocket launch. Dunno. And now a little bit about the two satellites: SPOT 1 was the first of five French remote sensing satellites. SPOT 1 had imaging capabilities and had a resolution of 10 to 20 meters. The other payload was Viking, Sweden first satellite. According to Wikipedia, "Viking was used to explore plasma processes in the magnetosphere and the ionosphere." Yeah, I really don't know what that means. Read up on it because learning about how a satellite "could measure the electric field of the earth in all three dimensions" sounds kinda cool to me.
6:34 PM - Cosmos 2428 Rocket - 4.9 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2007-029-B
This is my third sighting of this Zenit-2M rocket body which launched a Russian Tselina-2 ELINT satellite.
Just out of curiosity, I still need to see satellites from the following years: 1958, 1959, 1960, 1962, 1965, 1966, 1967, 1968, 1969, 1973, and 1979. I figure out of those 11 years, probably 7 of those years have satellites or rocket bodies that are visible with the naked eye. The others will probably require binoculars or maybe even a telescope to see. It could be that the winter months will provide me force me to be more selective and if I have a something specific to see (such as something from the years I haven't seen yet), that will help me make a more 'educated' decisions... unlike tonight when I had an hour and a half's worth of satellites to see when it was 20 degrees with a wind chill of something like 10 degrees.
Thursday, December 09, 2010
SpaceX rocks and 1 sat
SpaceX
Well, the launch of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with the Dragon capsule attached went of nearly without a hitch on Wednesday. They had to stop the countdown on the first attempt, but the second countdown went off without a hitch. Both stages of the rocket performed nominally (i.e. within parameters), the Dragon capsule detacted successfully and then the Dragon capsule performed 2 orbits 180 miles above the earth, re-entered the atmosphere, deployed the 3 main chutes and splashed down in the Pacific ocean 500 miles off of Southern California. Only 6 countries have ever sent up an object and successfully returned it to earth. This marks the first time that a non-country organization has done this. Awesome.
It was also determined that the Dragon carried two payloads. One was a military nanosatellite for the Army. The other what a big wheel of cheese as an homage to a Monty Python skit.
Despite the Monty Python reference :P, it could be that the next stop for the next SpaceX launch could be the International Space Station. That would be HUGE!
=-=-=-=
Sat
Went out to go to work this morning and it was crystal clear, unlike the non-stop cloudy skies we've had for the past week. So I stared at the sky for a few minutes and managed to catch one going from N to S through the W. I also went out this evening around 7"15pm as there were at least some breaks in the clouds, but it was just too late and there were still quite a few clouds. The moon and mostly clouds were in the W and that's where the satellites are likely to be that late in the evening. Didn't see anything in the E. And since I was constantly facing one direction, it started to get cold... though I truly believed it was going to be much colder than it actually was.
Here's the time-line for morning of:
Date: 09-Dec-2010 Thursday
6:20 AM - Cosmos 2428 Rocket - 2.7 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2007-029-B
This is my second sighting of this Zenit-2M rocket body. This is a slightly different rocket than the Zenit-2, though I honestly can't tell you what the difference is. Wikipedia says that there are some modification and upgrades. As far as I can tell from both Wikipedia and Gunter's Space Page, there has only been one launch of a Zenit-2M, though it's odd that they show two separate pictures of the rocket and note that two different companies can launch the Zenit-2M. It looks like maybe they've never launched a true Zenit-2SLB and went straight to the Zenit-3SLB. *shrug* I dunno.
Anyways, this rocket launched Cosmos 2428, a Tselina-2 Russian ELINT satellite.
Well, the launch of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with the Dragon capsule attached went of nearly without a hitch on Wednesday. They had to stop the countdown on the first attempt, but the second countdown went off without a hitch. Both stages of the rocket performed nominally (i.e. within parameters), the Dragon capsule detacted successfully and then the Dragon capsule performed 2 orbits 180 miles above the earth, re-entered the atmosphere, deployed the 3 main chutes and splashed down in the Pacific ocean 500 miles off of Southern California. Only 6 countries have ever sent up an object and successfully returned it to earth. This marks the first time that a non-country organization has done this. Awesome.
It was also determined that the Dragon carried two payloads. One was a military nanosatellite for the Army. The other what a big wheel of cheese as an homage to a Monty Python skit.
Despite the Monty Python reference :P, it could be that the next stop for the next SpaceX launch could be the International Space Station. That would be HUGE!
=-=-=-=
Sat
Went out to go to work this morning and it was crystal clear, unlike the non-stop cloudy skies we've had for the past week. So I stared at the sky for a few minutes and managed to catch one going from N to S through the W. I also went out this evening around 7"15pm as there were at least some breaks in the clouds, but it was just too late and there were still quite a few clouds. The moon and mostly clouds were in the W and that's where the satellites are likely to be that late in the evening. Didn't see anything in the E. And since I was constantly facing one direction, it started to get cold... though I truly believed it was going to be much colder than it actually was.
Here's the time-line for morning of:
Date: 09-Dec-2010 Thursday
6:20 AM - Cosmos 2428 Rocket - 2.7 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2007-029-B
This is my second sighting of this Zenit-2M rocket body. This is a slightly different rocket than the Zenit-2, though I honestly can't tell you what the difference is. Wikipedia says that there are some modification and upgrades. As far as I can tell from both Wikipedia and Gunter's Space Page, there has only been one launch of a Zenit-2M, though it's odd that they show two separate pictures of the rocket and note that two different companies can launch the Zenit-2M. It looks like maybe they've never launched a true Zenit-2SLB and went straight to the Zenit-3SLB. *shrug* I dunno.
Anyways, this rocket launched Cosmos 2428, a Tselina-2 Russian ELINT satellite.
Wednesday, December 08, 2010
random crap
JOB
Well... I still haven't found a job yet. Which is okay for now since I still have the one I'm at. The market doesn't seem to be bad, though I was hoping a bit more from some of the agencies around here. With the market being the way it is, I was hoping for at least 3 referrals by now. Alas, that is not the case. Most others won't return my calls when they find I'm only looking at FTE positions. Eventually I'll have to open up to Contract-to-Hire, but not just yet.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Venus
So, 6 months ago JAXA (Japan's NASA) sent a spacecraft in the direction to Venus. The mission was to put the spacecraft into orbit around Venus so they could study Venus' clouds, weather and atmosphere. As close as it is, scientists don't know as much about it as you would think. Anyways, the craft finally arrived on Monday and there was a burn (a boost from the rockets) either Monday or Tuesday to put it into orbit. There was a scheduled communications blackout right about that time as well (similar to when the Apollo missions would go to the backside of the moon). It was supposed to last 20 minutes. Unfortunately it lasted an hour and a half. Seems that the burn did NOT put the spacecraft into orbit. In other words, they missed. :( They have re-established communications with the spacecraft, however they will have to wait another 7 years for the spacecraft to try again (if they even get the opportunity.
I feel bad for the JAXA scientists. They have had some stellar missions lately with sending spacecraft to go into Moon orbit and other pretty cool achievements. It guess it was time for them to have a miss. Still, I was pretty excited about the JAXA Venus mission since (as far as I know) it's been a while since anyone has sent something up there, and with the recent discoveries of water on the moon and ice on Mars, I was hoping they'd find something really cool... like volcanoes or liquid sulfer lakes or space chicks or something. Oh well, maybe the craft can be directed towards Mercury or somehow back to the Moon or something. I'm sure they'll use the craft for something but I guess for what is up in the air now.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
SpaceX
In other news, SpaceX is scheduled to launch their Falcon 9 rocket with the new Dragon capsule at the top today (Wednesday Dec 8th 2010). SpaceX is a private corporation specializing in space transport. With the Space Shuttle being ground for good sometime next year and the current U.S. space programs not really going in any particular direction, the U.S. doesn't really have a way to put peeps into space other than catching a ride with the Russians. The Dragon capsule is SpaceX's attempt to fix this problem. While it is flying empty today, it is being designed to carry as many as seven people. It's pretty close, not in look, but in concept to the current Russian Soyuz spacecraft or the Apollo command module in that it's just a capsule that returns, not a whole spaceship like the Shuttle.
I believe they were planning on launching on Monday, but they found a crack in one of the thruster nozzles. So, here's hoping that there aren't any other issues (like the poor Discovery Shuttle (STS-133) which was supposed to launching in November, but due to various problems including several cracks in the large external fuel tank is grounded I believe until February which might end up pushing out the final flights of the other shuttles.
=-=-=-=-=
I don't think I have any other updates other than my wife is cool and I love her very much for being supportive and at the same time continuing to put up with my shit during this period of uncertainty.
Well... I still haven't found a job yet. Which is okay for now since I still have the one I'm at. The market doesn't seem to be bad, though I was hoping a bit more from some of the agencies around here. With the market being the way it is, I was hoping for at least 3 referrals by now. Alas, that is not the case. Most others won't return my calls when they find I'm only looking at FTE positions. Eventually I'll have to open up to Contract-to-Hire, but not just yet.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Venus
So, 6 months ago JAXA (Japan's NASA) sent a spacecraft in the direction to Venus. The mission was to put the spacecraft into orbit around Venus so they could study Venus' clouds, weather and atmosphere. As close as it is, scientists don't know as much about it as you would think. Anyways, the craft finally arrived on Monday and there was a burn (a boost from the rockets) either Monday or Tuesday to put it into orbit. There was a scheduled communications blackout right about that time as well (similar to when the Apollo missions would go to the backside of the moon). It was supposed to last 20 minutes. Unfortunately it lasted an hour and a half. Seems that the burn did NOT put the spacecraft into orbit. In other words, they missed. :( They have re-established communications with the spacecraft, however they will have to wait another 7 years for the spacecraft to try again (if they even get the opportunity.
I feel bad for the JAXA scientists. They have had some stellar missions lately with sending spacecraft to go into Moon orbit and other pretty cool achievements. It guess it was time for them to have a miss. Still, I was pretty excited about the JAXA Venus mission since (as far as I know) it's been a while since anyone has sent something up there, and with the recent discoveries of water on the moon and ice on Mars, I was hoping they'd find something really cool... like volcanoes or liquid sulfer lakes or space chicks or something. Oh well, maybe the craft can be directed towards Mercury or somehow back to the Moon or something. I'm sure they'll use the craft for something but I guess for what is up in the air now.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
SpaceX
In other news, SpaceX is scheduled to launch their Falcon 9 rocket with the new Dragon capsule at the top today (Wednesday Dec 8th 2010). SpaceX is a private corporation specializing in space transport. With the Space Shuttle being ground for good sometime next year and the current U.S. space programs not really going in any particular direction, the U.S. doesn't really have a way to put peeps into space other than catching a ride with the Russians. The Dragon capsule is SpaceX's attempt to fix this problem. While it is flying empty today, it is being designed to carry as many as seven people. It's pretty close, not in look, but in concept to the current Russian Soyuz spacecraft or the Apollo command module in that it's just a capsule that returns, not a whole spaceship like the Shuttle.
I believe they were planning on launching on Monday, but they found a crack in one of the thruster nozzles. So, here's hoping that there aren't any other issues (like the poor Discovery Shuttle (STS-133) which was supposed to launching in November, but due to various problems including several cracks in the large external fuel tank is grounded I believe until February which might end up pushing out the final flights of the other shuttles.
