Oops.

[captainsblog]

Apparently, the British press was (were, if you were them) already making all kinds of Fleet Street hay over how cheap and inappropriate the Obamas were in their choice of ceremonial gifts to PM and Mrs. Gordon Brown a couple of weeks back.

One of those gifts was a set of DVDs of (I presume) famous American films.

Well.  Word's now out that His Royal Brown-ness can't even watch the movies in the comfort of his No. 10 home, because our dipshit State Department didn't have the sense to get a set that plays in Region 2.

I'm sorry. I'll forgive Barry the occasional mistake- even last night's unfortunate joke- but c'mon, dude. Even I know to ask Brits, expatriate or not, whether they can play a Region 1 disk before I send it to them.

You're supposed to be smarter than me, which is why you were such a refreshing change from the Dumb Guy. Start acting it.

Comments

[thanatos-kalos.livejournal.com]

that's odd, actually-- most of the DVD players here are multi-region. Mine is, and it's a relatively cheap model.

[captainsblog.livejournal.com]

If you ever come back here, be sure to check with me about shipping one of themthar multi-region players back home for certain people pissed as hell that certain much-loved UK films are R2 only.

I'll even pay.

[thanatos-kalos.livejournal.com]

I can probably do it now, so long as I'm reimbursed for the shipping and everyone has an adaptor for the plug. just buy the thing online, ship it to me and I'll send it on.

[luckycee.livejournal.com]

I have absolutely no idea what Regions 1 and 2 are.

[captainsblog.livejournal.com]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVD_region_code

There are certain programs that identify this coding and strip them from copies of video disks. I, of course, have no knowledge of such things.

Ow, my nose.

[doubtful-salmon.livejournal.com]

You know, complaining your gift is cheap is stupid, guys (not you). I mean Jesus. If our country were a person, then we're not in the position to be giving anyone gifts because we're currently only keeping our gas, water, and electricity on by barricading our property from the outside and making them break in to turn the stuff off. They should be frigging thankful they got a gift at all.

Plus, last year I got for Christmas a box of Estee Lauder make-up, and two books from Borders with pictures of the Beatles in them. The second was more thoughtful, and I liked it more, but I am about 98.6% certain that the make-up cost a lot more.

The Region 1 thing is an oversight that anyone could make, particularly since I suspect, as President of the United States trying to give somebody a gift, you wouldn't be like, "Oh no, which region DVD do they have?" Particularly if these are the guys freaking out because their gifts were too cheap. Apparently they're too cheap to have a multi-region DVD player.

I just think it's silly that we're getting crap for giving cheap gifts at the same time that we're having insanely ridiculous dead-end hearings trying to figure out what complete moron thought they'd give a shit-ton of government bailout money to AIG execs who fucked everything up in the first place (I can only assume they did it out of sympathy, hoping to give them enough money to bail themselves out of prison when they get caught for doing something illegal, and teach them a very valuable lesson if they already blew it when it comes to that). How is it like NOT EVIDENT that we're totally and completely fucked and out of money? I realize in the scheme of things giving a nice gift to the Browns--who, by the way, are not exactly the Tudors--is relatively inexpensive, but I think that's a badass gift that someone obviously put a lot of thought into for one, and for another, we're OUT OF MONEY. World, just accept it. We can't blow all our cash on giving you some weird pimped out nonsense when we voted someone in who drove a fucking Chrysler up until he got the job. I'm only saying, there's a reason that Barack Obama won, and I think most of it hinges on the fact that we're trying to get someone in who understands that the Prime Minister and company should shut the fuck up when half of our country's unemployed (figure exaggerated but point notwithstanding).

If this is gonna be a thing, England can kiss my ass. I'm sorry, and I hate it when people say this, but England is only England. If England were to get in a fight with the United States, do you know who'd win? The United States. Do you know how I know? Wasn't there this thing about that in the 1700s? We were tragically comparatively underfunded then, too.

My favorite thing is how in that one article, they complain about what they gave to the kids, saying that Sasha and Malia got gifts unique to England. Well, shut the fuck up, then. It looks like you got gifts unique to the States--a set of Region 1 DVDs. Get over it.

Complaining about something this petty is ridiculous. This is the sort of thing that has made people feel like the Royal Family is archaic and useless, so it would do well to not make the part of your government that people do view as functional not the same.

[captainsblog.livejournal.com]

I would SO vote for you for Queen on the basis of that analysis.

Except for (a) the lack of the franchise on such issues and (b) your giving me no basis for believing you're descended from Teutonic, inbred, venereal-disease-addled aristocrats.

Your bad. Our loss.

[doubtful-salmon.livejournal.com]

That's too bad because I hear the job comes with some fierce jewelry and I've been meaning to accessorize more of late.

[doubtful-salmon.livejournal.com]

Also, I should throw in with what I said before, near the end when I said the article complained about the gifts they gave to the kids--it wasn't the article. It was someone in the comments. I was just so eager to finish that sentence that I forgot to include that, but I sense that for some reason if I don't make this addendum it will bite me in the ass somehow.

[liddle-oldman.livejournal.com]

Unless this is a subtle way of telling him "You know that whole nose-up-the-behind thing you had with W? It's so over."