A few years ago we decided to try watching AMC. Adam was up to his old tricks and cheating on a young wife AGAIN. Jackson and Erica were back together but on the verge of breaking up AGAIN. I forget what Palmer was doing, but it was tricky dealings AGAIN. Mateo, who had been fighting with his overbearing and manipulative father was now doing the same thing to his younger siblings. Erica was pulling the strings on people's lives as usaual. We looked at each other and asked if we gave a damn. The answer was no. Now if the show were ending, would I go back to Pine Valley. Probably, because then we might see things shaken up a bit. As it is now, Jesse, who was dead, dead, dead, (he even came back as a ghost) is now alive.  Will Jenny be far behind?  I know people often return on soaps, ,just as they do in comics and DS, but this case was just too extreme. Unless they are willing to go out on a limb and stop playing it safe, I don't think there's much hope for soaps, and I can't say I really care.

This is the common perception of soaps and why so many people look askance at them.  I have grown to have a certain appreciation for the genre from what I've read about them on this forum over the years, but even so, haven't been able to stomach one for long. It's not the serial format - the possibilities for character and story development are very good. I suppose it's a combination of the repetition you talk about, how things are drawn out, and the absurdity of much that goes on. I can still understand, though, how someone might become devoted to following a soap over the years. But for me, it took a "Gothic" soap to hold my interest for the long term. And since DS transcends the genre, it's debatable whether "soap opera" is an accurate description of DS.

What an amazing discovery, Joe!

Same here, Taeylor - I read something about the Stairway on this forum before I ever saw the actual episodes, and I was immediately intrigued. Frank's book sounds fascinating, and you can get a good preview of it on amazon.com!

"Dark Shadows"'s first trip back in time was Barnabas in 1795, and Gothick once proposed that the movie "Berkeley Square" was an influence on the DS writers. I have read the play and enjoyed it; it was also re-made into another movie that I've mentioned here before, "I'll Never Forget You" with Tyrone Power. "Berkeley Square" in turn was inspired by an unfinished novel by Henry James. I suspect that James himself was influenced by H.G. Wells, with whom he corresponded and was on collegial terms.

Thanks, Teresa! It would be good to see you again, too  -- and many others ... not to mention many new people who have joined DS Boards since then . It occurs to me that an "airport" hotel might have a lot of airplanes flying overhead and might not be quite as relaxing as Anaheim was. I should check into flights going to LAX and see how much less that would be. But paying for a cab could be expensive and a hassle, too. 

I have been tentatively hoping to make it to the Festival this year, but unless the airfare comes down, I probably won't be able to. Right now, the airfare is over $600, which is more than the hotel would cost for four nights. That's the problem if the airport near you isn't a major metropolitan airport.

I had forgotten all of this ... thanks everyone!

Thank you ... with two knowledgeable people both recommending DVD disks as backups, I think I will go that route. It sounds like these external storage drives like I have are often problematic when transferring to another computer or computer system. With the figures you provided on the storage available on DVDs, MB, it looks like I might even be able to fit everything on one DVD, which would be very convenient. A few questions remain, which I'll note here, although I can research these on my own, too ... but here I go thinking aloud: the DVDs I have now are readable but not writable. I'm guessing that I would want the writable type. I would possibly need to transfer the files to another computer at some point, and would then need to be able to actually use the files, not just have read-only access. Secondly, I'm wondering about changing software formats - for example, different versions of Word. Right now my old documents are in Word 2003, I think it is. They easily convert to Word 2007 on my new operating system, but that must be done one at a time as I use them. I wonder how these would store on the DVD since I would have some documents in Word 2003 and some in 2007. And then when it came time to transfer the documents to a new computer, would they be transferred in those two different Word programs? Finally, each time I update a document, when I go to backup everything on the DVD, would the new document simply replace the old? Or would I need to use a new DVD every time I wanted to back up my files (even though I would not need to save old versions of documents). If these questions go beyond the scope of what this page is for, I understand!