=-=-=-=-=
I don't think I have any other updates other than my wife is cool and I love her very much for being supportive and at the same time continuing to put up with my shit during this period of uncertainty.
Friday, December 03, 2010
1 sat I saw a couple days ago
While heading off to work Monday morning, the sky was fairly clear. So I went out between the houses and stared up into the sky for a minute or two. And I caught sight of a faint satellite going S to N almost straight overhead.
Here's the time-line for morning of:
Date: 29-Nov-2010 Monday
6:31 AM - IRAS - 4.9 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1983-004-A
This is my first sighting of the Infrared Astronomical Satellite (aka IRAS). IRAS was the first-ever space-based observatory to perform a survey of the entire sky at infrared wavelengths. That's a big honking deal in case you didn't know it. :) Due to the infrared sensors, the satellite had to be kept at a temperature of 2 Kelvin. IRAS was in service for 10 months until the superfluid helium ran out and the telescope warmed up too much for it to be able to provide useful information. It found over a quarter of a million sources of infrared light. Nearly 20 years later, many of these sources still need to be identified. Using other data it gathered, it also discovered 3 asteroids, including one asteroid which is the parent of the Geminid meteor shower. It also discovered 6 comets. The satellite was put into orbit using a Delta 3910.
Here's the time-line for morning of:
Date: 29-Nov-2010 Monday
6:31 AM - IRAS - 4.9 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1983-004-A
This is my first sighting of the Infrared Astronomical Satellite (aka IRAS). IRAS was the first-ever space-based observatory to perform a survey of the entire sky at infrared wavelengths. That's a big honking deal in case you didn't know it. :) Due to the infrared sensors, the satellite had to be kept at a temperature of 2 Kelvin. IRAS was in service for 10 months until the superfluid helium ran out and the telescope warmed up too much for it to be able to provide useful information. It found over a quarter of a million sources of infrared light. Nearly 20 years later, many of these sources still need to be identified. Using other data it gathered, it also discovered 3 asteroids, including one asteroid which is the parent of the Geminid meteor shower. It also discovered 6 comets. The satellite was put into orbit using a Delta 3910.
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Go Bucks!!! and 12 sats
Watched the OSU vs Michigan game today. A 37-7 win for the Buckeyes!!! Wasn't too sure how things were gonna pan out after that 1st quarter, but once they found their rhythm, it was all over. Great job by both the D and the O. It also helps when the team you're playing literally is tied for the worst field goal percentage and therefore ALWAYS went for it on fourth and whatever when they were in the red zone.
While the kids were getting a bath, I took a peak outside and notice it was crystal. After the baths were done, I asked the Mrs if I could go outside for a bit and she was kind enough to say yes even though I know that after a day of shopping she was probably pretty tired. This evening's session was totally ad-libbed. I just went out with a blank piece of paper and my wool hat and just scanned the sky. I pretty much would look to the E and scan that entire area. Then look to the N, then the W then the S. Repeat. I generally would spend longer in the E because I know the sky over there and I can pick them out fairly easily. Plus, most of the sats are over there anyways due to the position of the sun and all that scientific crap. In all, I ended up seeing 12 objects. Not too bad for a 45 minute session. And there were many objects being sighted by me for the first as well. That makes it even that much more exciting.
Here's the time-line for evening of:
Date: 27-Nov-2010 Saturday
6:22 PM - Zi Yuan-2B or JB-3 - 3.0 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2002-049-A
This is my fifth sighting JB-3, a Chinese earth imaging satellite that is rumored to be one of the first high-resolution military imaging satellites.
6:26 PM - Cosmos 2084 Rocket - 4.2 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1990-055-D
This is my first sighting of this Molniya-M rocket body. It was used to launch Kosmos 2084, a Russian satellite that is part of the Oko missile launch defense system. Unfortunately, according to NASA the launch of this rocket actually failed to put the satellite in the correct orbit and no communication ever occurred with the satellite itself (though no other sites mention this failure). This system was also known as the US-KS. I got side-tracked... I should be talking about the rocket. Molniya means "lightning" and the Molniya-M is derived from the R-7 ICBM. The final flight for this type of rocket was on Sept 30 2010.
6:29 PM - NOSS 6 (D) - 5.9 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1984-012-D
This is my first sighting of this NOSS 6 (or possibly NOSS 7) satellite, also known as JD2. Regardless, this is one of the NOSS satellites. This system, also known as PARCAE had three satellites for the system and also a MSD (multiple satellite dispenser). I believe that this object is one of the satellites. The satellites were launched from an Atlas H rocket. There seems to be some confusion on if this is NOSS 6 or NOSS 7. The NASA page, the satellite page I use and one other page in Wiki lists this as NOSS 6. However another trusted satellite site and a different Wiki page lists it as NOSS 7. *shrug* That's the government for ya. It was 1984 and they were probably launching recon satellites every other week. It's easy to get confused at that point. :P
6:30 PM - Cosmos 1346 - 4.2 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1982-027-A
This is my first sighting of Cosmos 1346. This object is a Russian Tselina-D ELINT satellite. It was launched into orbit using a Vostok-2M rocket in 1982.
6:34 PM - Cosmo-SkyMed 3 - 3.5 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2008-054-A
This is my fourth sighting of SkyMed 3, an Italian earth observation satellite.
6:42 PM - XM 5 Tnk - 4.6 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2010-053-C
This is my first sighting of this object. This is the Briz-M upper stage of a Proton-M rocket. This rocket was used to launch the XM-5 satellite for the XM Satellite Radio. According to the specs, this satellite is the bee's knees.
6:46 PM - Cosmos 1005 Rocket - 3.0 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1978-045-B
This is my first sighting of this Vostok-2M rocket. This rocket launched Cosmos 1005, a Russian Tselina-D ELINT satellite into orbit in 1978.
6:52 PM - Meteor 1-19 Rocket - 4.1 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1974-083-B
This is my first sighting of this Vostok-2M rocket. It launched Meteor 1-19, the 19th Meteor 1 Russian weather satellite into orbit in 1974.
6:52 PM - Cosmo-SkyMed 2 - 3.4 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2007-059-A
This is my fifth sighting of SkyMed 2, an Italian earth observation satellite.
6:53 PM - Resurs 1-4 Rocket - 2.4 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1998-043-G
This is my twenty-second sighting of this Ol' Faithful Zenit-2 rocket body.
6:56 PM - Cosmos 2227 Rocket - 2.7 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1992-093-B
This is my second sighting of this Zenit-2 rocket body used to launch Cosmos 2227, a Russian Tselina-2 (not Tselina-D) ELINT satellite, in 1992.
7:02 PM - Iridium 69 tum - 5.6 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1998-026-A
This is my first sighting of this tumbling Iridium satellite, Iridium 69. This Iridium satellite was launched using a Long March 2C-III SD rocket. The SD model is designed to be able to launch 2 satellites (this particular rocket launched Iridium 69 (the object sighted this evening) and Iridium 71.
While the kids were getting a bath, I took a peak outside and notice it was crystal. After the baths were done, I asked the Mrs if I could go outside for a bit and she was kind enough to say yes even though I know that after a day of shopping she was probably pretty tired. This evening's session was totally ad-libbed. I just went out with a blank piece of paper and my wool hat and just scanned the sky. I pretty much would look to the E and scan that entire area. Then look to the N, then the W then the S. Repeat. I generally would spend longer in the E because I know the sky over there and I can pick them out fairly easily. Plus, most of the sats are over there anyways due to the position of the sun and all that scientific crap. In all, I ended up seeing 12 objects. Not too bad for a 45 minute session. And there were many objects being sighted by me for the first as well. That makes it even that much more exciting.
Here's the time-line for evening of:
Date: 27-Nov-2010 Saturday
6:22 PM - Zi Yuan-2B or JB-3 - 3.0 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2002-049-A
This is my fifth sighting JB-3, a Chinese earth imaging satellite that is rumored to be one of the first high-resolution military imaging satellites.
6:26 PM - Cosmos 2084 Rocket - 4.2 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1990-055-D
This is my first sighting of this Molniya-M rocket body. It was used to launch Kosmos 2084, a Russian satellite that is part of the Oko missile launch defense system. Unfortunately, according to NASA the launch of this rocket actually failed to put the satellite in the correct orbit and no communication ever occurred with the satellite itself (though no other sites mention this failure). This system was also known as the US-KS. I got side-tracked... I should be talking about the rocket. Molniya means "lightning" and the Molniya-M is derived from the R-7 ICBM. The final flight for this type of rocket was on Sept 30 2010.
6:29 PM - NOSS 6 (D) - 5.9 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1984-012-D
This is my first sighting of this NOSS 6 (or possibly NOSS 7) satellite, also known as JD2. Regardless, this is one of the NOSS satellites. This system, also known as PARCAE had three satellites for the system and also a MSD (multiple satellite dispenser). I believe that this object is one of the satellites. The satellites were launched from an Atlas H rocket. There seems to be some confusion on if this is NOSS 6 or NOSS 7. The NASA page, the satellite page I use and one other page in Wiki lists this as NOSS 6. However another trusted satellite site and a different Wiki page lists it as NOSS 7. *shrug* That's the government for ya. It was 1984 and they were probably launching recon satellites every other week. It's easy to get confused at that point. :P
6:30 PM - Cosmos 1346 - 4.2 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1982-027-A
This is my first sighting of Cosmos 1346. This object is a Russian Tselina-D ELINT satellite. It was launched into orbit using a Vostok-2M rocket in 1982.
6:34 PM - Cosmo-SkyMed 3 - 3.5 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2008-054-A
This is my fourth sighting of SkyMed 3, an Italian earth observation satellite.
6:42 PM - XM 5 Tnk - 4.6 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2010-053-C
This is my first sighting of this object. This is the Briz-M upper stage of a Proton-M rocket. This rocket was used to launch the XM-5 satellite for the XM Satellite Radio. According to the specs, this satellite is the bee's knees.
6:46 PM - Cosmos 1005 Rocket - 3.0 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1978-045-B
This is my first sighting of this Vostok-2M rocket. This rocket launched Cosmos 1005, a Russian Tselina-D ELINT satellite into orbit in 1978.
6:52 PM - Meteor 1-19 Rocket - 4.1 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1974-083-B
This is my first sighting of this Vostok-2M rocket. It launched Meteor 1-19, the 19th Meteor 1 Russian weather satellite into orbit in 1974.
6:52 PM - Cosmo-SkyMed 2 - 3.4 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2007-059-A
This is my fifth sighting of SkyMed 2, an Italian earth observation satellite.
6:53 PM - Resurs 1-4 Rocket - 2.4 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1998-043-G
This is my twenty-second sighting of this Ol' Faithful Zenit-2 rocket body.
6:56 PM - Cosmos 2227 Rocket - 2.7 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1992-093-B
This is my second sighting of this Zenit-2 rocket body used to launch Cosmos 2227, a Russian Tselina-2 (not Tselina-D) ELINT satellite, in 1992.
7:02 PM - Iridium 69 tum - 5.6 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1998-026-A
This is my first sighting of this tumbling Iridium satellite, Iridium 69. This Iridium satellite was launched using a Long March 2C-III SD rocket. The SD model is designed to be able to launch 2 satellites (this particular rocket launched Iridium 69 (the object sighted this evening) and Iridium 71.
