I love me some Redbox. I’m ashamed to admit that I’m probably a good 5-years behind on movies I want to see. Buying any DVD (with the exception of kids’ movies) is a waste of money, in my opinion. I contemplated signing up for Netflix, but I doubt I would utilize the service enough to justify the expense. Redbox neatly fills that void by allowing me to pick up new releases at my convenience, all for the low price of $1 plus tax.
Guilty secret time. I listen to Howard Stern. Not even just that, but I was basically raised by the man, from the Summer of ‘89 till he left terrestrial airwaves.
We bought a Dodge Grand Caravan last year, and have had a 1-year Sirius subscription. As a result, I’ve had no problem making late-night errand running since I can time-travel back to the 1990s.
Something I’m really surprised by is the low quality advertisers. Ashley Madis0n? Third-tier eBay competitors? Late-night TV pitches? To be fair, whenever I’ve done a drive-by on FOXNEWS, I’ve seen similar caliber ads – Head-On, anyone? I understand that the content may be contentious, but I suppose given the content, that’s the best that they can do?
I finally got around to watching the new Star Trek movie.
J.J. Abrams [IMDB] is a genius, and I have completely forgotten TOS (the original series, for non fans. To be honest, I never watched it much anyway) while watching the movie. Although his plot device is probably the most abused in all of SciFi, Abrams manages to do what none of the other directors of earlier Trek movies could – break free of Trek Canon. Jason Kottke explains:
I’m just not seeing the win.
Sure, the fanboy who has iEverything will grab one. I likewise suppose that the person who would buy one of Apple’s other fine products but were deterred by the relative high price may also consider one. Like others have mentioned, the iPad (horrible name, BTW. iSlate, iBook, and iTablet would have been much better IMHO) has a series of shortcomings that are inexcusable:
A graphic designer uses the Dwayne Wayne method for football betting for the AFC and NFC.
Via Coudal Partners.
I’m not much of a movie goer (or watcher at home), but the hubbub over Avatar has given me pause.
Any movie that can simultaneously be heavy handed, improbably primitive, cultish, racist, anti-American, anti-corporatist, anti-Christian, pro-environment, pro-nativist, and anti-Imperialism can’t be that bad. I’ll probably wait until it is on basic cable or broadcast TV – it’s not like I haven’t seen this movie before.
[Update for 2010: You can watch the mummers on TV (in Philadelphia) on WPHL17. I can't find any available live online streams 
]
Mummering
is a pagan tradition dating back to 400 BC as the Roman Festival of Saturnalia with Celtic and Druidic influences. Rowdy groups (another proud Philadelphia tradition) parading on New Years Day goes back to Revolutionary times.
I’m not really that concerned about Fast Food Content. If you are not familiar with the term, here’s an explanation:
But for every link there are dozens of sites that outright steal our content with no attribution. Not just spam blogs, even the NYTimes does it. This isn’t a copyright issue – the stories are rewritten by actual people. But it’s far cheaper to simply take the news and rewrite it – if you can get away with it – than to hire people who do actual journalism. Over time, it becomes a competitive tax that is difficult to bear.
