A blog about nothing in particular…
From time to time you meet someone toward whom you feel a sudden rush of affection. Other times you meet people you initially despise and, surprisingly, feel good about that. Their mere presence makes your skin crawl, your guts feel like they’re being caressed with pliers and your ears start burning once they open their mouth to torment their surroundings with boring, utterly pointless drivel (I am aware of the tautology).
That’s all.
Avid readers of my blog know by now that I am ridiculously sensitive when it comes to noise. Also, I’ve already told you that always, every single time - I kid you not - someone weird sits next to me when I got to the movies. They either have the sniffles and cough or sneeze all the time, they breathe really loudly, or make some other weird noise. Was I important enough, I’d suspect a conspiracy. For now I’ll have to settle on the worst cinema-karma in the history of mankind.
I went to watch Sweeney Todd the other day and it was a wonderful movie. The acting was great, the music pretty cool and the story exciting. However, once again I could not fully enjoy the movie because of the three following reasons:
Number one: Johnny Depp fans. A bunch of 20-something girls giggling, screaming, going nuts.
Number two: The guy next to me, apparently, needed a lot of space between his legs as he was kinda pushing my knee away with his. I felt violated.
Number three: The guy who sat three seats over. He was talking throughout the entire movie, I heard every single word he said - keep in mind I was three (!) seats away - and 10 minutes before a major plot twist occurred he, of course, blurted out what was about to happen. Fortunately, lucky me had already figured it out. Other topics of his lively conversation with his better half (she just had to be (the better half that is, I don’t even want to think of the possibility that he might be…gawd)) were, i.e. the amount of blood used, how the subtitles (everything but the songs were dubbed) were not a 100% match to what was actually sung, and what was about to happen next. I wish I had had the courage to tell him to put a sock in it. Fortunately, I hadn’t as the guy turned out to be three times as big as me.
kinda funny, to write “Porn” in the PayPal transaction subject line. As it turned out, PayPal employees did not appreciate my fine sense of humor. Who knew! They sent her, surprisingly not me, an email explaining how wrong it was to take money for something which obviously (to them) is oh so wrong. First of all, even if I were paying her for porn I do not see why it is any of their business; and second of all, who on earth writes “Porn” in a subject line when actually purchasing porn? Think about it!Anyway, it was all fun and games, until they threatened with suspending her account. What? Is PayPal run by some crazy, tight-ass nutbars? Apparently, it is. The issue was resolved with an email telling them that no porn changed sticky hands. Perhaps, I should use something less offensive like “slave child” or “eastern European woman” next time because porn, obviously, crosses the line. Gsus!
I am very sensitive when it comes to sounds. No, I really mean it. I am ridiculously sensitive to the degree of madness. For example, I cannot stand heavy breathing. You know, when someone only breaths through the nose and it’s barely noticeable at first, but as time wears on it gets louder, and louder, and louder. The sound of heavy breathing, this whistling of the nose, air being sucked in and air gushing out. Constantly. In. Out. Shuuuuuh. Everything around you falls silent, you can only hear this one annoying, nerve-wrecking sound. Try as I might I cannot block this sound; it’s an impossible task. Shuuuuuh. Drilling itself into my auditory canal like a jack-hammer. Inescapable. This is especially annoying during exams, or while watching a movie; Whether that is at home or at the cinema doesn’t matter. Although, I have to say, I always have the pleasure to sit next to a weird person when i go to the movies. Either they breath heavily, cough all the time, or make some other funky, annoying noise. Same goes for munching, especially when I’m no eating myself. It pretty much works the same way as with heavy breathing. Why I am this way I do not know. Come to think of it, maybe the problem is me and not them… No, it’s them.
Once upon a time I stumbled upon a post on IMDB which read something along the lines of “Do you think my 13 year old is mature enough to watch Irreversible?” Yes, I thought, your 13 year old is mature enough to watch a movie with a brutal and very graphic rape scene! Come on. What kind of question is that anyway? Should I let my child watch a movie about rape? If you are so stupid, you are not even sure (and need the advice of total strangers) whether it is cool or not to have your child watch a rape with you then maybe you are not mature enough to have kids.
One exam that holds me back. One exam and all will be in the past. One exam that makes me go crazy. One exam that keeps me from blissful joys of just being and becoming.
In short, I have a big Latin exam coming up next week which already propelled me into a state of agitation. I hate, I loathe, I detest this language. The tragic part about it is that I only have to learn it for a stupid, needless requirement for my history studies - and I’m not even a history major so it’s stupid times two.
