As I have mentioned more than a few times, B is a frequent traveler. I don't like his frequent travels, but I accept them because they are part of his job, and for the most part, we're able to work around his not being around. However, today I encountered one issue that I had difficulty working around--figuring out how to work the DVD player.
We don't actually have a DVD player--we use B's Play Station (or something, one of those game consoles; I can't keep them straight). The last game console that I operated was a Nintendo console--and I'm talking about old school Nintendo. It was much more straightforward and did only one thing--it let you play Nintendo games. This multi-tasking of game consoles is confusing.
First of all, I couldn't figure out how to turn it on. It had two buttons on the front--one to open the disk holder, and another to reset. Neither did anything. I looked all over the little black box until I finally found a switch on the back, which turned on a telltale light on the front. I was in business. Sort of.
I successfully inserted the disk without any problems (yay me), and the DVD started playing on its on (yay game console). But then a depressing-looking advertisement about the dangers of cigarettes came on. I consider myself to be adequately informed about such dangers and had suspicions that the movie would provide me with sufficient depression (a movie about Jane Austen is obviously not going to have the same happy marriage ending that characterizes her novals), so I decided to try to find the main menu for the movie.
The controllers for these new-fangled game consoles are chock full of buttons that have no relation whatsoever to playing a DVD. How am I supposed to know if the circle, square, or X button is going to get me to the main menu? I just started pushing buttons, and confusing menus appeared, and suddenly I was watching the movie but not at the beginning. I tried to go back and ended up right at the beginning (the part right before the depressing smoking ad).
Time to press more buttons. I restarted the movie 4 times before I gave up on finding the start menu and decided to let the DVD run its course (I could always mute the cigarette ad, or go get a snack, or something, and sometimes the previews are good), but then the movie started playing automatically, without my having to press Play or anything. I'm not sure if I broke its spirit or if it was functioning as designed, though that would be an odd design--attempt to dissuade your viewers from watching your movie by showing a man who talks with a machine due to years of smoking, and then allowing them to skip the depressing part when they display complete and utter incompetence trying to work the DVD player.
Either B needs to stop traveling, or I need to learn how to work this thing. I prefer the former.
