HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Ticket prices for Apples and Oranges

They make such a big deal about how much money a movie makes, but what's funny is comparing them to movies in years past. If you think about it for a moment, when you charge $8.50 per ticket it doesn't take as many people as it used to to actually see the movie before you hit that $50 million. 10 years ago a ticket cost about $4. You had to sell a hell of a lot more tickets to make that much money.

It's like when on the radio they say that some group has sold more records than the Beatles. Well, when the Beatles came out, only kids bought the albums. And as the population was far less then that it is now, there weren't as many kids as there are now. And with more than just kids buying today, and just MORE PEOPLE in general, it's the old 'comparing apples to oranges' thing.

And speaking of $8.50 per ticket to see a movie, the time is quickly coming where I will soon forgo the movie theatre experience entirely. With the price of said tickets, another $10 at least for popcorn and a drink served by incoherent retarded zombie kids, inconsiderate people with cell phones ringing in the middle of the movies, and a half hour of commercials before the movie even starts, if I now wait three months I can OWN the film on DVD for less than what I spent at the movie theatre, plus instead of all those commercials there are all those cool bonus features.

All I now need for the transformation to be complete is a 60" plasma screen TV. (and I'm working on Garynne on that)

Trying to get back to normal is very hard when you keep hearing how many more people they're finding were killed by the tsunamis (I wonder if the Cartoon network will change the name of that show they have (had?) I think it was called 'Cartoon Tsunami')

Tsunamis

I’m sure most everyone has already heard that a massive earthquake under the Indian Ocean over the weekend triggered terrible tsunamis that struck seaside resorts and villages in India, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and several other Asian countries. As more news about this terrible tragedy come to light I’m reading up towards of almost 45,000 people have been killed and it's very likely that even this number will go higher.

Even with seeing video of this huge wall of water as it crashes onto land it’s still hard to comprehend a tragedy of this scale. It's surreal to think that this was happening while we were enjoying a day at the movies.

I just wanted to say that my thoughts are with all the people affected by this horrible tragedy. I’ll be back with a normal post on Wednesday.

Some brief movie reviews

On Friday we went and saw the "Lemony Snicket" movie. It was very good, really more suited to Halloween-time, and Josh and I really enjoyed it. It was sometimes a little hard to forget that it was Jim Carey playing the Count but for the most part, it was a well paced movie, had fantastic prodution design, the story was dark when it needed to be, and it didn't end all neatly tied up and happy at the end.

On Sunday we went and saw both "The Phantom of the Opera" and "Spanglish." (yes, I know theatre-hopping is punishable by death in some communities, but we felt that, at $8.50 per ticket, it was worth the risk)

First, "Phantom."

Now, opera isn't one of my passions, and although I do like classical music, I sometimes think a lot of opera is very shrill and difficult to understand. "The Phantom of the Opera" isn't like that. We have seen "Phantom" on stage twice, once before we had kids and the second time when they were around 14 and 9. The second time we sat all in the fourth row; you could see the actors sweat! Not only were the seats wonderful, but the show was wonderful; the music soars, and the sets and the costume are beautiful. The production itself was fantastic, even the kids sat the entire show mesmerized with their mouths hanging open.

There's nothing like a stage show. A stage show is a Production; it's real, it's live, with people singing and dancing right in front of you, in our case sometimes only twenty feet away from us. "The Phantom of the Opera" on stage is magic.

So, very nearly, is the movie.

All the wonderful music is there, plus the beautiful costumes. The design was lush and expanded in the way a movie can be that a stage cannot. The story was easier to follow as it wasn't completely done all in singing. If you saw the stage production and loved it, you will love this movie. If you know anything about it but haven't seen it on stage, the movie is still wonderful, and you will love it anyway. I will definitely be buying this one when it arrives on DVD.

Now "Spanglish." Adam Sandler movies can be stupid, or stupidly funny. This movie is neither. It's a sweet movie about a family who invites a non-English speaking mother of one daughter into their home as a domestic and how that mother is strong in so many ways when it comes to herself and raising her daughter. I enjoyed it and not once did Sandler make rude noises or make stupid faces.

