Let's Face It - Movie Theaters are Doomed

I keep hearing the annoying question all the time about "what do we have to do to get people back in the theaters", and "...the film industry is in trouble...", "...this is a crisis...", and so on.  These questions are always strangely posed as a consumer related issue.  Well, I beg to differ.

I just came from a movie theater for the first time since before COVID and I'll tell you this...I don't plan on returning.  Seeing a movie in a theater, specifically a mega plex, meaning an AMC or Regal, etc. is just the biggest pile of you know what ever.  Why on Earth would I WANT to do this on a regular basis??

Here, let me explain.  First off, you have to reserve a seat, of course.  Why?  Beats the hell out of me because 50% of the time I arrive and some dufus is either sitting in my seat or like tonight they take the seat literally right next to me while the entire rest of the row is empty.  I mean, seriously?  And so, I end up sitting in a different seat...so why did I reserve a seat again?

Next, I had the pleasure of sitting through 35 minutes of commercials, AMC pats on the back reels, and the most god awful movie previews ever imagined (I actually thought 2 of them were a practical joke).  The scheduled time of the film was 7:45pm; it finally started at 8:20pm.  What was the win here exactly?  Nothing, because none of it was anything but complete torture, and just to be clear...when I watch a film at home, um, the film starts when I intend to watch it and press 'play'.

Then, there's the seat itself.  You know, these supposedly comfy reclining chairs?  If you ask me, they're gross (always strangely warm) and just kind of ridiculous but honestly they're the least of my complaints in the grand scheme.  However, if I want the seating to resemble something from my living room, then why not just actually BE in my living room?!  Hmm.

And so, to the film industry, I am going to give you the SECRET to resolving your movie going problems and ongoing questions.  If you really want to solve the movie theater going problem, you should:

1) Tear down all the mega plexes and never, I repeat never, build another.  At the most, at theater should show 4 movies in 4 different theaters all of the relative same size.  Preferably, movies should be shown in the old preserved theater that are still standing, making absolutely no need for any goofy new theaters

2) Get rid of reserved seating.  No one likes it and it simply has no purpose except for being a pain in the *ss, requiring people to purchase tickets online, jump through a bunch of hoops, and so on.

3) Stop trying to entice the masses with offering alcohol, wider food menus, and the idiotic "we'll deliver it to your seat" idea that tonight's theater had.  If you can't handle getting your popcorn on the way in, it must not be very important to you so please do without.

4) Stop making everything a touchless and digital experience.  If I'm going to a theater, believe it or not I actually want a little bit of human interaction on some level.

5) And, last but certainly not least, and this one is not to be missed...  Above all...start making great films again.  Stop the nonsense; stop the dumbing down of plots; stop the pointless action films; stop the never ending idiotic sequels; stop trying to turn films into an amusement park ride experience; and for god sake's stop the super heroes already.  Hire real writers who actually have ideas and who can actually write a script.  Then, allow directors and film makers to do what they do best - create art.  Period.  Yes, it's really that simple.

The film I saw tonight was beyond awful ("The Shrouds") but only made worse by the entire AMC Theater experience.  It also set me back about $40 for one person including the so-so popcorn and medium drink.  The mass exodus out of the theater really isn't only about the money, though.  There's simply nothing appealing about the experience and that's exactly the problem.  Change it already.

  

We're Being Invaded by...Bunnies?

Something very strange is hitting the internet this year and it's something I can't really get my head around.  Maybe it's just me (probably not) but almost everywhere I turn online I'm seeing this:

I mean...wtf?!  It's some bizarre ad for a "robot bunny", apparently "taking the internet by storm" or so they claim.  Um...huh??  I mean, why?!

I've said this countless times before but I'll say it again:  at times like this, I don't feel like I'm a human being nor of this planet.  For example, I can tell you firsthand that I have absolutely, positively, without any doubt in my life no reason or desire at all to have a robot bunny crawling around my house.  In fact, the mere concept of it boggles my brain.  Why would ANYONE want a robot bunny doing a limp hop throughout their home?!

Yeah, sure, it's Spring...Easter is on the near horizon, and so on, but how in the hell does that equate to a robot bunny?  In my head at least, "Spring != Robot Bunny", to put it in technical terms, nor do I see how that equation is changed to a positive for anyone.  Ah, but then again, this leads me to my other old rant about none other than marketing, something that I've simply never understood...ever.

