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…

Ok, I started a new series of entries to document my triumphs cooking on my grill. I have been grilling for a couple of years now, and feel well versed enough to share some of these with the world.

Ribs

1. Rub select seasoning on the meat side
2. Fashion a trough out of tin foil, put the trough on grill. Add a beer bath with same select seasoning.
3. Put the ribs in beer bath, meat side up, tendon side down. Close boil bag.
4. Have the heat as low as your grill will go.
5. Close grill and ignore.
6. Soak ceder chips.
7. 2 hours later, open grill, take out ribs, keep the beer bath close, and add ceder chips to flame to get a good smoke zone going. Put directly on grill meat side down.
8. Smoke for another hour. Every once in a while it is a good idea to throw some beer on the ceder chips so they smoke and not just burn. Also, have a spoon handy so you can throw a little used beer bath on the ribs to keep ‘em moist.
9. Re-rub and caramelize last 15-30 minutes. I used a jalapeno BBQ sauce along with my seasoning.

I also cooked a little bread with the same seasoning and sauce and threw that on the grill for the last 5 minutes.

Judge for yourself on whether it turned out.

Stop on by and I’ll cook some ribs for us. Just make sure to give me about 4 hours notice…

One more thing. One of the top searches that brought up my blog today is “and that is why I only do cocaine.” Thought that was worth a share.

I made it back home from the Mojave Desert and feel a bit out of place. I’m slowly coming back, but am definitely affected in a way I haven’t been before by spending about a day in the ungoverned land of the Mojave. It’s hard to explain. So here’s the story. Take from it what you will.

I’m planning a bachelor party. I want to make it a good one. I make suggestions to get a party bus to places like San Diego, Los Angeles, even Las Vegas. Besides keeping everyone off the road, the idea is to make the travel part of the adventure. These ideas are nixed in favor of doing something in nature instead. Looks like we’re going camping.

One of the attendees has been to the Mojave on numerous occasions, and recommends going to an ungoverned section of the desert to have the freedom to do what we please and not be bothered with other people or any kind of law enforcement or rangers. I had no idea that these places existed, so with a skeptical tone I asked a few questions:

Q. Where is this part of the Mojave?
A. Do you see that section to the left of the Mojave National Preserve?  Yeah, smack dab in the middle of that.  It’ll be hot as fuck, no one there but us.

Q.How remote is it?
A. It’s remote.  As in, you can take machine guns out there and shoot them all day and all night remote.

Q. Are fires welcome?
A. Fire?  Bring an oil tanker if you want.  But it’s remote.

Sounds at least interesting, doesn’t it? Yeah, we were all hooked from that point forward. The only issue that we could foresee was how we were going to get there. I thought that renting an RV would provide the most fun way to travel, but we weren’t sure it could make the trip. The fella that had been there before had this to say, “If you could get an RV there – if – it would come back with enough damage that you’d have to make an insurance claim. More likely it would either get stuck and require a very expensive tow, or roll down into a ravine.” What the hell, I’m willing to give it a go. So I rented an RV.

I picked everyone up on Saturday morning. I packed most of the supplies that we would need. I packed a portable but capable stereo, chairs, water, meat, snacks, beer, liquor, and a 100 watt Fender amp & Korg Monotribe for good measure. You never do know when you want to make music loud enough to race over a dry lake bed and ricochet off a mountainside back at you. We stopped at a grocery store before hitting the road and ended up leaving with 120 beers, 4 pounds of bacon, 60+ gallons of water, 2 tri-tip steaks, and 30 brats. You’d think we were preparing for either the apocalypse, getting stranded for a week, or both.

We met up with another fellow and his son that were driving up separately in their pickup truck at about 10am. Although they very well could have fit their stuff and themselves in the RV, having a redundant set of wheels was probably good insurance for the just-in-case. We set out for the desert at that time.

