woulda shoulda coulda kept all the money

The sickest part of capitalism is that people
(who have probably broken laws to get rich)
think that they got there on their own.

No parent, no teacher, no town, no church,
no policeforce ever helped you to amass and
 keep your filthy lucre?
That's why capitalists are always trying to
kill public goods, like schools, hospitals
and infrastructure. Capitalists don't need
infrastructure. They float on air as do their
imported Chinese products.

Sometimes you have to realise that you
cannot do it on your own and you should
team up with somebody who has the skills
you lack.



One case in point is the creation of one
of my favourite tunes in high school. The
guy who had the original idea did not, or
could not made it into a hit. The way it
happened made it a hit.

checkit:  Guardian

How we made: Jiggs Chase and Ed Fletcher on The Message

The producer and MC of the hip-hop classic recall trying to persuade Grandmaster Flash to grow a social conscience

        Interviews by Caroline Sullivan        

        The Guardian, Monday 27 May 2013 17.18 BST      

 

The Message

Instant hook … Grandmaster Flash in sunglasses with four of the Furious Five in the early 80s; only Melle Mel, centre, actually had anything to do with the track

Jiggs Chase, co-producer

One night, I was over at [rapper] Ed Fletcher's house and I said: "We need to write something." He was lying on the couch smoking a joint with one leg over the edge, and he said: "Don't push me, 'cos I'm close to the edge, I'm trying not to lose my head." And I said: "Oh my goodness – whoa!" We knew he'd just come up with the hook for a song.

Sylvia Robinson [head of Sugar Hill, Grandmaster Flash's label] had had this concept of The Message: she wanted a serious song to show what was happening in society, but hadn't been able to get it together. So we told her what we had and added: "It sounds like a hit." Then all we had to do was come up with some music and write the verses. Ed did all that except for writing the final one, which was done by Melle Mel: he was the only member of Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five who actually had anything to do with the song, even though the band got the credit. Melle was the best rapper in the group, too, but Ed still had to show him how to do it. "You should rap on it, too!" Sylvia said. And he did.

I knew we had something. I knew it would make some noise. But I didn't know it would be quite so big. Ed was talking about what was happening out there. Rap was music for boasting and bragging, but he took it in another direction. He took a chance – and it broke the mould. The Message got hip-hop taken seriously. There were always lots of rap groups, but they couldn't get record deals. The Message also helped hip-hop get a white audience. In Europe, we had more of a white audience than a black one.

The song went up the charts and, since then, the cheques have gotten bigger, because people keep using it. It was used in Happy Feet, P Diddy used it, and Ice Cube. I'm still getting paid.

Ed Fletcher (AKA Duke Bootee), co-writer/MC

The neighbourhood I was living in, the things I saw – it was like a jungle sometimes in Elizabeth, New Jersey. Even though we lived in a nice area, I'd sit in the living room and watch things happening across the street in the park. The lyrics were sort of cinematic: I tried to hold a message up to society.

Rappers then were in their late teens and made feelgood, upbeat songs to party to, so this was completely new. Luckily, Sylvia had the force and foresight to put it out. Grandmaster Flash himself wasn't on the song. He didn't think people wanted to hear that shit. Melle Mel was so mad about that.

Musically and lyrically, I wanted to do something different. A lot of thought went into it. I used to call it trance music – the melody has an asymmetric structure, but the bassline stays the same throughout. Usually, a song has one hook and verses, but "Don't push me, 'cos I'm close to the edge" is one hook and "It's like a jungle sometimes" is another. At the time, I was listening to Brian Eno's My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, so I used a lot of electronic effects and percussion sounds.

The first inkling I had that it would be big was when we did the mix. Sylvia was into numerology, and The Message ran to seven minutes and 11 seconds, which she thought was lucky for some reason. "I have a feeling about this," she said. That night, she took it to Frankie Crocker, the main radio DJ in New York, and the next day it was on the air. Eleven days later, it went gold. Rolling Stone named it the No 1 hip-hop record of all time. I've always thought: "Shit, if I'd known what it was going to do, I'd have kept it for myself."

