December 26th, 2004

color cycle (slow)

On Bypassing DVD Advertisements

So among other things, I got a Shrek 2 DVD for Christmas. I just finished watching it; to say that I enjoyed the movie ('twas the first time I saw it) was an understatement. Something that had started to peeve me, however, was the ads at the start- y'know, the ones that disable the "Fast Forward" button? Yeah, those ads.

I figured out a trick to bypass them anyway. This only works if the ads come up when you first start playing the disc and not at any other time.

1. Stop the DVD.
2. From the main screen of your DVD player, with the disc not running but in, hit the "Jump to MENU" button.

You'll immediately be at the main menu; it's how I bypassed all the ads at the start of the disc.

Gah. Why the fuck do advertisers think we'll react favoribly to an advertisement forcibly placed at the start of a disc I already paid for? And then they have the balls to force us to watch it every damn time? Anyway, it's nice to defeat their little "You can't fast-forward here, bitch" trick. I figure it's probably obvious and standard and everybody does it, but I felt like posting about it anyway. So there.
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    weird weird
big red X

Suicide crisis

edit: In the time it took me to write this post, Bartek has posted that he's decided to fight; he's not commiting suicide. This post remains, and somebody still needs to contact a poison control center immediately.

bartek has made a credible threat on his own life. All I know about him is that he lives in Germany. If anybody can get more information- perhaps a phone number- and can contact him in some way, or perhaps make the German equivalent to a 911 call with his contact information, that would likely be the prudent course of action to take.

As far as I can determine, Bartek has taken an overdose of some form of medication; what is unclear from his posts is whether or not he intends to go through with his stated plan to jump off the 9th story of whereever he is- whether he has decided to do so or to not do so. Whichever it is, somebody with more information than me needs to ACT NOW.