CompuServe Messages

I saw the CD-I "Great wall" infomercial for the first time last night… at 3:00 AM. <yawwwwn> and found it quite enjoyable! It was actually… unsettling, since it dared to be a bit different from your typical promotional video. It was fun watching Phil not get his way and have to suffer through sales pitch after sales pitch. I wonder what went through the writers' minds when they scripted Help! The scenes when she'd single-mindedly _try_ to help the poor user, while the user clearly wanted something else and didn't quite know how to stop the darned thing, were something I certainly never expected to see in a computer-related video. After all, the grim reality, for most non-techies, of having an unresponsive machine masquerading as a helper, is something technology companies always try to hide as well they can. And yes, the access delays were edited out. Otherwise, the show might've been an hour long! <g> And notice how half the time, they extolled "digital video movies" without mentioning the "optional digital video cartridge"? Us techos knew to look for warnings about the optional MPEG card, but most folks would be left confused by this, and even after reading the promotional literature, I'm sure some will still be unaware that the $499 unit does not play digital video movies. All in all, I don't rate it as low as some of the other Forum members. I shudder to think at the job C= would've done, had they made a stab at it. Blaq!