Ladies and Gentlemen, I am not here tonight to say too much about my disappointment that Humpty Dumpty needed very little help from all the king's horses and all the king's men to prevail over the As today. I am still happy enough that the Sox lost four straight. I must ask, with apologies to Bob Lobel, why can't the Red Sox get players like Lenny DiNardo? And thanks to Gordon Edes for breaking the story that Daisuke Matsuzaka probably won't be an all star this season. What tipped you off to this Gordo? The ERA over 4.5? Losing a game to a guy the Sox cut to bring in JD Drew? What next? Will he break the story that water is wet or that what goes up must come down?

Tonight's post is about a heartless Fortune 500 corporation ruthlessly victimizing its patrons. The corporation is Best Buy and the victim in this sordid little mess is yours truly. It was a simple little matter, the attempt to purchase a DVD from a Big Box electronics retailer. All I had to do was pick it up from the shelf and walk to the counter. And it turned into an ordeal. The first problem was that I went to the store over by Fenway Park in the Landmark Center. Go figure, I get a scam perpetrated on me in the heart of enemy territory.

The DVD in question was 16 Blocks. I should have picked it up a year and a half ago when it first came out, but I never got around to it. But the other day, I happened to see it on HBO so I went over to Best Buy. And that's where THEY got me. You can't buy an individual copy of 16 Blocks at that Best Buy in the Landmark Center. I know. I asked a blue shirt. So I sat there in Best Buy, weighing the cost/benefit analysis of purchasing the movie I wanted packaged with a movie that no one could ever want. In the end, I bought it.

Now I have buyer's remorse. I loved 16 Blocks when I saw it in the theater. I loved it the other day on HBO. I'm looking forward to watching it this weekend when the Cavs aren't being robbed by the Spurs. But Best Buy sold me a queer giraffe to quote Proximo from Gladiator. It was a plan devilishly clever in its simplicity. And ordinarily I would not have allowed the store to victimize me. But I wanted 16 Blocks and I wanted it now.

In case you care, the queer giraffe here was Exit Wounds. The classic Steven Segal/DMX effort. No one would go in there to buy that on their own hook. I don't even think DMX's family would purchase the movie (I don't think Segal has a family, I think he was grown from the left over parts of lesser talentless tools in a lab somewhere). But I am now the proud owner of a copy of Exit Wounds on DVD.

I don't think the government should allow these things to take place. It's not my fault that Best Buy purchased more units of Exit Wounds than it can sell. Why should they be able to unload their bad decisions onto the movie that I really want? So we have to take back our opportunity not to purchase terrible films wrapped in cellophane with cinematic tours de force. You should call your legislators, mayors, governors, presidents, bishops, ministers and call the police. I would, but I don't want to end up some registry of public nuisances.

I think the ultimate indignity of this whole episode was that they stuck a sticker on the package screaming for all to see that Best Buy was offering two hot movies for one low price. As my friend suggested, the only way that both of these movies are hot is if they fell off the back of a truck. Even better, I stayed in the store agonizing over this decision for so long that I ended up staying in the parking lot for over an hour (I ate dinner as well, so I didn't waste more than an hour in the place). So it cost me an extra dollar to redeem my car from the Landmark Center lot.

On the plus side, I did all my Fathers Day shopping. I'm going to give the Old Man Exit Wounds. Hell, he has a problem with watching Steven Segal movies when he flips by them as he changes channels. It's awful. For the love of God, Marked for Death and Hard Target have not improved in 15 years. They sucked in 1990, they still suck. So that's his payback for making me watch the Glimmer Man. He gets a terrible movie for Fathers Day. Either that or I might try to take it back to the store. They'll probably boot me right out on the street if I try to bring that back to them, though.