Feb 22nd - Let's Make A DVDeal

We went back to the DVD store today. I have a pretty good feeling that most, or actually all of these DVDs are pirated. I have nothing against pirates, in fact I think parrots are pretty cool animals, and I try to use the word "swashbuckling" as often as I can. "My that's a swashbuckling sweater you have on!", "May I offer you a small swashbuckling of tea?" etc etc. Since the store clerk agreed that we could test the dvds before we buy them, we brought my wife's laptop down to the shop with us. My wife's cousin gave us a drive in his van, and he locked his swashbuckling keys in the van! I have a story about a friend smashing his own window with a rock in such a situation, but since it happened in Canada, it doesn't really fit this blog.

As Cousin Larry made a few calls to try to track down his co-worker to whom he gave his spare key, we sifted through the English titles back at the DVD shop. They actually had a fair amount of new releases, and some yet-to-be-releases. The movie "Juno", which was still in theatres last time I checked, was there, so I grabbed it, along with maybe 5 others I hadn't seen yet. My wife picked out around 6 or 7 she liked, and we were about ready to leave. Then I found another row that I hadn't seen before. We were only looking at the New Releases. And now for the piece de resistance. I couldn't believe my eyes. They had my favourite movie of all time - A Clockwork Orange. I had to buy it. I also saw a WWII movie called The Big Red One, which I've heard good things about, and also a Clint Eastwood Collection - 9 films on one DVD!

After our Supermarket Sweep was over (anyone who was a kid or shut-in in the early 90's would remember that show), I set up the laptop and got ready to test our potential purchases. My heart sank when I put in the first DVD - The Clint Eastwood Collection. The menu came up alright, but when I clicked on The Good The Bad & The Ugly, it got ugly. The computer started making this loud whirring noise, and then it said "Skipping Over Damaged Area". Ok, I've seen that before, maybe the disk is scratched, or there's a hair on it. I pressed eject and it said "Disk Error". Then I pressed Esc and it said "Device Not Available". Not only was this a bunk DVD, now it was stuck in the computer! Panicking, I restarted the computer, and then before the DVD had a chance to boot up, I ejected it. Phew! I felt like chucking the rest of the DVDs back in the bin and getting the hell out of there, but my wife urged me to press on.

It must have been a compression issue or something, because every single DVD played fine, had sound, and ejected when I told it to. I guess you can't fit 9 movies on a single DVD without something going haywire. At that point you've angered the Gods of Blockbuster and Universal Studios and there's no going back. Pretty soon Spielberg is gonna show up at your house, point a finger at you and say "Hand over that copy of E.T."

Since all of the DVDs worked, and my wife's cousin returned with his keys, it was time to check out. You wouldn't believe the deal we got - 12 DVDs plus one of those travel cases with the cutest little kitten on it - for only 90 Yuan. Let's see, that works out to $13 CDN. Wow! What a deal! Then I realized that Cousin Larry threw out his business card on the counter. It turns out he works for the Copyright Board or something here in China, and it's his job to go around and bust people for making and selling pirated CDs and DVDs. The store clerk knows how to play the game. She's not going to GIVE him the DVDs, but pretty close.

Well it seems that you get what you pay for. When we got home, we popped in one of the DVDs, and just as we were getting into it, it froze. We tried everything - fast-forwarding it, clicking on a Chapter ahead, wiping off the disk, you name it. We were hooped. We put that DVD aside, to return tomorrow, and watched another. This time, the DVD worked fine. We watched another one. Fine. I guess we'll have to watch all 12 movies now, just to see if they work, or if we have to take them back to the Pirate Ship. Looks like I better pop some corn. We've got a long night ahead of us.