I am a victim of copy protection.

As mentioned earlier, my PS2 has migrated into my room for my solo gaming experiences, while the GameCube has taken on the multiplayer role. Unfortunately, the television in my room is a TV/VCR combo unit. What this means is that the ill-concieved copy protection method employed by many DVD manufacturers in which the picture gets all fucked up if you run the signal through a VCR. This is an old heavy-handed copy protection scheme which prevents people from copying their DVDs onto VHS tapes. Of course, this is ultimately retarded because why the hell would I want ot do that, when I can simply rent a VHS tape and copy it to another VHS tape no problem? Anyhow, it sucks and makes everything look like you're watching the Playboy channel scrambled.

Odd thing is, not all DVDs will do this. Most notable, anything I have that published by Rhino do not feature this dumb-ass copy protection scheme. In addition to this, Rhino publishes G.I. Joe, Transformers, Get a Life, South Park and MST3K , which are the things I'm mostly likely to watch just before bed, particularly if I'm in an altered state of mind.

So, to tie this in with a mini-review: Transformers... and it's hard for me to say this... the Transformers show is actually pretty sucky. I mean, it's got nostalgiac appeal and I loved it as a kid and everything, but I also ate paste as a kid, and I hardly ever do that now. The Rhino DVDs include bonus material about animation fuck-ups and resotration processes that make you realize just how shoddily the show was produced. I would reccomend just avoiding the bonus features and going in for the episodes. It's pretty crappy and makes almost no sense, but cars do indeed turn into giant robots, so if that's what you're looking for, it's still there.

Why didn't Megatron just kill that whiny bitch Starscream? If you are in the mood to be mentally scarred and severely disturbed and never able to look at a jetplane the same way again, you'll find your answer here.

G.I. Joe, on the other hand, sucks so bad that it's funny. The enemy plots are just so ludicrous that they are laughable. Plus, any show where the phrases, "robo-snakes", "await my pleasure" and "mind control" are used withing the same half-hour is automatically awesome. Furthermore, it has the Baroness in it, and any given battle between the Joe team and the forces of Cobra looks like a scheduling mix-up between the Folsom Street Fair and Fleet Week.

Transformers? No girls at all. Pffft, but as stated before, cars do turn into robots.

Well, if I can hazard a guess by the "put these in your pipe and smoke 'em" phrasing on Rhino's front page, they know their target audience.

My point: Rhino is A-Okay!