I wandered into one of those countdown shows tonight and stayed to watch for a while. CBS was running AFI's 100 Years ...100 Movie Quotes and I'm a sucker for that kind of programming. I toggled back and forth between that and the Giants game and working/surfing on the laptop and reading a re-issue of sixties science fiction stories by Murray Leinster and couldn't have been happier (well, I could've been if I didn't have this damn cough). One cool thing about the countdown was that the top quotes were not dominated by lines from recent movies. Here's the top five:
1. Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.
2. I'm going to make him an offer he can't refuse.
3. I coulda been a contender.
4. Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore.
5. Here's looking at you, kid.
It's funny but I've really only watched one of these movies from beginning to end - Casablanca is one of my favorite movies and I watch it at least once a year. Of the others, I've seen bits and pieces from Gone With the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, and slept through the second half of On the Waterfront. It's a bit embarassing but I've never watched any of The Godfather movies. So that's probably something I should take care of at some point in time.
Actually, I was surprised at how many movie lines I recognized and knew what movie they came from even though I may not have ever seen that movie in it's entirety. I've probably seen less than half of the movies represented by the list. And I recognized close to 90% of the lines. Gotta love cultural memory.
I'd probably add a few to that list just for me personally. There were a couple of lines that me and my friends wore out after seeing them in movies:
I'll make you famous - Emilio Estevez
I'm your huckleberry - Val Kilmer
Inconceivable - Wallace Shawn
And many more if I gave it some thought.
Wednesday, June 22, 2005
Saturday, June 18, 2005
Working against the Big Damn Goal
There’s been a bit of controversy in the Firefly fan community concerning ticket scalpers. This controversy started because tickets for the first pre-screening were auctioned off on eBay. At pretty high prices. And every time another pre-screening sold-out the number of auctions on eBay grew. Fans seem to be debating this topic from a number of different directions (scalping is morally wrong, capitalism rules, this is something the crew of Serenity would do, as long as it’s legal it’s okay, real fans shouldn’t try to make money off other fans, it’s okay if it’s fans who bought too many by accident, and a variety of other perspectives). And often talking past each other. I have a definite opinion on the subject but think the ongoing debate is sorta pointless. It’s going to happen regardless.
So I might as well track the numbers :-)
But first I’ll just briefly state one portion of my opinion on the topic. I think the scalping of tickets for the Serenity pre-screenings is a bad thing for one simple reason: it contributes nothing to the Big Damn Goal. The Big Damn Goal, as I like to call it, is very simple: Serenity 2 and Serenity 3. To accomplish that goal Serenity needs to generate between $60 and $100 million in box-office returns during it’s domestic release. That’s a daunting task. And none of the money spent on scalped tickets goes to that box-office total.
To be fair, we’re not talking about a lot of money. For the first two pre-screenings, a total of around $21,500 was spent by fans on eBay auctions. And all of this was spent on 315 tickets. At an average price of $6.40 (which is what boxofficemojo is using as it’s average ticket price for 2005) 315 tickets would’ve brought in a little over $2000 dollars. Chump change compared to what we need. But, on the flip side, $21,500 could be used after September 30th to buy 3360+ tickets. Which represents many sold-out theaters. Which results in a lot of buzz. Which translates into more ticket sales. It’s almost a given that the people who spent money on eBay auctions are not going to spend the same amount of money on tickets once the movie is officially released. And that hurts the bottom line. Even if only slightly.
So, short answer, scalping Serenity pre-screening tickets is bad for the overall goal. It’s myopic. It’s egocentric. It’s all that stuff and more. And it’s also fun to track. I’ve been keeping a spreadsheet on all the completed auctions just to try to get a feel for what’s going on. It’s a bit too early in the process to make generalizations but there were some anecdotal things I found funny. One thing, in particular, was the different ways in which sellers tried to camouflage what they were actually doing.
There are some people who are purposefully misrepresenting themselves. One seller started off their listing with, “The people I bought these tickets for can't go - their loss is your gain!” Sounds nice and all. Who wouldn’t want to help out a fan? Except that this seller used the same opening line in all five of their auctions. And the listings were posted in a forty minute span. And these five auctions were all for different cities (Norfolk, Charlotte, Columbus, Albany, and Providence). And the seller was located in a different state from any of these cities. The tickets are going to sell no matter what you write. Why did this seller feel the need to lie? Pretty hilarious.
Then there are a group of sellers who are trying to get around existing state regulations concerning the resale of tickets. This is silly because many states have not updated their laws to reflect online auctions. As long as you do not live in the same state as the event you are not affected (at least, that is how eBay interprets things). So they’re going out of their way trying to circumvent something that doesn’t even apply to them. And their attempts are very amusing. Quite a few sellers are auctioning something else (CDs, computer cables, etc) and then giving tickets as a gift to the person who wins the auction.