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
A couple talks and 1 sat
Well, in case you didn't know already, my company is canning our office. See ya later. My date of departure is something like end of March. yay. (note the lack of capitals and exclamation points) No one likes dealing with this. But, on the uppity side, I did have a couple talks with a recruiter and a local business who has some openings. The first few are always hard. One doesn't have their speech down pat yet. One hasn't truly discovered or learned to articulate what skills they have gained at their current position quite yet. It's always that way for me and I get all down n crap and whatever. I've had a couple other calls come in on my cell phone with the dead battery so I will have even more opportunity to get my confidence up and my spiel down.
When I got home from my one after work, I got out of the car, looked outside and saw a satellite plain as day. It was kind of comforting for some strange reason. Then my wife got me (us) an early Christmas gift in the form of the super duper deluxe version of While Christmas with Bing and Danny and Vera-Ellen and Rosemary. We watch it every year (along with A Christmas Story, Charlie Brown, Grinch, and Santa Claus Conquers the Martians). Occasionally we'll watch Christmas Vacation. I feel maybe like I'm missing one... but that covers it for the most part. The other tradition is listening to the Tejano Country Christmas on CD. The most awesome Christmas CD ever. And usually the Beach Boys Christmas.... and then the Christmas album that I had when I was a kid that Todd found a few years back and I ripped (and cleaned up) and put on CD. And usually the Bobby Sherman Christmas CD that I got at Big Lots and is a mishmash of songs from his two Christmas LPs which have been mixed in interesting ways (some of the songs sound like they are coming out of a Folgers can).
Anyhoo... I'll stop gibber jabberin' and give you the satellite session (all 1 satellite).
Here's the time-line for evening of:
Date: 23-Nov-2010 Tuesday
6:51 PM - Resurs 1-4 Rocket - 2.5 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1998-043-G
This is my 21st sighting of this old faithful Zenit-2 rocket which put a Russian Resurs-O1 earth observation satellite and 5 others into space in 1998.
When I got home from my one after work, I got out of the car, looked outside and saw a satellite plain as day. It was kind of comforting for some strange reason. Then my wife got me (us) an early Christmas gift in the form of the super duper deluxe version of While Christmas with Bing and Danny and Vera-Ellen and Rosemary. We watch it every year (along with A Christmas Story, Charlie Brown, Grinch, and Santa Claus Conquers the Martians). Occasionally we'll watch Christmas Vacation. I feel maybe like I'm missing one... but that covers it for the most part. The other tradition is listening to the Tejano Country Christmas on CD. The most awesome Christmas CD ever. And usually the Beach Boys Christmas.... and then the Christmas album that I had when I was a kid that Todd found a few years back and I ripped (and cleaned up) and put on CD. And usually the Bobby Sherman Christmas CD that I got at Big Lots and is a mishmash of songs from his two Christmas LPs which have been mixed in interesting ways (some of the songs sound like they are coming out of a Folgers can).
Anyhoo... I'll stop gibber jabberin' and give you the satellite session (all 1 satellite).
Here's the time-line for evening of:
Date: 23-Nov-2010 Tuesday
6:51 PM - Resurs 1-4 Rocket - 2.5 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1998-043-G
This is my 21st sighting of this old faithful Zenit-2 rocket which put a Russian Resurs-O1 earth observation satellite and 5 others into space in 1998.
Monday, November 22, 2010
Six tonight
I haven't really went outside to look for satellites since Nov 14th. Tonight was tough as it was windy and with the wind came the clouds. Luckily it wasn't a giant sheet, but lots of wispy clouds that moved across the sky quickly, which has its disadvantages in itself. It plays tricks on the mind and make one think that the stars are moving when it is actually the clouds that are moving. So, one has to be prepared to observe the surrounding stars to see if that object is moving relative to other nearby stars. Since I'm starting to hit alot of repeats, I'm going to try to remember to highlight those that are being seen for the first time.
Here's the time-line for evening of:
Date: 22-Nov-2010 Monday
6:39 PM - Lacrosse 5 Rocket - 2.0 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2005-016-B
This is only my second sighting of Titan IV-B rocket which launched Lacrosse 5, an NRO recon satellite. My first sighting was on Oct 4 2010.
6:43 PM - Lacrosse 4 - 2.0 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2000-047-A
This is only my second sighting of Lacrosse 4. My first sighting was on Sept 17 2010 and was the 7th object I had seen to that date. Tonight, it was the 264th.
6:58 PM - COSMO-SkyMed 2 - 3.4 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2007-059-A
This is my 4th sighting of COSMO-SkyMed 2, the Italian earth observation satellite.
7:02 PM - Cosmos 2242 Rocket - 3.6 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1993-024-B
This is my first sighting of this Tsyklon-3 rocket which was used to launch Kosmos 2242, a Russian Tselina-R ELINT satellite. The Tselina-R model is an updated version of the Tselina-D satellite that I see quite frequenly. There are currently only four Tselina-R satellites in orbit.
7:09 PM - Cosmos 1500 - 3.2 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1983-099-A
This is my first sighting of Kosmos 1500 which was launched in 1983. This satellite is a Russian oceanography (Okean means ocean in Russian) satellite from the Okean-OE series. Only two satellites of this particular model were ever put into orbit. The other was Kosmos 1602 launched in 1984. Both were launched into space using a Tsyklon-3 rocket.
7:14 PM - Resurs 1-4 Rocket - 2.0 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1998-043-G
This is my 20th sighting of this old faithful Zenit-2 rocket which put a Russian Resurs-O1 earth observation satellite and 5 others into space in 1998.
Here's the time-line for evening of:
Date: 22-Nov-2010 Monday
6:39 PM - Lacrosse 5 Rocket - 2.0 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2005-016-B
This is only my second sighting of Titan IV-B rocket which launched Lacrosse 5, an NRO recon satellite. My first sighting was on Oct 4 2010.
6:43 PM - Lacrosse 4 - 2.0 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2000-047-A
This is only my second sighting of Lacrosse 4. My first sighting was on Sept 17 2010 and was the 7th object I had seen to that date. Tonight, it was the 264th.
6:58 PM - COSMO-SkyMed 2 - 3.4 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 2007-059-A
This is my 4th sighting of COSMO-SkyMed 2, the Italian earth observation satellite.
7:02 PM - Cosmos 2242 Rocket - 3.6 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1993-024-B
This is my first sighting of this Tsyklon-3 rocket which was used to launch Kosmos 2242, a Russian Tselina-R ELINT satellite. The Tselina-R model is an updated version of the Tselina-D satellite that I see quite frequenly. There are currently only four Tselina-R satellites in orbit.
7:09 PM - Cosmos 1500 - 3.2 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1983-099-A
This is my first sighting of Kosmos 1500 which was launched in 1983. This satellite is a Russian oceanography (Okean means ocean in Russian) satellite from the Okean-OE series. Only two satellites of this particular model were ever put into orbit. The other was Kosmos 1602 launched in 1984. Both were launched into space using a Tsyklon-3 rocket.
7:14 PM - Resurs 1-4 Rocket - 2.0 Magnitude
Int'l Designator: 1998-043-G
This is my 20th sighting of this old faithful Zenit-2 rocket which put a Russian Resurs-O1 earth observation satellite and 5 others into space in 1998.
Saturday, November 20, 2010
Stupid Movies Collection
(updated Aug 23 2024 - added twenty four more collections: 20th Century Fox Studio Classics, 50 Whodunit, Black Cobra Collection, Charles Bronson Collection, Dirty Harry Collection, Great American Western Vol. 3, Legends Of The West Vol. 5, Ocean's Collection, Sam Elliott Western Collection, Total Movie Double Double Movie Pack, Midnight Movies (Gorilla; Monster Island), Savage Cinema, Urban Chills, America's Greatest Westerns Vols 1-4, Bulletproof, Crazed Killers, Classic Holiday Collection Vols 1 & 2, Classic Horror (Platinum)
(updated Jul 14 2024 - added three more collections: The Bombs, Babes & Blockbusters Of Cannon Films, Musical Double Feature (Elvis), Jackie Chan 8 Film Collection)
(updated Apr 14 2024 - added nine more collections: 20 Action Movies (v2), 20 Film Action, Elvis 75th Birthday Collection, Elvis Triple Feature, Lights! Camera! Elvis!, Babes & Boyz, Classic Westerns 4 Movie Marathon, James Stewart Westerns 4 Movie Marathon, Jackie Chan 8 Movie Collection (Miramax Classics))
(updated Mar 21 2024 - added three more collections: 20 Action Movies, Dark Disposition, and Most Wanted)
(updated Mar 3 2024 - added four more collections: Elvis Presley Musicals, Classic Westerns 10 Movie Collection, Wartime Comedies 8 Movie Collection and War 10 Movie Collection)
(updated Nov 10 2023 - added one more collection: Ultimate Rin Tin Tin)
(updated Oct 24 2023 - added SIXTEEN more collections: 8 Movie All Action, Canine Capers, Midnight Horror Collection Vol. 1, Benji Ultimate, Law and Disorder, Classic War Collection, Secrets and Lies, Disorderly Conduct, Disturbing the Peace, 10 Movie Mega Page Vol. 2 Disc 2, Feel The Heat, Misbehavior, Ultimate Action, Girls Guns and G-strings, Elvis Presley Classics, Smokey and the Bandit Outlaw Collection)
(updated Sept 3 2023 - added TEN more collections: Fantasy Collection w Beastmaster, Classic Western Collection, 15-Film Man Cave Pack, The Midnight Horror Collection Vol. 2, Horror Collector's Set, 12 Movie Action Pack, Pirates, High Octane, Full Throttle, Pure Adrenaline)
(updated Aug 25 2023 - added TEN more collections: John Wayne: The Early Years, Adventure Pack , Fantasy Collection, Classic Serials Megapack, Flash Gordon Conquers The Universe, The Great Commandments Collection, Western Value Collection, Mary Higgins Clark Collection, Denzel Washington Vol. 2, 8 Movie Action Pack)
(updated Aug 10 2023 - added ONE more collection: John Wayne & The Western Trios)
(updated July 26 2023 - just updating all the number at the bottom based on my spreadsheet. numbers are now all inclusive and include all duplicates (previously I had excluded the 150 episodes of Ultimate TV Westerns). Once I get through all the lists, I will be able to provide numbers for only the unique movies/episodes in my collection.)