Freud put a bit of sex into everything

Probably put some sex into the cocaine that
he snorted nearly to the point that his nose was to
have been amputated.

Anyway, I've passed Freud's ideas through
my head over the years and I think I've now
got a few things to say about his stages of
psychosexual development:

1 oral 2 anal 3 the phallic (ages 3-6)  4 the latent
5 the genital
during which the source of libidinal pleasure is in a
different erogenous zone of the person's body

First problem. What is libidinal pleasure when you're
talking about somebody who is largely incapable of
engaging in procreative sex (stage 1-4)?
Why does pleasure have to be sexual or libidinal,
in the first 4 stages? or was Freud a pedophile?

It's one thing to gain pleasure at understanding the
world around you. You start off realising, rather than
just reacting to, the fact that your mouth is used
for acquiring sustenance, or as I like to call it,
a fresh milkshake. stage 1
Pleasure from a tit. Pleasure from knowledge

[1:25 and 1:55]

stage 2 gaining pleasure from getting your shit
together is good, and you stop making a mess
of yourself. Some pleasure in that, but if Freud
is saying that this is libidinous, then what is he
saying about people who practice anal sex. Are
they trapped in stage 2?
Back to stage 1. My girlfriends that gave me
oral sex. Were they trapped in stage 1?
Are we all partly in love with all stages?
I've watched anal sex on Youporn, and just
about every other kind, except midgets,
hermafrodites, and transexual, gay and inter-
species erotica and fat fetish.

By the way, though I like Kevin Smith's
work, when he went for the bestiality in
Clerks 2, he did it well, but when he explicitly
linked it with the scene in Bachelor Party,
it became like a rip off.
 
you decide

[in Italiano. Bunga bunga in the barnyard. Che catso?]

I can't find the great scene from
Bachelor Party

anyway , back to the libido
stage 3 the phallic. I think that makes sense
because that's the stage where most kids
play doctor for the first time, but not the last.

stage 4- the latent. This gives it away. How can
you get pleasure from something latent?

stage 5- is full physical maturity. Hard to miss.
It's called puberty. Many cultures have rites of
passage involving high-jumping or disco dancing.
People are able to procreate,
and thus pleasure is a normal part of that.
Don't need a theory, just a condom

Freud was also into the Oedipal Complex. I wonder
how he managed to square that with the five
stages. Are you phallic when you want your mother?

I was once told something about Freud, and it made
sense. Freud toldthe world some interesting things,
but he told us less about the developing psyche than
he did about Freud himself. He thought so much that
he climbed up into his own ass and was staring at
himself when he was looking at others' problems.
He projected his problems on them.
Or as we say in my home town: It takes one to know one


I think that the way his ideas have made it into the
common parlance is the way that we are all armchair
psychologists and our pejorative terms reflect
some very Freudian problems because we do not actually
see the psycho-sexual problems of difficult people,
nor do we understand how this problem affects their
brain, but we sense these losers, don't we?
Cuz we're butt-sniffers.

Some choice freudian insults:

1) wanker, jerk-off
2) asshole
3) prick, dick
4) felatio face
5) latent homo
6) cunt
7) cum-bucket

Ginger Aid- why do reds get trashed in UK?

I think I'm going to start a charity from downtrodden
red-heads in the UK. They get such a hard time,
sometimes jokingly, but where there's smoke, there's
usually a red being harrassed.

It seems to me, if I can make an assumption or two, that
the ginger/heather person is very much a Celtic symbol
and thus is swept aside in Anglo-Saxon Britain.
Does that make sense?

Anyway, over in Canada, redheads are typically judged
on an individual basis, but I'm here to tell you that
some females are quite a sight with their fiery hair.
But, over there, they have a secret weapon.

