Lackluster Video

I used to like Blockbuster, I really did. For a time, I could go into a Blockbuster to rent a movie, and also pick up a cool action figure or a pack of trading cards. Well, they got rid of the toys and trading cards quite some time ago. And, as of yesterday, it seems as though they’ve gotten rid of their movies too.

You see, Blockbuster also used to have this “guaranteed in stock” policy that, as the title suggests, means the chances of getting the new movie you wanted was pretty good. They don’t have this feature anymore, so going to Blockbuster yesterday was an effort resulting only in futility and rage. EVERY copy of EVERY movie I wanted to see was rented. Every time I saw an empty shelf, I thought about other movies I may want to see, and lo and behold, those too were gone. After 10 minutes of this, I was ready to dash someone’s brains upon the carpet.

I understand the whole concept of supply and demand, but what good is a store that can’t supply ANYTHING I’m looking for? I wouldn’t shop at a grocery store that was sold out of every food item I was looking for.

To give you some perspective on how bad the rental situation was, I noticed someone had rented Highlander 2: The Quickening. When you have to resort to renting that because everything else is gone, you know the store blows.

And one more thing: Blockbuster claims that they have “No late fees.” That’s odd, because when we went to rent the 2 films we finally chose, they said we owed $6 for movies we previously rented. They claimed they were “restocking fees.” First of all, they were late by no more than a week. And second, a restocking fee IS a late fee. We were charged a FEE because we returned the films LATEr than we were supposed to. It doesn’t matter what the fuck you call it, it’s still a motherfucking late fee and it pisses me the hell off.

So, fuck them. I’m not going back to their store, and I won’t use their online service either. Not that I was planning on it anyway, but now I certainly won’t. I’ll Netflix or, God forbid, RedBox my movies before I go back to their den of filth.