(updated July 11 2023 - added THREE more collections: America - Stories Of War, Victory At Sea, and NASA - 50 Years Of Space Exploration)
(updated May 11 2023 - added ONE more collection: Space Odyssey)
(updated Mar 25 2023 - added SIX more collections: The Trail West 200 Movie Collection, Mystery Collection 250, Fists Of Vengeance, Kung-Fu Crusade, Return Of The Warrios, Song & Dance Classics)
(updated Sep 20 2022 - added TWO more collections: Legends Of Kung Fu and Fists Of Fire - Swords Of Death)
(updated Sep 13 2021 - added ONE more collection: The Definitive TV Western Collection)
(updated Dec 28 2018 - added THREE more collections: Box Office Gold, Family Fun, Great Adaptations) (updated Dec 27 2017 - added FOUR more collections: Hollywood Comedy Legends, B-Movie Blast, Tales of Terror, Historic Classics)
(updated July 30 2017 - added THREE more collections: Cult Classics 20, Drive-In Cult Classics 32, Night Screams 50 movie pack)
(updated June 30 2017 - added THREE more collections: John Wayne Tribute Collection, 15 Martial Arts Movies, The Best Of Chaplin)
(updated June 11 2017 - added FIVE more collections: Iron Fist Frenzy, Samurai Warrior Collection, Crime Classics, Billy the Kid, and Frontier Justice)
(updated May 12 2017 - added EIGHT more collections: Combat Classics, Timeless Family Classics, The Legend Of Rin Tin Tin, Cowboy Legends, Gunslinger Classics, Gore House Greats Collection, Under Fire, and Kickin' It Shaolin Style)
(updated Apr 22 2017 - added THREE more collections: Musicals - 20 Movie Collection, Classic Sci-Fi TV, and The Best Of Spaghetti Westerns)
(updated Dec 10 2015 - added TWO more collections: The Swingin' Seventies, and Cowboys and Bandits)
(updated Jan 17 2015 - added THREE more collections: The Sensational Sixties, Alfred Hitchcock - A Legacy of Suspense (20 movies), and 1001 Commercials.)
(updated Jun 21 2014 - added EIGHT more collections: Sci-Fi Invasion, Decrepit Crypt of Nightmares, The Excellent Eighties, Dark Crimes, Martial Arts, Family Classics, Comedy Kings, and Pure Terror). The madness really needs to stop. Seriously. At the very least I can say I've watched at least one from each of the sets. I guess that's something.
(updated Jun 5 2012 - added FIVE collections: Burnt Rubber, Hollywood Legends, Prime Time Crime, Warriors, and Spaghetti Westerns)
(updated May 13 2012 - added Ultimate TV Westerns)
(updated Mar 27 2012 - added TWO collections: The Way West and Mystery)
(updated Mar 24 2011 - added TWO collections: Legends of Horror and Western Legends)
(originally posted on Saturday, November 20, 2010 4:36pm)
I'm a fan of really bad movies. I don't know why... but I am. Honestly, it probably stems from the fact that my wife likes good movies. I didn't really watch many movies until I met my wife. And those that I did watch before I met her were suspect... like "The Stuff", "Pump Up the Volume", "Turk 182", "Looker" and "Son of the Blob".
At some point when I was a drummer in Devilcake, I purchased these two 10 movie collections for I think $10 each. 'Legends of Kung Fu' and 'Fists of Fire - Swords of Death'. I remember watching one of these horrible kung fu movies when M called me when we were dating. I started telling her what was happening on the screen in a MST3K style. The only thing I remember for certain is that one of the main characters was some female kung fu expert. I kept calling her the 'Hong Kong Hottie'. I was amusing myself and figured that this made me 'charming' somehow. I'm sure my future wife thought I was being a big dork.
I know where my 'passion' for bad movies really amped up. I had been let go from my first job of nearly 8 years. I had been looking for a month or so already, 8 - 10 hours a day and was starting to go a little stir crazy. I don't remember where I saw it... Amazon or eBay maybe... maybe in a online movie review? Maybe I was looking for more kung-fu movies. I don't know. But I saw it somewhere. The Sci-Fi Classics 50 Movie Pack. I told M about it and she said, 'Go ahead and get it. You'll drive yourself crazy if you look for jobs all day. You need to give yourself a break, even if it's for a few hours. You might as well have something to watch. So I found out that Best Buy was selling them, went down there and plunked down $30 bucks. I figured at less than a dollar a movie, it was freaking awesome. And I started watching them one by one. I even got the Mrs. to start watching them with me. It was fun to me to sit there and just cut up on them non-stop. Occasionally you'd even run into a good one that you just wanted to watch.
Then I found out that there were other sets: Action, Mystery, Comedy and Horror. The next one I was contemplating was the Horror box set. I happened to be at Odd Lots with Todd and happened to mention it to him, that I had seen other ones there but not the Horror one. And he looking in the bin thing and says 'you mean this one?'. Todd is the master of finding shit that you swear you'll never find. (You can read more about that evening at my old Live Journal blog here.)
Anyhoo... somehow... I think when I was working at AOL, I started looking for them for cheap on eBay. Then when MicroCenter started getting rid of their DVDs, I started buying them REALLY cheap.
Now I have many, many sets of these things (actually, it's 16 sets since the Action 100 pack is just the Action 50 and Suspense 50 sets put together. They didn't even bother making new sleeves. They just plunked the 50 Suspense sleeves in the big box.
The sad thing is, I still want the Martial Arts and Dark Crimes sets (edit 6-21-2014 - Finally got both!) and I don't even have time to watch the ones I have now. The Mrs. has kinda lost interest in watching them. She barely has time to see the movies she wants to see, so why would she want to waste an hour and a half to watch something she has no interest in and which probably sucks badly?
So... This is my admission of this is all of the sets I have and that I have an issue. Most sets are either put out by a company called TreeLine or Mill Creek (who bought out TreeLine) and a few by Brentwood. I'll try to list them in the order I got them. The list is as follows:
Sci-Fi Classics (TreeLine, 50 movies, Run Time: 3912 minutes) (click here for the list of movies) Note: I paid full retail ($25 or $30) at Best Buy for this one in 2004.
Horror Classics (TreeLine, 50 movies, 3743 minutes) (click here for the list of movies) Note: I paid $20 (I believe) in January 2005 at Odd Lots for this collection. Right after mentioning that I was looking for this, my friend Todd pulled this out of the shelf and said 'This one?'
Chilling Classics (Mill Creek, 50 movies, 4423 minutes) (click here for the list of movies) Note: I paid $17.50 for this on eBay at the end of January in 2006.
Drive-in Movie Classics (Mill Creek, 50 movies, 4399 minutes) (click here for the list of movies) Note: I got this one for $6 at Half Price Books, back in August 2006, somewhere in the Cincinnati area if I recall correctly. I was originally gonna pay $19.95 for it as I thought it was new. However, when they pulled them out to put them into the sleeves, I could see that they were obviously scratched badly, so he said 'How about $6'. This is the set that broken the camel's back for my wife. We watched a movie called 'Black Hooker'. It was horrible and pointless and a bit disturbing with some black guy who was a church pastor who had a daughter who was a hooker but then he went and had sex with some young girl who was part of the church. Gross! That movie also kinda put the kibosh on the wife wanting to watch movies from my stupid movie collection.
Classic Musicals (Mill Creek, 50 movies, 3965 minutes) (click here for the list of movies) Note: I got this one for $8 at MicroCenter in January 2008. I was excited for this one because one of my co-workers had given me a special coupon for 20% off any item and I was refusing to pay $9.99 for this collection.
All-Stars Collection (TreeLine, 50 movies, 4140 minutes) (click here for the list of movies) Note: I got this one for $4 at MicroCenter in late August 2009. I also got the War Classics and 100 TV Episodes at the same time for super cheap as well). Comes on 13 discs in a cardboard case.
War Classics (TreeLine, 50 movies, 3594 minutes) (click here for the list of movies) Note: This collection is half war-themed movies and half war documentaries. I got this one for $4 at MicroCenter in late August 2009.
I'm a fan of really bad movies. I don't know why... but I am. Honestly, it probably stems from the fact that my wife likes good movies. I didn't really watch many movies until I met my wife. And those that I did watch before I met her were suspect... like "The Stuff", "Pump Up the Volume", "Turk 182", "Looker" and "Son of the Blob".
At some point when I was a drummer in Devilcake, I purchased these two 10 movie collections for I think $10 each. 'Legends of Kung Fu' and 'Fists of Fire - Swords of Death'. I remember watching one of these horrible kung fu movies when M called me when we were dating. I started telling her what was happening on the screen in a MST3K style. The only thing I remember for certain is that one of the main characters was some female kung fu expert. I kept calling her the 'Hong Kong Hottie'. I was amusing myself and figured that this made me 'charming' somehow. I'm sure my future wife thought I was being a big dork.
I know where my 'passion' for bad movies really amped up. I had been let go from my first job of nearly 8 years. I had been looking for a month or so already, 8 - 10 hours a day and was starting to go a little stir crazy. I don't remember where I saw it... Amazon or eBay maybe... maybe in a online movie review? Maybe I was looking for more kung-fu movies. I don't know. But I saw it somewhere. The Sci-Fi Classics 50 Movie Pack. I told M about it and she said, 'Go ahead and get it. You'll drive yourself crazy if you look for jobs all day. You need to give yourself a break, even if it's for a few hours. You might as well have something to watch. So I found out that Best Buy was selling them, went down there and plunked down $30 bucks. I figured at less than a dollar a movie, it was freaking awesome. And I started watching them one by one. I even got the Mrs. to start watching them with me. It was fun to me to sit there and just cut up on them non-stop. Occasionally you'd even run into a good one that you just wanted to watch.
Then I found out that there were other sets: Action, Mystery, Comedy and Horror. The next one I was contemplating was the Horror box set. I happened to be at Odd Lots with Todd and happened to mention it to him, that I had seen other ones there but not the Horror one. And he looking in the bin thing and says 'you mean this one?'. Todd is the master of finding shit that you swear you'll never find. (You can read more about that evening at my old Live Journal blog here.)
Anyhoo... somehow... I think when I was working at AOL, I started looking for them for cheap on eBay. Then when MicroCenter started getting rid of their DVDs, I started buying them REALLY cheap.
Now I have many, many sets of these things (actually, it's 16 sets since the Action 100 pack is just the Action 50 and Suspense 50 sets put together. They didn't even bother making new sleeves. They just plunked the 50 Suspense sleeves in the big box.
The sad thing is, I still want the Martial Arts and Dark Crimes sets (edit 6-21-2014 - Finally got both!) and I don't even have time to watch the ones I have now. The Mrs. has kinda lost interest in watching them. She barely has time to see the movies she wants to see, so why would she want to waste an hour and a half to watch something she has no interest in and which probably sucks badly?
So... This is my admission of this is all of the sets I have and that I have an issue. Most sets are either put out by a company called TreeLine or Mill Creek (who bought out TreeLine) and a few by Brentwood. I'll try to list them in the order I got them. The list is as follows:
Sci-Fi Classics (TreeLine, 50 movies, Run Time: 3912 minutes) (click here for the list of movies) Note: I paid full retail ($25 or $30) at Best Buy for this one in 2004.
Horror Classics (TreeLine, 50 movies, 3743 minutes) (click here for the list of movies) Note: I paid $20 (I believe) in January 2005 at Odd Lots for this collection. Right after mentioning that I was looking for this, my friend Todd pulled this out of the shelf and said 'This one?'
Chilling Classics (Mill Creek, 50 movies, 4423 minutes) (click here for the list of movies) Note: I paid $17.50 for this on eBay at the end of January in 2006.
Drive-in Movie Classics (Mill Creek, 50 movies, 4399 minutes) (click here for the list of movies) Note: I got this one for $6 at Half Price Books, back in August 2006, somewhere in the Cincinnati area if I recall correctly. I was originally gonna pay $19.95 for it as I thought it was new. However, when they pulled them out to put them into the sleeves, I could see that they were obviously scratched badly, so he said 'How about $6'. This is the set that broken the camel's back for my wife. We watched a movie called 'Black Hooker'. It was horrible and pointless and a bit disturbing with some black guy who was a church pastor who had a daughter who was a hooker but then he went and had sex with some young girl who was part of the church. Gross! That movie also kinda put the kibosh on the wife wanting to watch movies from my stupid movie collection.
