Last week, Sony announced they will no longer manufacture 3.5″ floppy disks, signaling the nail in the coffin for this antiquated technology. You mean they were still making those things? I don’t even own a computer with an “A drive” anymore. 1.44 MB of space doesn’t get you far these days. As a matter of fact, at my rummage sale last summer, I couldn’t even sell an 8MB compact flash card. While I don’t think this news story will ruffle anyone’s feathers, it does give us an opportunity to wander down memory lane and remember life in the “old days”…
FLASHBACK: Summer 1993: Our family gets a shiny new Compaq 486 PC (that’s pre-pentium, folks), to replace our well-loved Commodore 64. Time to install Microsoft Office (some crazy new program that’s supposed to be way better than Word Perfect). The installation package came with TWENTY-FIVE floppy disks. Being the youngest of 6 kids, naturally it was my job to baby-sit the computer all day long, feeding it disk after disk in 20 minute intervals. To make things interesting, the Compaq engineers thought it would be a good idea to place the eject button right next to the power button. All went smoothly until disc 17, when I absent-mindedly pushed the wrong button. 5 hours wasted. Thanks floppy disks!
Today, that program would fit 1000 times over on a standard blu-ray disc, and install in about 25 seconds. Despite this perspective, I’m sure we would still complain that it wasn’t fast enough.
As a lifetime fan, I was very excited about Disney’s The Princess and the Frog coming out. I am somewhat of an art snob, and am fairly particular about animation. The new graphics coming out, while pretty cool from a graphic-computer point, just don’t do it for me artistically. I prefer the hand-drawn look, the rich colors, the uneven, natural shading. Watching a “real” Disney movie makes me happy and at peace, and takes me back to when I was a little girl.
However, a Disney movie must be more than just visual. For the experience to be complete it must touch on both vision and hearing. The music and the singing must be present, and done well to guide you smoothly through the scenes. In this, I must say, they succeeded rather nicely. The voices of the cast are fantastic. Each character’s voice has a unique personality. The inflections are exaggerated and just perfect; be it a more general southern accent, one from New Orleans, or the most fascinating Cajun dialect.
I thoroughly enjoyed watching this movie, so much so that I will be purchasing this today on Blu-ray. The art was beautiful, the music and voices fantastic, and the story so enjoyable and relevant to today. Everything was done to perfection [as if I would accept anything less.] To top it off, I was able to see this movie at a small little theater in Cedarburg, Wisconsin. The Rivoli is a small hometown theater that plays just one movie per week. I took my son to see this and would not trade the experience of sitting in a [packed] movie theater with an audience of mostly squeely and excited children. I can’t wait until the next one!