And finally, there are people who are just hoping prospective buyers don’t read the fine print. A person who individually sold six tickets to the Miami screening was charging a “Buy it Now” price of eight dollars a ticket. Face value! Outstanding! But if you look just a little further down the page you read that the shipping charge was $30! Wow, that’s an awful lot of money to mail a piece of paper. It was probably because the seller was also located in Miami and needed to ship those tickets using overnight air (heh heh). They have since tried a new tactic and have two regular auctions where you’re bidding on a pair of tickets. Not surprisingly, the addition of the second ticket bumped the shipping charges up to $34 dollars. So far no takers.
That’s it for now from the eBay tracking trenches. I’m sure there will be more to come.
So I might as well track the numbers :-)
But first I’ll just briefly state one portion of my opinion on the topic. I think the scalping of tickets for the Serenity pre-screenings is a bad thing for one simple reason: it contributes nothing to the Big Damn Goal. The Big Damn Goal, as I like to call it, is very simple: Serenity 2 and Serenity 3. To accomplish that goal Serenity needs to generate between $60 and $100 million in box-office returns during it’s domestic release. That’s a daunting task. And none of the money spent on scalped tickets goes to that box-office total.
To be fair, we’re not talking about a lot of money. For the first two pre-screenings, a total of around $21,500 was spent by fans on eBay auctions. And all of this was spent on 315 tickets. At an average price of $6.40 (which is what boxofficemojo is using as it’s average ticket price for 2005) 315 tickets would’ve brought in a little over $2000 dollars. Chump change compared to what we need. But, on the flip side, $21,500 could be used after September 30th to buy 3360+ tickets. Which represents many sold-out theaters. Which results in a lot of buzz. Which translates into more ticket sales. It’s almost a given that the people who spent money on eBay auctions are not going to spend the same amount of money on tickets once the movie is officially released. And that hurts the bottom line. Even if only slightly.
So, short answer, scalping Serenity pre-screening tickets is bad for the overall goal. It’s myopic. It’s egocentric. It’s all that stuff and more. And it’s also fun to track. I’ve been keeping a spreadsheet on all the completed auctions just to try to get a feel for what’s going on. It’s a bit too early in the process to make generalizations but there were some anecdotal things I found funny. One thing, in particular, was the different ways in which sellers tried to camouflage what they were actually doing.
There are some people who are purposefully misrepresenting themselves. One seller started off their listing with, “The people I bought these tickets for can't go - their loss is your gain!” Sounds nice and all. Who wouldn’t want to help out a fan? Except that this seller used the same opening line in all five of their auctions. And the listings were posted in a forty minute span. And these five auctions were all for different cities (Norfolk, Charlotte, Columbus, Albany, and Providence). And the seller was located in a different state from any of these cities. The tickets are going to sell no matter what you write. Why did this seller feel the need to lie? Pretty hilarious.
Then there are a group of sellers who are trying to get around existing state regulations concerning the resale of tickets. This is silly because many states have not updated their laws to reflect online auctions. As long as you do not live in the same state as the event you are not affected (at least, that is how eBay interprets things). So they’re going out of their way trying to circumvent something that doesn’t even apply to them. And their attempts are very amusing. Quite a few sellers are auctioning something else (CDs, computer cables, etc) and then giving tickets as a gift to the person who wins the auction.
And finally, there are people who are just hoping prospective buyers don’t read the fine print. A person who individually sold six tickets to the Miami screening was charging a “Buy it Now” price of eight dollars a ticket. Face value! Outstanding! But if you look just a little further down the page you read that the shipping charge was $30! Wow, that’s an awful lot of money to mail a piece of paper. It was probably because the seller was also located in Miami and needed to ship those tickets using overnight air (heh heh). They have since tried a new tactic and have two regular auctions where you’re bidding on a pair of tickets. Not surprisingly, the addition of the second ticket bumped the shipping charges up to $34 dollars. So far no takers.
That’s it for now from the eBay tracking trenches. I’m sure there will be more to come.
Saturday, June 11, 2005
Tiger's Petard
Tiger (our young adult male cat) wandered into S' window a few years ago and decided that apartment was as good a place as any. He stayed.
S used to leave the window open and he would come and go as he pleased. She got him a collar and put a message on the collar for anyone to call if they owned him. No one did. He would drop by to eat, evacuate his stomach, and sleep. But for the most part he liked being outside.