Classic Musicals (Mill Creek, 50 movies, 3965 minutes) (click here for the list of movies) Note: I got this one for $8 at MicroCenter in January 2008. I was excited for this one because one of my co-workers had given me a special coupon for 20% off any item and I was refusing to pay $9.99 for this collection.
All-Stars Collection (TreeLine, 50 movies, 4140 minutes) (click here for the list of movies) Note: I got this one for $4 at MicroCenter in late August 2009. I also got the War Classics and 100 TV Episodes at the same time for super cheap as well). Comes on 13 discs in a cardboard case.
War Classics (TreeLine, 50 movies, 3594 minutes) (click here for the list of movies) Note: This collection is half war-themed movies and half war documentaries. I got this one for $4 at MicroCenter in late August 2009.
TV Favorites MegaPack (TreeLine, 100 TV episodes, 2910 minutes) (click here for the list of episodes) Note: A collection of black and white TV shows. I got this for $2 at MicroCenter in late August 2009.
Action Classics (Mill Creek, _100_ movies, 8626 minutes) (click here for the list of movies from Action 50) (click here for the list of movies from Suspense 50) Note: I got this collection in September 2009 for $15 incl. shipping from eBay). This collection is actually the Action 50 and Suspense 50 movie packs put into one box.
Nightmare Worlds (Mill Creek, 50 movies, 4135 minutes). (click here for the list of movies) Note: I got this for $12 on eBay in June 2010.
Western Classics (Mill Creek, 50 movies, 3597 minutes) (click here for the list of movies) Note: I got this collection used for $5 from Half Price Books, most likely Bethel Road. Price sticker has a date of Aug 23 2010 on it and a post-it note on the inside advertised the Labor Day sale from Sept 2 - Sept 6, so I'm guessing this was purchased in either August or September of 2010.
Comedy Classics (TreeLine / Mill Creek, 50 movies, 3900 minutes) (click here for the list of movies) Note: I paid $10 for this at Half Price Books on Bethel Rd, new. Not sure exactly when I got this other than it was sometime between August and September of 2010. This one is interesting in that the box itself is TreeLine however they placed a slipcover over it which is from Mill Creek.
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| TreeLine box |
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| Mill Creek slip cover |
Giant 600 Cartoon Collection (Mill Creek, _600_ cartoons, 3720 minutes) (click here for the list of episodes) Note: I got this on eBay in September 2010 for $5 incl. shipping. I actually purchased the 100 Cartoon Collection from MicroCenter for $.99 first, but then I found out about the 600 cartoon collection and knew I just had to have it!
Legends of Horror (Mill Creek, 50 movies, 3604 minutes) Note: Borders went out of business and had a sale and they had all DVDs at 40% + 10% off. They had the 50 movie packs already priced at a some-what decent price of $14.95, however after the 40% + 10% off, they were about $8.50 after tax. I blame Dan Martin (a co-worker of mine) for purchasing these because he was going to take me out to lunch, however he didn't tell me and I had an interview to go to and I saw Borders and thought I would stop in. If I had known about the possibility of free food, I would have skipped going to Borders. Purchased (obviously) at Borders on Sawmill Rd in late March 2011.
Western Legends (Mill Creek, 50 movies, 3042 minutes) Note: Another Borders going-out-of-business purchase in March 2011. Again, cost after 40% + 10% was $8.50.
The Way West (Mill Creek, 50 movies, 2830 minutes) Note: I picked this up at Half Price Books (likely Bethel Rd.) for $6.39 along with the Suspense 50 Movie Pack which I actually already had (see Action 100 Movie Pack) in late March 2012.
Mystery Classics (Mill Creek, 50 movies, 3768 minutes) Note: When I returned the Suspense movie pack to Half Price Books, I picked up the Mystery movie pack, new and still shrink-wrapped for $6.39 in late March 2012.
Ultimate TV Westerns (Mill Creek, 150 episodes, 4117 minutes) Note: I picked this up in early May 2012 at a Half Price Books in Cincinnati for $5.35, still sealed, originally priced at $19.99 from Best Buy.
Burnt Rubber (Mill Creek, 20 movies, 1509 minutes) Note: In late May 2012, I picked this up at Half Price Books in Beavercreek, OH (at Fairfield Commons) for $4.99. C'mon! It's all car themed movies. I HAD to have this one!
Hollywood Legends (Tree Line, 50 movies, 4424 minutes) Note: I picked this up at the Beavercreek Half Price Books for $7.99 in late May 2012.
Warriors (Mill Creek, 50 movies, 4464 minutes) Note: In late May 2012, I picked this up at Half Price Books in Hamilton, OH. I had spied this a couple of times but they had it priced at $9.99, however this particular day they had recently marked it down to $7.99. I had seen one of the Herc movies on the Sci Fi set, but wasn't thrilled with it, but the wife convinced me to pick it up.
Spaghetti Westerns (Mill Creek, 44 movies, 4168 minutes) Note: Another one I picked up at the Hamilton Half Price Books (in Late May 2012) for a cool $5 from the discount bin (probably due to the busted plastic case)
Prime Time Crime - The Stephen J. Cannell Collection (Mill Creek, 54 episodes, 2595 minutes) Note: Yet another one picked up at the Hamilton Half Price Books in late May 2012. Being a movie pack connoisseur, I was amazed when I saw this one since I love most of Cannell's stuff and I had NEVER heard of this one (probably because I was always looking up 'movie pack'). At $7.99, this was a steal and should be awesome.
Comedy Kings (Mill Creek, 50 movies, 3555 minutes) Note: I got this one on eBay in June 2012 for $6 a mere 6 days after I posted about my 5 movie packs in a weekend post. So sad.
Decrepit Crypt of Nightmares (Mill Creek, 50 movies, 4053 minutes) Note: I picked this one up from the Bethel Rd Half Price books for $2 in 2012 sometime (The clearance sticker says 11/13/12). It smells slightly of stale smoke. Most of the movies look like they were shot on a camcorder.
Dark Crimes (Mill Creek, 50 movies, 3714 minutes) Note: I got this one from my wife for either my birthday or our anniversary. I think it was 2012. I know at the time Wal-Mart had this collection for $10 so I'm going with that price.
Sci-Fi Invasion (Mill Creek, 50 movies, 4179 minutes) Note: I have no idea where I got this one, when I got this one, or how much I paid for it or if it was a gift. I think it was Christmas of 2012 from the wife. I'll call the price on this one $15 since I really have no idea.
Martial Arts (Mill Creek, 50 movies, 4223 minutes) Note: I picked this one up online at Amazon for $14.50 in February of 2013. This really should have been the last set I picked up. As you will see, it was not. Not even close.
The Excellent Eighties (Mill Creek, 50 movies, 4842 minutes) Note: I picked this up at the Marysville Kmart in 2013 for $9.99. Now there is yet another series of movie packs that I want to get (Swinging 70s and Sensational 60s, not to mention the Nifty 50s and Fabulous 40s).
Pure Terror (Mill Creek, 50 movies, 4252 minutes) Note: I picked this one up sometime in 2013 from (I believe) the Half Price Books on Bethel for $8. (Note: The price sticker I saved had 5/13 on it.)
Horror Classics - 4 Movies (Platinum, 4 movies, 318 minutes, one single sided disc) (click here for the list of movies) Note: This was a late add to the list. I believe I got this in October of 2013 as a gift from my wife. At the time, I believed that I had all the movies in this collection. However, when doing an 'audit' in 2024, I realized that there was one movie that I did not have. I'm guessing she got it on Amazon for about $8.
Classic Holiday Collection Vol. 1 - 4 Film Favorites (Warner Brothers, 4 movies, 359 minutes, four single sided discs) (click here for the list of movies) Note: I bought this for my wife pre-Christmas in 2013, I believe. She wanted to see Christmas In Connecticut. Originally I did not count this as part of my collection, however when I purchased Volume 2 in 2024, I 'took ownership' of this collection. Ha! I believe I paid $15.00 for this collection.
Family Classics (Mill Creek, 50 movies, 3396 minutes) Note: I picked this one up at the Ollie's on Cleveland Ave for $6 in June of 2014. I had been eyeing this collection for a while since historically it had been one of the cheeper sets whether it was new or used. I think it has to do with the short running time.
Alfred Hitchcock - A Legacy Of Suspense (Mill Creek, 20 movies, 1631 minutes) Note: I picked this one up sometime in the fall of 2014 from Half Price Books, though I'm not sure which one. Don't recall how much I paid for this, but we'll say $7.00.
1001 Commercials (Mill Creek, 1001 commercials, 972 minutes) Note: I picked this one up from Half Price Books on Bethel. I remember I had picked up... something... and was literally walking out the door when I spotted it in the clearance rack (which I had looked at earlier but must have overlooked it). I picked it up for $3.00. We'll say this was also in the fall of 2014. (Note: Sticker had 1/14 on it.)
The Sensational Sixties (Mill Creek, 50 movies, 4427 minutes). Note: I got this one as a Christmas present in 2014 from my mother. Yay Mom! Did some research to see how much overlap there was and I think it worked out to be about 20% (10 films) which isn't too bad honestly considering the sheer number of these things I have. I'll stick a $15 price on this one since at the time that is what Amazon was selling it for.
The Swingin' Seventies (Mill Creek, 50 movies, 4543 minutes) Note: I got this at Ollie's in Westerville for $6.99 in Oct of 2015. I had seen the Sixties box set there previously, but this was the first time I saw the Seventies collection there. Yay!
Cowboys and Bandits (Mill Creek, 50 movies, 3128 minutes) Note: I got this at Half Price Books on Rt 23 for $7.99 in Oct of 2015. A little bit on the expensive side, but I knew that this one didn't have much overlap with the other western box sets that I already had.
Musicals - 20 Movie Collection (Mill Creek, 20 movies, 1706 minutes) Note: I got this in April 2017 from Walmart for $12.18 using a Walmart eGift Card purchased from My Coke Rewards. All movies are from Columbia Pictures and some are even Oscar nominated. Sweet!
Classic Sci-Fi TV (Mill Creek, 150 episodes, 3886 minutes) Note: I got this in April 2017 from Ollie's in Sidney, OH for $5.99. I had been wanting to get this one for a while, but was refusing to pay $19.99 for it. Score!
The Best Of Spaghetti Westerns (In the Tradition of The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly) (Timeless Media Group, 20 movies, 1801 minutes) Note: I got this in April 2017 from Ollie's in Sidney, OH for $2.16. Awesome price and nice quality on the prints of the movies!
Combat Classics (Mill Creek, 50 movies, 4296 minutes) Note: Picked this up on eBay late April 2017 for $6.00. I wasn't quite sure what the overlap was going to be, but figured that it would be around 30%. After further analysis, it turned out to be 50%. Not my best bargain.
Timeless Family Classics (Mill Creek, 50 movies, 3708 minutes) Note: Purchased from eBay on the same day as Combat Classics (late April). It had a price tag of $3.09 including shipping. It was too little for me to pass up. I was hoping for a 60 to 70% overlap. Alas, checking my collections there were 11 which I didn't already have. D'oh!