We also saw the trailers to some other movies I want to see ("White Noise" and "Darkness" look good) and some trailers I have absolutely no interest in. "Meet the Fockers" is most definitely one of the latter. A bomb if I ever saw one, but what do I know? I didn't much care for the first film "Meet the Parents" either, but it made a ton of money and so of course they had to make a second film, and it too will probably made a big pile of dough. Either way, I will be passing on this one, even the DVD release of it.

More on DVDs later.....

A slow day at the Wind Mill Tea House

After we watched the Miami Heat BEAT the LA Lakers this afternoon, we watched “Elf.’ It was a sweet little movie that had its moments. There were a few laugh out loud bits, and while I think it sort of petered out a bit at the end, it was worth the time. Later tonight I plan on watching ‘Shaun of the Dead.’

Did you know the world’s tallest building is the $1.7 billion, 101-story Taipei office (Taipei 101) skyscraper in the Taiwan capital? I didn't. The Taipei 101 last year surpassed the twin Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur (where ever the hell that is) as the world's tallest building.

Apparently the shopping mall at the base of Taipei 101 has already opened for business. (Also according to the paper, ‘the gleaming office tower is designed to resemble a bamboo stalk and is equipped with the world's fastest lifts.’)

"bamboo stalk ?" Is it round and green? And the “world’s fastest lifts”? Are we now starting to count the G-forces in elevators?

What the hell is going on? Last I heard the world’s tallest building was the Sears Tower. When did this Taipei 101, or even the Petronas Towers, become the tallest building in the world?

I must not have been paying attention.

Friday, and what am I still doing here?

Okay, it’s Friday, it's the day before a holiday, I’m still sitting here at work, and nobody else is. It’s so quiet I can hear my stomach grumbling. I can hear the air moving through the empty elevator shaft. I can hear someone sneaking up behind me....! (that was close!)

So why am I still here?

I don’t know. I plan on going home soon. And then I have the entire next week off. I don’t have to be back until 01/03/05.

05 I tell you!

Can you believe it’s almost the year 2005 already? And let me say right now, one of my New Years resolutions will be to start calling this year “Twenty-oh-five” not ‘two thousand and five.” I mean, it wasn’t “one thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine” was it? No, it was “’nineteen ninety-nine” so, if you skip 2000 for ease, 2001 should have been “twenty-oh-one” then “twenty-oh-two” and so forth.

Say it aloud....19, 20....it makes sense.

Okay, yes, I know I've gotten off track here. And I also know that nobody will do this until some schlub on TV says it one time, then everybody will suddenly be saying it as if it had always been that way.

I know there are far more important things to be worrying about than this.

What the hell am I still doing here? I’m going home now.

This concludes this week's broadcast.

I love DVDs....

Sure I like TV. I LOVE it. But I don't just 'watch' TV, especially not the everyday crap that passes for entertainment that's on today. I love watching science fiction movies, horror movies, movies with some kick. I love watching certain classic, well made TV shows.

But mostly on DVD.

I seem to be kiss of death to well-written, quality shows on TV anyway. Every single show I watch gets cancelled before its time; Wonderfalls, Angel, Firefly, John Doe, Millennium, The Tick. That Star Trek show Enterprise finally seems to have found its voice this season so that means it's a shoe-in for cancellation too.

So nearly everything I watch is on DVD.

I say agan; I LOVE DVDs.

Now THAT'S the way to watch TV; on DVD, where the picture is sharp and the sound is clear. Where I can stop when I need to pee and start back up when I feel like it. Where I can jump around to any spot I want or watch one or two shows or four or whatever in a row, AND NO COMMERCIALS to zip past.

So now I've built quite a respectable DVD library. I've replaced nearly all my old VHS tapes for DVDs. And just when I think I've caught up, what do these bastards do?

They come up with this next generation DVD; high-definition DVD.

