Thursday, May 15, 2008

Why I don't LOVEFiLM

I started subscribing to (what was then) Screen Select some years ago. It worked pretty well: I'd say what I wanted, and I'd pretty much get that. I never had any problems with discs, and the only problem was that they couldn't get discs through the post any faster.
Screen Select were replaced my Love Film (LOVEFiLM), and then things started to go downhill.
First they stopped sending discs in little plastic cases that protected them when they were handled less than gently by the postal service.
Then, they stopped sending my the films I most wanted and started sending me my low priority ones.
Then, I started to have problems playing their discs. One of their discs even broke a DVD player, and I all got when I complained was their standard response.
Stupidly, I continued with their service.
However, as of today, I no longer subscribe to Love Film.
The penultimate disc I received had a crack that reached halfway across it, and today, instead of getting Yojimbo, I got 300. Having immediately posted it back, I went on their website to report the problem. However, it seemed I couldn't report a wrong disc unless I personally inserted the incorrect disc into my anus and type in the encryption key with my penis.
After all this, I decided to cancel my subscription. I went to the relevant page, clicked the relevant link, and received instructions to phone a call centre. Not put-off, I phoned. Then, on getting a "We can't take your call" message, I phoned again. And again. Then I got through to someone who took longer to "access my account" and "talk to his manager" than he did talking to me. All I can say is that I'm glad it's was an 0800 number, else I would have been really really peeved by the time I got through.

I'm disappointed in Love Film. In the past I've recommended them to several people, and I worry that it makes me look bad. Still, from now on, if people ask me about online dvd rental, I'll tell them to avoid Love Film, and to avoid anyone who might be taken over by love film (like amazon have been).

Oh, and to help with their search results, I say that Love Film are the worst online dvd rental service available.

Sunday, May 04, 2008

Anthony Bourdain

After reading Wikipedia on Anthony Bourdain, I can see why he's a hate figure amongst veg(etari)ans.
In the light of this, I feel a debt to the people running Hezbollah Tofu, who are attempting to veganise his recipes. (You can see from their first post where the name comes from)
Well done.