1. This Social Trend to Stay Home … Pursue Family Entertainment … and Warm ‘n Fuzzy Friend–Family Interactions is as predictable as Edgar Allen Poe’s pendulum –

– Always swings in with economic belt-tightening!

2. During the early 1990s recession in the US, this social behavior was called “COCOONING” — tendency to Stay Home and Seek Entertainment with Other People. ENTER: Entertainment Systems … Home Movie Theatres … Eat In and Cook In Marathons … beginning of Power Foodies and then the Food Network on cable.

3. During the current economic squeeze — I am tiring of the endless stream of broadcast ads featuring Norman Rockwell Families suddenly re-discovering the joys of (a) board games; (b) human interaction; (c) group social activiities; (d) Family Film Night, etc.. On this Bandwagon — Netflix … Vloice over IP Phone Services … Fast Food Joints. Oh, and Wal-Martians.

Must be something to the new DIGITAL Cocooning.

As an inveterate Film Freak — with collections of favored actors, directors and screenwriters — I’m a total sucker for all those Deep Discount DVDs. I can wait out the 9-month New DVD shelf life to save moolah.

And, yes, I do hate you for having access to 25-cent feature films. My deepest discount DVDs — the ones that make me feel so cost clever — are priced at about $4.99.

HOT TIP: Don’t let the Motion Picture Association of America OR those “wonderful folks” who brought us the Digital Millenium Copyright Act hear you talk about pirated DVDs and electronic media. They will OWN your first-born child.