Ripped Off

Fuckin' February. The shortest month of the year.
First, I think it was Chris Rock as Nat-X on SNL who asked why Black History Month was the shortest month of the year. Blame the Man.
And now, I find out that the best Dairy Queen Blizzard flavor of the month: Chocolate Dipped Strawberries, is the flavor of the month for February. And I just found this out YESTERDAY! That was the 23rd! There's less than a week for me to enjoy this delicious frozen treat! Good thing I just finished one. Already planning my run tomorrow so I can get another. Hell yeah!

At The Movies

It's Oscar Eve. Well, that used to be a much bigger deal for me than it is this year, or really the past two years. Sure, there'll still be the annual party and Oscar Pool, but the excitement is beginning to wain with one big reason why.

I haven't seen all the major nominated films. I've probalby got about 75% of them covered, but I used to see over 100 movies in theaters every year. Many years I would have even seen the 5 nominated documentaries and foreign films. This year, I'm still missing one of the Best Picture nominees. Unheard of!

So, why am I not going to the movies as much as I used to? This is one of the big questions people in Hollywood are asking. Not just about me, but the marketplace as a whole. There's plenty of reporting about falling box office dollars from year to year, but I think the most telling figure is the falling ticket sales. Ticket prices continue to go up, but if overall box office revenue continues to fall, that means fewer people are going to movie theaters.

The press covering Hollywood is quick to say that people aren't going to the movies because of all the other options available to them. DVD, home theaters, and the Internets have all been accused of keeping people from the multiplex, and all along I've been suggesting something else entirely. Finally, the good folks at Newsweek got it.

In case the link attempt didn't work, the answer is TV is good! That's right, the boob tube is churing out better / more original product than the movie studio boobs. The intrigue of Lost, the excitment of Heroes, the laughs of Earl, The Office and How I Met Your Mother have been keeping me away from the cinema. Add a DVR to the mix and I'm watching better stuff on Saturday nights than the Godzilla-plex can offer.

I paid nearly $20 for the wife and I to see Babel. Let's just say if Babel wins Best Picture tommorow night, I'm gonna be pissed! For my Jackson, we were both bored and totally unimpressed for over 2hrs. With TV, we don't take that chance. If the show sucks we turn the channel and find something else. I don't even watch most of those 'acclaimed' shows like Grey's Anatomy, House, 24, CSI, etc. so TV is even better than I claim it to be.

I saw Bobby back in December and last week was Children of Men. Both movies were good, but both were pretty ruined by the fuckers sitting next to us talking. Chances are, if you go to a movie today and a cell phone doesn't ring during the film, there'll be people behind you talking. While Bobby played out with more celebrity cameos than a sweeps week episode of the Love Boat, I got treated to four women old enough to know better but too young to be excused for it try to one-up each other as to who could pull the celeb' name out of their brain faster. "Ooo, that's Demi Moore!" - "Isn't that Sharon Stone?" - "That's the guy who's dating Demi" - "No, they're married now." - "Are you sure?" - "What's his name?". It took me staring at them and shouting "Jesus Christ!" for them to shut up, though I'm surprised they didn't call me on the fact that Jesus Christ was not in the movie.

So, why would I want to go to the movies even if the quality of the films improves? The movie studios and theaters need to start working on these problems - make better and more interesting movies and start expecting people to act with some degree of respect for others when they go out.

Meanwhile, I'll be watching my network tv favorites and catching up on movies from Netflix, even if it means not winning the Oscar Pool.

More CNN QuickPoll

My love for the CNN QuickPoll had a startling development the past couple days.
On February 13, the poll question appeared (something to the effect): When given the choice do you buy American made products over foreign?
Well, I had to vote 'no' because of one thing - my car. Really how often do you see products side-by-side where one is made in the U.S. and one is made elsewhere? Immediately I considered automobiles, and I love Hondas, Mazdas and Toyotas and my current car is a Subaru. And surely I see more Hondas, Mazdas, Toyotas and Subarus on the road than I see Ford, Chevy or Dodge. 'This should be about a 50%/50% split at the very least', I thought.
The poll result? It was something like 78% 'yes' and 22% 'no'. How can that be?

Today, February 14, is when it gets good. the CNN QuickPollers threw this one out to the legions: Do you own an American made car? YES! They did it! The CNN QuickPollers shot out the middle-finger to the QuickPoll audience. I knew immediately what they were getting at, and the results may astound you... it was about 50%/50% muthafucka!!!

After expelling a maniacal 'Ahhhhh Haaaa!' from behind my laptop, I got to thinking... are we really this proud? (By 'we' I meant fellow CNN QuickPoll respondents). There's about a third of us so nationalistic we don't even realize the things of which we don't support the USA. These CNN QuickPolls revealed that we think we're good, supportive Americans, but we aren't. Unless, of course, some folks lied about their QuickPoll answer. Yeah, that's it.

SUPER SUNDAY!!!

Yea! It’s SuperBowl Sunday (hope the NFL doesn’t mind me using the trademarked name of the game on this, but saying there’s a ‘Big Game’ on TV today just doesn’t have the same impact.)

That said, here are some actual celebrity predictions (courtesy of The Rocky Mountain News) for the game followed by my pick.

Haley Joel Osment has picked the winner of the last 7 SuperBowls. He likes the Colts. Seems like he should be focusing more on picking decent scripts than on football game winners.

Sylvester Stallone – Colts. Problem is he thinks Johnny Unitis is the quarterback and they still play in Baltimore.

Sen. John Kerry – D- Mass. – Likes the Colts, but tomorrow he’ll qualify that while he voted in favor of the Colts he supported the Bears.

Al Franken – Bears. Bill O’Reilly – Colts. Hard to believe these two are disagreeing about this.

Pat Robertson / Jerry Falwell – both pick the Colts. I can’t think of anything they’ve ever been right about, so surely it’ll be the Bears, right?

Dionne Warwick – Colts. Look, she ran the Psychic Friends Network, how could she be wrong?

Duane Chapman “Dog” The Bounty Hunter – Bears. Sadly, eventually he'll be tracking one down for jumping bail.

Carrot Top – Colts. He just scares me.

Dawn Wells (Mary Ann), Russell Johnson (The Professor), Barry Williams (Greg Brady), Florence Henderson (Carol Brady) – all pick Colts. Mrs. Brady always had good advice, but that has to be cancelled out by Greg’s whole ‘Johnny Bravo’ phase. Then you have the Professor who was kind of a mental moron with his inability to invent anything useful for Gilligan and the gang; but Mary Ann could make a mean coconut cream pie, and Dawn Wells is still quite attractive. Hard to discount any of these picks.

Pino – keep in mind I haven’t picked a SuperBowl winner in years. Yeah, I took the Raiders over the Buccaneers which, in hindsight, was probably the easiest SuperBowl ever to pick. However, this year I think the Colts getting 7 points is indicative of perception that the Colts will dominate the game. Vegas sets this line to get the easy money from all the Colts fans who think this win is obvious. The Colts have a terrific offense, but I always grew up being told that ‘defenses win championships’ and a ‘good defense beats a good offense’. Therefore, I like the Bears with or without the 7 points. They’ll definitely come within 7, but I expect them to win outright. Bears by 4. Hurry up, run to your bookie and put it all on the Colts.