La Pirata: Peru Part IV

Okay, I'm kind of squeezing this into the Peru series. It is a part of the culture we live in, but really it's just the daily happenings at Los Lemleys.

In Peru, it is very difficult to rent and buy decent films. That being said, there is a HUGE pirating industry. You can buy any DVD, video game, CD for about $1.50. Some of them are crappy copies of a guy sitting in the theater with a hand-held camcorder, while others are great copies - burned from the originial or even a "screener copy" from, say, The Academy, yup, that's run across the bottom of a film once. Some people may have higher morals than we do, and just watch the movies when they come to the theater, but we sleep at night just fine. If it was easier to rent them, maybe we'd think about watching our movies in a more lawful way, but after our first year here, Blockbuster went out of business.

John and I have really gotten into watching series by purchasing these DVDs at the "gray" market. It's a great way to watch TV series - no commercials, and quick either thirty or sixty minute shows and we don't have to wait a week or for the next season to watch the next episode. Our favorites include: Big Love, The Wire, Weeds, and 30 Rock. And once we're done watching the series, we can give them away and go buy the next season.

Recently, Max has become interested in Baby Einstein videos, specifically the ones with animals in them like Baby Doolittle. They are great copies, but the guys who are copying them, really may not have all the experience in the world when they are trying to replicate the DVD covers.
God, what are they putting in baby shows these days!

That, and, I think they are using Babelfish to do some of the translating work!