Um, printing a new card and then keeping it handy to give to you would be silly when they could have just kept the old one instead of destroying it.

Last I went in and said I didn't have my card it turned out to be over 2 years since I'd last used them, so I had to get a new account :-) And I've since switched to lovefilm.com instead, and get them in the post.

they could have just kept the old one instead of destroying it

Good point. Perhaps I'm not fully awake :-)

I've since switched to lovefilm.com instead, and get them in the post

Ha. I might try that once I move to a house in which the letterbox is wide enough for postmen to fit DVD cases through. At the moment, that would be particularly inconvenient for me!

(Also, I like the immediateness of Blockbuster: I don't have to organise myself days in advance to decide what I want to watch, I can just make an impromptu twenty-minute walk and be sitting in front of the goggle box minutes after returning. It even gets me exercise :-)

Oh, lovefilm don't send DVDs in normal DVD boxes - you'd have to have a very thin letterbox indeed not to fit the lovefilm packages!

Netflix here do a nice thing where DVDs are either with you or in the post. So, if you keep a good number in your queue, then if you are flexible about what sort of film you're in the mood in, you always have a couple from them around the house. (They also don't use proper DVD cases.)

DVD cases> they don't use full size ones. The packages are typically about 2mm thick, maybe 4 at a push if they send two at once.

Organising> I just have a big bunch of stuff listed and watch whatever turns up, but I can see this is a rather different approach :)

Can probably rustle up a free trial for you if you do decide you're interested.

Presumably the magic card-replacement procedure works at any Blockbuster, therefore since they couldn't know which one Simon would use next, it's simpler to destroy+recreate than synchronise the "card collected" event between diverse branches.