Monday, February 13, 2006

See Dick Shoot, Penguins, and Kudos for Amazon.com

It's really too bad that Dick prefers hunting lawyers with a lawyer over hunting with G.W.

We just finished watching the DVD of March of the Penguins, which includes some very cool extra documentaries and shorts that, combined, are longer than the feature itself. Very charming, indeed.

Speaking of DVD, I received a copy of Fast Times at Ridgemont High as a holiday gift and I just got around to watching it the other night. I've seen the movie many times in the past, but Kara had never seen it before. It's a bit dated, but still a very good movie. Unfortunately, I couldn't get the DTS track to work and the track advertised as Dolby 5.1 would only play as stereo on my receiver. But, this gets to the point of this post. I was rather disappointed with the sound but since Kara had given it to me at the end of December and she had bought it from Amazon back in October, there was no way I could return this defective disk and expect a refund.

Thinking that I might have a shot at an exchange with a personal appeal, I filled out the contact form on Amazon.com, explained my predicament, and asked if there was any possibility of an exchange, since this was obviously a defective disc (after all, my other DTS discs played fine.)

The next night, we rented Junebug and I noticed that the sound wasn't right on this disk either. Uh oh, something was wrong with my receiver, I surmised, and started fiddling with the controls. I have a Sony STR-DE995 audio video receiver that I purchased 3 years ago and I had misplaced the manual. Fortunately, Google came to my rescue and I figured out that I (or Kara) had somehow ... well it's a bit technical, but suffice it to say, I changed some settings and miraculously, the sound was back to perfect. I quickly checked my Fast Times DVD and, voilá , the DTS track sounded wonderful.

Tonight, after a long commute to HelL.A. and back, I check my e-mail and I see that Amazon has written to say that they're making an exception to their return policy in light of my circumstances and that they're already sending me a brand new copy of Fast Times along with a return label so I can send back in my "defective" disk. I feel bad that I was wrong about the DVD being bad, but I really have to point out that Amazon.com has just provided excellent customer service. Kudos!

On a separate note, Junebug was an odd little movie, but Amy Adams really did deliver a standout performance.

2 comments:

  1. Anonymous12:16 AM

    I love your one line about Cheney. What a buffoon. (KC)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Anonymous7:46 PM

    What a great word I forgot about! Buffoon! It's one of those words you learn in 7th grade for no good reason...

    ReplyDelete

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