Box Office Blues...

Merry Christmas and a happy New Year; For everyone except Hollywood I guess...

AP reports that the box office has shown the biggest decline in ticket sales in 20 years. With some of the movies coming out of Hollywood I am not surprised. Add crappy movies to higher box office prices and outrageous concession prices and you have a classic case of death by supply and demand. If you charge too much and put out junk people will not buy. Wake up, its not really that tough to figure it out.

Of course they will probably try to blame the internet, illegal movie downloads, video stores, etc. They aren't completely wrong but they are right for the wrong reasons. People want to be entertained. They will pay a reasonable price to be entertained. They will also find another way to get that entertainment if the cost is too high using the traditional methods. If they want more people to go to movie theaters they need to find a way to make it more affordable. Lets try 1st getting ticket prices down to $5 or so. Next, popcorn shouldn't cost $6 for a medium bag. That goes the same same for the rest of the concession items.

If your movies cost too much to make, you might be paying too much for your actors. Stop doing that. There are plenty of out of work actors in Hollywood, get some of them and stop paying people $20 Mil. for a movie role. Its crazy. Just my opinion...

Blog Confession

A Florida teen pleaded guilty to DUI/Manslaughter after his confession was found on his Blog. Wake up idiot. If you are going to do something stupid, don't confess it in a public forum. Apparently the teen jerkeked the wheel of a car that he was a passenger in and caused a crash which killed one friend in the vehicle and injured another. He then told investigatiors that he didn't know what had happened. He couldn't remember. Either guilt got the best of this fool or he was stupid enough to think that no one would figure out who he was. Blogs don't offer as much anonymity as we think. They can trace them from the IP addresses of the posts even if bloggers use incorrect contact info.

Internal Spies

I'm not sure what I think of this wiretapping issue. Can the President order wiretaps without a court order? I am very unsure if this is legal, even under the Patriot Act. If you had asked me a few years back I would have said that this was not right. Now, after 9-11, I can't feel so secure in this conviction.

The taps have already been used to capture at least one person connected with a terrorist organization. How many others are under surveillance due to it? I guess the scary thing for me is that I might be willing to give up some of my rights to feel safer. I think that is what is scary to many Americans. We have all given up certain liberties post 9-11. Now that the threat seems farther away we wonder if we should ask for them back.

I had a teacher in my Business Law class explain our constitutional rights as if it were a cup of water. He said that sometimes it is more full than others and sometimes you have to empty some of it out. I don't mind emptying it out for the short term but I want to be able to refill it. I guess they call that wanting you cake and wanting to eat it too. Of course, that doesn't sound unreasonable to me. After all, why buy cake if you can't eat it?

Chronicles

I watched "The Chronicles of Narnia" the other day. It was pretty good. I saw the puppet style movie when I was a kid. I didn't like it as much and I definitely did not see the hidden Christian story line. Now the allegory seems most blatant. It jumps right off the screen. I guess I just didn't know enough about the subject back then.

The special effects in the movie were pretty amazing. The fawn, Mr Thomas, even had realistic goat legs. Overall I'd probably give it a 3 out of 5 stars. My favorite quote from the movie was, "He's a beaver, he shouldn't be saying anything!" (Or words to that effect) :) I would definitely go to see this movie in the theater and probably will buy the DVD when it comes out.

"The needs of the many..."

"The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one." Spock (Star Trek)

We had a Christmas party this weekend at work. It was a big family affair. One of the things that we did for the children was to have a clown show. It was Christmas based and during the act the two clowns alluded to the fact the Jesus was the reason for the season. No one seemed to take offense and the children had a lot of fun.

After the events of the day were concluded, including a visit by Santa Claus for the kids, one of Service member's wife approached my boss. She praised the party and said that it was much better than last year. She then asked him if he prior knowledge of the contents of the clown show. She went on to say that she was offended by having Jesus mentioned. She went on to say that she and her husband did not believe in him. Her assertation was that it shouldn't have been in the show because of their beliefs seemed crazy to me. She didn't even have a child there. She could have walked away. The show was given for free so public funds were not even involved in the situation.

This seems typical of where we are going in this country. One person or a small group trying to change society to fit their views. The worst part is, we are letting it happen.

I remember a poll earlier this year that said that over 90 percent of the country believed in God. Not all are Christians but a distinct majority in this country are. Even the Koran mentions Jesus as a prophet. It seems crazy to me that this person would take offense to other's beliefs, and expect the vast majority to bow to their desires.

Could you immagine where this would go if we all bowed to the minority over everything. We wouldn't eat pork to please the Muslims and Jews. We would cut all meat out of our diets to please the Vegitarians. We would cut all animal products out, period, to please the Vegans. How far would we have to go to please everyone? You can't please everyone. You can't not offend everyone. I don't think that we should even try. That's just my opinion of course and I would not dream of imposing this opinion on you :)

Should we?

Should we, the American Taxpayers be responsible for rebuilding New Orleans? That's a good question. I think we have some responsibility to help the city recover but I'm not sure that we should foot the whole bill. I especially do not think we should pay to rebuild sections of the city that are likely to be wiped out again if another big storm rolls through. I say, if you want to rebuild in areas that suffered major flooding, God Bless you, but do not ask me for the money to do it. I guess that's just my feelings on the subject. What do you think?

Closed for ...

We got the word that we are closing today. Everyday it seems to change though. Everyone has a different story and everyone else is at fault. Go figure. I guess I'm ready for the end. I don't even want to get ready for this insepction coming up. Its not laziness, its a sense of futility. Why do this, why do well? We will still close our doors sometime. Now if they will only tell us exactly when, we'll be good. Of course, once they do, they'll change their mind ten times after that.