I wrote about this story when it happened and now Corogeanu has been given 14 years in jail.
A Romanian priest has been jailed for 14 years for conducting an exorcism that led to the death of a nun who he believed was possessed by devils. Irina Cornici, 23, died after being starved and chained to a cross at a secluded convent in the north-east.
About a year ago I signed up for Blockbuster Online. I initially chose Blockbuster because I had a month free promotion code. After using them for about 6 months I decided to switch to Netflix. The reason why was because of 2 weeks free trial of Netflix and I wanted to compare the two services before making my decision of which I would keep. Now BB has introduced Total Access where I can return the movie directly to the store. I will compare the two services and try and determine which service I will continue to use.
Speed– Both Netflix and BB deliver movies usually next-day. They send it out and the next day I receive it. There is no clear winner in the speed of delivery here. Besides, this falls more in the hand of the post office than either company. Both have shipment centers in the St. Louis area. On movies that aren’t in the shipping center in St. Louis, they have to grab from another center. BB was faster at the deliveries that couldn’t be filled by my local center. Sometimes by a few days, which leads me to believe they may have more facilities. I could be wrong though.
Email Notifications– Both send out emails when movies have been shipped and received. The one thing I have noticed, and it bugs me a little bit, is that Netflix will notify me in the morning that a movie has been received but I don’t get a shipment email until late that night. With BB I would receive both emails within an hour of each other, usually.
Website– When I was using BB the website was horrible. It was slow, clunky, and overall a bad user experience. That is one of the reasons I left BB, because Netflix had the superior website making it easier to search, add, and remove movies from my queue. For months and months BB was touting their new website launch, but in the 6 months I was with them, it never launched. Their current website seems to be different, so maybe it’s finally up. I’d have to sign up again with BB to see it and test it out, which I may do this week.
Total Access– BB has, Netflix doesn’t. What is total access? I can return BB Online rentals to any store and even pick up a new movie. They didn’t offer this service when I had them and I’m sure they only added it to compete with Netflix. This is a major bonus if I go with BB Online. Of course, if I exchange the movie in store, that movie has to be returned to that store, causing me to make another trip to the store.
Envelopes– Yeah yeah, I’m comparing the envelopes. BB Online were much better. Though, this isn’t a deciding factor, I do find Netflix envelopes annoying. I mean, the annoying tape that is on the Netflix envelopes makes me wonder who designed it. BB rarely uses tape (in fact, the only time I had the annoying white tape circle on BB was when it was shipped from an alternative shipping facility AND it was an older movie.) They definitely have the better envelopes. Easier to open, not that I’m stressing out because I can’t open my Netflix movie.
Pricing– Same for both companies, though Netflix offers a 4 movie out at a time plan that BB doesn’t offer.
So, what is my decision? Do I go with convenience of returning to the stores or the better user experience via the websites? I might sign up with BB again just to see how their website has changed, then make my final decision.
Well, CDs are pretty much obsolete now with the success of the MP3 player, but we should do away with them, and DVDs all together. Think about it. These have to be one of the worst media formats ever. I was watching a DVD today, the great indie movie The Salton Sea, and it kept skipping. I’ve only watched the movie 1 other time and I take care of my DVDs. So because of a minute scratch on the DVD it is pretty much useless. What we need is some kind of memory card format for movies. The size it takes for massive amounts of storage space is increasingly smaller and smaller every few months. How awesome would it be to buy a movie on a card, get all the features of a DVD, superb picture and sound, bonus features, and more, and all you do is just slide the card into a reader on the TV. This is what we need. Get rid of discs that are prone to scratches and lenses that are susceptible to dust, fingerprints, misalignment, etc. When will the movie, music, and tech companies finally realize this is the way to go? If not some kind of memory card, surely they can come up with something better than discs.
This is directed to all the people and companies that still incorporate way too much flash into their websites. Come on people, what is this, 1998? I’m thankful that the majority of you have stopped creating websites entirely in flash, but the ads and banners need to go too. In the age of broadband loading times don’t really mean anything any more. They do to me. No, not because I’m on dial-up, I’m not, but because I often connect to my home computer via remote desktop. This is where I do most of my blogging, my reading of feeds, etc. So, when you place flash ads that constantly move and require the screen to refresh it freezes the screen while RD tries to catch up and send the data to me. That’s not the only reason flash bothers me. It’s used too often when it really doesn’t need to be (kind of like what is happening with AJAX now). Just because you use flash in your ad does not mean I’m going to purchase your product. Oooh.. One of your programmers knows how to make flash which might have been cool 9-10 years ago but is now plain annoying. Let me buy your product. No thanks. In fact, I’m more likely not going to buy from you because of your flash ad. So, webmasters, bloggers, people with half a brain. Get rid of flash already! (Flash video/audio players not included. Those actually are useful).
My thoughts exactly.