So I bought a Blu-ray player...

...and it is awesome! You may wonder why I waited so long to get one, and it's because I have what's known as an "addictive behavior". What this means is that when I get interested in something, I tend to obsess over it to the point of ridiculousness...



This first manifested in middle school, when I had my first real obsession...

By staying quite far behind the technology curve, I greatly reduce my chances of running out and buying every Blu-ray version of every movie I want as quickly as possible...

...which is of great concern to my family, since they'd rather do things like buy appliances, food and clothing and such.

Now - the one issue I have regarding this home-movie experience upgrade doesn't have anything to do with the obscene prices of Blu-ray products...

 

...or the insane modifications of same.

It has to do with the conniving sales practices involved.

Back in the days of VCR's, other than having to choose between VHS or Beta, consumers of such merchandise were provided with everything they needed to do what is now known as"plug and play". Meaning that all the necessary connecting pieces were included.

This was a scam in its own way because not everyone had the same type of television, or access to cable, which meant that not everyone had the proper pieces necessary to connect their brand new equipment to their television - resulting in many a trip to get the necessary adapters...

 

...which we as a buying public accepted because it was understood that not all players were made for all screens...at least not without a little tweaking.

But nowadays, technology is advanced. Upgraded television viewing paraphernalia has become universal in terms of ports and jacks and plugs...

So why don't Blu-ray players come with the goddamn HDMI cable necessary to make it work?

Mine came with audio cables, which is fine, but I have many extras of those already thanks to all the Playstations, DVD players, and VCR's I've bought over the years. I didn't even need to open those.

It even came with batteries for the remote, which is wonderful since I grew up with many a toy where "batteries were not included".

So follow me here - I buy an item that is made for the purpose of watching a movie on my television, and said television is made to work with a Blu-ray player in terms of definition, dimension, ports and jacks. 

Using the included items, I can listen to said movies...

and control which part(s) of the movies I want to watch remotely...

but I can't view the damn thing without shelling out another $19 for the frak'in cable?

W...T...F?