Well, Christmas is pretty much over for us here in the Winkler household. It was a fine day with family. But two things have really bothered me today, and I thought I would share them so that we could commiserate.
Number one - We have two kids. They are under 5 years old. Every stinking toy is affixed to the box it came in by these plastic-coated metal twist ties that are twisted into knots by sadistic evil elves. I swear to you that I have bruises on my fingertips from trying to unravel these little metal knots from the bowels of hell.
Worse yet is that when you finally get sick of twisting them with your fingers until your fingers bleed and you get some wirecutters from the tool chest, you end up cutting a few that you probably shouldn’t even though there’s no other way to get the wire out of there. And what’s wrong with that? They leave these sharp little wire thingies hanging out of toys with an age rating of “1 year+”. That’s just stupid.
I guess people were ripping the toys out of the boxes in the stores and pocketing them. Crime has become such a problem in the world that we now have to endanger my kids to prevent the theft of a $5 train car from a set of Weebles. But it’s not just the consumers causing a problem…
Number Two - I have bought for others and have received a few videos this season. One thing that I have noticed with these holiday-timeframe DVDs is that they all have previews on them. Since when have DVDs had so many previews?
Strangely, I put in an older movie to watch while we were wrapping the last of our outgoing gifts last night. There wasn’t a single ad or preview. Nor was there one on the second movie. What gives?
Not only do these new movies have previews, but you can’t skip them like you could on the few older movies that did have previews. You cannot push the “Menu” button to skip to the menu and just play the movie. In 5 years when I’m watching this video again, I will still have to sit through twenty minutes of “I’m never going to see that crappy movie” previews to get to my film. Yeah, I can fast-forward, but you’re missing the point if you’re not nodding your head in agreement right now.
What posesses these DVD makers? Maybe they make money off stuffing the ads in there. I’m sure they do. But some DVD player out there has to have a “search for menu” button that will seek out the main menu no matter where it is and skip stright to it. (See, when you’re playing a DVD, the information about what to do when the menu button is pushed is sort-of programmed into each track. That’s why when you’re looking at the previews and the stinking rediculous FBI warning you can’t push any buttons to avoid them, only fast-forward to where the codes do exist.)
I will pay extra to play movies how I want to play them, but only as a one-time fee. I will buy a $500 DVD player that lets me avoid previews, but I will not pay an extra $10 per disc (especially when the disc maker is the one screwing me out of the money in the first place) to avoid those previews. Stinking “Directors Cuts” – I never watch the extra crap anyway.
Bah!
