Souvenirs to bring back from Australia: Boomerang, check. Didgeridoo, check. Kangaroo scrotum??? I would have brought more money if I knew these were available! Talk about dominating over another species…

I visited Perth. It is the city that the town I am staying in (Joondalup) is a suburb of. The train takes you right into it’s heart.

About 10 paces after exiting the train, I could tell that this isn’t where I wanted to be. It was like walking around any mall in America, and I wanted nothing to do with it. It’s cute, I guess, and I might have been able to tolerate the ridiculousness of it if I had Jen with me. But I didn’t, so I picked a direction, and started walking.

After a few miles, I entered a section called Northbridge. There, I found old trees, chinatown, and a few bars that I will likely explore in my own little pub crawl next weekend. After entering Northbridge, I hit a cross street (pictured below) which let to chinatown. I even found the only record shop I have come across out here. The shop was small, only sold records, and the owner seemed like he had nothing pleasant to offer, so I walked on.

I continued on my walkabout on to what would be my favorite spot. I saw water in the distance, so naturally, I headed straight for it. There were great views of the city, along with the tranquility of a park where I sat and looked out for a while.

In case you are wondering, gators don’t harbor in Swan River. At least they didn’t seem to. Shucks.

I’ve been in Australia for about 4 and a half days now, and I’ve learned one thing, $20 does not get you very far in Australia. Here is a list of things you can get for $20 Australian Dollars. Keep in mind that this is not factoring the current US dollar value (being valued at about .95 to the Australian dollar). Here goes:

For $20 dollars I can get:

• 1 modest lunch (no drinks)
• 1 bottle of shitty wine with a screw top
• 1 6-pack of beer
• 1 pack of cigarettes
• 4 cups of coffee from McDonalds
• 2 airplane size one-shot bottles of booze
• 2 all day passes on the train

What does this mean to me? Transportation is cheap. Consumables are way past expensive. Before I bought my first pack of cigarettes, an Australian bum asked to, well, bum a smoke. Later that day when I bought my first pack, I seriously considered tracking that fucker down to get it back.

And a 6 pack for $20!?!? I have yet to walk inside the doors of a bar because I can only imagine the price of 1 beer. And no, you don’t get a great discount when you buy a case. I’ll have to do some research on the value of a keg. Also, a normal bottle of whiskey (the one that is about a liter, not the handle jug) will run about $80.

On the upside, however, I have a beer or glass of wine as I’m getting ready for work in the morning, and here in the office they keep a fridge stocked with beer. Oh, and drinking is encouraged at lunch. At this rate I’m gonna leave Australia with lunch cancer, liver disease, and no money.

Also, did you know that I am living in the future? Yes, the day of week is one day ahead of you, along with the date. But the time difference is 15 hours. Figure that shit out.

Here’s my walk to work in the morning:

I’m about halfway through my Hong Kong layover, and am tired and hungry. I was provided a complimentary breakfast on my long flight from LA to Hong Kong, and decided to go with the squid and scallop porridge. The choice was between that or eggs and bacon. Not sure I made the right choice, but I wasn’t going to let a breakfast like that slip past me. Gave it a go, and will be happy to go with eggs and bacon next time. I’ve been a farty fella wondering the Hong Kong airport.

Notable occurance: Man walks up to a recycling bin. Man discards what looks like an unused napkin. Man hocks a luggy in the bin. Man then clears both nostrils in the bin with wet and stringy snot rockets. Makes me wonder why he threw away the napkin first. No one seemed to pay any mind.

It’s been a long time. Months.

I’m heading to Australia on Monday. I’ll be there for a couple weeks. I have a 7 hour layover in Hong Kong. The trip each way takes over 34 hours. Should be worth a story or two.

F Eddie.

You are looking at the entrance of Cinepolis, a luxury cinema located in Southern California. I love the idea, but the execution didn’t quite work out when I went. So although I thought it to be a pretty cool concept on paper, this will be a generally poor review.

Jen took me to see Crazy Stupid Love. Great movie.

The good:

I went not knowing what to expect. First of all, I must say that I was very pleasantly surprised when presented with the price of admission. One ticket was $20. Sure, it’s more expensive than a movie in an average movie theater. But upon entering the theater, it is easy to understand why.

I always thought of getting a good seat in a movie theater is a lot like getting a good seat on an airplane. You don’t want anyone sitting next to you so you have full access to both armrests. You don’t want anyone behind you to prevent the seat back kicking, and you definitely don’t want anyone in front of you so you can put your feet up. Although cushioned, usually the chair isn’t very comfortable, also very airplane-like.

