It's official: my Friday nights are ruined.

Well, perhaps that's a tad bit dramatic, but a ritual I had carved into many a Friday evening is now a thing of the past.

You see, unlike many jobs, we don't look forward to Fridays here at the newspaper. Fridays mean a very long day of preparing for three days worth of papers. Everything for Saturday, Sunday and Monday papers have to be planned out so that those of us who (supposedly) work Monday through Friday can (hopefully) have the weekend off.

My husband knows the drill, and he's found a way to capitalize on it. It's become our Friday night thing: Mom stops on the way home for pizza. And often that includes picking up a movie for the fam on the way.

I'm usually heading out the office door with my husband harrassing me via phone that "we're all starving here," and "the pizza police already called here looking for you."

One of my favorite places to order from was Sonny and Jeff's in the Carousel Plaza on Route 50 in Ballston Spa. I'd pop in there, order my pizza, and then run next door to the Movie Store to browse for a family flick. By the time I'd found a movie and checked out, my order at Sonny and Jeff's would be ready, and off I'd go with all the ingredients for starting the weekend.

When a "for lease" sign suddenly appeared in the window of the the pizza place a couple months ago, I mourned the loss of that convenience. Of course, other nearby pizza places would do fine. I'd just have to plan a little differently.

Then -- doomsday for this old-school movie renter. This past weekend, my beloved Movie Store died the death every other movie rental place has in recent years. After learning the store planned to close, I checked to see how many "video bucks", each good for one movie for two nights, I had leftover. With six remaining — each worth $2— I thought perhaps I could negotiate transferring them into a couple of the DVDs they were selling to get rid of their inventory.

Driving home Friday night, the place looked busy. I had to pass by, though, as the pizza police were on my tail — my order getting cold on the other side of the village. I'll just go tomorrow, I thought.

Well, as it turned out, there was no tomorrow. I walked in Saturday afternoon, my $12worth of video bucks in hand, to COMPLETELY empty shelves. "We're out of business," one of the people inside told me. I feined being upset about the lost money, but truthfully, I had hoped in my heart of hearts this video store would make it. I wanted to cry.

But I guess it's time to move on. People tell me this Netflix thing is pretty cool. Or, perhaps it's time to try Chinese takeout and board games on Friday nights to shake up the routine.