S got a call one day from a concerned person who just wanted to let her know that Tiger was trying to cross the busiest street in the area. Thus ended his freedom. She still let him outside, but it was only on a leash. He seemed to greet the change in lifestyle philosophically. He was still able to lounge in the sun or sit on the top of the fence watching the world go by. And then S and I moved in together in a different apartment.
The new place represented a step-up for Tiger. His leash length doubled and he was able to roam the backyard. I put up a little ladder so he could get on the roof of one of the out-buildings and he would lie up there in the sun for hours at a time. We still wouldn't let him off the leash due to the proximity of a major street but he seemed quite happy. Every so often we would come outside and find him dangling from somewhere in his harness but he took even that indignity in stride. And then we got a new upstairs neighbor.
It was a combination of things that did Tiger's outdoor existence in. One was the presence of a large number of pretty (and difficult to find replacements for) flower pots that started appearing around the yard, up the stairs, and on C's back porch railing. Another was a bird that decided to start a family above C's back porch light. Every other minute one of us would have to go untangle Tiger's leash from the latest flower pot he had tracked around. And once the birds started chirping there was no keeping him from climbing the back stairs and trying to get at those tender morsels. In the process, flower pots began to lose their lives. And leaving that aside, with the addition of all these obstacles it got to the point where one of us would have to be outside every second Tiger was out there monitering him. His own personal valet, so to speak. We tried anchoring the leash in various locations and giving him different lengths, all to no avail. Eventually we just gave up and Tiger became an indoor cat.
He's never forgotten.
If he is given the opportunity he will escape the apartment and roam free. He usually stays out all night and comes back some time the next morning. And then we have to go through a couple of days of fun because Ocey, our other cat, doesn't recognize his new smell and hisses and yowls at him every time he gets close. A couple of times we've caught him within a half hour of his escape. Doesn't matter. That's long enough for him to get into some new scents.
Often he escapes through an open door. But he's also figured out he can unlatch the window screens. We've installed locking latches on the screens of the windows we open most often but haven't been religious in outfitting the entire apartment. Part of the reason is that we just can't open some of the windows anymore. For one reason or another the window screens are ripped to the extent that the cats can get out. Our window screens are old and idiosyncratic. They don't even make the particular heavy mesh metal screen that was used anymore and the frames themselves cost a pretty penny to replace since it's a custom job. Our property manager is a tightwad. The screens remain holed. Those windows stay closed.
One of the window screens with the old style latch is in the bathroom. Today, Tiger figured out he could open this one. Hilarity ensued, and continues to ensue. It was the gift that keeps on giving.
I was sitting at my laptop when I looked out the window and saw what I thought was Mamacat. Then I did a double-take because she looked bigger, and healthier, and an awful lot like Tiger. I immediately ran out the front door at which point Tiger, for it was indeed him, took off towards the driveway that goes to the back garage. I was waiting for him as he started down the driveway towards the street and he reversed course and headed towards the laundry room. Figuring his goal was the street I ran to the next driveway and cornered and caught him up against the fence there. All in all it was a pretty easy capture. He could've made things a lot more complicated if he had climbed any of the fences. Or just left using some route that didn't go past the one window in the house I could see out of.
I wanted to make sure that I knew how he had gotten out before I put him back in the house so I carried him around the apartment while I looked at each window. After one pass I was stymied. I had no idea how he had gotten out. On the second pass I finally saw that the bathroom window screen was ajar. It was hidden behind a sort of vine and trellis arrangement that our neighbor installed.
So that was easy to fix. I brought Tiger inside, re-latched the screen, and then slid the shower doors closed (I had left it open so the breeze would flow). A couple of minutes later I heard a weird noise from the bathroom. When I went to investigate I discovered that Tiger had jumped from the sink to the top of the frame that houses the sliding glass shower doors and was eyeing the window. So I gave up and just closed the window.
He's an obsessive cat, however. I heard him jump on top of that frame many times today. About an hour ago I walked past the bathroom on the way outside and there he was, prowling the frame trying to figure out how to get out that window.
I came in from outside after a few minutes. Did some dishes. Toasted up an English Muffin. Puttered around for a bit. Sat down at the computer. And then I heard this muffled complaining wauling sound. I went through every room two or three times checking in closets and under beds and behind couches. Couldn't find Tiger. Finally I remembered where I'd last seen him and slid back the shower door. There he was in the bottom of the tub. He'd jumped down and couldn't get out.
I think he'd been in that tub for about twenty minutes. He sure was lovey-dovey after that.
S used to leave the window open and he would come and go as he pleased. She got him a collar and put a message on the collar for anyone to call if they owned him. No one did. He would drop by to eat, evacuate his stomach, and sleep. But for the most part he liked being outside.
