Bottom Of The Barrel: July 2008

Judge Judy is no fool

Judge Judy busts a move when the quake hits:

But not the platiff, she wants a ruling:

Labels: Video

Create your very own superhero

Marvel Kids has launched a slick Create Your Own Superhero area on their website. Go on over and see if you can create someone cooler than my own Eagle Eye.

Labels: Comic-Con, Internet

Is Guitar Hero the new iTunes?

In it's first week on the shelves, Guitar Hero: Aerosmith sold over 500,000 copies and at 50 bucks a pop that's a $25 million dollar week for Activision/RedOctane [which I'm sure the Aerosmith boys will see a nice chunk of]. This is quite a change for Aerosmith, given there last album, Honkin' on Bobo, has sold a mere 590k copies since 2004. Ok it's not quite fair to compare one of the hottest gaming platforms on earth and a game that contains an artists greatest hits vs a band's 14th album which contained 11 blues covers and 1 original track however it does ask the question, is GH a new music distribution platform?

Back on April 11th, Motley Crue released their recent Saints of Los Angeles single as downloadable content on Xbox Live Marketplace and PlayStation Store. In the first few weeks of it's release, the Rock Band version outsold iTunes and Amazon downloadable versions five to one. The news prompted Allen Kovac, of Motley Crue's management company, to comment to Rolling Stone: "Pretty soon, this is going to be the way you sell music."

If the guys at Guitar Hero and Rock Band can find the way to export the music from the console to your iPod, they could become the next big music portal [and help save the record industry from itself].

Labels: Music, Technology

No School [money] For You

The Massachusetts Educational Financing Authority, which last school year provided $510 million in loans, yesterday said it will not be able to provide student loans this fall for the first time in its 26-year history, leaving more than 40,000 families without an important source of tuition funds just weeks before college classes begin. The nonprofit lending authority said it has been unable to secure funding to provide private student loans due to the ongoing turmoil in the nation's credit markets.

It's too bad the MEFA - a group that has been helping the future of our state over the past 1/4 century - can't tap into the Big Dig overspending/rebates or perhaps the Boston Fire Department disability claims office.

Labels: Massachusetts, Money

Wish I could have been at this panel

Labels: Comic-Con

Comic-Con Day 4: Celebrities everywhere

Yeah it was another busy day in the booth and we never stopped ringing all morning but in the early afternoon, the booth got a surprise visitor. In through the back door walks in this guy wearing a V for Vendetta mask and it's none other then The Method Man.

My main man Steve's absolute favorite hip hop artist and he got to briefly chat with him and get his John Hancock. That was cool. While The Method was in the booth we went down to 1 register. It was kinda of funny to see so little being purchased for those 10 minutes. After that I got a chance to really walk the floor and that's where I saw Hayden "Save the cheerleader..." Panettiere, Jonathan "Number 1" Frakes, Don "Hollywood" Yates, and John "Harold" Cho & Kal "Kumar" Penn.

Having to catch a plane home, we got out of the show early for a quick dinner at Dick's Last Resort and then returned to the hotel to fetch our bags. I noticed the Entertainment Weekly backdrop at the entrance to our hotel, where they were hosting a party later that night. On the way up to the room, I held open the elevator for a few people who were waiting behinds us. With my back to them I asked what floor they were headed to. When the gentleman said 4, I noticed he has a British accent and to his request for floor 4 I replied that with his accent he must be a local. He laughed and said that this was his first time in San Diego. It was at the moment that I released he was no other than Bill "Davy Jones" Nighy to which I casually commented that I was a fan of his films. He stepped forward and said thank you and shook my hand. As he and his party exited the elevator, who did I spot walking over [and obviously waiting for a car down] was Mr. Comic Book himself, Stan Lee. Once we retrieved our luggage we returned tot he lobby where we ran into Zachary "Chuck" Levi who was kind enough to talk with us for several minutes about his show and the up coming season.

He was genuinely a very nice person and came off as oh so thankful to be an actor on a popular show. Thanks for the picture Zach! On the way out the Hard Rock front door, who was walking in but none other than Seth "Knocked Up" Rogan who stopped and said a quick hello as we walked out. Mind blowing - I met more actors in the last 10 minutes of Comic-Con than I have in my whole life. Very cool way to end the trip.

Labels: Comic-Con

Comic-Con Day 3: Will it ever end?