The missing part of the puzzle is the secret to looking
attractive. You need to have some confidence. Just
enough to hold your chin up and look at people.
And so some very attractive redheads in the UK
that I've seen have all lacked confidence, and
I'm guessing it's because they've got pissed on so often,
or been told the same jokes since they were kids and are
kinda fed up, but not enough to get that new purple tint.

But, they're missing out. Perhaps they should move to
North America.

Although it ain't truly red hair, redheaded chicks
are like red to a bull, as far as I'm concerned.
I mean that in the "horny" sense,
and not the bloodsport sense.

the anatomy of f%^&*"k

Behold a historical quest for the origins of
the conceptual word: f$£%^&k

I think I may have mentioned that I am
kind of sick of the word, by this age, and
I try not to let others hear me use it.
Butt, I like a good linguistic discussion.
I find that the Brits don't use the word
right when speaking, let alone in writing.
They lack the essence of the delivery and
the attitude expressed towards the
concepts that are being attached to the curse.
I often cringe when I hear it. I want to tell
them "it's just not your word, mate"

To the historical significance thereof:
This word that is pretty crass, was once
 a posh word for the upper classes when
they still had a sliver of class and morals.

from the letter section of a history mag called
History, I think.

Ray Broadbent writes:
(re Quentin Hawkin's letter)
According to Cassell's Dictionary of Slang, the
'f' word first appears in the late seventeenth
century. It is not related to the German 'ficken'
or the French 'foutre'. and its origins remain
unknown. The Reader's  Digest Universal
Dictionary , on the other hand, gives the source,
claiming German origin and the Middle Dutch
'fokken' , meaning 'to strike.'
However, Richard Ehrenberg's Capital and Finance in
the Age of the Renaissance (1928)  states that 'it is
undeniable, moreover, that the Fugger in many
countries were hated by the people. Envy and
misunderstanding contributed not a little to their
unpopularity. In popular language their name
was used as a generic term for a great monopolist.
 The Fucher, Fokker, Fucar and so forth have ever
since become in many different countries the name
for the financiers which the people held responsible
for every evil.'
This is presumably in reference to Jacobe Fugger the
Rich (died 1526) who gained his ast wealth from
control of the silver mines of Schwaz, dealings with
merchant houses of AUgsberg and Bruges, and the
Habsburg dependency on instant loans to ease
their constant strifes. He was possibly referred to
by both Maximilian I and Charles V as 'that Rich
Fugger.'

How to author yourself a big paycheck

So you want to be an author? who doesn't?

As we are in a time of the second coming,
that of Dan Brown's new bestselling book,

we learned about the tricks that authors use
to defeat writer's block. Because authors are
supposed to be like a machine, producing the
palliative, in verbal form, that people need to
get through the commute, or go to sleep.
Lots of money in that. Numbing people's
brains.

If you want to write like Dan Brown, badly,
and write your own pay check, here they are.

the techniques:
Dan Brown wears gravity boots and hangs
upside down, like a bat in a belfry

Philip Roth writes standing up, and can't
stop thinking about his dick
[also Dickens, Churchill, Carroll, Hemingway,
all now dead]

Roald Dahl wrote in a sleeping bag, seated

Truman Capote wrote lying down, after a
coffee, a sherry, then a martini, ciggie at the
ready

Stephen King used vitamins and tea, and starting
at 8am. no wonder he has violent thoughts

John Cheever writes/wrote in his underwear, not
on his underwear. That's Tracey Emin.