But Cinepolis certainly has a leg up on your ordinary movie theater. The chairs are set up in pairs with a small table in between. The table has a lamp that is very dim during the movie, enough to give you a little bit of light, but low enough to cause no distraction during the movie. The chair, a soft leather, plush, extremely comfortable recliner. There are 3 buttons on each chair. The 1st raises the footrest, the 2nd reclines the back and slides the entire thing forward slightly, and the 3rd is a call bell for your own personal butler. Yes, I am 100% serious.

Get there early enough to place an order before the movie (and make a reservation to make sure you have your seat). Yes, the menu has the standard gourmet popcorn. But you can also get drinks (beer, mixed, or even a full bottle of wine), dinner (sushi, kobe sliders, etc), and deserts. You ring the call button that is a silent alarm that notifies a waiter outside the theater that you need something. They creep up, take your order, and come back with your goods.

This, however, brings me to…

The bad:

The service is AWFUL. Jen and I ordered drinks before the theater even came close to filling up, and before the previews started. We wanted a little quench before we ordered more from the menu. Others around us were being served full meals, bottles of wine, and our drinks hadn’t arrived yet. We figured they were busy, so opted to wait it out. Still no drinks. We were going to order snacks, more drinks, and a desert, but instead just watched the movie without a single nod from our server. So we just enjoyed the movie, and chalked it up to chance that we were completely ignored.

After the movie, you bet we talked to the manager. He came over, and we asked for a refund on the purchase of our drinks. Yeah our butler had a thing to swipe your card as you place your order, as policy for Cinepolis. So as he was leaving to hit the register with my refund, I told him that I also wrote in a tip. The manager, obviously a nimwit, asked if I wanted that back too.

Let that soak in. Do I want my tip back for my drinks that never came…

I said… duh’of course!

So he brought back my receipt for the refund to my card, along with a few dollars for my tip. I told him that he didn’t need to give me cash out of the register, just make sure the tip doesn’t get charged from my card. He said ok, and we went on our merry way. I was hoping for an apology, maybe a next time is on us offer, but nothing. Oh well.

A few days later I checked my bank statement, and you guessed it, the waiter took my god-damn tip.

So the idea is a great one, one that I would probably utilize more than a standard movie theater, but it is very poorly executed. I’m sure they will do well, but as a service oriented business, they need to educate themselves. Go there if you’d like, but chances are you won’t see me there.

So you may have read my last post about the email from Netflix and exactly how absurd the content struck me. Well, folks, Netflix has reacted to their inevitable downward spiral with the classic I was just kidding plea! Here’s how it plays out, at least in my head:

Netflix to cute girl: Hi, I like you, do you want to go out with me?
Cute girl to Netflix: Ew, gross, no way!
Netflix to cute girl: Ha, I was just kidding anyway.

I need to play the lottery sometime. I find it impossible to live in this world.

I’m sure many of you received the email from co-founder and CEO of Netflix this morning. I read it sitting on my back porch before leaving for work this morning. My first impression on reading it was some kind of gratitude, but a gratitude that I couldn’t really identify. Upon further thought, the email’s ridiculousness started to emerge. Let’s go through it together.

Dear David,
I messed up. I owe you an explanation.

Ok, I was previously unaware that you messed up. Strange way to open. I’m listening.

It is clear from the feedback over the past two months that many members felt we lacked respect and humility in the way we announced the separation of DVD and streaming and the price changes. That was certainly not our intent, and I offer my sincere apology. Let me explain what we are doing.

I didn’t give much thought about the separation between DVDs and streaming video by Netflix, nor the price changes, but now that you mention it, doubling the price of service while eliminating services rendered does seem pretty absurd. Are you gonna give me a refund or incentive for stick with you?

For the past five years, my greatest fear at Netflix has been that we wouldn’t make the leap from success in DVDs to success in streaming. Most companies that are great at something – like AOL dialup or Borders bookstores – do not become great at new things people want (streaming for us). So we moved quickly into streaming, but I should have personally given you a full explanation of why we are splitting the services and thereby increasing prices. It wouldn’t have changed the price increase, but it would have been the right thing to do.

Guess I shouldn’t hold my breath for that refund. So to reiterate, you want to compare yourselves to AOL dialup and Borders, two failed businesses. Odd approach. Are you saying Netflix is going to follow in their footsteps?

So here is what we are doing and why.

Ok, is this an apology? A failed mission statement? An backwards advertisement?

Many members love our DVD service, as I do, because nearly every movie ever made is published on DVD. DVD is a great option for those who want the huge and comprehensive selection of movies.

Everyone likes movies.