If I had thought the first full day was full, I had no idea how busy we could really be. The line, of course, did not relent for a 3rd straight day but today the orders began to get smaller, more families and less resellers and hardcore collectors. Today is the day we began to run out of items and specifically the Comic-Con Exclusive Blue Suited Cobra Commander. Working the register next to the line that wrapped into our queue had it's pluses and minuses. On the down side, we were constantly asked by people waiting in line [who were alt east 20 minutes from actually purchasing] if we had something in stock or is we had any worksheets or how much things cost. Usually this was fine except for those who insisted on interrupting us while we tried to complete a purchase. On the up side we got to talk to people as they waited, which was cool, and in one case see a person who really wanted the Blue Cobra and genuinely wanted it for himself. I told him that we had some but not sure how long they would last. Well wouldn't you know it, 20 minutes later I see the same gentlemen waiting just 3 people beyond the front of the line when we finally ran out of the Blue Cobra's for the entire show. Knowing had badly this man wanted his toy, I grabbed the last one of the shelf and held it at my register. He didn't end up at my station but as he walked to register 3, I handed my buddy the last one and asked him to sell it to this guy. All I can say is he left our booth with a big smile and a misty look in his eyes. That made the day worthwhile. For the day my register processes 714 orders. A whopping of 71 per hour - a new customer every 50.4 seconds!

After the long day, we grabbed a quick dinner and then I went back to the hotel for a 2 hour nap. Which was great because I'm not sure I could have handled the backed Basic club and the jumping dance music without it.

Labels: Comic-Con

Comic-Con Day 2: Full Power

The first full day of the Con was just that - Full. Like yesterday, the line at the booth was full and it did not relent over the entire 10 hours the show was open. The morning continued to bring the collectors/resellers and orders so large, they couldn't be physically carried away by an individual. As the day went on, the orders began to get smaller but still continued briskly. It turned out to the busiest day of the whole show with very little downtime. Working a cash register, you get to meet lots of nice people and me and Jess [the one who handled the transaction while I picked products and bagged them up] had 418 customers. That's an average of 41 per hour - a new customer every 1 minute and 21.1 seconds. The oddest thing that happened was the last customer of the day offered me $100 to sell him the Cobra Commander - Blue Suit that was on our display shelf, which had run out of stock earlier in the day. I thought about it for a second but told him that I couldn't.

At 5 pm I did attempt to get to the Dexter panel, that was held at 5:45 however when I walked up to the ballroom, the line wrapped out of sight. I followed the line around the ballroom and into a queue when a Comic-Con rep told me [and the people walking in front of me or behind me] that the line was already too long and the room was full. I was bummed and I made another unsuccessful trip around the line looking for someone I could trade my shirt with for a spot in line but alas, no takers. Sorry I missed you Dexter, please don't kill me.

After this kind of day, we deserved a nice night out which consisted of Mexican food [unfortunately we were not seated in the famed Boom Boom Room] and a piano bar, which included a Wedding Singer medley which was awesome. What a day!

Labels: Comic-Con

Comic-Con Day 1: Surviving The Flood

Having a booth with the largest allowable footprint at the Con does have it's disadvantages - Stocking. The back half of the booth is a stock room, which holds the products we have on hand for the day. We spent approximately 7 hours unloading pallets of boxes and restacking in the booth's stock room. The room was so full by the end of the day, you could hardly move around back there, but it was definitely needed.

Wednesday at the Con is called preview day - a 2 hour preview of the event - and only 4 day [entire show] pass holders are given preview night passes. Preview night starts at 7 pm and the exhibit hall closes down at 9 pm. As soon as the doors opened, there was a rush of people into the building and this is what our booth looked like at 7:05:

The line wrapped through our queue and around the booth. After 2 hours, it had not shrunk in length one bit. It was unbelievable to see the amount of products and money being exchanged with each customer. Show limits. Stacks of hundreds. So much product that 2 or 3 [or more] people had to help carry it away. Comic-Con allowed us to continue to sell until 9:30 pm and over the 2 and half hours, we processed 1/8th of our entire show sales revenue. I guess the slow economy has not yet effected the toy/collectible markets yet.

And that was just the first day...