I am really scared, but do not dare to think about not passing because the mere thought of another semester filled with woeful Latin lessons is simply too excruciating.
Here’s the second part to the Sony sucks! story. Surprisingly, I got a reply from Sony; but only to tell me that I had contacted the wrong department. So I wrote to the department they told me to write to and they again referred me to someone else. One last time I attempted to make someone care about my dilemma and the reply I got - and this is no joke - was that I should go to the sony.co.uk website and look for help there.Wow. I was glad they told me as I would have never thought of that on my own! Gsus.
Since contacting Sony brought me nothing but sorrow I stopped to pursue this fruitless endeavor and decided to send and email to amazon.co.uk instead. Boy, had I no idea what I was about to blunder into. Not that they weren’t helpful, they were very much so; however, it was confusing. I will not quote all the emails which have been sent back and forth, but will paraphrase the important parts.
My first email: Hello amazon employee, I purchased the The Shield Season 5 DVD and the last episode is 20 minutes short. Please tell Sony to fix it.
Amazon reply #1: Hello, we are very sorry! We’ll send you a new DVD box and you don’t even have to send the one you already own back “as the cost of returning the package is in this case prohibitively expensive.”
My second email: Hi! Well, thanks, but it’s really not your problem and I doubt a new DVD Box will solve the problem.
Amazon reply #2: Hello, we are very sorry! We will still send you a new DVD box, but you have to send the one you already own back.
My third email: Cheerio! Ok then, send me a new DVD box, but do you want me to send the first DVD box back or not?
Amazon reply #3: Hello, we are very sorry! You don’t even have to send the one you already own back “as the cost of returning the package is in this case prohibitively expensive.”
One of the three amazon employees I dealt with suggested giving one of the boxes to charity. I wonder if any charity would want it.
In the end all this emailing, wasting time surfing the web for information and obsessing didn’t get me far. In retrospect it didn’t get me anywhere. As a result I am stuck not with one, but with two DVD boxes which, not all that surprisingly, have the exact same flaw. I heart amazon.
Thursday was a great. After a more or less boring day I finally arrived at home and discovered an amazon package among my mail. Excitement! I hastily opened it, ripped off the foil and there I was standing, holding a brand new copy of The Shield Season 5 in my hands. What joy! Of course, I started watching immediately, still as excited as a little child on Christmas morning.
2 days later I was through and Wow! was it a blast. This truly is the best drama series out there. However, something felt wrong. Wasn’t something missing? I was sure that something was off, so I re-read the little episode guide which accompanies the DVDs and there it was: an entire scene seemed to be missing! Shock! Well, at least I thought it was missing because the episode description didn’t quite match the actual episode I had just watched. So I went back to the episode and watched it again, this time in fast forward. Still not there…hm…
There I was, sitting in my room, absolutely mesmerized by the thought of the possibility that Sony put an altered version 
of the season finale on the UK DVD release. Can it be? So I did what most people do in a time of crisis: I started obsessing. After three short hours of rummaging in the Internet, I finally found out what was wrong. Apparently, Sony, for whatever reason, decided not to put the 70 minute long season finale on the UK release, but a 48 minute long version. WTF? That doesn’t even make any sense, especially since a picture of one of the missing scenes was used as a background for the DVD episode menu (you know, where you can set audio commentaries on/off and so forth). Weird.
What’s done is done, and while investigating I also stumbled across amazon.com and they offer - and that is really cool - Season 5 and 6 of The Shield as download. Again, excitement! I, after all, get to see the whole 70 minute long episode! Of course, I didn’t. “You can only download Unbox videos while you’re in the United States.” Great!
In the end, all the drama culminated in me writing an email to Sony Pictures Home Entertainment - or at least that’s where I think I sent it to - which will most likely go unanswered. Here it is:
Dear Sony people,
I have a problem or rather a question regarding the The Shield Season 5 UK DVD release. The season finale (”Post-Partum”, Season 5, Episode 11) is 48 minutes long on the UK release. Interestingly, the original episode is approximately 70minutes long. Why? As far as I know the US DVD release features the 70minute version of “Post-Partum,” so why doesn’t the UK release? Care to clarify?
In case I get a reply I will publish it here, but don’t hold your breath as I really don’t expect any. Frustrated, I come to the conclusion that:
1. Sony sucks
2. Sucks to be me
Over and out, have a nice Sunday!
Subscribe to my blog!
