A tipster reports that Blockbuster is blast-emailing former customers to Total Access, its DVDs-by-mail Netflix knockoff. The offer: $25 if customers sign up again using PayPal. Odd, since Blockbuster CEO Jim Keyes recently bragged about how the company was cutting off online advertising for its money-losing rent-by-mail business in favor of promoting its stores. Has he not talked to his marketing department recently?

The video-rental store is doomed, and even Blockbuster has figured that much out. That's why CEO Jim Keyes is trying to buy Circuit City for more than $1 billion? Blockbuster has become the RadioShack of its time, saddled with too many stores which are too small, selling the wrong thing. It jumped on the business of selling DVDs, instead of renting them, right as disc sales peaked and started to drop. Now, it hopes to sell, via Circuit City's larger outlets, subscriptions to its online video services alongside the devices used to play them. The vision is inspired by Apple, which sells iPods, Apple TV set-tops, and music and video through iTunes. Apple's iTunes movie rentals are a direct threat to Blockbuster's remaining rental business, and Apple is rumored, too, to be getting into the business of music subscriptions. One small problem: It's not clear how Circuit City helps Blockbuster.