The Powerball Lottery is Betting that Doubling the Price of a Ticket Will Increase Sales

In the interests of full disclosure, I should start this post by stating that I have never once in my life bought a lottery ticket. These government run gambling entities are even more tilted in favor of the house than any Las Vegas casino. For most of them, half of the collected revenue is taken right off the top in taxes, and I already pay enough money in taxes, thank you very much.

It's a good bet that the economic downturn is hurting the bottom lines of the state lotteries as people find themselves with less spare cash to blow on lottery tickets. To combat this phenomenon, the Powerball lottery has come up with a rather baffling solution, double the cost of a ticket. Here is Yahoo News with the details:

Get ready to pay more for Powerball: Ticket prices are going up to $2.

Lottery organizers hope the price change will entice more people to play because jackpots are getting bigger and the odds of winning are improving.

Because raising the cost of your product by 100% during troubled economic times is ALWAYS a sure fire way of increasing sales. You would think that would be obvious, but apparently is isn't to the morons who are running the Powerball lottery, as shown by this quote:

Lottery officials say they are betting players will like the variety and changes made in the game. But some players say the price increase may keep them from playing as often or not at all.

The real problem, of course, is that the lottery is being run by a bunch of well-to-do twits who can't fathom why a mere extra dollar in cost would deter people from buying their product. After all, they themselves have plenty of extra dollars lying around. I suspect that what they really need to do is spend a couple of hours sometime hanging around at a shabby convenience store observing the broken down state of many of the people who actually buy lottery tickets. Then they might understand that not everyone in America has spare dollars just falling out of their fucking pockets. But of course they'd never condescend to do anything like that.


Bonus: The short film version of Shirley Jackson's classic short story is now available on You Tube:

The Mohegan Sun Casino is $1.6 Billion in Debt

In yet another blow for state and local governments who think more legalized gambling is a great way to increase tax revenues comes a story from the Norwich Bulletin about deep financial problems being experienced by the Mohegan Sun casino in Connecticut:

The parent entity of Mohegan Sun recently received a waiver from its bankers, something the casino operator sees as a vote of confidence in its future. Yet it could be the calm before a major storm in Connecticut’s economy in 2012, an analyst said.

Foxwoods Resort Casino, whose parent also is in talks to restructure debt, and Mohegan Sun are on course for severe financial problems in the year ahead, said Clyde Barrow, a University of Massachusetts Dartmouth professor of public policy who follows the New England casino industry.

The Mohegan Tribal Gaming Authority was unable to complete a refinancing agreement during its fiscal first quarter, which ended today. With that, the authority’s auditors attached a “going concern” warning to 2011 financial statements, authority CEO Mitchell Etess said Thursday.

A filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission said lack of a resolution would materially impair Mohegan Sun’s ability to operate.

So just how bad is it?

Mohegan’s total debt as of Sept. 30 was $1.6 billion, the authority reported. Of that, $811.1 million comes due within the next 12 months, including $535 million that needs to be paid by March 9 and $250 million in 8 percent notes that mature on April 1. This debt will need to be refinanced before the due dates, the authority said Thursday.

So what are the overall implications for the Nutmeg State?

Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun are two of Connecticut’s largest employers and major sources of revenue to the state government. Both are members of the Chamber of Commerce of Eastern Connecticut. Chamber President and CEO Tony Sheridan declined to comment on the Sun’s finances Friday, saying he was still studying them.

What is there to study, exactly? The casinos are deep in debt, and unless there is a miraculous economic recovery they are soon going to have to declare bankruptcy. Looks like Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Tony Sheridan is about to find out what Las Vegas already knows: a gambling-based economy is only sustainable so long as the marks still have money in their pockets. As the old saying goes, you can't get blood out of a stone.

Fifteen Years After Their Reintroduction, Wolves are Being Slaughtered Again

In doing this blog, I've become pretty numb to bad news. But sometimes, I'll read a story that depresses me so badly that I just want to stop the world so I can get off. As reported by the Los Angeles Times, the politically motivated slaughter of wolves has resumed in the very same states where their reintroduction was widely celebrated just a decade-and-a-half ago:

Congress removed wolves in Montana and Idaho from the protection of the Endangered Species Act in April. And this fall, the killing began.

