Update: I just have to say that you are all fuckin' crazy: 374 to 38+28? Madness! The celophane is clearly the worst thing evar.
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* Those un-peelable stickers that strech or tear the DVD cover before letting up their hold.
I really don't want to think about how much of my life has been spent painstakingly trying to peel that sticker off molecule by molecule, only to botch the job and stretch out the plastic at the last possible second.
protip: after you remove the shrink-wrap from a CD that has the sticker along the top, unhook the CD cover at the bottom hinge. IT will then lift right off and make taking the sticker off a hell of a lot easier.
We used to do this at a record store I worked at when we wanted to open a CD for in-store play but still be able to repackage it later.
That doesn't work for DVDs for obvious reasons.
Also add: those brain-dead case designs which results in you snapping half the clips trying to get the CD out.
Styrofoam peanuts, on the other hand, are fun. And are edible when in corn starch form, although they don't taste of much.
...and then they're not styrofoam peanuts anymore, either.
You are completely mad.
Though at least the starch ones don't come with the AAAUUGGGH GET IT OFF GET IT OFF GET IT OFF static cling.
...or the nanofractal technology that leads to "oh look, there's another crumb of styrofoam in the rug" weeks later.
Though, you can always lick one of the starch ones and stick it to your cat, forehead, shoe, etc. You know, in case you wanted to *simulate* the static cling...
someone told me once that some places add rat poison to the starch ones, otherwise roaches and rats will infest them. Dunno if that's true or not, but yeah. I always bring that up when someone talks about eating those thigns. Blech. Not that they're very appetizing to begin with...
I doubt that very much. Any company that intentionally shipped poison to unsuspecting customers' homes - without any warning labels, no less - would get sued hard and fast, with no lube. Even silica packets come with big "DO NOT EAT" printing.
good point. I couldn't find anything about anti-pest additives anywhere on Uline's website, so it's probably a myth. One of these things would be sweet though: http://www.uline.com/Browse_Listing_603.asp?desc=Peanut+Vacuum
They're really not that fun. The amusement dies out on the second or third time you use it.
Is that why they taste like Cap'n Crunch?
(Or is Cap'n Crunch laced with rat poison? Either way: eww.)
To me they kind of taste like Kix.
http://walkers.corpex.com/cr15p5/packinfo.asp?snacktypeid=40&flavourid=56
I recomend bacon-ranch to dip the corn-starch ones in, very tasty.
DVD cases that come with cardboard slipcovers that are a non-standard size and not only look weird on the shelf but get their corners bent up.
And let's hear it for the box set designs that fold out to be about two feet wide, making it impossible to retrieve a disc one-handedly without a table. I have a two-disc set that not only needs to be unfolded to six times its closed width to get to a disc, it also tends to eject the booklet when opened.
The Alien box set is like that. You need a whole room just to unfold the whole thing.
That is why I like this version of the Alien set *drool*
Ok, now that is very cool.
i usually use #2 to keep #1 under control/ bound.
I like the DVD's with the slip covers that they put stickers on.. that never come off. Thanks fuckers!
So do I but it still sucks.
for sure. i especially hate it on dvds where i end up mangling the plastic envelopey sleeve thinger thatholds the pretty card to the dvd holder.
DOWN WITH THE PACKAGIN!
whoever invented that unpeelable security tape has a seat secured somewhere in Hell, I hope.
Rgh!
certainly
what get's me, though, is that these "security tape" things don't actually stop you from getting the CD out of the case.
Too many times I have bought a new CD, and not wanted to take the (long) time to carefully undo the stupid sticky tape, and just carefully pried it open for the CD so I could listen to it in the car. Only when I got home would I take the (long) time to carefully remove the fscking "security tape". After the CD was already out and playing.
yeah exactly... you can just pop the bottom edge of the case out of the hinge and unfold it upward. Though usually if you do that right you can pull the case away from the sticker and then pull on the remaining bit of the sticker to get it off.
I don't actually find it that difficult, though certainly can't do it while driving.
Downloading might be a valid option if hard drives were actually somewhat reliable and DVD-R and CD-R discs didn't self destruct so quickly.
Until that day comes, I want to own a physical product that I can hold in my hands.
I've had CDs go bad. But I've never lost music due to drive failure, because I know a trick called "backups".
I own over 1000 CDs and 300 DVDs. If I had them all in electronic form, backing them up wouldn't really be realistic unless they were stored in a format that was significantly lower quality than originals.
<lj-raw>
You ought to be able to get 1000 CDs into 350Gb worth of flac files, and you can buy hard drives that big off the shelf. If you can afford a sound system and listening room good enough to distinguish lossless from high quality lossy, you can afford a few 400gb harddrives, methinks.
DVDs are still a bit big to store as-is in a removeable drive. But I'm hard pressed to believe that you'd miss all of those 300 DVDs, anyway. Film and TV just doesn't seem like the kind of media worth revisiting that often.
</lj-raw>
I have the complete Twilight Zone collection from V3 Media that's like 49 DVDs by itself. 14 DVDs for the Monty Python collection, all the family guy episodes, all of Sex and the City for my girl, all the Bond films, it adds up quick.
I'm figuring that eventually, the cable companies, the FCC, and the electronics industry will conspire to force everyone to move up to digital cable and HD televisions.
When that happens, I'll just cancel my cable and watch my DVD stash on my current non-HD TV.
I'm figuring that eventually, the cable companies, the FCC, and the electronics industry will conspire to force everyone to move up to digital cable and HD televisions.
Haven't heard about the FCC-mandated changeover to digital TV, eh?
Seriously? Do you really feel the need to keep The Living Daylights on physical media because you're afraid you'll lose it in a drive crash? Wouldn't that be a good thing?
The living daylights was a masterpiece compared to the trainwreck that was "Die Another Day".
