Category Archives: Entertainment

Entertainment

The Big Idea

I really enjoy watching Donny Deutsch’s television show, The Big Idea. This show introduces you to men and women who have made millions with their Big Idea. It is truly inspirational to hear about entrepreneurs that had a great idea, saw it thru to an actual product, and did not take no for an answer.

My “Big Idea” is to create a show called The Big Idea That Failed. Just like it sounds, the show would highlight great ideas and hard working entrepreneurs that fell flat on their faces. With most businesses failing within the first year, there is an endless supply of material for the show.

I picture the show segments flowing something like this:

Explanation of the big idea
This segment will be very much like Donny Deutsch’s The Big Idea, with the entrepreneur discussing the hope and excitement of making their idea a reality (most viewers will think “dang, why didn’t I think of that?”).

Step-by-step business analysis
This segment will go over the business model, distribution network, cash flow, etc. The first hints that there are problems with the business will crop up in this segment.

Melt Down
This segment will give the why, when, where, and how of the business failure. Essentially, it will be 15 minutes of the entrepreneur crying uncontrollably and explaining what went wrong in nonsensical gibberish.

Where is he/she now?
This segment will show the hopeless state that the entrepreneur is in after dumping their life savings, time, blood, sweat, and tears into a failed business. The closing statement will be, “Well, at least they tried”.

Okay, I was just having a little fun. I am totally impressed with people that have the guts to follow thru with an idea. If everyone were afraid get an idea off the ground, where would we be today? If you get a chance, check out the The Big Idea website. You can click on entrepreneurs they have highlighted on the show and read the details of their success.

Entertainment

Going Out Is Expensive

We went out for a friend’s birthday on Saturday and ended up spending about $120.00. Back in my younger days, that might not seem like a lot of money for a night on the town, but now, it shocks me a bit.

We met up with our group of friends at 2:00pm and stayed out until 11:00pm. We got an early start because it was Cinco de Mayo, and we knew the bars would be packed. Sure enough, there was already a good crowd on hand at 2:00pm. I originally thought we’d be going home around 7:00pm, but we were having such great time that we didn’t want to leave.

I can see how people who go out multiple nights a week can have a hard time getting ahead financially. Heck, that’s part of the reason I had so much credit card debit.

Deals and Bargains, Entertainment

Cable/Internet Savings

My wife cancelled our old Time Warner cable/internet plan and restarted our service to take advantage of a 2-year promotion they are running for digital cable. She was even able to coordinate it so that there was no interruption in service.

We just received our first bill, only $72 compared to the $94/month we were paying previously. This represents an annual savings of $264 for us. With digital cable we get many additional channels including music channels and On Demand. Plus, Time Warner provided us an HD box so that we can access High Definition channels. Let me tell you, the HD box alone was worth the effort. We purchased a 42” Panasonic plasma a year ago and the theater-like picture of HD is absolutely awesome. Tonight, we were getting a kick out of switching between watching American Idol on Fox and American Idol on Fox HD. What a difference.

Deals and Bargains, Entertainment

Affordable Movie Rentals

There is nothing like relaxing on the couch with your girl, a cocktail, and a great movie to watch. At $4.95/movie for new releases, movie rental costs add up. We’ve thought about signing up for Netflix, but never liked the idea of having to wait for the next movie to arrive in the mail. Blockbuster Total Access solved that problem by offering low cost online movie rentals, and the ability to pick-up rentals at your local Blockbuster.

We chose to go with the $14.99/month plan that allows us to have two online movies out at any time.

Here’s how it works:

1) Select movies online and add them to your queue
2) The movie is mailed within 1 business day
3) After watching the movie, mail it back in the supplied envelope or return it to your local Blockbuster
-Each movie returned to the Blockbuster store in the supplied envelope is good for one free in-store movie rental
4) Once the movie is scanned into the system, either at the store or when they receive the mailed return, the next movie in your queue is mailed

We plan to always return the online movies to our local Blockbuster so that we maximize the number of movies we get per month. You’re also given one free in-store movie rental each month. So, if you run out of online DVD’s to return for in-store rentals, no problem.

You could conceivable get 25 movies a month for the price of what it would regularly cost to rent 3 new release rentals. I doubt we would ever have that much free time or even the desire to watch that many movies. Nonetheless, I’m sure we’ll watch our fair share.