Victor Hugo wrote whilst starkers. Invigorating,
especially when you want to bag your maid.

checkit:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/shortcuts/2013/may/13/dan-brown-authors-writers-block?oo=312
 

Desperate female magazine readers

this coming story, part of the women's- confidence -
trick series, will discuss how a certain type of
magazine traps women and slaps them across
the face, only for women to say

"thank you. can i have another"

When a celeb magazine or beauty mag tells
women that if they're not 36-24-36, they
should not wear a bikini, these women
fall victim to the bullshit. The first reason
is: they bought the damn magazine, so
somewhere inside, they want the abuse.

second reason: they react by saying

"I'll show you!"
"I'm gonna fit into that bikini"

and they go off in a huff, planning to work 

out 5 times a day, and eat leaves. But life

takes them over, and they forget, UNTIL

the next mag passes under their noses, whereupon

the battle ignites again.

When this gal, Hadley writes about it in the
Guardian, she misses a few angles. She says
that features about the "bikini diet" are indicative
of a "dearth of creativity" in the mag biz.
Nope, I think it's those mags making money
by intentionally abusing women, as Hadley says,
butt, in the way I described above.

Checkit: Guardian- Ask Hadley how to get a
bikini body

annoying songs of my childhood: Rhinestone Cowboy

I will try to do a combo of my experience and the
creation of the song, as mentioned in the Guardian.

As I watched too much tv, as a kid, Glen Campbell
was all over the place. I guess I always had an early
warning system for schmaltzy music,
if not a nose for good music.
I truly believe that "bad" music fries your brain.
I thought it was one of the things that made parents
so weird, crazy and yet thoroughly boring. I was
saying, one day, I too will be fat, have bad taste
in clothes and music, and hang around with like-minded
people.
It hasn't happen, yet, I'm here to report. got a spare
tire, but it's not shocking.

I knew when a song sucked, and that song tended
to annoy me. Seeing

Glen Campbell in a Sears dude suit and fedora

was more than enough to start my eyes rolling.

Sometimes words make me cringe more than the
music.

Rhinestone Cowboy?

-a cowboy wearing fake gemstones
Very manly, no?

Star spangled rodeo?

-okay, the US banner tune, and 

rodeos are of national importance, no?

Some more ruminations before I reveal the text. The songwriter,
Larry Weiss said it's about pursuing the American Dream.
But why does it have to be in the image of a stupid dude cowboy?
Weiss called the singing cowboys "Rhinestone Cowboys". 

Well, that mystery is solved.

It's "like" a Rh.. Cowboy, but Glen had to saunter on stage
in full dude regalia, as if people wouldn't get the Am. dream concept,
so he had to do the clown act instead.

And, unless I'm mistaken, he left out the f%^%$^&ing rhinestones.
I guess he was worrying it would make him look like Liberace.
"like a rhinestone cowboy, and a candelabra on my steed"

checkit:  Guardian

How we made: Rhinestone Cowboy

Co-producer Dennis Lambert and songwriter Larry Weiss remember how, inspired by Hop-Along Cassidy, they created Glen Campbell's signature song

Interviews by Dave Simpson
Monday 13 May 2013 17.45 BST
In 1975, Brian Potter and I had produced hits for the Tavares, the Righteous Brothers and the Four Tops. Al Courey, who was then vice-president of Capitol Records, asked if we'd be interested in working with Glen Campbell. At that point, Glen's career was in a lull. He hadn't had a major hit since the late 60s, with songs like Wichita Lineman – but he was still a star, with a TV show. Most importantly, I had always adored him. I thought he was an incredible singer and musician.

I told Al that with Glen it was all about the songs. If we could bring something special to the table, he had the artistry and the name to make it really great. We had a terrific meeting of minds. Glen was a product of the LA recording system and understood what went into making hit records. We'd been talking about his feelings, writing and bringing him songs, when Larry Weiss came to play me some tracks from his recent album. One of them was Rhinestone Cowboy. I said, "Larry, this is amazing," and my mind was racing, because I was already thinking about Glen. Larry wasn't that excited to hear that we were going to be producing Glen, I think because he was more concerned about his own album, but he gave me permission to play him the song. At the same time, Al Courey had somehow got a copy. A whirlwind happened within the space of a few days.