Last time I ordered from Amazon, I got plastic air sacs instead of peanuts. Fun to squeeze or stomp on, and much less annoying than peanuts. But not nearly as fun as genuine bubble wrap.
* Getting just the songs you want, without filler.
Well, he didn't include
* Free to steal.
Either.
DVDs and CDs are also free to steal.
It's just easier to get caught.
I love the smell of burning styrofoam peanuts in the morning.
I still buy physical CDs in stores rather than download music.
My data's been corrupted and fucked with so many times, they make it such a pain in the ass to move things that I don't even mess with it. I like having one quality physical copy of my music.
And I think I feel the same way about my movies.
*chews on a straw, leans back on a haystack*
I REALLY hate the security tabs that they stick on the inside back of paperback books, but styro peanuts take the award.
I've been unlucky enough to buy a couple of books and not realize that the security device was actually stuck to the middle of a page
I guess they realized that just tossing one inside the book without any glue didn't keep people from just dumping it out in the store, so they opted to instead sacrifice word 3 of paragraph 4 on page 56.
That's horrible... I find it bad enough that they stick the things to the rear back cover, right along the spine. I am compelled to remove them from books that I buy for some reason... takes a little bit of patience to avoid ripping the paper cover.
Better still, remove them before you go to the cash register. That way if you rip it you can try again on a different book. I know that sounds mercenary, but reducing theft is their problem, not mine.
Those special record mailer envelopes are peanutes free, and you only need to cut a small slit in the celophane to get the record out, no unpeelable stickers.
Not to mention the extra cool factor of buying real 12" records and not 12cm shiny pieces of plastic.
They're a bit harder to convert to MP3s, though.
The worst thing about CDs is all the Intellectual Property Condom stuff on them. It feels as though they're deliberately annoying you into piracy as a form of entrapment.
Though this is not in any way as bad as the unskippable five-minute long "Piracy funds Fat Men in Leather Apron" adverts on DVDs.
If those are not entrapment I don't know what is. It is worth the hassle of downloading the movie just to not sit through all that crap. I would like to personally strangle whoever thought up the "feature" of unskippable content on DVDs.
Option D: Small apartment/condo, limited horizontal surface space.
to get that album you like but are too embarassed to have the folks at Tower see you buying
Bah. Still worth it to have a physical back up, lossless audio (yay FLAC!) and no DRM. And you're missing out if you just download Tool's latest, although that's admittedly the exception.
However, I can't stand the retardation of DVD cases that have the little finger grooves around the disc itself, but a solid ring of plastic right before you hit the disc. WTF was the point of having the grooves to begin with if you can't, you know, use them?
That. Though I don't buy discs with the tape still attached all that often.
Every 2xCD disc thing I've bought recently has lost one of the clamp things for at least one side of the tray so one of the disc ends up floating around inside the case.
Yeah, those are the worst, since you have to weaken those 3 little tabs to get the discs out.
It must've been a challenge coming up with something even crappier than regular jewel cases, but somebody managed.
Is this the wrong time to point out that vinyl still lacks these problems?
Yeah, I thought it was the wrong time.
Probably. But if you get too much vinyl, the mass of it causes too much curvature in the fabric of the space-time continuum.
Hey, that's the good curvature, man! It's what separates vinyl lovers from the sane people who have lives.
Those security stickers are hateful but not hateful enough for me not to purchase discs with them.
I recycle all of my CD jewel cases. I keep the CDs in CD binders.
So you mean that you send the plastic off to get melted down and reused in another product, where someone else will throw it away for you. Instead of, you know, keeping it on your shelf where it will never see a landfill.
It's not plastic that hurts the environment. It's the throwing it away that's the problem.
The idea is that the next product will likewise be recycled if discarded rather than being tossed in a landfill.
Eh, I still like physical media and I've never had problems getting discs out of their cases. Admittedly, CDs are much easier to get out than DVDs since you can scrape the ridged edge to tear open the plastic and then pop the case apart to easily pull off the top edge sticker.
Ah, the music- and movie-purchasing ritual: unwrapping the case with a big sharp knife. It's like xmas, only you can see what's inside and you get media you like, not a holiday sweater that doesn't even fit.
On DVDs, the most annoying part is the little snap-locks on the sides of some cases. I'll sit there, having already removed the celophane and the security stickers, and tug at the side and get pissed off that it won't open easily...
And then I notice the snaps and pop it open. Haven't yet had a cinecidal fit where I Gaijin Smash my way inside, but it's a'comin' one of these days.
If they were ubiquitous, they wouldn't be a problem, but instead they're rare enough to lull me into just trying to open the case.
Once more us sophisticated europeans lambast your strange backward society.
1) I hadn't noticed this on US acquisitions, but UK ones come wrapped in something that doesn't seem to get static-y.
2) Nope, not them, not here. Occasionally small ones stuck on the edge that opens, depending on store. Though my expert nails make short work of cleanly removing the US style ones. I don't buy many DVDs, but I've yet to see SDE stickers on the ones I buy.
3) the online places I use (mostly play.com and amazon) seem to have mailers that don't need these, for books and cds and similar things. cdbaby manages to post without peanuts, too. Though I did spend a good hour the other day playing with a box full of starchy ones and a basin of warm water.
the hatterThe thing I always do with the SECURITY DEVICE that they ENCLOSE -- which is a little rectangular sticker-bubble about an inch long -- is bend it in half, so the sticky sides touch, and after a while it springs apart and flies up in the air! What fun!
I do this until the rubbery plastic of the thing forms a crack, then I peel the bubble apart, which is satisfying given the way it tears. Then I have two little strips of foil that are inside the bubble, which I bend in half, then try to un-bend, which snaps the foil in half.
Doing this is usually more entertaining than the CD/DVD.