My family walks up to a store that has a display of different dvds,
But different than usual dvds. These ones are in a thin cardboard envelope with a photocopied sign on the front. One might say, "Harry Potter VS. Lord of the Rings," or "Starcomedy." This is all enclosed in a resealable plastic casing. On the top of it, there is the Hewlett-Packard logo, except red and the letters are in gold. Next to that says NEW 2009 MOVIE. On the side of the envelope say 40 MOVIES IN 1. WORKS ON ANY CD-ROM OR DVD PLAYER. If you turn the case over, you see a set of little boxes housing pictures of movie posters. For example, there will be HARRY POTTER A 1, HARRY POTTER A 2, HARRY POTTER A 3. And in fine print at the bottom of the case, you will see a grammatically incorrect passage saying that no part of the dvd shall be copied, or recorded without asking permission from the company. It sounds like one large scam, right? Actually, these disks are real, and the do hold movies.
The only difference is that the "movie company" is probably someone in China in their office illegally copying movies to his computer and putting them on a CD, then getting money out of it by selling the disk like it's real. We actually just bought one of these disks out of curiosity recently called "HARRY POTTER AND THE HALF-BLOOD PRINCE VS. JOHNNY THE MAD DOG." On that one cd we got Ice Age 3, Year One, Harry Potter #6, and 10 other movies my parents would probably watch.
The reason Nigeria has very few legally made disks is because that the U.S sells it to them at stupidly high prices, and the Nigerian distributors just can't afford it. Instead they buy from the pirates that produce the disk in China who want to make a profit at what they do. So no, I do not blame the Nigerians one bit for buying the pirated cds and dvds. They deserve to have movies and programs too.
But I do blame the pirates for the quality of some of the disks. "Works on every cd-rom and dvd player." Not! Every time we try to play something on our dvd player, the video is very choppy. And sometimes when you use the computer to play it, it'll actuallly freeze the whole system and you have to restart it manually. I know they're pirates and all, but come on!
Signing off,
The Traveler
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Friday, January 8, 2010
7 Levels
Whew,
I'm tired just thinking about this trip I had a few days ago. My parents wanted to examine this waterfall that people said flowed out of a rock. So we drove to what I think is called Ikere, a town not that far away from Ife.
When we were driving in that area, I saw beautiful mountain fromations. Huge cliff-like mountains jutted from the ground, to make something close to a wall.
When we got to the park that the waterfall flowed through, we got out and started hiking. Some rustic-looking steps were put on the path in the beginning, but then it became more difficult to traverse for steep narrow parts would sometimes emerge. We climbed a little, and we finally got to the base of the waterfall.
The water was very cold, but that was really refreshing if you've been living in 87 degree heat. We couldn't even see where the water fall started because it was still very high up.
And the only to get up there was to traverse the "steps." The steps are how the park seperates the different levels of the mountain. There are seven steps in all. We were on the first step. The waterfall was on the seventh step. We had six steps to go through if we had wanted to see the waterfall to flow from the rock.
So we started going up towards the second step. It was a really good climb to strengthen my mountain climbing skills. The trail to the second step was a cliff. There were many places to put your feet and hands, but still it was a very tiresome task. But it was fun!
When we got to the second step, pretty much everyone was heaving and/or sweating. We called it a day after that, and said we'd get to the top another day. That water fall was beautiful, but I don't know how anyone can see where it originates because it's so high up!
Signing off,
The Traveler
I'm tired just thinking about this trip I had a few days ago. My parents wanted to examine this waterfall that people said flowed out of a rock. So we drove to what I think is called Ikere, a town not that far away from Ife.
When we were driving in that area, I saw beautiful mountain fromations. Huge cliff-like mountains jutted from the ground, to make something close to a wall.
When we got to the park that the waterfall flowed through, we got out and started hiking. Some rustic-looking steps were put on the path in the beginning, but then it became more difficult to traverse for steep narrow parts would sometimes emerge. We climbed a little, and we finally got to the base of the waterfall.
The water was very cold, but that was really refreshing if you've been living in 87 degree heat. We couldn't even see where the water fall started because it was still very high up.
And the only to get up there was to traverse the "steps." The steps are how the park seperates the different levels of the mountain. There are seven steps in all. We were on the first step. The waterfall was on the seventh step. We had six steps to go through if we had wanted to see the waterfall to flow from the rock.
So we started going up towards the second step. It was a really good climb to strengthen my mountain climbing skills. The trail to the second step was a cliff. There were many places to put your feet and hands, but still it was a very tiresome task. But it was fun!
When we got to the second step, pretty much everyone was heaving and/or sweating. We called it a day after that, and said we'd get to the top another day. That water fall was beautiful, but I don't know how anyone can see where it originates because it's so high up!
Signing off,
The Traveler
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