So, I say, what's up with this? I hear there's this blu-ray and there's HD-DVD, two competing, non-compatible formats. Not that I even see a real need for a new format already, but are the designers of these so retarded that they don't realize that having a format war will do NOBODY any good?? Are they so stupid (or perhaps so YOUNG?) that they don't remember what happened between VHS and Betamax?

When JVC invented VHS and Sony invented Beta, it caused lot of people to hold off buying either, since you didn't know if one or the other would be around for long. It took years for the one to beat the other out of existence, and the people who bought the loser (beta) were stuck. Don't they see the same thing is going on today between the PC and the Apple???

I'm certainly glad I don't have an Apple computer, no matter how good they are supposed to be.

I know it's all greed. One company wants to hold the patent over all the rest. Just like Microsoft.

But say, wait a moment; I still have my regular, plain old standard DVDs, which, if I remember correctly, I LOVE BECAUSE THEY HAVE A BRILLIANT PICTURE QUALITY, HOLD TONS OF STUFF, AND HAVE BECOME QUITE INEXPENSIVE!

Am I to supposed want these new hi-def DVDs just to have such a super-duper high-definition picture that I can look up the nose of every actor and count how many nose hairs they have? I think the current DVD format is fantastic; it was a quantum jump in quality over video-tape. But can these new DVDs be THAT much better than the DVDs I already have?

I've seen examples of these hi-def pictures. And I don't think they are all that. At least not yet.

Do they think I'm going to spend another pile of money replacing all my PERFECTLY FANTASIC DVDs with these (slightly?) New and Improved DVDs?

I think not.

More on this later.....

X-mas

I would like to pause during this festive time of year and take a moment to empathize with you all, as a lot of you are probably going through a lot of holiday stress right about now. And the reason behind all that stress is Xmas, and not the supposedly holy day of spiritual significance, symbolizing belief in hope and love, blah, blah, blah, that a few of you actually claim to celebrate.

I'm talking about the "Federal Holiday slash Xmas," when you get the day off whether you celebrate it or not, when nothing is open except for the movies and Chinese restaurants, which to be honest is nice for Jewish people like myself.

You know what I mean; I'm talking about the holiday that's been clubbing you over the head via every other commercial on TV and the radio since October into buying expensive gifts for every delivery person there ever was, every relative you have even if you can't stand them, and every friend you've ever known even if you haven't spoken all year.

It’s the holiday that makes you feel guilty that you're not spending every bit of the small amount of free cash that you've managed to beat out of your budget, plus whatever line of credit you can lie about and get from your credit cards.

Well, I want to help alleviate some of your worries. Since it doesn't seem to matter how many times in the past that I have asked for people not to give me a "holiday gift," I have decided not to fight it.

I will now be accepting from any of you, my new-found friends, any and all gifts with a list price under the corporate limit of $100. And to make things even easier, any of you who feel pressed for time between family, work, school, that second job and whatever charity work you do only at this time of year, you needn’t fret over having to shop for me.

I’ll accept cash.

Happy holidays. Contact me on where to send your gifts.

FIREFLY

OK, if you never saw the TV show “Firefly,” do so as quickly as you can. I mean right NOW. RUN, FORREST, RUN!

If you would like to see a well made TV show, one filled with incredible characters who act like real people, heartfelt dialogue, good stories, true feelings, and kick-ass action, run right out and rent the DVDs from Blockbuster, get them from Netflix, or, better yet, just go buy the set outright from Wal-Mart because once you see this coolly, nearly indescribable TV show you will fall deeply and madly in love.

In “Firefly,” you’ll find the good ship “Serenity,” and its crew. There’s conflicted Captain Mal, mercenary Jayne, the lovely and heartsick mechanic Kaylee, Pilot Wash and his tough gal wife Zoe, aristocratic Companion Inara, the heroic doctor Simon and his damaged sister River, and the good Shepard Book.

After being on the losing side of a war between the allied planets, the crew of ‘Serenity’ spends their time drifting through space, doing odd jobs to earn a living, most of which sometimes scoots to the shady side of smuggling, stealing, and conducting illegal salvage operations.

