Stupid Fullscreen

As you guys probably know from reading this space before, I get really dismayed when I find what appears to be a good deal on something, only to learn the reason it's such a great deal is because it's the unpopular format. You know - you're shopping and find what appears to be a great jacket, only to discover that the reason it's on sale is because the zipper is messed up. That split second you think you've uncovered a bargain is thrilling and the second it gets taken away is a bummer. But, here's the example that most appears in my life: I'll be shifting through the giant bin of movies on sale at the local Best Buy or whichever chain store I'm in at that moment. I'll find a random movie that I would never usually be that excited to own, but for $3 I'm willing to spring for it. Maybe it has a really interesting director's commentary or perhaps some funny outtakes (even better is if it's actually a great movie that I just keep forgetting to pick up). But, then I flip the box over and see that its got the Fullscreen format. Damn. That would be why it's $3.

Fullscreen, for those of you who may not be tech-savvy is the format in which they take the screen shot that was used in movie theatres and they basically zoom in to one part of the shot. This gets rid of the dead space above and below the picture that happens when you show a widescreen format on a normal TV. Maybe this wouldn't bother you, but as a guy who took several film classes in college this drives me crazy, cause basically what happens is you lose some of the action in the movie. What you end up with is half a shot and you hear people's voices while they're off screen. It drives me crazy. Now, most days this isn't usually a problem because 90% of TVs sold are in the widescreen format. Which brings me to my point - whey even still make Fullscreen DVDs? They've adjusted the deadspace to appear less prominent, so who needs Fullscreen? All you're doing is robbing people of seeing the whole movie and annoying the bargain hunters like myself.

-Yesterday I updated my iTunes to the latest version, Version 9.0. Now basically it's just like that last 4 or 5 upgrades, except it features a new application that lets you share music on 5 different computers in the house. All of that is fine, except they didn't do the one thing I actually wanted them to do - give me back Party Shuffle. Let me explain: sometimes I don't want to hear certain songs cause I'm just not in the mood. In Party Shuffle when you clicked on songs further down the playlist you went to that song and skipped every song in between. In iTunes DJ, which is what they replaced Shuffle with, the songs you skip remain, they just move down a slot. It's really annoying cause they're still in the way unless you make a new playlist. I want to be able to just hit shuffle and go about my work. C'mon, iTunes, you have to help me out.