Going back to my comment about not feeling human, I'll openly admit that I often hum or sing along to various ditties from commercials, etc., and may even say something akin to the fact that I really like a specific commercial or presentation.  What I don't do because of this, however, is buy the actual product...unless I'm already buying the product, if you know what I mean.  To be even more blunt, half the time I know the song/ditty really well but have no clue what the product actually is or what it's for.  In other words, marketing for the most part simply doesn't work on me nor do I think it ever really has except for possibly when I was really young, like pre 20's.  Ever since then, however, I simply feel rather immune to it and often wonder why companies waste the money.

It's then that it hits me...SOMEBODY is  buying the product due to these stupid commercials, right?  I mean, if no one bought it, they wouldn't advertise!  So, bringing this back to the bunny above, some damn fool out there is clicking on this idiotic looking robot bunny and then possibly purchasing it.  Why you ask?  Beats the living sh*t out of me.  All I can tell you, though, is that if YOU'RE that person, well, you're ruining it for all of us since we all now have to suffer from watching this goofy little yellow bunny hoppin' around on our screens.  Also, just for the record, I'm not sure bunnies actually come in the color yellow either - sorry, I just needed to throw that in there as well.

Seriously, folks, we need to wise up as a population and stop the madness.  There have been a lot of proposed boycotts lately but how about we all just agree at the very least to boycott the robot bunny?!  Ah, that would be a dream most certainly.

They're Coming for your Keys

Let's be honest:  lots of things in our day to day lives have been under attack for awhile now.  Why?  Well, there are various reasons, some I think fairly misguided but with good intent, but sometimes I can't even wrap my head around what could possibly be the gain.  Even better, it's hard to know the 'who' and the 'when' behind the attack, and so we're all basically becoming completely paranoid 100% of the time that some mystery person(s) is going to jump on us at any moment from anywhere and for any reason.  It's kind of akin to one of my cats that's always on guard, as if some mystery animal is going to fall from the sky, perhaps by parachute, at any given moment simply with the intent to scare the living hell out of her.  Yes, it's exactly like that, actually.

So, what now, right?  It's the CTRL key.  Yes, you read that correctly...the damn CTRL key, the one on the right side of your keyboard, to be specific.  If you're like me and aren't regularly subscribed to the latest keyboard related news (and why would you be...that's quite a question in itself), you won't learn of this bizarre attack until you purchase a new, say, laptop in particular, and you'll go to do something akin to a CTRL 'A'  or a CTRL 'C' and find, low and behold, there's no CTRL key to do this with.  Yes, that's right, it's been 'repurposed', now with that annoying little Microsoft CoPilot icon, their latest invention that they're pushing on us in every new version of Windows, um, without asking us, of course.

So, then, how do you do a CTRL 'C' exactly?  Well, I guess they expect you to stray from standard typing and do it all on one hand in 2 separate annoying keystrokes...OR...right click the mouse in about 3 keystrokes.  Makes sense, huh?!  Let's slow down all productivity so that we all have access to this annoying new 'feature' that at least most of us a) didn't ask for and b) are desperately trying to remove off of our taskbars in the first place.  Wow.  Yes, this IS the world we live in now, sad to say.  We've finally become a nation of "please, break everything that's currently working more than adequately".  Hmm.

Now, there are apparently work arounds, one being installing some new program called Microsoft PowerToys.  Yes, you read that correctly...PowerToys.  I know what you're thinking, and I know exactly what that name made me think of.  Hah hah.  I can only imagine this was the developer's personal inside joke, not unlike the old "Little Mermaid" phallic symbol on the VHS tape cover ploy by a disgruntled employee.  The bad news is that the PowerToys workaround is not working on my laptop, and did I mention that this is my work laptop?!  Yes, that makes it even worse considering I use the right CTRL button about a thousand times a day in my work life.  I mean, I use the left CTRL key way less than the right one...couldn't you guys at least take that one instead??  Can we at least negotiate which key on my keyboard you will needlessly hold hostage?!  That'll probably be next,  you know...where you'll have to pay a ransom fee to get access to the keys you're used to.

And so, the moral of the story is that truly nothing is apparently safe anymore, and my cat had the right idea all along, waiting for the mystery parachute animal to fall at any second.  I've always said you can learn a lot from animals...so there.

Who passed the gas?!