Cowboy Legends (old version) (Mill Creek, 50 Movies, 2941 minutes) Note: Purchased from eBay on the same day as Combat Classics and Timeless Family Classics... and purchased with Rin Tin Tin. Cost was $8.75 (with shipping) after getting to take 20% off for ordering another item (ie, Rin Tin Tin). I knew that there was very little overlap. Also knew that Mill Creek had just released a 2017 box set with the same name which had over 50% overlap with my collection, so I knew I needed to pick this one up quickly before the waters got muddy.
The Legend of Rin Tin Tin (Mill Creek, 4 serials [48 total episodes], 881 minutes) Note: Purchased from eBay for $3.50 along with Cowboy Legends in order to earn 20% off my order. This set is four serials with each serial having 12 episodes for a total of 48 episodes. Most of the episode run between 15 and 20 minutes each. Contains serials from both the original Rin Tin Tin as well as Rin Tin Tin Jr.
Gunslinger Classics (Mill Creek, 50 movies, 3909 minutes) Note: Purchased from eBay on May 9th 2017 for $5.50 with shipping. This was the first time I had used the Best Offer option on eBay. The seller had it listed for 3.99 and 3.00 for shipping. I put in a best offer bid for $2.50 and it was accepted. By the time I purchased this, I had done a extreme checkup on my collection and knew that this collection had 40 movies that I didn't have yet. Glad I got this one for such a good price.
Victory At Sea (Mill Creek, 26 episodes, 689 minutes) (click for list of movies) Note: Purchased at the Half Price Book Clearance (Warehouse) Sale at the Sharonville Convention Center in May 2017. Picked up for 2 bucks.
NASA - 50 Years Of Space Exploration (Madacy Home Video, 25 episodes, 664 minutes) (click here for a list of movies) Note: Purchased at the Half Price Book Clearance (Warehouse) Sale at the Sharonville Convention Center in May 2017. Picked up for 2 bucks.
Gorehouse Greats (Mill Creek, 12 movies, 1030 minutes) Note: Purchased at the Half Price Book Clearance (Warehouse) Sale at the Sharonville Convention Center in May 2017. Picked up for 2 bucks. Nine of the films were unique to my collection. Not bad, even though gore films really aren't my thing.
Under Fire (Mill Creek, 12 movies, 1145 min) Note: Purchased at the Half Price Book Clearance (Warehouse) Sale at the Sharonville Convention Center in May 2017. Picked up for 1 dollar. I was hoping that since this was one of the new collections that the overlap wouldn't be too bad. Alas, only 5 of the movies were unique, but considering I only paid a dollar, I'm okay with that. It's better than the Timeless Family Classics error.
Under Fire (Mill Creek, 12 movies, 1145 min) Note: Purchased at the Half Price Book Clearance (Warehouse) Sale at the Sharonville Convention Center in May 2017. Picked up for 1 dollar. I was hoping that since this was one of the new collections that the overlap wouldn't be too bad. Alas, only 5 of the movies were unique, but considering I only paid a dollar, I'm okay with that. It's better than the Timeless Family Classics error.
Kickin' It Shaolin Style
Iron Fist Frenzy (Mill Creek, 50 movies, 4226 minutes) Note: Purchased from eBay in May 2017 for $18 after figuring out it was going to cost me about that much just to get the other martial arts '12 movie' sets (like Kickin' It Shaolin Style) that make up Iron Fist Frenzy and still wouldn't have the 'bonus' 2 movies found on Iron Fist Frenzy.
Samurai Warriors Collection (TGG Direct, 12 movies, 1152 minutes) Note: Wife purchased this from Half Price Books in Hamilton for $6 in May 2017. Packaging is literally a folded piece of cardboard with slits for the DVDs to sit in. Needless to say, I put them in better sleeves so they don't get scratched before I watch them. Double Note: The Amazon link points to a 4 disc, 10 movie version of this collection. The one I have is a 5 disc, 12 movie collection containing two more movies ('The Body Guard' and 'Dragon Princess'.)
Crime Classics (Mill Creek, 50 movies, 3415 minutes) Note: I picked this up in May 2017 on eBay for $9.50. Appears to be a sister set to the Dark Crimes 50 movie pack and possibly came first as it never got a plastic case release.
Billy The Kid (Mill Creek, 20 movies, 1111 minutes) Note: Picked this up in May 2017 on eBay for $4 including shipping. Lots of Buster Crabbe and Bob Steele as Billy the Kid and, I believe, every movie has Al St. John as his sidekick Fuzzy.
Song & Dance Classics (Mill Creek, 20 Movies, 1625 minutes, 4 single sided discs) Note: Picked this up at Half Price Books in Montgomery OH for a cool 3 bucks in May 2017. This is good because it only had 3 movies which I didn't have yet, so it met the 'dollar per movie' limit I try to have.
Frontier Justice (Mill Creek, 50 movies, 3049 minutes) Note: Picked this up in June 2017 on eBay for $9.50. This one took a bit of effort to get after the seller sent the wrong item. But ultimately the correct item was shipped.
John Wayne - The Tribute Collection (Mill Creek, 26 movies, 1919 minutes) Note: Picked this up one Father's Day June 2017 from Half Price Books in Hamilton for $5.
15 Martial Arts Movies (TGG Direct, 15 movies, 1352 minutes) Note: Picked this up one Father's Day June 2017 from Half Price Books in Hamilton also for $5. Amusingly enough, the discs are labeled Samurai Warriors with a pic of Jackie Chan, different from the other TGG collection which was named Samurai Warriors Collection.
The Best of Chaplin (Echo Bridge, 28 movies, 693 minutes) Note: Picked this up one Father's Day June 2017 from Half Price Books in Hamilton for $3. Comes in a box with 4 standard DVD cases.
Cult Classics (Mill Creek, 20 movies, 1397 minutes) Note: Picked this up from eBay at the end of July 2017 for $6 shipping included. This one contains what I consider to be some of the original cult classics: Reefer Madness, Cocaine Fiends, Sex Madness, Test Tube Babies, etc. Comes in a smaller plastic case.
Drive-In Cult Classics (Mill Creek, 32 movies, 2763 minutes) Note: Picked this up from eBay at the end of July 2017 for $8.15 shipping included. I love the artwork on this collection. They also released this in 8 movie packs, each with awesome cover art. Comes in a plastic case.
Night Screams (Mill Creek, 50 movies, 3540 minutes) Note: Picked this up on eBay at the end of July 2017 for $9.50 shipping included. Based on the artwork, I thought this was going to be in a cardboard case, but amazingly it was in one of the sturdy plastic cases.
Hollywood Comedy Legends (Mill Creek, 50 movies, 4174 minutes) Note: I picked this one up on eBay mid September 2017 for a cool $5 with shipping. Couldn't pass it up. Plastic case to boot.
B-Movie Blast (Mill Creek, 50 movies, 4552 minutes) Note: I got this one as a gift in October 2017. Yay! Gonna say it cost the wife $15. In a nice plastic case.
Tales Of Terror (Mill Creek, 50 movies, 3548 minutes) Note: I picked this one up on eBay in October 2017 for $9. Not too bad. This one is in a cardboard case.
Historic Classics (Mill Creek, 50 movies, 4217 minutes) Note: I got this one for my wedding anniversary from the wife in Oct of 2017. Thanks babe! I'll say she paid $20 for this. Comes in a cardboard case.
Box Office Gold (Mill Creek, 50 movies, 4771 minutes) Note: I got this early April 2018 for $10 on eBay. I had been eyeing this one for a while. Comes in a cardboard case on 13 discs.
Family Fun (Mill Creek, 50 movies, 3669 minutes) Note: I got this one late April 2018 for $11 on eBay. Comes in a cardboard case on 12 discs.
Great Adaptations (Mill Creek, 50 movies, 4553 minutes) Note: I got this one end of October in 2018 from the wife for our anniversary. I am not going to count this one in minutes or movies categories since it's all repeat, but will count it towards the cost which I think is around $17 dollars. Comes in the new slip version of the cardboard case _and_ contains a code for the digital versions of the movies! Oddly, they've crammed the 50 movies onto 10 discs instead of the usual 12.
The Definitive TV Western Collection (Mill Creek, 600 episodes, 15,928 minutes, 48 discs) - Note: I got this one in September of 2020 and it cost me $41 shipped. This set comes in a sweet wooden box and is actually four Mill Creek western tv collections in one (Essential TV Westerns, Ultimate TV Westerns, Western TV Collection, and Western TV Treasures). I already have Ultimate TV Westerns, so that set (150 episodes, 4117 minutes) will not go towards the collection episode count or estimated viewing time. I'm glad I finally caved in and bought it when I did because a year later (in Sept 2021), a new copy runs $130 and used copies cost at least $80. Yay me for being obsessive!
Legends Of Kung Fu (Brentwood Home Video, 10 movies, 977 minutes, 5 double sided discs) - Note: This is one of the original multi-movie box sets which started this madness. Originally purchased sometime between 2001 and 2002 at Media Play for $10, given to Goodwill, then repurchased in August 2022 for approx $10 from Amazon. Comes in a hefty plastic case where each disc gets its own 'page'. As noted above, the discs are double sided.
Mystery Collection (Mill Creek, 250 Movies, 19235 minutes, 60 double sided discs) (click for the list of movies) Note: I got this in a flurry of activity at the end of February 2023. I had been watching another copy of this set on eBay for $35. Then just after midnight on Feb 20, I was having trouble sleeping so I went to check some of my eBay watch items... and it was gone. Most other copies were for 38 dollars or more. Out of desperation and FOMO, I saw that there was a copy for 39.99 + free shipping or best offer. I put in a low offer of $29 assuming it would not be accepted... but it was. This set is pretty much just the Mystery 50, Dark Crimes 50, Crime Classics 50, Suspense 50, and Action 50 movie packs put together. There was only one title I didn't have yet, but I was more after the packaging than I was the movies themselves. Receiving this one also gave me a bit of grief. It sat in the 'label printed, UPS waiting for package' state for a solid week, but eventually it did start its trek from California to Ohio.
The Trail West (Mill Creek, 200 Movies, 14491 minutes, 50 mostly double sided discs) (click here for the list of movies) Note: This was purchases at the end of February 2023. Before I knew that the seller had accepted my offer on the Mystery 250 Collection, I knew there was another big pack of packaging that Mill Creek had done that I wanted to add to my collection. I won the auction for this at the last minute (after almost forgetting about it) for $29. The box is heavy duty and the front is a layered shadow box kinda thing making it look 3D. I had most of these movies, but there 10 that I didn't have yet which came from a couple of other 20 movie packs that I didn't have. Most of the discs were double sided, but discs 37 to 46 were single-sided dual-layer discs with a nice picture on them. Also on a weird note, when having to check the running time of a couple movies, the DVD menus were all over the place. Some of the discs still had Tree Line menus!
Kung-Fu Crusade (Brentwood Home Video, 10 Movies, 865 minutes, 5 double sided discs) (click here for the list of movies) Note: While checking on the status of The Trail West, Mystery 250 and Fists Of Vengeance, I started looking eBay to see if the makers of the original two kung fu movie set (Brentwood Home Video) had made any other sets. This led me to Kung Fu Crusade which went 10 for 10 on movies that I did not have which is a rarity and cost me $13. It came packaged in the same chunky plastic case that Legends Of Kung Fu and Fists Of Fire did.
