Movie Madness

Hollywood is well organized. I just looked at Yahoo! movies and I'm amazed at how well planned it is.

4 weeks ago: Iron Man kicked off the summer season alone.
3 weeks ago: Speed Racer was supposed to dominate, but split with What Happens in Vegas.
2 weeks ago: Prince Caspian is the only release.
This past weekend: Indiana Jones was the only movie that opened on Memorial Day weekend...
Next weekend: Fairly active with 2(!) releases. Kung-Fu Panda and Don't Mess with the Zohan.
2 weeks ahead: The Incredible Hulk
3 weeks ahead: Possibly the best weekend release combo is only 2 movies: Love Guru and Get Smart.
4 weeks ahead: WALL-E pretty much by itself. (Wanted(?) is also wide distribution.)
5 weeks ahead: Hancock alone.
6 weeks ahead: July 4th, so no new movies.
7 and 8 weeks ahead: Finally has multiple wide release films including: Hellboy II, Journey to the Center of the Earth, Dark Knight, and Momma Mia.

The point of this is to say that the movie companies have perfectly planned out how your summer movie-going experience will be. They basically divvied up your money. I find that incredibly interesting.

The Color Red

Alice Walker, the author of The Color Purple and an outspoken leader of the feminist movement, is officially a bad mother. I'm sure she will tell her side of the story and, just like Alec Baldwin, use her fame to obscure the other. However, this is a great criticism of the radical feminist movement.

"How my mother's fanatical views tore us apart" -Rebecca Walker

Just a News Note

An article posted in The Guardian says that a teenager was arrested for calling Scientology a cult. (link here) This is the same country that DIDN'T arrest protesters for saying that Europe would get it's own 9/11 soon and that people who say bad things about Islam should be beheaded. (CNN link) Interesting governmental policies over there.

Two iPhone Stories

I think YOU should get an iPhone. That's right.. YOU. I have two iPhone stories that illustrate why I think you should.

Story 1: An Hour Saved at Chili's

Our close friend Jamie Dillon recently graduated from LC in Alexandria. When the ceremony was over, it was obvious that everyone was going out to eat. Jamie's family said that Chili's was the preferred destination for our crew of 9. I immediately pick up the iPhone. I open up Maps application with one button press. I hit the "locate button" and it shows my location on campus. I click search and type "chili's" and it brings a push pin to the only Chili's in town. I touch the pin and it brings the information for the store and it's phone number. I click the phone number and it calls the reservation line. I set up call ahead seating for 9, but the hostess says that they can only hold call ahead for 15 minutes. I am in a town where I don't know my way around. I hit back on Maps and I look at the best way to get to the restaurant and withing 12 minutes, I'm at Chili's with Tash and Grace. The group of 10 who got there right before I checked in was told it would be an hour and ten minutes before they could be seated.

Sure, you could do this with Goog 411 and it probably would have ended the same way, but such things are natural on the iPhone.

Story 2: A Whole New iPhone

You find out the worth of a company when something goes wrong. Apple has done great. My headset button was broken on the provided headphones, so I bring them to the Apple store. They change them out no questions asked. I mention that my pictures are really fuzzy and asked if I could pay to have it cleaned. I literally asked to pay. The guy at the desk replied by looking at the phone, seeing a scratch on the face of the phone and offering to replace the device. I took them up on the offer and sealed my love affair with the company. Surely a laptop isn't far from being purchased thanks to that support.

Anyway, I couldn't be happier with my iPhone. Sure, there could be a little more storage and some people complain about 3G. However, it has been a great device for me and I can't think of many people who would not benefit from owning one. It unifies so many devices by having an excellent phone, decent camera, superior mP3 players, great portable video player, sufficient mapping software, etc... OK. I'm done. You get the idea.