Movie Reviews

I am annoyed by movie reviews. They are written on the premise: tell as much about the movie as possible, without saying the one thing that happens in the climactic scene.

So a typical review will say "This is a film about coming of age in a small town. It features lush cinematography, a great performance by Gwenyth Paltrow, and takes the philosophical stance that it is better to leave home for the unknown than to stay and never know what could have happened. Young Lily graduates high school while her mother cares for her dying father. She falls for a friend who is leaving for the big city in the Fall. It all builds to her needing to make a decision one way or the other."

So now I am supposed to pay $9 to see the one scene at the end of the movie that the review didn't tell me?

And I hate reviews that give away the philosophical premise or statement of a film. "This movie is an allegory that takes a stand in favor of assisted suicide". Great, now there's one other thing I don't need to worry about figuring out. In fact, I would have preferred you told me the whole plot and left out the interpretation altogether.

That really pops my corn.

Software License Agreements

I really hate the way software license agreements, website privacy policies, etc. are presented in an intentionally dubious way. One of my biggest pet peeves is when these agreements are presented on websites in a teeny-tiny box. You can only read a few lines at a time and the whole document is hundreds of lines long.

Why not make the box bigger? Why not provide a downloaded text file? Because then, people could ACTUALLY READ the policy and MAKE AN INFORMED DECISION.

My other problem is that they are filled with legalese and nonsense. My eyes glaze over whenever I read one.

That really disagrees with me.

Two Annoying Things about Vonage

After using Vonage for a few months now, I've become aware of two annoying things that they make no mention of when you sign up for the service.

1) Other people will not be able to identify you when you call. Your phone# comes up, but caller ID is for "Unknown Caller"

2) You must keep track of some other phone# in order to check your voicemail from outside your home. You can't call your phone# and then punch a code in to activate your voicemail. You dial this other phone# and then type in your phone#. It's really rather lame.

Vonage should have been more upfront about these items. They try to tell you that they are just like all other phone services, but they are not. And the fact that they don't provide access to information about their differences is underhanded.

That really pushes my buttons!