Music: KMHD - No commercials, all jazz.

A while ago, like at the beginning of this month, I spent some money on a DVD for learning Tai Chi. If you don't know what that is, it's a slow exercise from China usually done early in the morning in groups along a waterfront. (Okay, that's what I've seen on TV.) Thinking I'm a rather large and pathectically un-moving kind of gal, I bought this DVD from Ebay.

I've had great luck with Ebay. Nothing's bad or damaged or wrong. I've paid attention to my details and made sure I've had the right equipment (and cords!) and so forth. I've paid a lot less for the DVD sets I've bought and I've paid a little more for exactly what I wanted.

This is the first time I've had a real problem. The product is all right. It's obviously some home-made DVD. Like they made one tape of the guy, then burned it to DVD. The printing on the paper on the case is obviously home made. But it's color and it looks good and it's fairly professional really, and they had a lot of 'super' comments and stuff.

I drop the DVD into the machine and it starts right in with the little man showing me an exercise. He does this exercise for a couple of minutes, then the DVD does a jump-hop and skips to another section where he's doing something else for a few seconds, then it hop-jumps to the end. Pow. It's over. Time to watch DVD? About 4 minutes.

Well, it's probably my machine. So I remove the DVD, clean the machine, look at the DVD and see that it really does look very pristine, it's obvious nobody's run it before....then I drop it back in. It does the same thing. So I use the back button and the forward button and the "slow" and "fast" modes and sure enough....there is actual stuff there. I can see him doing about seven 'warm up' excercies and then about 5 'moves' in Tai Chi. But only in fast or slow motion. Not in real time.

I bring it to my other DVD player. Same stuff. I clean the DVD player and check the DVD again. Same stuff. It's there, but I can't watch it. How silly is that?

I sent a note on the 12th to the company, and haven't heard anything in return. Kind of discouraging. I didn't ask for a refund, I asked for help. I mean, if this has happened before with their product, maybe they know what I can do.

All in all....my adventures in Tai Chi have been a bother. As in: Why?

Looking to get me a gift? You have until April 30 to get me one of these. LOL