Terrible Analogies

Going through the mail the other day I came across a love letter from Best Buy that contained one of these:

I’m guessing that Best Buy didn’t get my “Dear Jane” letter I wrote them a couple months ago.  If they had, then they wouldn’t have bothered sending me this $5 gift card.  Honestly, I don’t recall the last time I set foot in a Best Buy, but it must have been quite a while ago for them to start missing me enough to send me this obvious attempt to lure me back in.

But who am I kidding?  I’m a sucker for free.  Call me weak.  Free food samples at the grocery store?  I’m there.  Free cookies at the bank?  Yep, count me in.  Free trial subscriptions?  You betcha.  I’ve even been known to make an appointment for the dentist just to scam a free lollipop, so you know I’m all over this $5 gift card from Best Buy.

But this is it.  I swear after this, it’s cold turkey.  No more Best Buy, no matter how convenient the store location or how glamorous the sales promotion, I’m drawing the line.  Your blu-ray prices pushed me out the door, and I don’t plan on coming back until you’ve changed your ways, and I don’t expect you to do so any time soon.  In fact, I feel so confident in that assertion that I’ve given Fry’s a promise ring, and I don’t intend to see anyone behind her back.

After all, she now has my letterman jacket, and asking for it back would be, ya know…kinda awkward.

Addendum:

Weird Neighbor Alert…this morning at 12:16 am, my pool-playing neighbor was busy hauling what looked like body bags from his garage into the side of a white 70′s Econoline van with diamond-shaped tinted rear windows.  We couldn’t help but take notice because every few minutes we heard a distinctive hollow *THUD!* as bag after sealed bag hit the floor of that van, and we just had to open the blinds to see what was going on.

Surveillance will continue…

Best Buy:

Over the past two years we’ve become very familiar with each other.  Every Tuesday I loyally make the quick drive from work to see you during my lunch hour, anxious to see what new movies were released on DVD.  Slowly, I would wander your aisles, softly whispering movie titles under my breath, carefully fondling your newly stocked selection, and unconsciously, almost out of loving reverence, when I noticed a DVD out of place, I would pick it up and gently place it in its correct location.

Things were good and right with the world.  My movie collection was growing at an exponential rate, and I couldn’t be happier.  It was then, after nearly a two-year love affair, that she showed up.

Her name was blu-ray.

The moment that I gave in, my knees trembling, seduced by her superior picture and sound, I knew our relationship was on rocky ground.

Sure, things were still status quo for a couple of weeks.  I was swinging by every Tuesday afternoon, but now I was noticing things…small things really, that I never noticed before.  Your blu-ray selection was sparse, leaving me wanting.  Your prices were high, often charging me double what a new DVD would sell for.  Your once bright and comforting atmosphere began to grow cold and aloof.  I no longer felt at ease under the flat sheen of your unwavering florescent lights.

This is difficult for me to say, so I think I’ll just say it:  I think we should spend some time apart.  You know, perhaps see other people?  I still love you, I really do.  It’s not you, it’s me.

I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you this in person.  Writing this letter was hard enough, and I couldn’t bear saying these words and seeing the heartache on your face.  Please, forgive me.

Love,  HermanTurnip

P.S.  I’ll be spending my Tuesday’s at Fry’s, you know…if you ever want to talk.

The stars have aligned, the planets have converged, and the Ouija has spoken.  This is the week that I’m on call.  If the sh*t goes down at work, I’m the one that gets called at 3am to fix the problem.  Lucky me.

To celebrate this monumental week I’ve decided to celebrate with a late night blu-ray viewing of Live Free Or Die Hard.  And, while suspending my disbelief in the impossible, I cheered as Bruce Willis drove a van through a high-security building and into an elevator shaft where he had a kung-fu battle to the death while precariously dangling over a deep, dark concrete abyss, then survives a multitude of shockingly excessive explosions without losing his hearing, launches an exploding car into a hovering helicopter, then highjacks a semi and battles a freakin’ military jet as he dodges the shattering debris of a collapsing freeway bridge system, I have to wonder how the producers might top something like this for a potential Die Hard 5.  The mind reels…

If you do have the blu-ray version of this movie, there’s a nifty extra called “Yippie Kay Yay Motherfu*%er” where Kevin Smith interviews Bruce Willis about the Die Hard franchise.  If you have an extra 22 minutes it’s well worth the viewing.

If I had to be honest for a second here, I’d have to admit that the second Die Hard was crap.  I feel embarrassed for Bruce Willis whenever I’m exposed to it.

And in case you missed it, the Scrabble word of the day a few days ago was a bit…unusual.

Hey man, don’t look at me.  This was all Hasbro’s doing.  I just report it as I see it…

So….Heath Ledger won his posthumous Oscar for his performance as the Joker in The Dark Knight.  To cut to the quick, there was no other way that this saga could have concluded.  The tears shed by those in attendance was a rare example of uncontrollable, honest feelings on full display in a business where deception and duplicity are SOP.  And rare is the film that generates such intense scrutiny as TDK has.  For Heath to win Best Supporting Actor, and for his father to accept the award, was almost too much for this humble blogger.  To say that I wasn’t emotionally touched by this emotional juggernaut would have been a vicious lie.  

For the movie-going audience The Dark Knight was not about Christian Bale.  Batman who?  The public was there in support of the Joker.  

Saturday night Karin and I fired up our blu-ray copy of The Dark Knight (if you haven’t seen this film in the blu-ray format, the IMAX scenes are breathtakingly amazing) and reveled in Heath Ledger’s performance.  I found myself grinning like an idiot whenever the pasty-faced sociopath was on screen.  Heath’s take on the Joker was nothing short of magic, and to think otherwise would be a dishonest, jaded assessment of Heath’s take on the Joker character.  The Oscars typically leans towards leftist ideals and “high-brow” films not normally seen by the general populace.  To deny Heath Ledger a nod would have been an affront to true talent, and a thumb in the eye to fans around the world who have pushed the theatrical earnings of this film past the one-billion dollar mark. 

And to think, just a few hours prior I was gleefully chowing down on a shredded beef tostada in a questionable mexican eatery in a sketchy part of San Marcos.  Sure, the food was fantastic, but for the remainder of the day the toilet and I were locked in a squirming, titanic struggle for my very soul.  

“Customer #30″ indeed…

The wife and I recently made the commitment and jumped from standard DVD over to Blu-ray.  This transition has had the unfortunate downside of turning me into a drooling, blithering idiot incapable of suppressing the involuntary tick in my left eye whenever I overhear the mere whisper of the word “blue” or “ray”, or any combination thereof.  

But I’ll be darned if I’m not completely in love with this technology.  The amazing picture that Blu-ray provides on our 1080p flat screen.  The uncompressed HD sound.  When you pop in a Blu-ray version of a movie like The Transformers it’s like seeing that movie for the first time.  You know that feeling of reeling in a twelve-foot hammerhead on a 50lb test line, or finally topping out on that 5.14 freeclimb in Joshua Tree that you’ve been working on all summer?  Well….if not, trust me, that’s how you’ll feel when watching your first demo-quality Blu-ray movie.  It’s like finding religion, obtaining nirvana, or discovering a really bitchin’ Chinese restaurant that doesn’t serve that crappy, rancid-tasting beef.  Your heart races, you tremble and sweat, and your pants suddenly seem to fit just a little bit tighter…

Seriously, if you haven’t made the jump to Blu-ray you only have yourself to blame.  It’s a huge leap from standard DVD, and once you experience Blu on a decent system you’ll be a slave to it just like me.

One of us…One of us…One of us…