Labels: Comic-Con

Comic-Con: The misadventures of Bluntman and Chronic

Today was supposed to be our travel day/booth set-up however things got a little delayed. The flight from Providence to Newark was delayed by 30 minutes, which meant our connection was going to very tight [we originally only had a 1 hour layover]. As a just in case, the Continental representative at the gate booked us on their next flight to San Diego. When we inquired as to the reason for the delay the agent said it was those things outside at which we asked if he was referring to the clouds. Later I would comment that the Rhode Island clouds must have been made of iron and that is why we couldn't fly through them. When we asked about the connecting flight he said it was also delayed and when we got to New Jersey we would just have to "pull an OJ" to make our flight. We looked at each other with a puzzled look and Steve asked him if we had to kill a couple of people in Newark to make our flight. We laughed but I'm not sure the agent understood what he had actually said to us. After leaving 30 minutes late and circling Newark for an additional 45 minutes we missed our original connection flight.

So our 1 hour layover suddenly became the 5 hour layover. We could have spent some extra company money and flow to Minneapolis and then to San Diego arriving at 7 but we thought better not chance further delays. So can you say Brewhouse? After our long delay - and maybe some help from Jack Bauer - we were able to watch a not so great film called Drillbit Taylor [save your money and time and skip this movie] finally get to San Diego, The Hard Rock Hotel and off to a local Aussie bar to meet up with the team. What a long day!

Labels: Comic-Con

Holy Load-Of-Cash Batman!

- The Dark Knight opened on July 16, 2008 in Australia and July 18, 2008 in the United States and Canada with midnight screenings in 3,040 theaters. From the first midnight screenings, the film has earned $18.5 million and has set a new midnight debut record beating Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith which earned $16.9 million.

- On its opening day, July 18, 2008, The Dark Knight set a single-day box office record of $67.85 million, breaking a record of $59.8 million previously held by Spider-Man 3.

- Over the opening weekend, The Dark Knight set an opening weekend record of $155.34 million surpassing the previous record of $151.1 million held by Spider-Man 3. It should be noted that Spider-Man 3 sold slightly more tickets [21.96 million] on opening weekend vs The Dark Knight [21.94 million].

- The big weekend haul also includes a record breaking IMAX opening of $6.2 million, surpassing the $4.7 million of Spider-Man 3. [The 6.2 million represents 100% sold out shows]

I can't wait to see The Dark Knight, hopefully it will be this week at Comic-Con.

Labels: Movies

Shaq does Koby one better

- Call Triple A -

Labels: Funny, Video

8-bit PE Game

What do you get when you cross an old-school gaming envoriment with two modern day pot heads? The Pineapple Express Game of course.

It plays like Donkey Kong except the pineapples can go in either direction on a platform and if you eat enough munchies, you can go all Munchie Mayhem and eat the pineapples too. Yummy.

Labels: Gaming, Movies

How not to use your drive up ATM

Labels: Humor, Video

The Favre Situation

On March 4, 2008, Brett Favre formally announced his retirement from Professional Football and Green Bay Packers whom he played for from 1992 through 2007. In his career, Favre has amassed a very impressive resume including:

253 Consecutive Starts (275 including playoffs)
442 Touchdown Passes
61,655 Passing Yards
9 Pro Bowls
7 All-Pro Selections
3 MVP Awards

Favre is sure to be a first ballot hall of fame selection and will always be an iconic footballer.

Last week, Favre expressing interest in un-retiring by sent a letter to the Packers asking for his unconditional release to allow him to play for another NFL team. In response, the Packers issued a public statement that if Favre desires to return to the NFL, he must apply for reinstatement with the Commissioner's office. Once reinstated, Favre would then become an active member of the Packers.

There has been much discussion in whether the Packers forced Favre to retire before he made up his mind or if they are holding hostage now since they will not simply grant him a release to play anywhere he wants [and further saying, if he returned, he would be a Packer but most likely a second string quarterback].

I see it this way, the business side of the Packers currently owns the rights to a player who is retired. If that player wishes to get back into football, that's fine but if so the Packers still own his rights. From that perspective, why should they just give away this asset? Wouldn't it be better to trade this valuable asset rather than just given it away? I know how I would run my business. On the football side, given Favre's outstanding year last season would the Packers want him playing for a divisional foe like the Chicago Bears or Minnesota Vikings? I think not so again the Packers would want to control [as much as they can] where Favre plays next season.

Honestly no one would have given this issue this much attention if he was just made into a second string QB this season because it was time for Aaron Rodgers to be the #1 guy. So if Brett wants to come back and the Commissioner's office grants his return, they he should either report to training camp for the Pack or work out a deal to play somewhere else that is to everyone's liking.