I also love our streaming service because it is integrated into my TV, and I can watch anytime I want. The benefits of our streaming service are really quite different from the benefits of DVD by mail. We need to focus on rapid improvement as streaming technology and the market evolves, without maintaining compatibility with our DVD by mail service. So we realized that streaming and DVD by mail are really becoming two different businesses, with very different cost structures, that need to be marketed differently, and we need to let each grow and operate independently.

So your reasoning for doubling the price of the service you provide is because you are making two companies out of one? I’m not sure why I’m paying for you to do this.

It’s hard to write this after over 10 years of mailing DVDs with pride, but we think it is necessary: In a few weeks, we will rename our DVD by mail service to “Qwikster”. We chose the name Qwikster because it refers to quick delivery. We will keep the name “Netflix” for streaming.

Qwikster? Really? Kudos to the marketing genius that came up with that one.

Qwikster will be the same website and DVD service that everyone is used to. It is just a new name, and DVD members will go to qwikster.com to access their DVD queues and choose movies. One improvement we will make at launch is to add a video games upgrade option, similar to our upgrade option for Blu-ray, for those who want to rent Wii, PS3 and Xbox 360 games. Members have been asking for video games for many years, but now that DVD by mail has its own team, we are finally getting it done. Other improvements will follow. A negative of the renaming and separation is that the Qwikster.com and Netflix.com websites will not be integrated.

So you are making the process of watching and renting movies more complicated and increasing the price of the service. Sounds like a recipe for disaster.

There are no pricing changes (we’re done with that!). If you subscribe to both services you will have two entries on your credit card statement, one for Qwikster and one for Netflix. The total will be the same as your current charges. We will let you know in a few weeks when the Qwikster.com website is up and ready.

You’ve already doubled the price while complicating the process. So now you expect me to be thankful that you’re done raising the price for now?

For me the Netflix red envelope has always been a source of joy. The new envelope is still that lovely red, but now it will have a Qwikster logo. I know that logo will grow on me over time, but still, it is hard. I imagine it will be similar for many of you.

Put the DVD in a mud-covered raccoon pelt for all I care. My guess is your customers don’t see a envelope as a “source of joy” no matter what lovely color.

I want to acknowledge and thank you for sticking with us, and to apologize again to those members, both current and former, who felt we treated them thoughtlessly.

Both the Qwikster and Netflix teams will work hard to regain your trust. We know it will not be overnight. Actions speak louder than words. But words help people to understand actions.

Respectfully yours,

-Reed Hastings, Co-Founder and CEO, Netflix

Here’s what I walk away from this email.

One, I feel like Netflix is taking me for a ride. They/he would have been better off leaving well enough alone. I may be walking away from Netflix with self-righteous justification after this email.

Two, Netflix or Qwikster or whatever is not going to see the success that they generated by making these business decisions. Their streaming selection is inadequate at best when compared with a service like Hulu. The one advantage is the fact that they had it integrated with sending what they could not stream. So by dividing themselves, they are in turn hurting their marketability.

Three, The door is wide open for a new company to sweep in and take a hundred thousand Netflix customers in the first 2 weeks.

I can’t imagine that many of you have read this entire post, but if you have, I’d like to hear what you make of this.

Jen and I rode our bikes to see Devo last Friday night at the Del Mar Race track. It was like the kick-off for the bachelor party weekend where we could still hang with our lady friends before the trek out to the desert.

The Del Mar Racetrack is a pretty cool place that is very well known in Southern California. It is especially popular in the summer months when they have events like the horse races (opening day is a huge one), the fair, beer festivals, and the many concerts that usually follow the aforementioned events. I have now seen Cake, The Flaming Lips, The Beach Boys, and Devo at the Del Mar Fairgrounds. It usually costs $6 to get in the gates, which means that you can see brand name bands at generic prices! I saw Cake for $6. I saw The Flaming Lips for $6. Just make sure you get through the gates before the last race takes place because if you come after that last race, the price inflates to 300+% of the original price. Jen and I got there late last weekend and shelled out the full $20 each to see the show.

My guess is that when I mention Devo, you are all thinking about Whip It and funny hats. Although this is what gave them their place in the lime light, they are far more than that. They have a new(ish) album out called Something For Everybody and it is fantastic! Their music, being of the nerd electronic variety, is pretty popular now and I would guess that if they weren’t middle aged and MTV actually played music videos, they would be big golden god rock stars. Check ‘em out!

They are such nerds! I love ‘em! If you like the song, get their album. It’s a rockin’ good time!

My nickname was Crocodile Dave last weekend while we were in the Mojave Desert. I bought a new hat for the trip and enjoyed sporting it every second of the day. It kept my neck nice and cool and prevented me from getting sun burnt while enduring the sun of the high desert. Here is vanity at disgusting levels…