How HOT was it last Friday! 43 or 44 degrees? I swear I saw a dog chasing a cat and they were both walking. It was so hot that we couldn't even get our January newsletter out, so here it is coming to you on the 3rd of Feb. We're still calling it our January newsletter though .. as we are going to get a Feb newsletter out before Feb actually finishes. Swear it 'gov.

Thankfully .. the air con works a treat down here at the 'box so we've been cool right throughout this heat wave. Our freezer hasn't though .. we've had to have a fire-sale of icecream because it turned itself off, then on, then off, then down, then up. This morning we took delivery of a brand new one, and Sendipity stock will be arriving soon!

School's back, holidays are over :-(. If you've been able to get away .. nice one! It's been a tough end to 2008 as the economy tanks, so here's to 2009 and a steady recovery.

Yep, we are still giving credit for your old DVDs. So far we've given away about $1000 worth for some great trade ins. Our offer is:

• 90% of the retail price for movies we don't have (you can do a price check on jbhifi online).
• 40% of the retail price for movies we do have. Yep ... even if we've got it we'll still take it off your hands and give you some credit to play with.

Yep, we've finally taken the plunge and gone online a second way. The APPLEBOX group is here. If you're on Facebook, join us! Andrew is the MC and will be keeping everyone posted with whats going on. Don't forget there's our blog which is also a good read.

One of us lucky b@#$$@#ds got a Blu-ray setup for his 40th, and guess what .. the APPLEBOX Blu-ray collection is now growing! Don't know what Blu-ray is? Amazon.com explains it well here. Blu-ray really is the most beautiful way to watch a movie. For those that have a high-definition setup at home, we want to build our Blu-ray collection to give you a great selection to choose from. However Blu-ray is in it's early days, and the discs are expensive.

To help us build the collection we are having to rent the discs at a slightly higher price ($6 rather than $5.50) and we don't discount them for $2 Tuesday. We've now got 37 titles on Blu-ray .. watch that number climb.

Our loyalty card is up and running. We're printing and laminating as quickly as we can! Next time you're in, grab one off the counter. Every time you rent we'll clip the card and after 9 rentals you get $5.50 credit on your account. Please note we're classing a single rental action as equal to a visit. So a 3-for-$10 is 1 rental, not 3.

We've decided to thin our library out a bit and are putting some of our movies up for sale. Because we don't put our DVDs out on shelves, all the covers are in pristine condition and not plastered with ugly Action/NewRelease/Weekly stickers. The cases are fresh and the DVD itself is as buffed as Andrew. We run it through our you-beaut machine until they look brand-spanking new. Want a copy of the Bank Job? $30 at JB but only $15 ex-rental from us. How about Dark Knight? Again $30 at JB, but only $15 from us. It's a great way to build your home collection. If you don't see what you want, let us know which one you're after. If we've got copies we don't need we'll be happy to oblige!

• Clint Eastwood is starring in what he says, is his last acting role - Gran Torino. For Clint fans out there, we've pumped up our Clint Eastwood collection and now have 28 of his movies. Just type in 'Clint' in our search field (top left) and you'll find all of them.
• Which Bond is Best? We've now got all the Bond movies bar 2, and Kath (one of early members), wanted the definitive answer .. which Bond is best? Well, we've ranked them by renting popularity and the answer is .... on our blog. Have a read here.
• Celebrity: Dominick Dunne. Congrats to Sue Maslin who has worked really hard to produce this great documentary. Dominick Dunne is an acclaimed print journalist having covered a number of famous trials for Vanity Fair. This documentary provides a portrait of his life and his somewhat flawed character. Worth a look!

Our storefront shows you a 'strip' of movies grouped by Latest Release, or older movies we've just added, or a collection such as our Oscar Winners. But this strip is just a preview of 30 of the movies in that group. To see all the movies, you've got to click the 'See All' link in the top right. For example, with our Latest Releases, this link then shows you 111 pages of movies ordered by release date. We've had a number of people think we don't have that many movies .. 111 pages worth that's all!

We'll be back for another update soon,

Cheers from the APPLEBOX team!
Sarah, Simon, T'Mara and Andrew

In Bruge

Wall-E

Children of the Silk Road

Taken

Step Brothers

Eagle Eye

Son Of A Lion

Son of Rambow

My Blueberry Nights

Meet Bill

Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging

Salute

First Snow

Burn After Reading

Body Of Lies