DVDs and the flu

I'm suffering from a terrible bout of the flu at the moment, resulting in bits of dizziness, light-headedness, and other various -nesses. Hacking out phlegm from my nose that seems to be dead-set on making its way into my small intestine has had me questioning how valuable my current lease on life is. Bloody disease is driving me off the wall, and its like a sign from a vindictive, mean-spirited God that I am not allowed to have any fun this 4th of July. Clearly, the influenza virus is un-American, and I think our next failed attempt at a war should not be a war on drugs, terror, Iraq or Gays, but rather a war on Influenza.

It'd be real easy too--all we have to do is find one of those countries suffering from the Bird Flu and drop bombs on them until they accept democracy and free, ineffective vaccines. Our flu shots may not work, but by god, we give them anyway, and they're guaranteed to be just as effective as our current military strategies in the Middle East have been.

In conclusion: fuck the flu.

Changing gears, you know how when you buy DVDs--especially those Special Edition DVDs that run about 25 dollars and have their own useless little DVD sleeves that will likely end up crushed and bent and broken within a week of purchase--they are wrapped up in about layer upon layer of plastic wrap? I mean, first you have the first layer, over the sleeve itself, unwrapping it being the easiest task of the procedure, which is a bit morbid considering how badly abused that DVD sleeve is gonna be. Then, you have to spend two minutes, shaking and tugging and worming out the actual DVD itself, from the sleeve (A task almost requiring personal lubricant, as those fucking things are stuck in there tighter than Winnie the Pooh in Rabbit's House), and then, after all that toil, you have YET ANOTHER bit of plastic wrap to take off. This one is considerably more difficult, and requires careful plucking, tugging, and chewing of the tiny, barely-visible and nigh-ungrippable slip of loose plastic designed to help you in the unraveling process. It can take almost five minutes to slip the plastic wrap off as if it were a two-sizes-too-small T-shirt on an exceptionally fat woman, bunching at all the wrong places and requiring vengeful, violent tugging motions just to continue the slow, arduous journey down and off the case. Finally, once that is off, your first instinct may be to yank open the DVD case and salivate over your prize--but, of course, attempting this is foolhardy, as it will only reward you with frustration as the case refuses to budge.

The cause of this obstruction comes from these seemingly innocuous bits of white sticky paper along the top, bottom, and sometimes even the side of the DVD case. These papers prevent the case from opening, and the only service they provide is to helpfully tell you the name of the DVD and that it IS a DVD--a service that might have been useful, had the name of the film not already been typed in large letters in the front of the fucking box! If you need reminder that this is, in fact, a DVD you are opening, well, then, frankly, you have failed as a human being and should eliminate yourself from the genepool at the nearest railroad crossing.

These white sticky papers are even more difficult to get off, because, unless you are lucky, you will likely botch up the ripping process and only partially tear off the sticky paper, leaving 75% of it remaining on top of your DVD case. This means you'll have to spend yet another ten minutes picking feverishing at the white paper as if it were dead skin on the bottom of your foot, gasping and groaning in almost orgasmic, feverish glee as slowly, but surely, a flap of membrane lifts free and allows you to continue ripping, only for you to have to cry out in frustration as the paper rips prematurely again and you are forced to swallow your anger and with saintly patience resume picking again. This process will repeat itself up to THREE TIMES, depending upon how many white sticky papers are on your DVD case.

Finally, wrapping, sleeve, more wrapping, and our trio of white sticky papers are on the floor and, with childlike glee, you are able to seize the DVD case and wrench it open as if it were the Ark of the Covenant--or, you would, if not for the fact that, after all this, you find that there are these two handy little locks that keep the DVD box securely fastened until you flip them open. That's right--a DVD case which has been double-wrapped, sealed inside a cardboard cover, and then fastened with up to three(!) sticky white pieces of paper, is also LOCKED.

This begs a question from me:

At what point is it that the packagers of this DVD should have decided that enough was fucking enough?

Do we really need this many layers of protection? Is there something more valuable than a film inside these cases? Maybe DVD cases are all imprinted with secret, invisible codes to launch the United States' arsenal of nuclear weapons, codes that only have a fifty-perfect chance of being disintigrated by exposure to open air, leaving every DVD case being in a Schroedinger's cat-esque quantum flux, caught between being mild entertainment or world-destroying tools of the Apocalypse!

That's my theory, at least. What else could explain it?

Happy 4th of July everyone. Unless you're not American. In which case, happy future 4th of July, because sooner or later we're likely going to be invading and taking over your country, so you might as well start practicing your Star Spangled Banner now.