I received a message from my cousin Drew on facebook this morning. I had previously shared a story with him about how I loved having Halloween parties at my house and how every year, I would do something new or different.
Things like, hanging a severed arm (with a knife in hand) in the shower. So, when someone went into the bathroom and opened or closed the door, the arm would move either into or out of view. It was particularly frightening because they would see the arm in the reflection of the mirror before they actually saw the severed arm and knife coming down. It looked like Norman Bates from the Psycho movie was in the shower, because you didn’t see the severed part until you were actually closer.
When you opened the bathroom door and turned on the light (which had been changed to a bulb with less wattage for the evening), the arm would be in the “up” position. When you closed the door to the restroom, the severed arm and knife would look like it was coming down at you from between the shower curtains. I used small pulleys and fishing line to achieve this illusion.
One year, I rigged a large rubber rat. It was creepy. When you opened or closed the door, the rat would scurry across the floor in one direction or the other. If you weren't expecting it, it would scare the crap out of you. Too funny. I still laugh thinking about the faces of some of my guests at those parties. I'll have to do that again someday.
Anyway, Drew was telling me about one of his antics and how he scared Eric, his brother and my other cousin, who recently passed on September 14th, this year. He was only 49, and it's too sad that he is gone. But, as all of us, we still have our favorite memories.
Drew was telling me that hid in the closet one night, silently crept out and crawled across the floor and then Wham! Grabbed Eric's leg and scared him like never before. Needless to say, Drew won the "Scaring Competition" that year.
Nowadays, things like Punk'd, Pranked, Scare Tactics, and a myriad of others, have the videos to prove and document such antics. Which always brings me back to one thing, the Century Disc. Designed for saving all of those scary photos, scary videos, and anything else you would love to be able to share with someone now or in the future.
To me, there really is no other disc (cd or dvd) on the entire planet that I would use to save anything I want archive (which is basically saving for later) and pass on to the next generation, who hopefully will pass it on to the next generation and so on.
Because, until now, there really hasn't been anything that I felt I could absolutely rely on, or believe in, for this specific purpose. If I had some of the first, original cds that were produced, they might still be good to use, but I don't.
Over the years and quite rapidly I may add, disc producers (for the most part) went over to Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, and even India to have their products replicated and produced over there, due to what I call "the price wars of optical media.”
Early on, in order to get consumers (you and I) to use cd burners and cd players, they had to come up with a way to not only make these new fangled discs acceptable, they needed to strategically create a method that would almost force everyone to begin using these discs.
There are plenty of articles about how the record industry threatened the record stores into offering cds over vinyl, and why almost overnight there were cds everywhere and vinyl looked like it was seeing its demise. Vinyl aficionados have not given up and still exist today.
I could also go into how cd burner and cd player manufacturer's started giving away blank recordable cds when you purchased a new computer with a cd burner. Before you knew it, cds were all abuzz with how awesome they were, easy to store, held tons of data (back in those days a 700mb cd compared to a 100mb Iomega Zip Drive was incomparable), and allowed you to easily transfer your data (images included) from your computer to a simple, little disc drive.
Thus, the price wars began (even before they publicly introduced the DVD). The manufacturers really didn't have any alternative than to compete or be left behind as is the case of Pioneer. Pioneer was, well a pioneer in the cd manufacturing sector. They are still considered one of the highest, if not the highest rated cds ever made (according to DigitalFAQ.com).
Which is a mute point now. Since Pioneer has stuck to its roots and develops electronic devices (stereos, music cd players, widescreen tvs, etc) and got out of the cd manufacturing business altogether.
Now you know one of the many reasons why ordinary cds and dvds are so cheap, in cost and quality. What you may not know is, that this is also the reason they fail so quickly. Usually in less than 10 years if they don't fail immediately. You may think 10 years is plenty of time since they (the industry) will probably come out with another "new and improved" way to store and archive your data.
They have, it's called the recordable Blu-ray disc. It's the same size in diameter as cds and dvds. They'll hold about 5 times as much info and data as a standard dvd and Blu-ray (BD) players and burners are downward compatible. This means, that once the Blu-ray burner and Blu-ray player becomes "the standard" for everyone, you will still be able to view, burn, and use your cds and dvds as you always have.
The new Blu-ray burners use a "Blue laser" as opposed to the traditional red laser, thus its namesake. The blue laser will read just about every optical media that fits in its tray.
Having said all of that, I will say this, that if you want to archive (save/store) any of your digital information (photos, videos, manuscripts, etc.) then you want to use something that will not only last a long time, but will withstand shock from things like nuclear fallout, sun spots, electrical brownouts or electrical grid blackouts and anything else that will effect magnetic media in a negative way.
The difference between magnetic media (hard drives, external hard drives, usb drives, dat tapes, VHS, cassette tapes, etc.) and optical media (cds, dvds, and blu-ray) is that optical media will protect your data from magnetic fields or anomalies that most likely will occur, sometime during our lifetime.
Check out our
YouTube Channel. I recently
added videos from other sources which help to explain this problem in a couple of short
animated cartoons.
Europeans seem to understand far better than we (Americans), that their own histories are being made and they demand something worthy of preserving these memories. The Century Disc, under another name in Europe (and far more expensive I might add), is fast becoming their number one cd and dvd of choice.
A lot of this has to do with the fact that they have tested and studied every archival disc available and have come to the conclusion that this is the absolute best (triple A rated) media they can find for any type of digital storage.
We asked
CDFreaks.com to conduct some independent tests of their own. They are, the largest consumer electronics community in the world, so who better in America, to ask to test this media? Here’s the
link, if you’d like to see how they rated these near-prefect, scratch-resistant (I call them predecessors to the Blu-ray discs), 24-karat gold and silver, dual reflective layer media. Available in both cd or dvd formats.
One of my questions is "Other than the fact that you may not understand what you have here, why would you want to use anything else besides the Century Disc, for storing your important digital data and precious memories?"
Especially now that you have a clue, that almost all other forms of media will vanish in the event of an anomaly, like even sudden burst from a sun spot.
Now you know that the Archival Century Disc, is a disc where
all options are included and failure, is not an option. They even come with a 1-year money-back guarantee and are backed by a Lifetime Replacement Guarantee, no bones about it (abuse charges may apply).
Saving Your Lifetime Memories Helps Save Lives and Breasts (that's a good thing, right?)