The fellas were drinking on the way out for the entire way out. They were setting themselves up for dehydration, but somehow avoided it once we got there. I was driving the RV, which was kind of like wrestling with a drunken dwarf for a good 4 and a half hours. Sometimes it wiggle around on it’s own, but for the most part, I was able to muscle it around. There were some kung fu guys in the party, and they enjoyed my analogy that driving the RV was a lot like playing push-hands for 4.5 hours straight. I guess that’s not an analogy, it’s a simile.

We drove to Ludlow, CA, which is not really in the Mojave. It’s near the Mojave. But we weren’t really going to the Mojave National Preserve, we were going to the Mojave BLM. More specifically the Broadwell Dry Lake in the BLM part of the Mojave. The drive out to where we were camping is about 8 miles. I was in an RV. Saying that the terrain was bumpy is an understatement. We averaged about 8 miles an hour getting out to the dry lake and were able to speed up considerably once on the lake. It took about 50 minutes to get to our camp, and since we were in ungoverned land, I could finally have my first beer of the day while driving. And my second and third.

We set up camp, by um, parking. Erected a few canopies, dug a fire-pit, set out chairs and water jugs, and got ourselves comfortable. Or as comfortable as possible in 105 degree heat. I put on some music and filled up my water bottle. Now here is the disclaimer, there is no way that I will be able to describe the day/night in a way that will in any way do it justice. So instead, I’ll post a few pictures and leave the rest to your imagination. Ask any questions that you’d like, I will answer them honestly.

The Road to Broadwell

Camp

Liquid Refreshments at Ground Zero

Walkabout

Fun with Firearms

The Setting Sun

Sensory Overload

Click to Enlarge - It's a 360 Degree View

Understand one thing. This trip ended up being something that I could not have imagined. It will likely live forever with the 7 of us. We are now bonded for life for sharing this experience, and I would not have changed a thing, period.

It’s a bachelor party weekend.
I rented an RV.
We’re driving out to the Mojave desert.
So we can wander.
Bringing plenty of water.
And returning with stories.
Wish me luck…

I’d like to share a letter I got in the mail with you. It was addressed to me on the envelope, and preceding the content of the letter. Anyway, here it is:

Every time I try to put something to bed, two more things pop up to do. Thus, the more I do the more I have to do. However the corollary, the less I do the less I have to do, doesn’t hold true. Hence, it’s do if I do and do if I don’t. Ultimately, it all boils down to do-do.

Wait, there’s more…

Astronomers today have postulated the existence of black matter and anti-matter — the Darth Vader of existence. Keeping with this line of logic for a moment, it’s possible to have anti-do. This is theoretically capable of undoing all the do-do we’ve gotten ourselves into.

I think that was the segway…

We also clean tile, upholstery and draperies. Rooms over 250 sq. ft. and combination rooms count as two areas. $68 minimum on all orders.

Ok, why did I share that with you? Good question. While writing it out, a few things came to mind. When I opened and read the letter for the first time, I was confused. I wasn’t sure what I was reading, and what the point of it was. Upon reading it for the second time, I got the point of shit on a presumed carpet. I wasn’t sure if this was funny or not.

Then I started wondering if this letter would in any way make me get my carpet cleaned, and if I would use this company. And is writing about the letter justifying it’s intent, or empowering the advertisement? Probably. But I’m not going to clean my carpet, and if I do in the future, I don’t think I’ll use that company.

And why would the letter abbreviate sq. ft. and write out two?

I am convinced that the most passive griffiti art in the world lives in rich beach communities.

Don’t make me say it again. Charlie don’t surf.

The town of Encinitas has their panties in a bunch because of a beautiful piece of street art that is found under a bridge about 100 yards from the beach. It is a mosaic of a surfing Madonna. Not the material girl. Decide for yourself if stakeholders of Encinitas are using my tax money for a good cause. Hold meetings, debate on the subject, spend time and money deciding whether or not this art is offensive, then pay city workers to tear it down. I don’t know, or just thank the unknown artist for adding a splash of beauty under a dirty bridge.

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