Greetings Earthlings!

Warner Bros launches "made-to-order" DVD service (Reuters)

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Warner Bros on Monday became the first studio to open its film vault to "made-to-order" DVDs, as it sought new revenues in a slumping DVD market by making it possible for fans to buy decades-old films.

Warner Bros, owned by Time Warner Inc, made an initial batch of 150 titles available for purchase online at http://www.WarnerArchive.com , including 1943 comedy-romance "Mr. Lucky" starring Cary Grant and the 1962 release "All Fall Down" with Warren Beatty and Eva Marie Saint.

Sales are not expected to approach those of new releases on DVD, but the service gives Warner Bros another way to make money from a film archive it already exploits by selling titles for broadcast in the United States and internationally.

The on-demand service allows Warner Bros. to avoid the risk of manufacturing too many copies of old or obscure titles and shipping them to retailers because customers directly order only the titles they want to buy.

"This way you've completely eliminated the risk of not selling them. You're not going to make them until they're sold," said Tom Adams, president and senior analyst with Adams Media Research.

Warner Bros. said that each month it will make about 20 films and television programs from its archive available for purchase through this DVD-on-demand program.

The new Warner Bros. initiative comes as the movie industry faces declining DVD sales. Last year, amid the ongoing recession DVD sales fell by 7 percent to $21.6 billion, the Digital Entertainment Group said.

Studios are mainly looking to the emerging Blu-ray disc market to counter declining DVD sales, Adams said.

Last year, sales of Blu-ray discs quadrupled to nearly $750 million, the Digital Entertainment Group said.

But with the new DVD-on-demand service, Warner Bros can supplement its sales by appealing to collectors and fans.

The Warner Bros film archive has 6,800 titles. Since it entered the DVD market in 1997, the studio has released only around 1,200 of those titles from the vault. By comparison, the company expects by the end of the year to have more than 300 titles available via the DVD-on-demand service.

"I think ultimately the odds are very good that every film ever made will be available on this kind of basis, because why not?" Adams said.

Warner Bros. is charging customers $19.95 per title, plus shipping, for the new service. Titles also can be downloaded directly to a customer's computer.

(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis: Editing by Bob Tourtellotte and Gunna Dickson)

Why would anyone do this?

Toilet torcher' reward offered

The mystery attackers have targeted toilets across San Francisco

A US firm is offering $5,000 (£3,450) for clues leading to the arrest of an arsonist who has been setting portable toilets on fire across San Francisco.

The Clorox Company is also offering a year's supply of toilet cleaning products in exchange for such tips.

More than two dozen toilets on San Francisco construction sites have been set on fire in the city in recent months, the Associated Press reports.

The cost of the damage has been estimated at $50,000.

The Clorox Company is sending out a team to advertise its offer to locals.

The patrol service is "a crappy job, but somebody's got to do it", joked a company spokesman.

I love this bit of animation. Made me laugh when I first saw it years ago and now its back thanks to the blessed tube of you.

This about sums it up...


There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.

John Rogers (Kung Fu Monkey Blog)

I keep joking with Ann I want to renew our vows in Las Vegas with a midget Elvis officiating, but this would be better.

'Star Trek' couple beaming after winning wedding prize

It might even make Captain Kirk a little jealous.

Justin Gruba and Alissa Mellis of Troy captured 35.48% of the 1,181 votes cast in the Detroit Science Center’s “Star Trek: The Exhibition” Ultimate Wedding Package Contest to win a June wedding on the exhibit's recreated bridge of the USS Enterprise and a reception for 200 at the museum. They will also nab a Star Trek honeymoon suite at the MGM Grand Detroit.

Online voting ended today for nine couples, including Gruba and Mellis, who got engaged in the exhibit on Valentine’s Day.

“Marriage is a journey and an adventure,” the couple wrote on their application for the contest. “Like the voyage of Star Trek, we will go boldly go into an unknown future together.

"We are sure to face many challenges, especially in these difficult times but we will have courage! It would be a great honor to begin our journey through life on the bridge, a place that represents courage, hope and always a better tomorrow."

Saw this last night poking about the net....

View-Master 3-D travel reels head into the sunset

By DOUG WHITEMAN – Mar 4, 2009

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Amber LaPointe's introduction to one of the country's greatest tourist attractions came from small square pictures on a white wheel.

"It was like you could look into a world away," said the 28-year-old from Toledo, Ohio. "My only image of the Grand Canyon was from the View-Master."

The iconic reels of tourist attractions, often packaged with a clunky plastic viewer and first sold to promote 3-D photography, are ending their 70-year run after years of diminishing sales.

