Publishing Delays

Recently, a friend of mine got me hooked on a book.

Well, not exactly.  A trilogy.

He recommended it. Highly.

Now, I'm usually skeptical of the first few recommendations I receive from a friend - I don't know yet if their taste is any good. In fact, my considering them a friend is usually a strike against their taste.

It's good.  It's really good.

And there is an RPG due out. It was supposed to be out in November, and was then pushed back to December 15th.  So my friend and I both placed orders with our FLGS.

I was there the other night, and I asked for an ETA. I was told it's been pushed back. The publisher's website shows a February release, now.  The PDF is available now - but I'm not a PDF-only gamer. I like having a physical copy there at the table. And printing PDF's is expensive.  Really expensive.

So now there is this game I'm excited about and ... it's late.

Delays like this are endemic in the gaming industry - both analog and digital. It hits every publisher. My wife waited almost three years for a copy of the Grimm RPG. Because it was pushed back and pushed back and delayed. She was also yelled at by a would-be customer when Mission: Red Planet didn't arrive in time for a show.

We understand that delays happen.

But that doesn't make them any less frustrating.

Giving Gifts Late

Here we are, deep in the holiday season, and my wife's gift isn't here yet.

In fact, I'm 90% sure it's going to be late.

I don't mind receiving late gifts - any gift received is a joy and a delight. But I really don't like giving gifts late. It tells the recipient that you couldn't be bothered to spend a couple of extra bucks on faster shipping. Or that you put it off until the last minute.

It's funny, though - I don't think of it like that when I'm on the receiving end - only when I'm the late giver. And I know my wife will be okay with receiving it late.

And it isn't my fault - I ordered from the UK with several weeks to spare. The items were in stock and shipped within a day of my order.

And then they entered that morass that is Holiday Shipping.  They're probably sitting in a warehouse somewhere, waiting to be checked in and processed through.

But they'll be late, and so there may not be anything under the tree from me for my wife.

And I hate that.

Pre-Decorated Christmas Trees

If you've been reading this for a while, you're probably under the impression that I don't like anything. And, if you ask my wife, she'd probably agree with you. But there are a few things here and there that I do like.

Christmas, for example.

Just strip away everything that's been done to the holiday for the last century and a half or so, and you've got a pretty damn awesome holiday that's all about giving.

When I was a kid, my favorite part of the season was decorating the tree.  I think every family has that set of decorations that are distinctively theirs. My family, for example, has a set of clothespin dolls that my dad made. They're dressed in authentic native costumes for a dozen or so countries, and are in pairs (one man and one woman per country).  They're really neat.

When I was at the store the other night, I spotted a tree that was pre-decorated. 

Why would anyone do that? I don't even put up a tree (which is a point of contention with my wife that she'll eventually win and we both know it, but I keep struggling), and I have some ornaments.  Every year, I wind up with a few more ornaments. Every year, we have a harder and harder time putting the ornaments on our garland.

By the time my wife wins that argument, we'll have enough to trim a tree. Of course we'll then need to buy lights.

So buying a pre-decorated tree takes away the best part of the tree.

Not only that, but what is up with the fake trees with built-in lights?  Seriously.  First of all, I prefer real trees. Fake trees just don't smell right - and I love the scent of pine. I understand that real trees can be a fire hazard. And real trees are a cat hazard. And real trees ... well ... require more cleanup.

But even then, why would you buy a pre-lit tree? My parents have enough lights that they rotate through and change the look of the tree.

The photo above? It's from a year they used mostly white lights. But there was one year, it was blue and white. One year, it was all green.  You can't do that very easily with a pre-lit, pre-decorated tree. It's certainly not worth the effort it would take.

Perky Radio Hosts

Here in the Seattle area, we are blessed with a number of excellent radio stations. During the holiday season, they play some really good Christmas music, too. Especially the local Christian radio station, KCMS. They have the best catalog of Christmas music out there. And it's much better-updated than anyone else's catalog.

My wife and I start listening to Christmas music shortly after Thanksgiving and listen to it until Christmas Day. But we can't listen to KCMS in the mornings. Their morning show hosts, Scott and Sam, are the two perkiest people on the radio.

Just listening to them is enough to induce road rage, making my commute unsafe for the rest of the world.

I'm not a morning person. I haven't discussed the evil of mornings in detail, yet, but I will. Eventually. Suffice it to say that I am not someone who deals well with mornings or morning people.  I'm groggy, cranky, unresponsive, and mostly incoherent. The last thing you want me to deal with at that time of day is a morning person.  Even one of them is too many. Two of them bouncing off of each other with inane chatter about what a wonderful day it is and how wonderful life is and how amazing the week has been ...

I don't mind listening to commercial radio. I prefer NPR, but I do listen to a few local commercial stations. I understand that you need commercials to stay in business. KCMS pushes the line of too many commercials, sometimes, though. And then, instead of tapping into that really good Christmas library, we are forced to listen to two bobbleheads jabbering at each other. Want to fit more music in? Silence the DJs.

They do the news several times during my morning commute, and Scott manages to be surprised by the exact same stories that surprised him half an hour ago. In the exact same way. And no, it's not pre-recorded. It's live. It gives the impression that Scott has a memory similar to that of several characters from 50 First Dates (one of the few Adam Sandler films I have genuinely enjoyed).

All of this instead of the previously-mentioned Christmas library just makes KCMS in the morning not worth listening to. If they were to cut the DJ time in half, I'd listen to them more.

And KCMS is not alone in this - they're just (for me) the biggest disappointment. If they only had two Christmas CDs, it'd make sense for them to have a lot of DJ jabber in the mornings. But - again - KCMS has the best library of Christmas music in the area.

It's a shame they don't use more of it.

DVDs and Blu-Ray Discs with Unskippable Ads

When I get home at night, I occasionally enjoy nothing more than popping a disc into one of our players to unwind. And, nearly every time, I have to sit through one or more commercials before I get to the menu. And these ads cannot be skipped.

It's frustrating. I want to relax and unwind - not be sold to.

It's especially annoying when the ads are completely irrelevant. When I'm watching a Blu-Ray Disc, you don't need to show me a two-minute commercial that informs me how much better Blu-Ray is than standard definition.

And - call me crazy - but aren't the anti-piracy commercials on the disc a waste of time? Because I've obviously already bought the disc, otherwise I'd be able to skip the ad telling me not to do what I clearly didn't do.

I realize that the studios want to make money - but they already have my money: I paid for the disc. And I've often seen the film in theaters.

Even more frustrating are the multiple-disc sets which have the same set of ads on each disc.  If you have to put ads on the discs, I understand the ad on Disc One. But why do I have to sit through the same ads over and over and over?  It makes me less likely to buy more discs from that publisher, and more likely to buy from their opponents.

In fact, the ads don't make me more likely to buy. They make me less likely to buy. I'm no pirate, but Amazon Instant Video, for example, doesn't make me watch commercials. And there's no frustrating packaging to deal with.

Sadly, however, not everything is available legally in a commercial-free streaming format, meaning I'm stuck sitting through these stupid and pointless commercials for products I already own.