For years, I've heard about the warnings behind propane and gas grills  I mean, I've been using gas grills since I was about 14 years old and have never had a problem.  I simply thought the dangers were overly exaggerated.  Well, I guess not.

The gas grill I have now was left by the previous owner of the house.  It's basically a huge grill, way larger than I would ever need, and because of that it of course sucks up the propane like a thirsty camel in the desert.  As an added bonus, upon moving in and first opening the grill, there was the lovely surprise of an entire family of rats living literally inside the grill, with them scattering in terror upon lifting the lid.  I had been wondering where that strange odor was coming from and...well...er...

In any event, the grill got cleaned, etc., and I've been using it off and on ever since.  For such a large grill, something that is built in to some concrete and tile and was probably fairly expensive, it's bloody awful.  In fact, it works way worse than any of the Weber's I've owned and I can only chalk it up to the enormous size of it.  It's one of those things where nothing ever cooks even close to evenly on the thing, almost to a maddening degree.  It also takes forever for it reach its ideal temperature.

I've taken to cooking pizzas on the grill, though, and it's become a favorite thing of mine.  For whatever reason, though, this particular day about 2 months ago the grill wouldn't light.  This was a first.  Now, I've always gone against the grain and lit the grill with the lid down.  I know, I know...they say DON'T do this.  Yeah, whatever, pish tosh.  So, again, I'm clicking the igniter and nothing's happening.  I was a bit tired that day so I kind of had a lapse in judgement, where I silently thought to myself, hey, did I forget to open the propane spigot?  Weird.

Well, no sooner had I convinced myself that might be the case, after a little bit of time, I decided to push the igniter again.  It was like in slow motion...where as my finger was slowly pushing the trigger, my brain was saying "...but you did turn the gas on...and it's been pouring into the lid for the past 45 sec...".  And that's when I had fully pushed the igniter.

WHOOOSH!!!  No kidding, the lid literally flew open like Arnold Schwarznegger had pulled it with all his might, and also all the smaller doors in the back and front blew out equally loudly.  For a moment, I thought I was in "Christmas Vacation", when the uncle lights his stogey at the Christmas tree and burns both his coat and his toupee.  The kaboom noise was beyond belief, especially since all the doors are pretty heavy, and I stood there and let out a very loud "Aaaaaahhhhh!"

My first thought was...am I on fire?!  Nope, I seemed okay.  Did I lose any limbs?!  Nope, they're all there.  Actually, I think I'm alright.  What about the house?!  Is IT on fire?!  Nope, it's okay.  In fact, the only damage seemed to be the doors and the lid blowing up with such tremendous force.  Wow.  Let's just say I was extremely lucky for once.  I also looked around sheepishly.  Had any of my neighbors seen me do this?  Nope, I don't think.  Nice.

After collecting myself, I continued on and placed the cooking stone on the grill, and so on, although slightly shaking still.  I felt like a total idiot.  What was I thinking?!  Geez.

And so, yes, apparently all those warnings about the gas grills, propane, gas, etc., is real.  It's no joke so take it seriously.  Meanwhile, I still light the grill with the lid closed...I'm just more careful now.  Some people never learn ;)

Why Post?!

There are many things in modern society that I could rant about for hours upon hours but one that never ceases to burn my proverbial arse is the classic user review.  I'm referring to pretty much any user review at this point, whether it be a product on Amazon or a restaurant/food establishment on GoogleMaps, or even a product on, say, Macys.com.  It really doesn't matter where it is these days; it's all completely pointless.

I mean, why do we DO this?!  It's all so very confusing.  Let's think about this historically, mind you.  I think the whole reason the user review began was to give businesses a chance to have regular folk speak out about products that they love or don't really love rather than having professional paid writers/reviewers do it, probably with a percentage of them being slipped a dollar or two to lean one way or the other.  That's how it started, I think.

Like many decent ideas, this has completely gone astray.  These days, you have people with absolutely no idea what they're talking about whatsoever saying "this is the greatest" and then you purchase said product and you're like, um, this is bloody awful.  So, what's the point?  I know, you're going to say "it's all a matter of opinion".  Is it though?  I would argue 'no'.

For example, this has been a long standing argument in the film category for decades, where one person says film A is better than film B.  Sure, this is where subjectivity comes in...provided that the person(s) doing the talking has actually some knowledge about film ('...knowledge', you say?  What's that?!).  Have you ever been in a conversation with two 10 year olds arguing over which cartoon is better?!  That's what it's like.  If you have no knowledge on said topic, you can't possibly defend your position.  This is one area where user reviews have really failed for any Joe Schmoe can leave a review and have absolutely zero clue about what they're saying, and you, the reader, don't really have any idea if the source is trustworthy.  Ah, but it says 5 stars, right?!  It HAS to be good!