Collectors like Mary Ann Sell of Maineville, Ohio, are dismayed.

"The whole summer I was 5 years old, before I went to school, I traveled the world via View-Master. It was great, and now kids won't have the opportunity to do that," said Sell, 57, who owns upwards of 25,000 scenic reels.

Scenic discs are no longer a good fit

for the Fisher-Price division of toy maker Mattel Inc., a spokeswoman said, and the company stopped making them in December. Fisher-Price, based in East Aurora, N.Y., will keep making better-selling reels of Shrek, Dora the Explorer and other animated characters, spokeswoman Juliette Reashor said in an e-mail to The Associated Press.

Peering at images shot from the top of the CN Tower in Toronto or the rim of the Grand Canyon could induce vertigo, they were so vivid. Elvis Presley's "jungle room" at Graceland is on a reel, and Mary Tyler Moore used the toy to check out vacation spots on her eponymous TV show.

Mark Finley, general manager of View-Master scenic reels distributor Finley-Holiday Films, insisted the souvenirs — which inventor William Gruber debuted with backing from a postcard company in 1939 — still can appeal to children.

But Clinton Brown of Columbus, who will turn 4 on Sunday, gave the View-Master that his mother, Karina, bought him a clear thumbs down.

"It's boring," he said, his mother's fond childhood memories notwithstanding.

Toy industry analyst Sean McGowan with Needham & Co. said View-Master has been in decline since its heyday in the 1960s and 1970s.

"That's not what the kids are looking for in the back seat of the car," he said. "They're looking for a DVD that plays on the back of Daddy's seat."

Based on its limited shelf space in stores, McGowan estimated View-Master brings in less than $10 million a year, compared with overall revenue of $5.92 billion for El Segundo, Calif.-based Mattel in 2008. Finley said the shops at Yellowstone National Park typically sell 8,000 View-Master sets each year for up to about $13 each.

McGowan found the scenic discs' cancellation sad but not surprising.

"When I was a kid, everybody I knew had a View-Master, so you could sell (the reels) everywhere," said McGowan, 48. "Hardly anybody has it anymore."

Associated Press writer John Seewer contributed to this report from Toledo, Ohio.

I have great memories of this when I was a kid. BUt then its hard to compete with TV, DVDs, & the internet to entertain kids. And I had a bunch of ones about the places I visited with my family. The viewmaster kept those memories alive.

Visit http://www.vmresource.com/ if you are young enough to have no idea what I am talking about.

Let's tax caffeine, legislator argues
New revenues » Cigarettes are taxed, why not soda pop?

By Robert Gehrke

Updated:03/12/2009 03:04:40 PM MDT


Have a Coke and a tax.

That's what Rep. Craig Frank wants his colleagues in the Legislature to consider.

Frank, R-American Fork, has asked lawmakers over the next year to study the potential for taxing caffeine, a response to proposals this session to hike the tax on cigarettes - all of which failed.

Frank said his intent initially was just to target caffeinated sodas and other cold beverages, but he has decided to look at the substance more broadly.

"Some feel [the cigarette tax is] a tax on those who are addicted to a substance that frankly they enjoy [but] we say that's a harmful thing to do.

At the same time, the government is addicted to the fee revenues," said Frank. "So in light of that, if we're really going to find a revenue stream on something addictive, why not cold caffeine?"

His proposal is contained in a master study resolution approved unanimously Thursday by lawmakers.

Frank said he has seen research that caffeine can cause spontaneous abortion, psychological abnormalities and other disorders.

"We're going after people who have problems with addiction for a revenue stream, only caffeine would be one that is more broad-based," said Frank, who calls himself a "social caffeine drinker."

Most of Utah's population and more than 80 percent of the Utah Legislature belong to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which discourages its members from drinking "hot drinks." Some Mormons have interpreted that to extend beyond coffee and tea to caffeinated beverages.

*dadiceguy spins in
dadiceguy Just call me the American Gamera
GB Adult-sized mutant mega-turtles...
dadiceguy Hero in a fat shell... Gamma Power!
* M laughs.
GB Never thought of a Gamora/TMNT crossover before. Really obvious when you think about it.
* M nods.
M But in that case, are Shredder and the Hand actually originally the heroic defenders-of-earth who have fallen-from-their-noble-purpose, intended to protect the world against the coming of Gamora?

One of Ann's friends at work heard 1985 by Bowling for Soup on the CD player when they went to lunch one day and wanted to hear more of them. So I burned a disc for her. Now her son in the first grade is running around singing the chorus from "Somebody Get My Mom."

Awesome.