Labels: Football

All most another All-Star fiasco

In 2002, the MLB All-Star game held in Milwaukee, ended in controversy in the 11th inning, when both teams ran out of substitute players available to pitch in relief. At that point, Commissioner Bud Selig, coincidentally a Milwaukee native and former owner of the Brewers, declared the game to end in a tie [this was the second ever tie in All-Star history]. In an effort to avoid this from happening again, Major League Baseball reached an agreement with the players union to award home-field advantage for the World Series to the league that won the All-Star Game [in place of the old alternated-between-the-two-leagues-each-year method].

Home field atvantage and all, it almost happened again. Last night the All-Star game ended in the bottom of the 15th inning when Michael Young hit a sac fly to right field scoring Justin Morneau. If the AL had not scored in the 15th, both teams would have entered the 16th inning with no more eligble pitchers and would then have to use a position player to pitch.

Sure the fans want to see their player get into the game, but I think the managers have to better balance the need to win the game with the need to give each player an inning to play, especailly pitchers. Either that or find a better way to determine home feild atvantage, like best record used in other major sports.

Labels: MLB

Comic-Con Shedule

Next week I will be working at Comic-Con and while I am excited to be part of a team selling collectables to the 125,000 visitors that are expceted to attend, I think the people watching, seeing the other booths and maybe getting to a panel or two will make the trip worth while. I will bring my camera and try to capture some of - what I expect to be - outragious costumes. As for the panels, here is a short list of a few that I would like to attend [if I have some free time]:

Hasbro: GI Joe
20th Century Fox: The Day The Earth Stood Still and Max Payne
Showtime: Dexter
Warner Premiere and Warner Home Video: World Premiere of Lost Boys The Tribe
The Big Bang Theory Screening
Industrial Light & Magic and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Lionsgate and Odd Lot Entertainment: The Spirit Preview
[adult swim]’s Robot Chicken
Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog
Heroes: Exclusive First Look at “Villains”
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles Screening
Lost
Exclusive Q&A with the writers of The Office
Dollhouse
Universal: The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor and Death Race
Fringe Q&A and Trailer Screening
Sony: Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, Quarantine, Pineapple Express

It should be an interesting trip no matter waht I see.

Labels: Comic-Con

Would you miss 8 bucks?

Some 40,000 names were added to the state treasurer's latest unclaimed money list this year. This list is more formally known as the Massachusetts Abandoned Property Division which by law takes assets, such as dormant bank/brokerage accounts or uncashed checks, and places it in the custody of the state treasurer and receiver general. Treasurer Timothy P. Cahill said more than $30 million in newly abandoned property is waiting to be claimed by rightful owners [the total assest the state holds is more than $1 billion on behalf of more than 6 million owners].

One person who popped on this year's list is Manny Ramirez, who is awaiting an uncashed check from Reebok written out in the sum of $10,000. Many people are probably asking how the hell do you forget to cash a 10,000 dollar check. Well if you were paid 5 times that ammount for every day of the year [54,794.52 per day] or more than 10 times that ammount for each game the Red Sox play in the regualr season [123,456.79 per game], you might not miss it either.

Speaking of misplaced checks, recently I was reading a barrowed copy of A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini and when I waas flipping through the pages looking for my bookmark, I spotted something odd inbetween two of the pages - an uncashed check for 8 dollars. The really strange thing is it was not written by or to the book's owner [and lender to me]. The check was also written over a year and half ago. I guess in another year and a half it will show up on the unclaimed money list but until then I will use it as the most unique bookmarker ever.

Labels: Books, Money

Jesse and Barack say interesting things

Sure the camera was off but shouldn't comments like this, which you did not expect to hit the net, be kept to yourself and only shared in real privacy?

I find it odd that if Reverend Jackson has this much anger toward Barrack, why he wouldn't just say it out loud [perhaps choosing different language of course]? I mean, when has Jesse ever held back his personal views on anything?

In a related story, we should all learn Spanish.

While I don't disagree with some of Barack's comments, why Spanish? He mentioned in his "argument" for bi-linguality, that Europeans travel to the US and can speak English, French and German. Since they don't feel the need to learn Spanish, why should we? I say we have a new movement for bi-lingual signs and documents here in the US but the language of choice will be chosen by random for the benefit of our guests from other countries. O tal vez todos podemos atenernos sólo a Inglés.

Labels: Politics, Video

Hellboy vs TV

Hellboy II: The Golden Army opens this weekend. Here's the trailer for the movie:

Leading up to the film, Hellboy has been scene all over the place. For example, here is Hellboy hanging out with Chuck:

Or watch him checking out the set of American Gladiators:

Or even better, sitting Inside The Actor's Studio:

Hopefully before this weekend we could find Hellboy hanging around The Office, get on The D-List, or join up with those other Heroes.