Glen doesn't mince words. He either feels something and jumps right on it or he doesn't: he thought the song was great. We didn't copy Larry's version, but took the essence of it, which was right on the money. Why fix something that isn't broken? I've made over a hundred albums, but the two and a half I made with Glen were my absolute favourite times in the studio. His pitch is impeccable; he's got the soul of a true musician. He doesn't read music, but he is a virtuoso guitarist, and it transfers to his voice. In the studio, he didn't wear headsets: he liked a little speaker instead. When he started singing, he'd drown out the track, and that's how he was able to finesse his vocal. He'd give you one or two great takes, and you knew you had it. For Rhinestone, I made him play guitar because I knew the other musicians would be excited to be sitting there playing with Glen Campbell.

I did have doubts that a major star would connect with a song about a guy walking the streets on Broadway, but he understood it as a metaphor for anyone trying to make it. He'd expressed disappointment with the way life was unfolding for him. He was recently divorced, estranged from his family, drinking, and involved with drugs a little too much – and yet he was this beautiful soul who we got to know and really love. That song became his signature tune. When you can make that happen, it's very powerful.

....

Hastings conclusions

In a few words, it's looking increasingly like
investigative journalist Michael Hastings was
iced by one of his powerful enemies.

I have no idea who, and this situation will
certainly receive no light, leaving conspiracy
theorists to fill the void, or perhaps a whistleblower
will tell us the truth.

The proof to me is:
-the supreme heat of the car fire
-the fact that it was a Mercedes, and so not likely
to burn
-the engine was catapulted out of the car
-the tree his car hit at 100 mph was just fine
- a man with a future was driving at 100mph
in the suburbs
-wikileaks claims Hastings thought he was being followed.

for more description check

the truth about cars

http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2013/06/famed-non-automotive-journalist-michael-hastings-turns-a-c250-into-a-bomb/

Lars Schall was brave enough to ask Mercedes about this

http://www.larsschall.com/2013/06/26/the-flying-engine/
the, there's a domestic investigation (2)

checkit: Lars Schall

The Flying Engine
Juni 26th, 2013 2 Comments
Empfehlen / Bookmarken

Imagine a brand new Mercedes C250 that hits a palm tree somewhere in Los Angeles. Would you consider it likely that the engine of the car would fly “50 to 60 yards“ from the car down the street after the impact took place? I’ve asked Daimler in Stuttgart, Germany some questions with respect to the fatal car crash of US journalist Michael Hastings. Mercedes Benz USA says it has “no information to provide because we have very little information on this tragedy.”


Imagine a brand new Mercedes C250 that hits a palm tree somewhere in Hollywood, Los Angeles with high speed at 4:25 in the morning. Would you consider it likely that the engine of the car would fly “50 to 60 yards“ from the car down the street after the impact took place? (1)

Well, that is, among other things, what allegedly happened with regards to the single-vehicle accident that ended the life of Polk Award-winning journalist and book author Michael Hastings on June 18 (see here).

Even though the Los Angeles Police Department stated officially that “no foul play“ was involved in the accident, such a thing (an engine many meters from the rest of the car) was a bit too much for my imagination (the vehicles built by Mercedes Benz belong supposedly to the safest and best in the world, right?). Therefore, I wrote the following media request to the global press office of Daimler (dialog@daimler.com) in Stuttgart, Germany last weekend:

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,

my name is Lars Schall, I am a freelance journalist.

Related to the recent car crash that killed investigative journalist Michael Hastings in L.A.:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrMpkX-SD84,

I would like to know how you comment on the fact that witness Gary Grossman stated on record that the engine of the car (a new Mercedes) flew “50 to 60 yards” away from the car after it hit a palm tree (see video above)? Is this really possible?

I should add that the Los Angeles Police Department said that “no foul play“ was involved in the accident:

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-no-foul-play-suspected-in-michael-hastings-death-lapd-saysd-20130620,0,7630869.story.