S got a call one day from a concerned person who just wanted to let her know that Tiger was trying to cross the busiest street in the area. Thus ended his freedom. She still let him outside, but it was only on a leash. He seemed to greet the change in lifestyle philosophically. He was still able to lounge in the sun or sit on the top of the fence watching the world go by. And then S and I moved in together in a different apartment.
The new place represented a step-up for Tiger. His leash length doubled and he was able to roam the backyard. I put up a little ladder so he could get on the roof of one of the out-buildings and he would lie up there in the sun for hours at a time. We still wouldn't let him off the leash due to the proximity of a major street but he seemed quite happy. Every so often we would come outside and find him dangling from somewhere in his harness but he took even that indignity in stride. And then we got a new upstairs neighbor.
It was a combination of things that did Tiger's outdoor existence in. One was the presence of a large number of pretty (and difficult to find replacements for) flower pots that started appearing around the yard, up the stairs, and on C's back porch railing. Another was a bird that decided to start a family above C's back porch light. Every other minute one of us would have to go untangle Tiger's leash from the latest flower pot he had tracked around. And once the birds started chirping there was no keeping him from climbing the back stairs and trying to get at those tender morsels. In the process, flower pots began to lose their lives. And leaving that aside, with the addition of all these obstacles it got to the point where one of us would have to be outside every second Tiger was out there monitering him. His own personal valet, so to speak. We tried anchoring the leash in various locations and giving him different lengths, all to no avail. Eventually we just gave up and Tiger became an indoor cat.
He's never forgotten.
If he is given the opportunity he will escape the apartment and roam free. He usually stays out all night and comes back some time the next morning. And then we have to go through a couple of days of fun because Ocey, our other cat, doesn't recognize his new smell and hisses and yowls at him every time he gets close. A couple of times we've caught him within a half hour of his escape. Doesn't matter. That's long enough for him to get into some new scents.
Often he escapes through an open door. But he's also figured out he can unlatch the window screens. We've installed locking latches on the screens of the windows we open most often but haven't been religious in outfitting the entire apartment. Part of the reason is that we just can't open some of the windows anymore. For one reason or another the window screens are ripped to the extent that the cats can get out. Our window screens are old and idiosyncratic. They don't even make the particular heavy mesh metal screen that was used anymore and the frames themselves cost a pretty penny to replace since it's a custom job. Our property manager is a tightwad. The screens remain holed. Those windows stay closed.
One of the window screens with the old style latch is in the bathroom. Today, Tiger figured out he could open this one. Hilarity ensued, and continues to ensue. It was the gift that keeps on giving.
I was sitting at my laptop when I looked out the window and saw what I thought was Mamacat. Then I did a double-take because she looked bigger, and healthier, and an awful lot like Tiger. I immediately ran out the front door at which point Tiger, for it was indeed him, took off towards the driveway that goes to the back garage. I was waiting for him as he started down the driveway towards the street and he reversed course and headed towards the laundry room. Figuring his goal was the street I ran to the next driveway and cornered and caught him up against the fence there. All in all it was a pretty easy capture. He could've made things a lot more complicated if he had climbed any of the fences. Or just left using some route that didn't go past the one window in the house I could see out of.
I wanted to make sure that I knew how he had gotten out before I put him back in the house so I carried him around the apartment while I looked at each window. After one pass I was stymied. I had no idea how he had gotten out. On the second pass I finally saw that the bathroom window screen was ajar. It was hidden behind a sort of vine and trellis arrangement that our neighbor installed.
So that was easy to fix. I brought Tiger inside, re-latched the screen, and then slid the shower doors closed (I had left it open so the breeze would flow). A couple of minutes later I heard a weird noise from the bathroom. When I went to investigate I discovered that Tiger had jumped from the sink to the top of the frame that houses the sliding glass shower doors and was eyeing the window. So I gave up and just closed the window.
He's an obsessive cat, however. I heard him jump on top of that frame many times today. About an hour ago I walked past the bathroom on the way outside and there he was, prowling the frame trying to figure out how to get out that window.
I came in from outside after a few minutes. Did some dishes. Toasted up an English Muffin. Puttered around for a bit. Sat down at the computer. And then I heard this muffled complaining wauling sound. I went through every room two or three times checking in closets and under beds and behind couches. Couldn't find Tiger. Finally I remembered where I'd last seen him and slid back the shower door. There he was in the bottom of the tub. He'd jumped down and couldn't get out.
I think he'd been in that tub for about twenty minutes. He sure was lovey-dovey after that.
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