I hope everyone had a good Christmas, I certainly did. I received a number of new games, which was good (will blog about them individually at a later juncture), but I also encountered something I haven’t done before - Evil Red DVD Tag Syndrome.
For those who, like me, haven’t encountered these before, some shops in the last couple of years have been adding red theft-prevention strips to some DVD cases. These strips, as shown here, run through slots in the DVD case and not only hold it firmly closed, and include a security RFID thingamabob to set off the alarms at the door, but they press against the underside of the clips that hold the disc in so they cannot be released- so even if you manage to pry open the case, you can’t (easily) get the DVD out.
One of my game gifts this season still had this tag attached, and given that I doubt my mother-in-law is a shoplifter, and the RFID tag hadn’t set off the doors, I assume that the shop staff had forgotten to remove it. It was completely new to me (all my other games have just had RFID tags taped to them), and was surprisingly difficult to defeat, which is the point I suppose. Marie suggested I took it back to the shop to get them to do it, but a) I’d have to get hold of the receipt to avoid being assumed to be a thief b) that’s way too much hassle, and c) this was a logistical challenge that simply had to be solved without outside assistance, in order to proveā¦something. It’s a male thing. š
In the end various implements (knives, forks and pliers) were involved, but I managed it without destroying the disc or (surprisingly) even the case. But, there’s certainly no way you could do this in the shop without being completely obvious, so I guess this is a ‘good’ security system, if only the stupid employees would remember to do what they’re supposed to. I was going to post a series of images of this, but then I realised others have already posted videos of it which were similar to my technique anyway, so here’s one for the similarly afflicted:
Merry Christmas!