Another major failure is that the paid reviewers actually knew how to write and use grammar, etc.  Wow, that's really gone out the window, hasn't it?  Ugh.  Some argue that language skills are overrated and unimportant (all that matters is math, right??) but I would still say that without communication you might have the greatest ideas in the world but no one will ever know about them if you can't share that info.

And then, lastly, user reviews can fall into the category of "business wars", where people have a weird biased competitive liking of a certain business so they'll post over bloated reviews just to pump up sales and state their opinion.  Even worse, the business itself will have their friends and family post bloated reviews just so they show up higher in the lists, or purposely post negative reviews about other businesses to try and drag them down.  I also can't fail to mention the most bizarre of the user review...the one that is reviewing, say, the material on a CD or album and instead it's talking about how the UPS man delivered the product 2 days late.  Stranger even yet, there's also the occurrence where the category could be about a movie and the reviewer is instead talking about a video game.  It's all very puzzling.

I think there's only one thing to do, really, and that is to completely nix the user review idea and (gulp) go back to professional reviewers.  Having said that, we do need to put regulations into place so that businesses can't pay to inflate their sales but we've really no other choice.  The way things are, there's a billion tons of data out there for us to peruse; unfortunately, it's 90% garbage.

It's Not Allowed

There are two foods that are simply banned and not allowed in my household:  Cheetos and Doritos.  Yes, that's right, there's an "if you see this snack, call 1-800-XXX-XXXX" 'wanted' style poster on my kitchen wall, warning everyone of the potential danger.  They're armed...and dangerous.  Beware!

They're probably 2 of the worst foods for you, although I have no proof to back up that claim but that is a logical guess.  They're also 2 of the best foods for enjoyment...ever...in my opinion.  In fact, they so "have my number" that I simply can't resist them, hence why they're not allowed in the house.  I've gotten a bit better at resisting the Doritos urge (my personal favorite is the Tapatio variety...my god) but the Cheetos urge, my crutch being the Flamin' Hot variety, do tend to call me in like Satan on the steps of the Vatican.

I liked regular Cheetos, especially Crunchy but sometimes Puffy, enough as it was, but once they invented Flamin' Hot it was all over.  I mean, it was immediate and complete total love.  It was like someone invented the perfect food to literally do me in.  Resistance was futile.  I'd just look at a bag and could feel 5 lbs. of fat forming around my abdomen.

And then, I got older, and my stomach got worse and worse.  These days, if I eat something like Cheetos or Doritos, it's pure bliss going down and then hours of pain after.  Due to this, I've had to really stack up my resistance factors but still the evil does call to me on occasion, sometimes in the middle of the night.

Last week, I stupidly read a headline that said something like 'people were going crazy over this new Flamin' Hot variety'.  Dumb, dumb, dumb, because I immediately was on a quest to find a bag of the new Flamin' Hot Cajun Cheddar Cheetos.  This prompted an accidental bumping into Crunch Buffalo Cheetos at the store.  Foolishly, both varieties ended up in my pantry at the same time and, no joke, both disappeared within a matter of days.  Having said that, the stomach pains still haven't stopped.

The funny part is that neither lived up to the hype.  I mean, I could almost argue that the flavor wasn't that great.  Ah, yes, but it's something about that damn crunch that gets me every time, coupled with the heat, and so the addict in me comes out in full force and the next thing I know over half the bag is gone.  On average, it takes two sittings to down a bag and that's only because I force myself to stop; I mean, I could easily eat the whole bag in probably a matter of 7 minutes.  When they say that these foods are chemically altered to psychologically stimulate people to eat them, it's no joke.  This sh*t is powerful.

Even weirder, though, we as a society seem to be obsessed with "crossover foods".  They're everywhere these days, and why?  I have no clue.  I personally don't like them...I mean, the regular Flamin' Hot Cheetos are literally a perfect food - how can you possibly perfect it?!  And yet, we try, and then idiots like myself down the bag in a marathon fashion while not even liking the flavor.  In fact, it just makes me that much more likely to now go buy a bag of regular Flamin' Hot Cheetos so I can down those since I didn't get satisfied the first time around.  It's clearly a ploy.

