Wednesday, March 05, 2008

Today I stepped into the future.

For many years I have rented movies just like our ancestors did.  I either went to my local video store to rent a DVD, or I got a disc in the mail from Netflix.  This worked fine for me, just as it did for our caveman predecessors, but it's not very fast.   It seems silly to pass these physical disks around.  All this... this... matter!  Just to watch something that ultimately is going to be converted to a bunch of ones and zeroes!  

So today, for the very first time, I went to the "Amazon Unbox" menu on my Tivo and downloaded a movie for Daisy, who was home sick.  Bam!  Just like that I was in the future!  No time portal or slingshotting around the sun required.   

Do you want to know what I found in the future?  I'll tell you.  SUCKAGE!  It took a full TEN HOURS for the movie to download far enough to allow us to start playing it.  It finally got there right before Daisy's bed time.  Now we have 48 hours in which to watch the movie, but only 24 hours once we hit the Play button, and I think we have to watch it with one hand tied behind our back.  Given that today was really the only big chunk of time that Daisy has in the next 48 hours, we basically spent $2.99 and 10 hours for nothing but a gut full of aggravation.  

I'm sure Amazon would blame my ISP, and my ISP would blame my wifi network, and my wifi network would blame my configuration, and my configuration would blame Amazon, so there's not much point in finger-pointing or trying to get back my measly three dollars, but I'm annoyed as ass.  I don't know if you've seen my ass, but its annoyance capacity is astounding.

Really the only thing that has prevented me from committing suicide from despair over the technological future of our society is that I'm typing this blog post on my brand spanking new Macbook.


I guess technology isn't always annoying.

8 comments:

Lola said...

I was feeling solidarity, annoyance on your behalf, yes it DOES suck, you're so right, oh yes, what a waste of money... and then I reached the photos and forgot all about it. Hahahaha you're soooo funny!

Mike said...

It's kind of impossible to not make funny faces at the Photo Booth app in these Macs.

Will said...

Congrats : ) I think fellow mac users would appreciate this link about Mike's previous Mac.

Mike said...

This Mac is way shinier and prettier than my Mini. Now my laptop is my development machine and my desktop is just a wimpy email/surfing box.

Avery Gray said...

Okay, I'll admit, I have been enjoying my husband's Mac. It's my secret shame.

Funny. My husband makes those same expressions whenever I talk about the bills. Good to know he's just limbering up for Photo Booth. I'll have to try that!

Mike said...

Avery, your husband's Mac? Is it the Airbook? I thought you would never!

Avery Gray said...

No, not an AirBook. On his iMac. I just finished my first iMovie project. You'll find it conveniently located on my blog. ;o)

Mike said...

I can't wait to see what you do on his Airbook then.