So do you believe that the disconnection of the engine from the rest of the car is attributable to shortcomings caused by your company? What’s your explanation? Did anything like that happen before? Moreover, will you establish contact with the LAPD related to its investigations? And what do you think about the statement by witness Gary Grossman that he “couldn’t have written a scene like this for a movie“?

Kind regards,
Lars Schall.....

2 Truth about cars

Famed Non-Automotive Journalist Michael Hastings Turns A C250 Into A “Bomb”

By Jack Baruth on June 19, 2013

Digsby

IM, Email, and Social Networks in one easy to use application!

http://digsby.com

The writing-about-writing crowd is abuzz with discussion about the rather unusual death of Buzzfeed/RollingStone/Gawker writer Michael Hastings. Mr. Hastings, whose name is never mentioned in the press without the immediate mention that he was “the fearless journalist whose reporting brought down the career of General Stanley McChrystal”, died in a single-car accident in Los Angeles yesterday morning. This in and of itself is not unusual, but the circumstances of the crash and its aftermath won’t do anything to quiet the conspiracy theorists who are already claiming that the military-industrial complex found a way to cap the guy.

The definitive video of the incident can be found here. It features everything you’d want in a crash story, including:

    The ejected motor and transmission (seen above)

    Video of the car burning with the fury of a thousand suns

    A man holding a goat in his arms and stroking it to keep calm as someone else discusses the incident

    The mention of Mercedes-Benz

That last bit is the critical part. Mercedes-Benz USA is no doubt sweating bullets over this one. An eyewitness report says that Mr. Hastings was driving at an excessive rate of speed down a suburban street when his car “suddenly jackknifed” and hit a tree “with the force of a bomb”. The Benzo, which by the wheels and quarter-panel appears to be the relatively prosaic but cheerfully stylish C250 four-cylinder turbo coupe, proceeded to throw its powertrain out of the engine bay, immediately catch fire in a manner typically reserved for episodes of “Miami Vice”, and burn its driver until said driver was charred beyond recognition.

This isn’t good. The official ad copy for the C-Coupe states

    Like every Mercedes-Benz coupe, it wraps four sport seats and passion for the road in sleek style. And like every C-Class, it’s a paragon of engineering virtue and extraordinary value. Put it together, and it’s like nothing else.

Nowhere in there does it say anything about “then this sucker is going to jackknife out of control and char you like a steak ordered by a high-school dropout at Ponderosa”. No wonder the guy in the video is stroking his goat to keep it calm. If I owned a C250 I’d be outside staring at the thing wondering if it was safe to drive it at 100mph in a suburb.

Mr. Hastings has been eulogized by his editor at Buzzfeed in an article called Missing Michael Hastings, which unfortunately makes me think of Missing Missy. In the piece, Ben Smith tells us that Michael looked in clothes and that he was handsome and that he worked out. He also lauds Mr. Hastings for writing Valerie Jarett Versus The Haters, which opens with

    Valerie Jarrett is one of the most influential women in America. Protective, fearless, dedicated: the controversial White House figure and Chicago titan is now yolo’ing on the homestretch to get her “little brother” re-elected.

Reading that article at one AM with a bottle glass of Ketel One in hand makes me think that a) I’ve been too hard on automotive journalists and b) half of the TTAC staff could make big money in political writing. That’s because only half of us say stuff like “yolo” and “swag”.

But I’m not here to speak ill of the dead. I’m here to state that I’ve seen dozens of cars hit walls and stuff at high speeds and the number of them that I have observed to eject their powertrains and immediately catch massive fire is, um, ah, zero. Modern cars are very good at not catching fire in accidents. The Mercedes-Benz C-Class, which is an evolutionary design from a company known for sweating the safety details over and above the Euro NCAP requirements, should be leading the pack in the not-catching-on-fire category….

 

H-wood is dead, long live Kickstarter

Kickstarter will create a whole new class of
movie moguls, wearing sneakers and cheap
sunglasses.

