Idiotic Anecdotes for the Uninspired: Why Am I Trying To Restore A Beta Player?

What am I doing with my life? I just spent an hour carefully tearing down a Sanyo Betacord VCR that I found at the thrift store in an attempt to figure out why the tape loading mechanism and playback drive are FUBAR. All of that effort was put forth just to find out that a belt had melted on the counter assembly and made a real fucking mess of things inside this unit. On top of that, I just found out that this particular model video cassette recorder is near impossible to find a belt kit for. Seems that every other Sanyo Betacord unit going all the way back to 1979 has a service parts kit available, but for some reason the VCR 4200, made in 1982, does not. But that's not the worst part about this whole purchase/repair/obsession fiasco. The worst part was the sudden realization that for some reason, I am actually dedicating time (and contemplating spending money) trying to repair a Beta tape player made in 1982, just so I can watch recorded episodes of Wishbone and possibly some Ghostwriter. Also, when I consulted YouTube for some visual instruction on disassembling the tape load mech, every narrator and/or Beta enthusiast seems to be, well, to put it nicely, a socially awkward basement nerd. Fuck. I am becoming one of them. One of the Beta enthusiasts. The scary thing is the fact that the $450 professionally refurbished Beta players I found online don't even seem like an unreasonable option to me at the moment. The cost to awesome ratio calculations keep coming back highly favorable of the restored Betamax. So, for now I am going piece this 4200 back together, put it away until I can weigh my options, and then immediately freeze my credit card in a block of ice, lest I end up with a crisp, mint condition, fully refurbished, fully warrantied Beta VCR. Hey, loyal readers, do you have a Beta player you want to get rid of? If you don't, maybe you want to raid your older family members' houses and find me one. Yeah, that seems like something you want to do, right? Find one. Please? (I currently have one pending lead and am scouring EVERY thrift store I can find)