2009-04-14 DRM Ereimerp

Word of the day: Ereimerp. It's the opposite of premiere. A premiere would be to buy your very first DVD, for example. My first DVD was The Matrix. It must have been the year 2001 or 2002, and at the time I had a DVD player. The DRM savy reader will have an idea where this is going. For the rest of you, here's the story:
The other day, Kristine and I were hanging out at Whitcoulls. (On an unrelated note, their homepage seems to be unavailable at the moment. Something about a redesign until May. Oh those Kiwis...) It's a chain of bookstores, but they also sell DVDs, BlueRays and even office material. Since neither of us had seen WALL·E, we decided to give it a go. $25 is a bargain and you can't really go wrong with a Pixar movie anyway, right?
Wrong! It might be a good movie, but we wouldn't know. We can't watch it. Since we don't have a DVD player, we usually watch DVDs on Kristine's or my laptop. It worked perfectly fine with the first season of Dead Like Me, the director's cut of the Lord of the Rings trilogy (which, curiously enough, the video rental store keeps in the New Zealand section) and the first two Bourne movies. Kristine's Windows Vista could play it right away, my Ubuntu needed a little help from MediBuntu. No problem. Unfortunately, my DVD drive is not the best when it comes to buffering, so it's a good idea to use vobcopy first. Also not a problem.
But the WALL·E DVD refused to be watched on either of our computers. I'm pretty sure there is a workaround, but to be honest, I'm fed up with it. I bought it. I don't want to have to hack my way into watching it. What the fuck!
So, I hereby officially declare that I will never ever buy a DVD again. This was the last time. Ereimerp. The opposite of premiere.



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Look what Wei found: It's my car!
Comes in handy when you don't remember when registration or WOF (Warranty of fitness, similar to TÜV in Germany) is due.

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Here's another New York Times link. A blogger is getting married to a guy who commented on her blog. Duh. What's the big deal? Happens all the time! No wonder print media is on the edge of extinction. All breaking news are covered in TV and online anyway...