HAHAHA

Just in case it flew under the radar, here's a quick recap of a minor diplomatic story:

Gordon Brown, PM of Great Britian, came to Washington a few weeks back to visit with the dude in the Oval Office. Brown brought a gift - a pen holder made from the timbers of the HMS Gannet. The Gannet was an anti-slavery ship, and the sister ship of the Resolute, which is where the wood for Obama's presidential desk came from. A simple pen holder was incredibly thought out, as it embodied the idea of racial progress, co-operation between nations, and tied directly to arguably the most important piece of furniture in the world.

There was also a first edition 7-volume set of Winston Churchill's biography, commission for the Resolute, and gifts for Michelle and the kids, including British children's books that have yet to be published in the US.

Obama's gift to Brown? A DVD box set of 25 classic American movies. Oh, and a couple model Marine 1 helicopters for the Brown kids.

Now, the set was specially commissioned and put together by the American Film Institute, so at least SOME thought was put into it. Except Brown isn't a movie guy. The list hasn't been revealed to my knowledge, but it apparently contains the Star Wars films, Godfather films, and Citizen Kane among others.

This is all old news.

What more recently was revealed... is that when Brown sat down to watch some of his DVDs, he discovered... wait for it... that they were Region 1 encoded! That's right, he got 25 DVDs that he CAN'T WATCH IN THE UK! BAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! How fantastic is that? Not only do you give the guy a shitty, virtually thoughtless gift, but it DOESN'T EVEN FUCKING WORK. I bet not a single person involved thought for a second about the fact that DVDs in North America don't work in other countries thanks to the brilliant copyright laws that have been allowed to pass for corporate benefit.

Of course, Brown can just hunt down any teenager nearby to break the encryption, but there are so many layers of idiocy in the whole story that it tickles a few funnybones in me.