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Universe laughs at HD-DVD owner (me)

By Omar Gallaga | Friday, April 11, 2008, 03:58 PM

A sad, brown envelope arrived at my front door today.

Inside were five HD-DVD movies, which I’d been waiting on since January when I bought an HD-DVD player add-on for my Xbox 360. (Oh, January. Such an innocent time, before the war was lost.) Back in those joyous days, you’d get five free HD-DVDs (at least!) with any HD-DVD player purchase.

I was waiting for the package with mild annoyance (“Hey, where’s my movies, dude?”), while at the same time feeling existential about the whole thing (“Who cares? It’s OVER!”) while also half-expecting to get nothing at all. (“It’s all right, guys. I know you lost a lot more than I did in this whole deal.”)

The list of movies I selected included “Charlie and Chocolate Factory” and “Darkman.” That’s not exactly what I got. Inside the envelope was a note on a little slip of paper. It said, “Unfortunately, one or more of the movies you have selected was no longer available. We have replaced any unavailable selections with other HD DVD (sic) titles, which we hope you will enjoy as well. Thank you again for your recent purchase.”

What movies did I get instead? “Waist Deep,” starring Tyrese Gibson and “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.”

I also got “U2 Rattle & Hum,” “The Italian Job” and “Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life,” and those are all right by me. I think I might have selected those, but I can’t remember for sure.

But “Waist Deep?” Yeah, I’m not sure I would have even picked that one in Bizarro World. At least that one is a combo format — it also works in a regular DVD player. All the rest are HD-DVD-only.

Ah well. Given the billions several companies lost on the whole HD-DVD fiasco, I should be thrilled that they sent anything. It would have been way too much to ask that they send five Blu-ray discs instead, I suppose.