I love Christmas. It’s great to give a gift to someone and watch his or her face light up when the gift is just right. Unfortunately, that is tough to do, at least for me. Gift buying was never a strong suit of mine, and when I buy for adults, it is just more difficult. At least kids can get a toy from a favorite cartoon, and love it. Granted, that is probably a fairy tale that will smack me in the face when the time comes to actually buy gifts for kids. Anyway, back to the adults, and why they’re tough.
Firstly, I have to think of something to buy. I either don’t pick up on hints well, or don’t get any hints, because I usually have to run through gift guides to find gift ideas that I think will be good.
Next, I read reviews, and nothing is worse than reading reviews that say the opposite. For example, I’m looking to buy a Blu-ray Disc Player, but some reviews say the wifi is great, and others say it is terrible. Here I am, trying to decipher which reviewer actually knows what he or she is talking about, so I can decide if the BD player is worthwhile or not. Of course, in my mind, I start wondering how many positive reviews are written by the manufacturer. Yeah, I went there in my mind, and I started to psyche myself out. I really do not buy into that too much, though. Does it happen, sure, probably, but I doubt it happens on such a large scale that most the positive reviews are false. Now I’m trying to pick the perfect BD player, and I’m never satisfied. I want one that works great with wifi, and connects to all kinds of online media, like Netflix, Hulu Plus, Pandora, etc. I’m down to a Sony BDP-S580 or a Samsung BD-D5700. The Sony is about $6 cheaper, and it has 3D capabilities, which I do not think will be a selling point to my sister and her husband, but the Sony device can do it, while the Samsung cannot. I guess I was a bit surprised the 3D capable BD player was cheaper (albeit by a small amount) when it sounds like the two are on a level playing field otherwise.
In a nutshell, I love and hate reviews. I love it when the review is informative, but I hate it when people who really do not know what they are doing decide to run to the internet to trash a product due to their own incompetence. I have read reviews where people trash a device for not having an input or output, but my question is why do people buy something that does not have the correct hook ups? Oh, people are incapable of proper researching, and instead blame the product. Idiots should not be allowed to post reviews, but they obviously can have a blog, so I guess that cancels out.
Okay, just thought I pop in and post some thoughts. I could go on, and on, but I doubt anyone wants to read my rants about reviews, or about people in general.
Merry Christmas for now!
– Jonathan