aka How I spent my weekend
I was in Washington, DC on Friday for the [National Colorectal Cancer Roundtable](http://www.nccrt.org) annual meeting. I was sitting there in that hotel banquet room listening to the keynote speech and I started sneezing. I felt fine before that, so I thought that maybe I was allergic to something in the room. Nope. By the train ride home my head started pounding, my nose starting running and I felt like hell. Since then, I’ve been through at least two big boxes of tissues and my eyes are killing me. I haven’t had a full blown head cold like this in quite some time. I’m constantly washing my hands and using Purell on them with the hope that I can avoid the kids catching it.
To take my mind off my misery, I finally got around to following [the well-known tutorial](http://howto.diveintomark.org/ipod-dvd-ripping-guide/) for ripping DVDs to iPod video format. I decided to concentrate on TV shows. The iPod only has about 2.5 hours battery life so one movie and it’s over. A 42 minute episode is a more do-able chunk in between battery charges.
I own the entire *Buffy the Vampire Slayer* and *Angel* DVD collection. Seven boxes on my shelf of *Buffy*, Fives boxes of *Angel*. Watching my favorite episodes on demand on my iPod is something I see myself doing quite a bit. I started with seasons 5-7 (I’ll get eps from 1-4 over the next few days, along with my favorites from *Angel*) and now I have 19 episodes in my iTunes Library, taking only about 3 GB of space. Considering how much of *Buffy* is shot dark (graveyards and such) the quality on the iPod is rather outstanding.
Sometimes I buy DVD sets from shows that I like, but truth is that I watch them through once along with the extras and then they sit on the shelf, yet if I’m flipping channels and a favorite episode is on somewhere I’ll almost always stop and watch it…commercials and all. How crazy is that? It’s often too much bother to pull out the box, sift through the guide to figure out which episode number is the episode I want and then find that DVD, select the right number and watch. I admit it. I’m lazy. 😉 Ripping the best episodes to iPod to watch whenever I like makes those purchases worth it. Studios would be wise to sell iPod-ready downloadable episodes. Why do I only have to buy only from iTunes? I’d spend as much as $5 per episode easily if there’s only one or two episodes I would watch again from a season rather than buying the whole set (which I wouldn’t do if there’s only one or two episodes I like enough to own).
Judi Sohn 