Return Of The Warriors (Brentwood Home Video, 20 Movies, 1746 minutes, 10 double sided discs) (click here for the list of movies) Note: This the fifth and last purchase of the late February 2023 frenzy. The pics on eBay of this item led me to believe that this was going to be in a bigger version of the chunky plastic case that the other Brentwood sets came in. It was instead was a plastic wallet placed in a cardboard box which had a fold out which told you what the movies were and a little about them. This set amazingly had 10 movies which I didn't have yet and cost me $13.
Space Odyssey (Brentwood Home Video, 20 Movies, 1742 minutes, 10 double-sided discs) (click here for the list of movies) Note: Nothing really of note here. Purchased mid-April 2023 from eBay. I didn't have five of the movies in the collection. It was listed at $7. I offered $3.50. The offer was accepted. With shipping it was around $8.50. The setup for the case it just like the Return of the Warriors collection.
America - Stories Of War (Mill Creek, 50 movies and 194 episodes, 10,166 minutes (4,252m for movies, 5,914m for episodes) , 36 single-sided discs) (click here for the list of movies and episodes) Note: Picked this up on eBay for $7.50 early July of 2023. Wanted this mainly for the tin box that houses the discs. Appears to contain a good hunk of the documentary content from War Classics box set (if not all), the 50 movies are the Combat Classics, and also the Victory At Sea set.
John Wayne: The Early Years (Mill Creek, 36 episodes, 655 minutes, 3 single-sided discs) (click here for the list of episodes) Note: Picked this up on eBay in a couple of Buy-2-Get-1-Free orders for $4.00 early August 2023.
Adventure Pack - 10 Movies (Echo Briddge, 10 Movies, 856 minutes, 2 single-sided discs) (click here for the list of movies) Note: Picked this up on eBay in a couple of Buy-2-Get-1-Free orders for $2.75 early August 2023. For a while I had been avoiding Echo Bridge because I knew they were cramming too many movies on a disc. I seemed to have dropped my guard on this in August 2023 as you will see.
Fantasy Collection - 6 Movies (Echo Bridge, 6 movies, 707 minutes, 2 single-sided discs) (click here for the list of movies) Note: Picked this up on eBay in a couple of Buy-2-Get-1-Free orders for $2.75 early August 2023.
Classic Serials Megapage - 150 Episodes (TreeLine Films, 151 episodes, 2885 minutes, 12 single-sided discs) (click here for the list of episodes) Note: Picked this up on eBay for $7.50 a few days after the two B2G1 orders. This was the first I had heard of this collection from TreeLine which is surprising since I've been doing homework for quite a while.
Flash Gordon Conquers The Universe (Front Row Entertainment, 12 episodes, 223 minutes, 2 single-sided discs) (click here for the list of episodes) Note: Picked this up at the Half Price Books Warehouse sale in West Chester in mid August 2023. All DVD's were 2 bucks each.
The Great Commandments Collection (Echo Bridge, 8 movies and 12 episodes, 1002 minutes (658m for movies, 344 for episodes), 3 single-sided discs) (click here for the list of movies and episodes) Note: Picked this up at the Half Price Books Warehouse sale in West Chester in mid August 2023. This copy was still sealed when I got it.
Western Value Collection - 16 Movies (Echo Bridge, 16 movies, 1482 minutes, 4 single-sided discs) (click here for the list of movies) Note: Picked this up at the Half Price Books Warehouse sale in West Chester in mid August 2023.
Mary Higgins Clark - 14 Film Collection (Mill Creek, 14 movies, 1317 minutes, 6 single-sided discs) (click here for the list of movies) Note: Picked this up at the Half Price Books Warehouse sale in West Chester in mid August 2023. This copy was still sealed when I got it.
Denzel Washington Vol. 2 (Warner Brothers, 5 movies, 707 minutes, 3 single-sided discs, 2 double-sided discs) (click here for the list of movies) Note: Picked this up at the Half Price Books Warehouse sale in West Chester in mid August 2023.
8 Movie Action Pack (Echo Bridge, 8 movies, 750 minutes, 2 single-sided discs) (click here for the list of movies) Note: Picked this up at the Half Price Books Warehouse sale in West Chester in mid August 2023.
High Octane - 10 Action Movies (Maverick Entertainment, 10 movies, 905 minutes, 2 single-sided discs) (click here for the list of movies) Note: Purchased on eBay for $6.50 in late August 2023.
Full Throttle - 10 Action Movies (Maverick Entertainment, 10 movies, 926 minutes, 2 single-sided discs) (click here for the list of movies) Note: Purchased on eBay for $6.50 in late August 2023.
Fantasy Collection - 6 Movies (w Beastmaster) (Echo Bridge, 6 movies, 570 minutes, 2 single-sided discs) (click here for the list of movies) Note: Purchased at Half Price Books in Hamilton, OH in late August 2023. This was in the clearance section for $2.00.
Classic Western Collection (w Albuquerque) (Universal, 4 movies, 334 minutes, 2 single-sided discs) (click here for the list of movies) Note: Purchased at Half Price Books in Hamilton, OH in late August 2023. This was in the clearance section for $2.00.
15-Film Man Cave Pack (Echo Bridge, 15 movies, 1332 minutes, 3 single-sided discs) (click here for the list of movies) Note: Purchased at Half Price Books in Hamilton, OH in late August 2023. This was in the clearance section for $2.00.
The Midnight Horror Collection Vol. 2 - 8 Movie Pack (Echo Bridge, 8 movies, 662 minutes, 2 single-sided discs) (click here for the list of movies) Note: Purchased at Half Price Books in Hamilton, OH in late August 2023. This was in the clearance section for $2.00.
Horror Collector's Set - 4 Films (Echo Bridge, 4 movies, 367 minutes, 1 double-sided disc) (click here for the list of movies) Note: Purchased at Half Price Books in Hamilton, OH in late August 2023. This was in the clearance section for $2.00.
12 Movie Action Pack (Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus) (Echo Bridge, 12 movies, 1053 minutes, 2 single-sided discs and 1 double-sided disc) (click here for the list of movies) Note: Purchased at Half Price Books in Hamilton, OH in late August 2023. This was in the clearance section for $2.00.
Pirates - 10 Movies (St. Clair Vision, 10 movies and 3 episodes, 819 minutes (798m for movies, 21m for episodes), 3 single-sided discs) (click here for the list of movies) Note: Purchased at Half Price Books in Hamilton, OH in late August 2023. This was in the clearance section for $2.00.
Pure Adrenaline - 10 Action Movies (Maverick Entertainment, 10 movies, 950 minutes, 2 single-sided discs) (click here for the list of movies) Note: Purchased on eBay in late August 2023 for $6.50.
8-Movie All Action Collection (Shout! Factory, 8 movies, 957 minutes, 2 single-sided discs) (click here for the list of movies) Note: Purchased for $4.00 at a Big Lots in Fairfield Ohio in mid September 2023.
Canine Capers 4 Pack - Family 4 Film Collection (GT Media / Screen Media Films, 4 movies, 362 minutes, 2 discs - 1 single-sided disc and 1 double-sided) (click here for the list of movies) Note: Picked this up for $1.50 on clearance at the Big Lots in Fairfield at the same time I got the All Action set.
Law And Disorder - 10 Action Movies (Maverick Entertainment, 10 movies, 992 minutes, 2 single-sided discs) (click here for the list of movies) Note: Picked up on eBay with Benji and War Classics in a B2G1 deal in mid September 2023. The cost worked out to be $3.50 for this set.
Disturbing The Peace - 10 Action Movies (Maverick Entertainment, 10 movies, 906 minutes, 2 single-sided discs) (click here for the list of movies) Note: Picked up on eBay at the end of September in a Buy 2 Get 1 Free deal. End price worked out to be $4.00 for this set.
10 Movie Mega Pack Vol. 2 (Disc 2 only) (Echo Bridge, 5 movies, 472 minutes, 1 single-sided disc) (click here for the list of movies) Note: Picked up on eBay at the end of September as part of a Buy 2 Get 1 Free deal for a seller I had had issues with before. Unfortunately, this order was no different and I ended up only getting 1 of the 2 discs in this set. The seller refunded me the price for this item but let me keep the disc. Cost of this disc is technically $0.
Feel The Heat - 10 Thriller Movies (Maverick Entertainment, 10 movies, 911 minutes, 2 single-sided discs) (click her for the list of movies) Note: Picked up at the end of September 2023 on eBay for $7.00.
Elvis Presley Musicals (Warner Brothers, 4 movies, 372 minutes, 3 discs (two single-sided, one double-sided) (click here for the list of movies) Note: Received as a Christmas gift in 2023. At the time I received it, it was going for $9.00 on Amazon. There are a few other Elvis 4 movie packs that I need to look into getting (or at least putting on my Amazon list).
Classic Westerns - 10 Movies (Universal, 10 movies, 823 minutes, 3 discs - all single-sided) (click here for the list of movies) Note: Received as a Christmas gift in 2023. At the time I received it, it was going for $9.00 on Amazon. Being a true Universal release means that the prints are very good in this collection.
Wartime Comedies - 8 Movies (Universal, 8 movies, 744 minutes, 2 single-sided discs) (click here for the list of movies) Note: Picked this up from Amazon at the end of February 2024 for $5.50. Nice deal! Again, from Universal so the quality is great!
War Collection - 10 Films (Universal, 10 movies, 959 minutes, 3 single-sided discs) (click here for the list of movies) Note: Picked this up from Amazon at the end of February 2024 for $6.50. Good deal! Also from Universal so the quality is great!
20 Action Movies (Echo Bridge, 20 movies, 1776 minutes, 4 single sided discs) (click here for the list of movies) Note: I threw out my back which resulted in my looking at eBay a little bit. I purchased this mid March 2024 for $5.75.
Dark Disposition (Maverick Entertainment, 10 movies, 865 minutes, 2 single sided discs) (click here for the list of movies) Note: I threw out my back which resulted in my looking at eBay a little bit. I purchased this mid March 2024 for $5.00. It came without a case, but luckily I had two copies of another Maverick title, so I just used the case from the duplicate title.
Most Wanted - 10 Action Movies (Maverick Entertainment, 10 movie, 817 minutes, 2 single sided discs) (click here for the list of movies) Note: I threw out my back which resulted in my looking at eBay a little bit. I purchased this mid March 2024 for $5.75.
20 Film Action (Supercop) (Echo Bridge, 20 movies, 1789 minutes, 4 single sided discs) (click here for the list of movies) Note: I picked this up on eBay at the end of March 2024 for $6.25.
20 Action Movies (Chuck Norris with handgun) (Echo Bridge, 20 movies, 1694 minutes, 4 single sided discs) (click here for the list of movies) Note: I picked this up on eBay at the end of March 2024 for $6.50.
Elvis 75th Birthday Collection ( MGM / 20th Century Fox, 7 movies, 688 minutes, 7 single sided discs) (click here for the list of movies) Note: I picked this up on eBay at the end of March 2024 for $22.75, a bit on the expensive side for me, but it was part of an Elvis movie spending spree. The slip case houses 2 standard sized DVD cases, one which holds the 20th Century Fox movies and the other holding the MGM movies.