The crowdfunding craze has let many new
moviemakers and other entrepreneurs to sell
their wares to a vibrant audience.

Now, I don't know if the investors make their
money back, because I haven't joined in, but
I can see how crowdfunding is half the battle
because you can see if interest exists in your
idea and whether your name has some good
faith attached to it. It keeps you modest.

checkit: ONION

Most Buzzed-About Kickstarter Campaigns

Infographic• Science & Technology•
Internet• ISSUE 49•23• Jun 3, 2013

Last week, the popular crowdfunding website Kickstarter announced the launch of its 100,000th campaign, having collectively raised a total of $631 million in its three years in operation. Here are some of the most notable projects funded through the site:

•The Slightly Younger Justice League: This fan-financed comic imagines the members of the JLA as if they were six months younger than they appear in mainstream adventures

•Miss Doubtfire: In this prequel, we discover that Daniel Hillard (Robin Williams) spent time earlier in his life masquerading as a young, single Euphegenia Doubtfire

•Your Friend’s Piece-Of-Shit Documentary: Oh, God, the description uses the words “generational” and “ethno-biography.” This is going to be horrible

•Big Table Web Series: A couple friends have some great sketches for a boardroom-based web series and they just need $10,000 for a big enough table to do it all

•Mars Needs Moms: For a $14.99 donation, supporters will receive a DVD of the film

Blockbusters are a way of life

["eat my blockbuster"]
When Steven Spielberg and George Lucas complained
recently about the state of the film industry in the US,
that cultural hotbed, not being able to make ends meet,
I tuned out because I thought it was primarily sour
grapes from two very rich producers who hadn't
produced anything of value recently.

My second thought was that it was an excuse and a
warning signal for the Hollywood mafia to again turn
up the pressure in Washington to shut down anything
on the web that would cut H-wood's monopoly.
That may very well be true. SOPA PIPA KAKA

But, when I read the Times 2 today, I found another,
very wise take on this issue.

These two toads complained about how H-wood is
banking on blockbusters ever more, making it
vulnerable to bankruptcy, if those busters flop.

My first thought is of Max Keiser's "Hollywood
accounting" practices. as he says, H-wood never loses.

But Kevin Maher was on target when he said
"but the busters are sh*t" that's why they flop.

Maher also smelled that this will be used as an
excuse to charge even more for movie-goers than
the exhorbitant rates of today.

& This is the piece de resistance:

"Isn't it rather rich that the two people most
responsible for the creation of blockbuster
movie culture (with Jaws and Star Wars) are
bemoaning the existence of blockbuster
movie culture. It's like early 1940s Hitler
complaining about the amount of killing on
the streets and battlefields of Europe"

cheating on your supermarket with other stores

It pays, thanks to digital technology. Store
loyalty cards (how loyal will they be if you lose
your job?) keep track of your purchases and
if it seems you're cheating with another supermarket,
they'll throw coupons at you.
Of course, don't fall for the 10 bucks off, for $60 of
purchases because you won't have money to cheat
with the other supermarket.

And as I've said before, try to avoid those big
international chains because they hoover money
off your main street and send it to the Caymans.

checkit:  The Guardian

How supermarkets get your data – and what they do with it

It doesn't matter if you are part of a loyalty scheme, pay by card or even cash, 'Big Brother' supermarkets know your every move

    Donna Ferguson

   Saturday 8 June 2013   

 

...

We all know supermarkets use information about our shopping habits to target us with personalised vouchers and offers – but how would you feel about sitting down to watch a movie and being confronted with adverts based on what was in your shopping trolley a few hours earlier?

Or what would you think about Tesco using its Clubcard database to check what you are eating, and possibly offering vouchers for salad and fruit if your basket is usually groaning with unhealthy items?...

In other words, "disloyal" customers tend to be offered the best incentives. So, if you want more love from your favourite supermarket, start shopping at its competitors.