[Jeffhs]

I ran into a puzzling problem with my 3-year-old CyberHome DVD player about a month ago. Put a DVD in, close the tray, press the play button...and the player would show "Loading" at the upper left corner of the screen for a minute or so, being replaced by the message "Bad disc". (This would show with every DVD I tried, and I know all of mine are good.) At first, if I fiddled around enough with the player, I could eventually get the thing to work, but the problem became progressively worse until the day came when the "Bad disc" message appeared every time, on every disc I own. Finally gave up and bought a new Memorex full-size DVD player a couple of days later, which works great. Will trash the old one. Maybe it was just as well that my CyberHome player bit the dust, as the company itself is now and has been out of business for some time; the chances are I couldn't get the thing repaired anymore if I wanted to (unobtainium parts and other problems), and even if I could, the repairs would cost more than the player sold for ($24.99, IIRC) when it was new.

For NowhereMan1966: I'm sorry to have read about another of your cats passing away. I had to have my 6-year-old white cat Jonah put down about three weeks ago; it was one of the toughest decisions I've ever had to make in my life (as was the decision to have my first white cat, Shawn, put down in 2004), but it was the best thing I could have done for him, as he was very ill and had lost a lot of weight by the time I got him in to the vet, now about three weeks ago.

Shawn (1996-2002) and Jonah (2004-2008) - I miss you, guys!

I would post a pic of both "my boys", but they looked exactly alike so there wouldn't be much point in it. They were both pure white cats and, for all I know, could have been twins.