Elvis Triple Feature (Warner Brothers, 3 movies, 278 minutes, 2 discs (1 single sided, 1 double sided)) (click here for the list of movies) Note: I purchases this at the end of March 2024 from Amazon for $9.50 as part of an Elvis movie spending spree.
Lights! Camera! Elvis! - 8 Film Collection (Paramount, 8 movies, 804 minutes, 8 single sided discs) (click here for the list of movies) Note: I purchases this at the end of March 2024 from Amazon for $9.50 as part of an Elvis movie spending spree.
Babes & Boyz - 10 Action Movies (Maverick Entertainment, 10 movies, 912 minutes, 2 single sided discs) (click here for the list of movies) Note: Picked up this set (and two others) at the beginning of April 2024 from eBay as part of a Buy 2 Get 1 Free deal which cost around $9.75 for all three.
Classic Western Collection (The Texas Rangers) - 4 Movie Marathon (Universal, 4 movies, 354 minutes, 2 single sided discs) (click here for the list of movies) Note: Picked up this set (and two others) at the beginning of April 2024 from eBay as part of a Buy 2 Get 1 Free deal which cost around $9.75 for all three.
James Stewart Westerns - 4 Movie Marathon (Universal, 4 movies, 375 minutes, 2 single sided discs) (click here for the list of movies) Note: Picked up this set (and two others) at the beginning of April 2024 from eBay as part of a Buy 2 Get 1 Free deal which cost around $9.75 for all three.
Jackie Chan Collection - 8 Film Set (Miramax Classics) (Echo Bridge, 8 movies, 746 minutes, 1 single sided disc and 1 double sided disc) (click here for the list of movies) Note: Picked this up at the beginning of April 2024 for $6.50.
Musicals Double Feature (Elvis - Spinout / Double Trouble) (Warner Brothers, 2 movies, 185 minutes, 1 double sided disc) (click here for the list of movies) Note: Purchased from Amazon mid April 2024 on the quest to own all 32 of the non-concert Elvis movies.
Jackie Chan - Eight Film Collection (Fortune Star, 8 movies, 820 minutes, 2 single sided discs) (click here for the list of movies) Note: Picked this up mid April 2024 from Amazon. Didn't have any of these movies!
50 Whodunit Classics - Collectors Edition (EMSON, 28 movies and 22 episodes, 2,787 minutes (2,257m for movies, 530m for episodes), 4 double sided discs) (click here for the list of movies) Note: Another purchase from the May 2024 Friends of the Lane Libraries warehouse sale for $2.
Black Cobra Collection (Brentwood, 3 movies, 273 minutes, 2 discs (1 single sided, 1 double sided)) (click here for the list of movies) Note: Picked this up at the May 2024 Friends of the Lane Libraries warehouse sale for $2. Turns out that I already had everything on another martial arts set (the Martial Arts 50 pack I believe).
Charles Bronson Collector's Classics (Front Row Entertainment, 2 movies, 168 minutes, 2 single sided discs) (click here for the list of movies) Note: Another purchase from the May 2024 Friends of the Lane Libraries warehouse sale for $2. One of the disc on this refuses to play in every DVD player I have. It's not even scratched up. Oh well.
Dirty Harry Collection - 4 Film Favorites (Warner Brothers, 4 movies, 437 movies, 2 double sided discs) (click here for the list of movies) Note: Another purchase from the May 2024 Friends of the Lane Libraries warehouse sale for $2. I guess I felt lucky. :P
Legends Of The West - Volume Five (Platinum Disc, 32 movies, 1882 minutes, 8 single sided discs) (click here for the list of movies) Note: Yet another purchase from the May 2024 Friends of the Lane Libraries warehouse sale for $2. This came in a case for another Western Collection, along with another disc from another western set. Turns out this was likely one of the volumes from the 10 disc America's Greatest Westerns volumes which was probably missing one disc. Anyhoo... I picked up that whole series later on.
Ocean's Collection - 4 Film Favorites (Warner Brothers, 4 movies, 490 minutes, 2 double sided discs) (click here for the list of movies) Note: Another purchase from the May 2024 Friends of the Lane Libraries warehouse sale for $2. Contains the three remakes as well as the original featuring Frank and friends.
Sam Elliott Western Collection (Warner Brothers, 2 movies and 2 episodes, 371 minutes (187m for movies, 184m for episodes), 4 single sided discs) (click here for the list of movies) Note: Yet another purchase from the May 2024 Friends of the Lane Libraries warehouse sale for $2.
Total Movie & Entertainment Double Double Movie Pack (Total Movie & Entertainment Magazine, 40 movies, 3341 minutes, 20 discs (1 single sided and 19 double sided)) (click here for the list of movies) Note: Another purchase from the May 2024 Friends of the Lane Libraries warehouse sale for $2. A pretty hefty set that was in a cardboard 'box' which wasn't sturdy enough to have things stacked on it by its previous owner.
Urban Chills - 10 Horror Movies (Maverick Entertainment, 10 movies, 846 minutes, 2 single sided discs) (click here for the list of movies) Note: I purchased this from eBay at the end of May 2024. The original name of this collection was Urban Nightmares. I didn't have 8 of the movies on this set. At $8.50, I was just over the one dollar mark for each movie. Oh well.
Westerns Collection - 4 Movie Marathon (Universal, 4 movies, 379 minutes, 2 single sided discs) (click here for the list of movies) Note: Picked this up from eBay for $6.50. After doing some research, I figured out that I had all of the western sets from the 'Movie Marathon' series except this one. I already had two of the four movies, but the completist in me just had to have this one since I knew that the prints of the movies were going to be good.
America's Greatest Westerns - Volume One (Echo Bridge, 44 movies, 3349 minutes, 10 single sided discs) (click here for the list of movies) Note: After getting the western sets from the Lane Library warehouse sale, I did a little research and figured out that there was a collection of 165 movies that had been over 40 discs which had been chopped up into different configurations. The 'smallest' collection was the four volumes of America's Greatest Westerns which a single auction miraculously had all four volumes. So, I picked them all up in early June of 2024 for $20 for the entire four volume series. What is odd about this collection is that some/most of the discs in the set were branded for some of the other series.
America's Greatest Westerns - Volume Two (Echo Bridge, 40 movies, 3411 minutes, 10 single sided discs) (click here for the list of movies) Note: Another volume in the series picked up in early June 2024.
Bulletproof - Tough Guys Of Action - 8 Movies (Mill Creek, 8 movies, 797 minutes, 2 single sided discs) (click here for the list of movies) Note: I purchased this (and Crazed Killers) as part auction on eBay for $6.
Crazed Killers (Pendulum / Mill Creek, 6 movies, 483 minutes, 2 single sided discs) (click here for the list of movies) Note: I purchased this (and Bulletproof) as part auction on eBay for $6. This is basically a sampler of some of the Pendulum 50-movie packs put out by Mill Creek, so I already had two of the movies.
Classic Holiday Collection Vol. 2 - 4 Film Favorites (Warner Brothers, 4 movies, 403 minutes, 4 single sided discs) (click here for the list of movies) Note: At the end of June, I was going through my existing DVD collection to see if I had any multi-movie sets that I have forgot about. This led me to the Horror Collection on Platinum (which turned out to have one movie that I did not have yet) as well as the Classic Holiday Collection Vol. 1 which I had bought for my wife. Seeing that it was a Volume 1, I had to check to see if there was a Volume 2, which of course there was. So, I purchased this set for $8 from Amazon at the end of June 2024.
Total number of movie sets:
Total number of movies: 600 700 800 970 1370 1440 1540 1580 1820 1990 2058 2160 2360 2380 2896 3081 3127 3194 3282 3486 3947
Total number of TV episodes:700 850 904 1905 2055 2155 2505 2974 3185 3188 3190 (100 250 304 454 904 1373 1584 1587 1588 1612 TV shows, 601 cartoons, 1001 commercials)
Total number of TV episodes:
Total spent of these silly things: ~$150 ~$170 ~$185 ~$190 ~$225 $296 $321 $334 $355 $366 $412 $425 $449 $498 $536 $577 $597 $688 $697 $713 $722 $751 $784 $918 $1134 !!! Egads!!!
Total viewing time: 55064 minutes / ~918 hours / 38.25 days
Total viewing time: 61710 minutes / ~1028 hours / 42.85 days
Total viewing time: 68308 minutes / 1139 hours / 47.45 days
Total viewing time: 72425 minutes / 1207 hours / 50.30 days
Total viewing time: 89585 minutes / 1493 hours / 62.21 days
Total viewing time: 121799 minutes / 2030 hours / 84.58 days
Total viewing time: 128829 minutes / 2147 hours /89.46 days
Total viewing time: 136500 minutes / 2275 hours /94.79 days
Total viewing time: 143893 minutes = 2398 hours = 99.93 days straight
Total viewing time: 162863 minutes = 2715 hours = 113.1 days straight
Total viewing time: 171,707 minutes = 2913 hours = 121.4 days straight
Total viewing time: 175,671 minutes = 2928 hours = 121.99 days straight
Total viewing time: 183,371 minutes = 3056 hours = 127.34 days straight
Total viewing time: 199,862 minutes = 3331 hours = 138.79 days straightTotal viewing time: 208,302 minutes = 3472 hours = 144.65 days straight
Total viewing time: 220,113 minutes = 3669 hours = 152.86 days straightTotal viewing time: 221,959 minutes = 3699 hours = 154.14 days straightTotal viewing time: 261,667 minutes = 4361 hours = 181.71 days straightTotal viewing time: 262,101 minutes = 4368 hours = 182.01 days straightTotal viewing time: 285,931 minutes = 4766 hours = 198.56 days straightTotal viewing time: 288,352 minutes = 4806 hours = 200.24 days straightTotal viewing time: 294,244 minutes = 4904 hours = 204.34 days straightTotal viewing time: 306,854 minutes = 5114 hours = 213.09 days straightTotal viewing time: 325,557 minutes = 5426 hours = 226.08 days straight
How stupid is all this? I'm glad I did this 'exercise' as it proves that I am basically stupid and a 'collector' who leans toward being a 'completist' and is a bit obsessive and compulsive. I would have to watch one movie and one TV episode EVERY DAY forFOUR FIVE SIX and a half NINE and a half nearly ELEVEN (10.8) years in order to watch all of this. Holy crap! What is wrong with me??? No, seriously, what is wrong with me??????? Cheese Louise!!! Help me, plz!
Total viewing time: 363,101 minutes = 6052 hours = 252.15 days straight
(or until the cows come home, or a little after)
How stupid is all this? I'm glad I did this 'exercise' as it proves that I am basically stupid and a 'collector' who leans toward being a 'completist' and is a bit obsessive and compulsive. I would have to watch one movie and one TV episode EVERY DAY for
I also plan on making check off lists for each movie set so I can more easily check to see which movies I have if I am out and about and see a movie set somewhere (as if I need any more movies). This is currently in progress. I've added my most recently purchased collections and have also started redoing my checkoff lists starting from the beginning of my list in order to 1) make the checklists uniform and 2) to aid in getting an more accurate count on the number of unique movies in my collection (and the amount of time needed to watch all said unique movies). You can check my progress for this at the dedicated Darrin's Movie Collection blog I created.
Take care friends! I hope all is well with you!
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