Blu-Ray, Broadswords and Boobies

In the run up to Christmas, the Euro was worth about USD$1.48 – and after noticing my proclivities to travel Stateside every chance I get, my family members seized upon this opportunity to give me dollars, making a €100 gift worth $148 (which is a much more impressive amount). I was sternly warned to get myself something nice, and not use it to keep myself in Mars bars and crisps for the next calendar year or so, as I am wont to do.

After weighing up my options – I got a PS3, primarily because of the Blu-Ray playback. It spent two months under my TV without encountering a Blu-Ray disc, so last week I decided to justify the purchase and ordered Planet Terror from Amazon.

Amazon, following up on my previous buying history of a PS3 controller, and my viewing history of innumerable PS3 games, jumped to the conclusion that I owned a PS3, and sent me a message letting me know that I should think about buying more stuff from them.



The e-mail contained a table of items that I gave a cursory glance:

	New Releases		New Releases		Hot PlayStation 3 Games
	"Akira" "Futurama: Into the Wild Green Yonder" "Pirates 2: Stagnetti's Revenge"		"Vanishing Point" "Samurai 7: Boxed Set" "Live at the Isle of Wight Festival 1970"		"Killzone 2" "Shellshock 2: Blood Trails" "Tom Clancy's HAWX"

Looks innocuous enough, but the one on the bottom left caught my eye. Pirates 2: Stagnetti's Revenge, eh? It makes sense that Pirates of the Carribbean would court some imitation, but the box art seems a little too derivative.

So I asked Wikipedia:

"Pirates II: Stagnetti's Revenge (2008) is the sequel to the popular 2005 pornographic film Pirates [...] Sexpros.net wrote that Pirates II does not add a lot of new ideas to the franchise, but "...if you are a fan of the first Pirates, you'll surely like Stagnetti's Revenge". The review went on that "if you're looking for the hottest thing in porn right now, this is it""

Yup - Amazon recommended I purchase 138 minutes worth of a swashbuckling, plank-walking, parrot-feeding, high-concept pornographic adventure!

Sadly, I can't very well justify purchasing it now, as I just couldn't keep myself from reading the plot synopsis on Wikipedia. I daresay that my opportunity to invest in these characters and follow their development has been spoiled by the revelation that "Olivia and Jules get off to a rocky start to their friendship, but eventually end up in a steamy lesbian experience."

Guess you've got to find some way to stave off scurvy when at sea, eh?

I like Amazon - whatever algorithms they've got pigeonholing me and my taste in books have so far been eerily accurate (often beating me to the punch with recommendations just as I'm logging on to purchase a book), so this oddity made me sit up and take notice.

My favourite part of all this?

8% of customers bought Madagascar after looking at this item! Makes me wonder - are people mistakenly thinking that this is an ideal gift for their Pirates Of the Carribbean obsessed kids and blindly purchasing, or is it from people shopping for 'mommy and daddy' movies whilst finding some wholesome anthropomorphic-animal-based-entertainment?