Back to crossovers, though, why are we obsessed with this?  I get emails all the time lately about the BBQ Chicken pizza.  I mean, huh?!  If you want BBQ chicken, why not just eat BBQ chicken?!  Why do you need that in pizza form?  Then, we do pizza flavored other things.  It's all very puzzling and it personally drives me a bit nuts.  Now, I'll admit that I do like some of it, that is when I do indulge, but for the most part I try to steer clear, if nothing else for the sake of my poor stomach and intestines.

For this round, Cheetos definitely won.  Score - Cheetos 10, me 0.  Ah, but I'll avoid ya next round, I swear, I swear.  Oh, if only.

  

Scatterbrained

I hadn't realized that I missed posting in June.  Hmph!  I've been trying to post at least every month but apparently I forget on occasion.  Even worse, I get these ideas for a blog post that come to me usually at odd moments, and I mean to write them down really quickly but by the time I get to my computer they've flown out my other ear, to be lost for all eternity.  I do remember one of them, though, and perhaps I'll still post it so I'll leave that out for now.  Other than that, though, I'm at a loss.

So, how are things with everyone?  I will say things are decent here.  I've of course been incredibly busy, hence the lack of writing in some regards, and time is simply passing by at a continually alarming rate.  I did manage to get the EP printed and released (check!).  I also managed to get some t-shirts in motion (double check!).  I am still struggling with the second EP, a task which feels like it may never end at this point, but I literally almost work on it nightly, doing my endless tinkering.  Just call me the tinkerer; it's better than the other words that some have called me.

I also had my 6 month follow up at the derm's office.  Yes, that's right, I have 5 more spots that have formed on my head.  Oh joy!  If these are surgically removed, I'll be up to 17 total.  Ridiculous, especially for someone who 1) never leaves the house and 2) basically lives in darkness.  I can't help but feel like this is a conspiracy of sorts.  At this point, I'm considering getting a toupee since at least it would cover up the majority of my head from the sun on the rare occasions that I actually leave the house.  Hell, Thomas Dolby just did it, why can't I?!

Knowing my frustration, my dermatologist finally offered me the option of using the chemo cream option to help burn off any remnants on my scalp before they turn to all out cancerous spots.  And so, I've been doing that for a week and a half and...low and behold...absolutely nothing.  My next door neighbor used this same cream and his entire scalp and face turned beet red, with the skin coming off like a really bad sunburn, etc., which means that the cream is doing its job.  For me?  Nothing, apart from a slight shinier sheen to my skin.  I mean, how can I possibly have the skin of iron that the chemo cream can't penetrate when I'm obviously so very susceptible to actual skin cancer?!  Yes, folks, this is my life.  I'd be a liar if I said I was shocked by the irony in this.

In other news, my eye conundrums simply continue but so far, fingers crossed, it doesn't seem like my retina has torn again...yet.  I had a lot of fun with ordering glasses this year, however.  Imagine trying to take an eye test, where they're trying to figure out the correct prescription for you by asking which version in the little hanging glass thingy looks better, and then imagine that you can't really see straight to even tell.  Yes, that was the fun I had, and I literally had to order about 6 pairs of glasses from Liingo.com before more or less getting it right (it's actually hard to say that because, well, I don't see well enough to say that with full confidence).  I will add that all the folks that I dealt with at Liingo.com were absolutely amazing so I can't recommend them enough.

I eventually decided to get more expensive lenses put into my frames because I figured it might be a better idea given my situation.  Well, this opened a whole new can of worms because apparently your basic level optician doesn't seem to understand that you may not see well enough to answer the questions in a straight forward manner.  This led to minor arguments, discussions, sending glasses back repetitively, and so on.  My personal favorite was that this particular optician, of which I don't think has any business being in the business, insisted on taking my new frames that I had just perfectly fit to my face and then bent them in a manner that's left them completely crooked.  Hmm.  Yes, that's service in 2024 for ya.  Needless to say, I don't recommend this optician; in fact, I'll go out on a limb - she's a complete idiot.  She may be nice and sort of pretty...but she's a complete moron, in my opinion.  Avoid at all costs!

I know I had something else to share but I'll be damned if I can remember what that was.  I seem to say this more and more these days.  The older you get, the less you remember, and sometimes that's actually for the better.  And so, I'll end here.  More later...hopefully.