Some Mother's Son

The other morning, just as I was about to leave for work, I found myself listening to a journalist reporting from Green Square, now Martyrs' Square, in Tripoli where people were gathering to celebrate their newly won freedom.

Amongst the many people there, he had found a woman holding up a picture of her son.  As it turned out, her son had died in the fighting, and, what with a fairly insensitive line of questioning from the journalist, she began to break down and cry.  The sound of one person sobbing under the general hubbub was truly saddening.  It was a poignant reminder that even during the greatest of triumphs there will often be those who have had to suffer the most profound of losses.

No Trace ATM

Whenever I use an ATM and am prompted "Would you like a receipt for this transaction?", I always find myself wishing that it was offering me the "Would you like a record kept of this transaction?" option.  To which, of course, I would press "No".  

That way I could just keep making withdrawals without ever affecting my balance.

Award Winning Business Losing

There's a yum-cha restaurant nearby that proudly displays the sign "2010 Small Business Champion Awards - Winner". 

Now I'm sure that's not to be sneezed at and they're no doubt rightly pleased about it but it actually discourages me from dining there.  To me, winning a small business award is rather like getting a recommendation from an accountant.  Now if it was a recommendation from a food crtic, say the "2010 Restaurant Award" or "2010 Best Yum Cha Award", it would be a different story but "Best Business"?  To my, admittedly paranoid, mind, that suggests the propieters have simply found the most cunning way to overcharge their customers. 

iYob

The other night on a whim I wandered down to The Basement to catch Daniel Weltinger's Django Reinhardt tribute show. 

The Basement is usually home to a well-informed crowd of music-lovers and one of the very few venues that would host this kind of show.  I say "usually" because on this night, the crowd was unbelievably boorish, talking loudly throughout the show, many of them feverishly tapping on their mobile phones.  At first I was annoyed at not being able to enjoy the music but then, as it became apparent that the musicians were also startled by the "ambient" noise-level, it felt embarrassing to be part of such a yobbish audience.

To cap it off, the guy next to me loudly starts to tell his mate about the new lyrics he's just written and is trying to find them on his phone.  So here I am trying to listen to the band play music that has stood the test of time for over 60 years and this clown thinks his latest thoughts are more worthy of everyone's attention. 

I'm about to lean over and tell the guy that unless the lyrics feature self-obsessed morons with delusions of grandeur and attention deficit disorder, they don't contain enough personal insight.   Then I remember that that's what thoughts are for.  

Cinemanomics - 2 x 12 = 18

I probably go to the movies twice a year.  The $18 ticket before we even get to the ridiculous food prices, which are second apparently, only to the airport, is too steep for me.  The "half-price" Tuesday ticket at $12 is an insult to my intelligence - I know what half of 18 is. 

No wonder people just figure that they will buy the DVD in a couple of months.  With big screens and surround-sound systems a lot more common than they used to be, people will just skip the cinema altogether. 

I know I'm not alone precisely because I did actually feel very alone while catching a movie earlier in the year.  There were perhaps 4 people in the session.  Granted, the movie was in its final week and it wasn't an evening session but a room that empty would suggest a broken business model.  

This model would appear to be based solely on the premise that there are enough fools prepared to pay sufficiently over-the-odds to make up for all of the empty sessions.  The problem with this model is that it only has one solution to any problem, namely to keep increasing the prices to an ever-decreasing audience.  Surely, the plan should be about attracting more customers. 

Here's something for cinema chains to consider: if the ticket was actually $9, I'd go to more than double the number of movies I currently do.  In fact, throw in a choc-top for $1, giving me a great 10 buck movie deal, I'd go every month.  By halving cost, they would make more than five times as much money out of me (admittedly not counting my cheap choc-top but I'm sure they'd still be making money on that anyway). 

So why won't that happen?

In The Dark

I heard a woman asking for downlights the other day.  So many questions raced through my head. 

If downlights light up the room, what's so special about them?  And what other kinds of lights are there? Uplights? Highlights?  And what about lamps?

Doesn't Rate At All

Here's some more dismal science.

So a ratings agency downgrades the USA and carnage ensues on the stock market - globally.  One of the main reasons the US and global financial markets are in such a mess is that a few years ago many worthless American mortgages were bundled-up and on-sold as "five star" investments to American and international investors.  The resulting carnage from that debacle was the GFC: banks folded, the retail and housing sectors collapsed and massive unemployment followed.  It's with facing all these difficulties that some "experts" have now decided that the USA isn't what it used to be.  

Now to be sure, the whole thing is more complicated than this but there are some very obvious culprits.  For example, who was it who gave the thumbs-up to these useless investments?  Oh that's right, it was a group of ratings agencies, including the one that's just downgraded the US economy and started the next crash.

Anyone else seeing a dog chasing its tail?