Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Hopes Dashed

I'm at a national meeting to discuss all things quality. This morning I was very excited to see that the last speaker of the day was named Deana Croghan. Given the name, this person just had to represent the most perfect person alive. I waited all day with giddy excitement. But alas, she didn't begin to live up to her name. She was a very nice person with many fine quality observations... but she sure wasn't Deana nor was she anything close to Croghan.

Thursday, February 21, 2008

Teardrop

Monday, February 18, 2008

A History of Evil

Tuesday, February 05, 2008

Beatles on Ed Sulivan + ET the Movie + Girl Next Door = ?

Ah, come on... this is easy. The answer is obvious! I'm talking about Hannah Montana & Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert 3D Movie!

Believe it or not, we were among the lucky millions who saw it this weekend. It opened Friday, so that morning (at 6 AM Eastern) I got on-line to pre-purchase my tickets for that evening. Ha! I thought I was being so pro-active and prepared. HA! I say again, HA! All of the shows in the area were sold out for Friday. At 6 AM Friday morning there were only TWO shows with tickets remaining for the ENTIRE weekend... I could choose 9:45 PM Saturday or 9:45 PM Sunday. Hey, having to choose between being late for / missing church or being late for / missing work and school... well, sorry church friends, you lost.

But what an event that movie turned out to be. Silly me. I was afraid I would be bored. But I knew we were in for an interesting evening when I noticed the line forming outside the theater more than an hour before the show was to start. The last time I remember a movie having both ticket buyer lines and ticket holder lines was ET. Of course, this time there were no ticket buyer lines because all of the tickets had been purchased on-line at 6 AM Friday morning.

I was surprised by the ages of the girls. Lots of the girls were much older than I expected (or at least they LOOKED a lot older than I expected.) I had a good hour to scope out the fans as we stood in line with our pre-purchased tickets. I was also surprised to see that several of the older girls already had their 3D glasses. Elizabeth was quite alarmed that she was missing out on something because she didn't have glasses. After several attempts to get glasses she finally asked one of the girls where she got them. Turns out the girl (and her gaggle of friends) had already seen the movie three times and she was in line for number four. Remember, the movie had only been open for two days at this point!

But once the movie started... Well, I'm not sure I walked out of the theater with all of the hearing I had when I walked in. Those girls sure can scream. Now I understand why the Beatles stopped touring. Yikes! Why would you pay $15.00 per ticket (plus the $2.00 service fee for ordering on-line at 6 AM) and then not listen to the bloody movie? The girls were screaming and clapping and dancing in the isles. It almost felt like a Happening or something.

And the thing is - the movie was better than I expected. Sure it was a manufactured Disney experience. But if there is one thing Disney knows how to do it's manufacture experience. If all crass commercialism lacking redeeming moral value and true artistic vision was this good then I'm sure we'd live in a world filled with bubblegum pop and Paul Anka would be king... or something like that.

Anyway, the movie is only going to be out for a week (or there abouts.) So if you want to be a part of this phenomenon you'd better stop reading this and get yourself over to http://www.moviephone.com/ right now!