Ripped off

Before, I'd surrendered to the thought of losing all my casette tapes through mould, or gradual magnetic deterioration. However, since buying an MP3 player, I've been ripping songs from old casette tapes and happily converting them into MP3s. Just a few days ago, my cousin griped about losing many treasured song collections because her casettes had grown mouldy. I've introduced her to digital encoding, and she'll hopefully be able to salvage her remaining tape collection :) Luckily for me, most of my casettes have not been completely destroyed by mould, but their sound quality has deteriorated considerably. Regardless, it's still comforting to know that now, I wouldn't lose these 'relics' in the near future through material degradation.

Although I hadn't listened to these tapes in years, hearing the songs again created a warm and pleasant feeling, perhaps reminiscent of the simple pleasures I had when listening to them as a kid. Two particular 'treasures' were a soundtrack from the Muppet movie (which contained Kermit the Frog's rendition of 'Rainbow Connection'), and a collection of songs by Alvin and the Chipmunks (including 'the Witch Doctor'), both of which are not available in CD's, and both of which still make me laugh.

However, a tape of the 'Mortal Kombat' soundtrack left me puzzled. I vaguely remembered buying it, but why had I done so? Apart from the first track, I wasn't too crazy about the other tracks. In fact, I've never watched the movie either. Well, okay, I've watched a few scenes, but never the complete show. That was years ago, when a former primary-school classmate and I watched Mortal Kombat on her laser disc player (the defunct cousin of the CD). All I ever caught were scenes with one character, who was skeleton-like and had dark red eyes. 'Look at his eyes! Ohhh I love his eyes!' she would gush, as the character pummelled his opponents. She'd fast-forward to another scene where he did the same with another victim. 'Aren't his eyes gorgeous?' she'd gush again, and rewind the scene, pausing briefly at a close-up shot. Then, we'd watch a repeat of the battle, and she'd fast-forward to the next scene of him fighting again. When he was finally defeated, she sighed, pressed the 'stop' button, and declared, 'there's nothing much in the rest of the movie.' I believed her. Disoriented by the rapid scene-changes, I never really caught his name either, and only know him as 'the guy with the gorgeous eyes'. Maybe some Mortal Kombat fan out there could enlighten me :)

That friend and I have since lost touch with each other, but I wondered how she'd react if we met up someday, and if I (discretely) reminded her of that particular episode? Would she start gushing about 'gorgeous eyes' again (Oh no...)? Would she laugh at our childhood craziness, or would she have forgotten all about it?

Either way, I'll probably never understand why I bought that soundtrack. But if she's still a fan, at least there's someone I can give the tape to. Any other takers?