I was really, really hoping the headline to this article ended after three words…
Archive for December, 2003
While shopping for my wife just before Christmas, I came across a copy of Robin Hood: Prince of Theives on DVD at Best Buy for $15. I know she liked the movie, being a classic chick flick, so I decided to pick it up for her. She did indeed like the purchase, and we watched it the next evening. I immediately noticed that the picture was very hazy and speckled, and a few minutes in I started to notice streaks, blips, and artifacing of the picture. It was almost always worse in dark scenes, and I quickly assumed that I had a bad copy of the DVD. However, a little reading online told me otherwise. Apparently, the standard DVD of this movie is a pretty bad transfer, and to really see a good picture, you need to buy the special edition. Well, I think that just sucks. Why should I be forced to pay $10 more for a movie to get a good picture? I would assume that there would be some minimum standard of quality for any DVD, but this is apparently not the case. I mean, this DVD looked like a 3 year old VHS tape that had been watched one too many times. I’m also unable to return this DVD, since it has been opened, and I’m sure exchanging it for another copy will produce the same result. So I guess I’m stuck with the crappy copy. I’ll have to pay more attention to so called "special editions" in the future.
Updated: July 27th, 2004
I’ve been using Mozilla Firefox for about 6 months now, and I’ve finally decided it is the best browser I have ever used.
You see, the web used to be this wonderful place of information and idea sharing, peacefull and free. That is no longer the case. Obtrusive advertisements, self-installing malware, and popups now ruin what used to be a relatively pleasant experience. However, since I’ve been using Firebird, I’ve slowly been reclaiming my web browsing from the advertisers, and I’m loving every minute of it.