If you know anything about me, you’ll know I love science fiction in most of its permutations. This particular permutation comes from the mind of Joss Whedon, the genius behind “Buffy: The Vampire Slayer” and “Angel,” two of the best television shows ever created. EVER.

So OK, yes, I freely admit to being a full-on Buffy/Angel goober and I’ll admit I’m way biased toward loving anything Whedon wants to show me. And you know why? The guy flat out delivers. He has earned my respect and trust (and yes, full-on cultish devotion) as a creator because he has put out an amazingly brilliant body of work.

The reason I bring this up is, not only is “Firefly” a fantastic if short-lived TV show that was cancelled after only 13 episodes, but Fox, it its infinitely convoluted butt scratching 180 degree logic (this is the network that created "Who's Yer Daddy?") turned around and lovingly created a wonderful DVD set with a complete collection of the episodes, including two they never even bothered to air. And in addition, now they’ve gone and given Joss the money to create a big-screen full-length feature motion picture version of the show!

So when “Serenity” comes out next September, I will be first in line, and after you watch these DVDs, you most assuredly will want to join me!

RUN I say!

Patience and STAMPS

I hope you all had a fine weekend, mine was nice, thank you for asking, although not long enough, you know, but isn't that the way it always seems to go, hmmm? We wait all week for the weekend, wishing each day would go by faster so the weekend would be there already, and finally it's Friday, but then suddenly, before you can even exhale, it's Monday again. (oops; and now it’s TUESDAY! Only four more days until the weekend!!)

I bought stamps at the grocery store the other night, and the girl hands me Christmas stamps with a picture of someone named Mary on them, and I took one look at them and I asked her if there was any other design she had and she said no, two seventy eight is your change, have a nice evening. So I went over to the front desk and asked the manager if there were any other stamps I could have as I CANNOT use these Christmas stamps on Bar Mitzvah Thank You notes, and he smiled and said yeah, I can see your point, and he got me some stamps with little dreidels on them.

Why couldn’t the girl have said something like, “I’m sorry sir, I don’t have any other stamps, but if you take them over to our Customer service desk I’m pretty sure the manager can switch them for you.”

Are most 16 and 17 year olds today this uncaring? Or stupid? Or is it that it’s just that I just seem to keep running into those that are? I’m pretty sure there are intelligent teenagers around today (I have two of them at home) I just don’t seem to see much of them.

Or is it just me and I have no patience anymore?

Our lines are open and operators are standing by.

Why does this argument keep coming back up??

When it is stated that the human brain itself is a gift from God, therefore it proves that God must exist, well, how does one argue against logic like that?

I am getting tired of reading letters in the newspaper and hearing some people on TV say that evolution is not a science, or that creationism is a science, and that both should be treated equally in the public schools.

Excuse me but do any of these people even know the definition of the word "science?"

From The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition, the word "science" means: "The observation, identification, description, experimental investigation, and theoretical explanation of phenomena."

From Merriam-Webster Medical Dictionary it states 'science' is: "Knowledge or a system of knowledge covering general truths or the operation of general laws especially as obtained and tested through the scientific method and concerned with the physical world and its phenomena."

On the one hand, we have the written records of men and women going back centuries who have studied their physical surroundings and have come up with ideas of how things got to be the way they are that have either stood the test of time and countless investigation and questioning or have been discarded. We also have the geologic studies of rocks, again, written by men and women going back centuries, investigated and questioned over and over, that tell us the age of this planet is a much more than six thousand years old. We have fossils showing us animals that once existed otherwise undreamed of (dinosaurs, anyone?) I will admit that the fossil record beginning with the first amoeba leading right up to the guy living across the street from me is not complete, but someday it may. Think about it; science never stops.

We look to the sky and with tools made in the pursuit of science, see other planets around our own sun; we see other stars. With tools made by humans guided by science we see not only our own galaxy but countless other entire galaxies, the size and distance of which makes our own world look like a dust mote on an endless ocean.

On the other hand, we have written stories, really second and third-hand eyewitness accounts of people and events that supposedly happened between two and six thousand years ago. (Think about how second and third-hand eyewitness accounts are treated in a court of law) We have the words supposedly spoken by a higher being between two and six thousand years ago but when you come down to it, the words themselves were written down by who? People.