Labels: Movies, TV

New iPhone "Deal"

Starting on July 11, the new 3G iPhone be available at your local AT&T outlet for the low, low, low price of $199 or $299 for the 8 gigabyte and 16 gigabyte models respectively. AT&T will also be offering the same phones but without the contract for $599 and $699 respectively.

These contract-free, meaning it sells without the usual two-year service agreement, phones will not natively be usable on another network, so what does the extra $400 bucks actually buy you? According to AT&T, they are selling these phones contract-free for people who are not comfortable with long term contracts. I'm thinking they are looking for new ways to make money on folks who want the technology but not their service. Basically a $400 mark-up for anyone who doesn't want to use AT&T and can't be bothered with signing a contract and then canceling it later [which today they have their early-termination fee is a maximum of $175]. Of course they could just be sticking it to the consumer who has bad credit but wants the slick new iPhone. If that's the case, how sad for the company to take advantage of those down on the luck and even sadder for the consumer who can't pay his grocery bill but has a shiny new iPhone.

For me, I'll stick to me cool new [and free] Juke and everyone else can have their silly iPhones [on AT&T].

Labels: Business

Happy 4th

Labels: Holiday

So much for music

Music "sharing" has been a widely documented phenomenon starting Northeastern's very own Shawn Fanning through today's BitTorrent file sharing world - especially at the collegiate level. The latest thing for our oh-so clever college kids is book sharing. A site called Textbook Torrents says if you have saved enough money by using this site (say, $200 worth of textbooks), please go out and buy a scanner. Scan as many of your other textbooks as you can, and put them up here for others to benefit from. There aren't very many scanned texts out there, so let's change that. Perhaps not the most legal idea, they maybe on to a new method from companies to distribute materials to a wide audience without needed large bandwidth.

Although they had made some strides, TT received a stop and desist notice from Pearson Education [78 torrents disabled], which may put a dent in there plan of textbook domination. I'll give them some school credit for a clever tag line... You Can't Torrent Beer. True, True.

Labels: Business, Internet

Maybe not such a good idea

My New Venture Management and Entrepreneurship professor loved to talk about the hyper growth of Starbucks and he would refer to the company often as an example of a company that was going against common business wisdom and succeeding. His greatest example was their continued store growth in urban settings, regardless of existing stores. Well perhaps the flawed plan has finally caught up to them.

Starbucks Corp. will close 600 US coffee shops and eliminate up to 12,000 jobs, the most in its history, as chief executive Howard Schultz slows the chain's expansion after it doubled in size in four years. Seventy percent of the stores to be shut are less than three years old, the company said. So much for all those new stores and hopefully those 12,000 barista's will find new work at other locations.

Labels: Business

Amazon sees the future

Amazon opened it's own DRM free music store approximately 10 months ago and they continue to follow the ideals of the open market. Their latest move is to offer "special" deals on albums which can be found on their Deal Of The Day page. This page will update often and currently offers select albums by artist like Madonna, Jack Johnson, Prince, Alice In Chains, New Kids On The Block, Seal, Nine Inch Nails, Metro Station, Julianne Hough, Robert Randolph & The Family Band, and Kelly Rowland - selling between $7.99 and $5.99. Additionally they have the special of the day, which today is We Sing, We Dance, We Steal Things by Jason Mraz offered at the low, low, price of $3.99.

If that wasn't enough, the page also includes 8 free singles, most of which I am not familiar with but could be worth the listen. Amazon continues to find new ways to be a market leader, even if they are not Apple's iTunes.

Labels: Business, Music

Bottom Of The Barrel

Judge Judy is no fool

Create your very own superhero

Is Guitar Hero the new iTunes?

No School [money] For You

More post-Comic-Con video

Wish I could have been at this panel

Comic-Con Day 4: Celebrities everywhere

Comic-Con Day 3: Will it ever end?

Comic-Con Day 2: Full Power

Comic-Con Day 1: Surviving The Flood

Comic-Con: The misadventures of Bluntman and Chronic

Holy Load-Of-Cash Batman!

Shaq does Koby one better

8-bit PE Game

How not to use your drive up ATM

The Favre Situation

All most another All-Star fiasco

Comic-Con Shedule

Would you miss 8 bucks?

Jesse and Barack say interesting things

Hellboy vs TV

New iPhone "Deal"

Happy 4th

So much for music

Maybe not such a good idea

Amazon sees the future

About Me

Favorite Spots on the Web

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