But we're told that these stories and words are what they are, and to believe in them it takes faith, which in fact is what religion is based on.

So isn't that the main difference evolution and creationism? One is based on experimental investigation and constant questioning. The other is based on faith.

Isn't THAT why evolution and creationism are NOT THE SAME and should not be treated the same?

It's very simple. Evolution is a science. Creationism is faith.

Do I even need to say which one doesn't belong in the public schools?

Saturday nite

This evening we plan on watching that new movie "Invasion of the Bidy Snatchers" (where old ladies are disappearing from shoes stores, beauty parlors and mag jongg games all over the country. Once the insidious plot is uncovered, no plan to combat the invaders is devised; invaders are welcomed with open arms) Sounds like a weiner to me.

Time for DVDs

Damn, it’s raining outside, I was hoping to run to Sam’s today, I need some more blank DVDs. I seem to be using them at a prodigious rate. I now have the entire run of Buffy: The Vampire Slayer, the first 4 seasons of Angel, the 5th, 6th and 7th season of The X Files, the 2nd and 3rd seasons of Coupling, more movies than several Blockbuster Video Stores contain, and I’m now working on the 3rd, 4th and 5th seasons of Star Trek Deep Space Nine. I love Netflix!
But.....
Sometimes I worry that maybe I’m wasting my time with all this. Not to mention that I will never have enough time in the rest of my entire life to actually watch all this stuff. Most of it I've already seen, but I'd rather watch something I KNOW is good on DVD then waste my time watching most of the junk that's on CTV (Crap TV) right now.
And it’s kind of cool knowing I have it, in my hands, to be used at will (book lovers will know what I mean) I sometimes pretend that, in some alternate universe, I’m saving all this for when I take a spaceship deep into outer space and have nothing to do but watch "Night of the Living Dead" while traveling to the next star. Or, to be more altruistic, I’m the only one on the entire planet who is able to save all this stuff for some far future generation of people who otherwise would never have a chance to see “Red Dwarf” or “Pee Wee’s Playhouse.”

i see you came back

i can't believe it's thursday already; seems like this week is going by pretty quickly. in fact, it seems like the entire month/year/my life is going by pretty quickly.....zoooom, what was that? that was your life, bud. hey, can i have another one? nope sorry, only one piece of cake to a customer and you're down to the crumbs, baby.

looks like its going to rain today, and it’s getting cool here now. i miss summer already.

have you ever talked to someone who nit-picks every goram thing to such a fine detail that it drives you absolutely insane? you wonder how they have time to do anything else, they spend so much time on such stupid tiny details. (not all details are stupid, but details are small for a reason, otherwise they wouldn't be details, they'd be the main attraction) you wonder what they think about when they are sitting and going to the bathroom. do they freak out if they forget to bring a magazine? i know people who dig so deep into every tiny detail that it’s as if they are trying to examine the actual atoms (figuratively, of course) that make up ink that creates the letters on the page. it's enough to cause one to want to strangle someone.

like arthur once said, i never could get the hang of thursdays. guess i'm goin now. it was nice chatting, more later, bye. oops, sorry, I FORGOT TO USE CAPITAL LETTERS WHERE CALLED FOR. I WILL DO SO NOW.

Come in

So, I said to myself, what the hell do you think you’re doing? Why are you starting one of these things? Who do you think is going to read this stuff? Why should anyone listen to me? There must be a zillion of these things; what makes yours so special?

I’ll be damned if I can answer that.

Like I said, I don’t claim to have any answers or universal truths. But I do know some things about some things, and here is where I will put it, so, against all odds, we both might learn a little something about something. Because as I once read somewhere,

Everything is Something.

To facilitate this, of course now I will hopefully remember to write stuff down quickly (if not here, somewhere) because at times I have this tendency to think of what seems to be very profound thoughts , but then not write anything down and therefore it is lost forever.

I’m going to try my best not to be boring. That’s all I can promise.