As of Wednesday, the Idaho Department of Fish and Game reported that 154 of its estimated 750 wolves had been "harvested" this year. Legal hunting and trapping — with both snares to strangle and leg traps to capture — will continue through the spring. And if hunting fails to reduce the wolf population sufficiently — to less than 150 wolves — the state says it will use airborne shooters to eliminate more.

In Montana, hunters will be allowed to kill up to 220 wolves this season (or about 40% of the state's roughly 550 wolves). To date, hunters have taken only about 100 wolves, prompting the state to extend the hunting season until the end of January. David Allen, president of the powerful Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, has said he thinks hunters can't do the job, and he is urging the state to follow Idaho's lead and "prepare for more aggressive wolf control methods, perhaps as early as summer 2012."

Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead recently concluded an agreement with Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to save 100 to 150 wolves in lands near Yellowstone National Park. But in the remaining 80% of the state, wolves can be killed year-round because they are considered vermin. Roughly 60% of Wyoming's 350 wolves will become targeted for elimination.

What is happening to wolves now, and what is planned for them, doesn't really qualify as hunting. It is an outright war.

So what is the reason for the about face from protecting wolves as an endangered species, to not even tolerating a few hundred of them in the gigantic western states? Oh, the usual asshattery:

Part of the reason was the increase, particularly in Idaho and Montana, in paramilitary militia advocates, with their masculine ideal of man as warrior who should fight the hated federal government, by armed force if necessary. They were outraged by what they saw as federal interference in the region spurred by environmentalists, and their ideas found a willing reception among ranchers, who view wolves as a threat to their livestock — even though they ranch on federal land — and hunters, who don't want the wolves reducing the big game population.

The factions have reinforced one another, and today a cultural mythology has emerged that demonizes the federal government, the environmental movement and the wolves themselves. Many false claims have been embraced as truth, including that the Fish and Wildlife Service stole $60 million from federal excise taxes on guns and ammunition to pay for bringing wolves back; that the introduced wolves carry horrible tapeworms that can be easily transmitted to dogs, and ultimately to humans; that the Canadian wolves that were brought in are an entirely different species from the gray wolves that once lived in the Rockies, and that these wolves will kill elk, deer, livestock — even humans — for sport.

Once again, as I've pointed out repeatedly on this blog, the most destructive governmental policies are usually bipartisan initiatives:

Politicians from both parties in Western states have been eager to help with the fortifications. In Idaho, Republican Rep. Mike Simpson and the state's governor, Butch Otter, made removal of wolves from the Endangered Species Act a political priority. In Montana, Republican Rep. Denny Rehberg has made delisting wolves central to his 2012 Senate campaign against Democratic Sen. Jon Tester. In April, Tester in turn persuaded fellow Democrats in the Senate to approve his inserting a rider in a budget bill that delisted wolves.

In early November, Sen. Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat, made his own political contribution. Thrilled at the testing of a drone aircraft manufactured in Montana, Baucus declared: "Our troops rely on this type of technology every day, and there is an enormous future potential in border security, agriculture and wildlife and predator management." A manufacturer's representative claimed his company's drone "can tell the difference between a wolf and a coyote." Pilotless drone aircraft used by the CIA and the Air Force to target and kill alleged terrorists now appear to be real options to track and kill "enemy" wolves.

I visited the Canadian Rockies a few summers ago, and one of the highlights of the trip came early one morning when my wife and I actually spotted a wolf near the side of a mountain road. It darted into the woods too quickly for us to get a snapshot of it, but just knowing it was there made us feel good. What a truly disgusting specimen we humans are as a species that we can't even tolerate the existence of a small population of a magnificent animal like the wolf among us.

There are those in the peak oil community who wish collapse would come sooner rather than later in order to halt the ongoing destruction of the natural world. I don't necessarily subscribe to that particular viewpoint, but after reading stories like this one I do understand why they feel the way they do.

NASCAR Track Tries to Hide Declining Attendance by Widening the Seats

Don't worry, I'm not going to turn this post into a Kunstler-esque screed putting down NASCAR fans as if they are solely responsible for dragging America down into the abyss these days. The fact is I really don't care what floats your boat as far as entertainment goes. I have my own guilty pleasures and at one time in my life was spending a couple of thousand dollars a year as an NFL season ticket holder. As long as your entertainment doesn't begin to fog your brain to the point where you might actually consider voting for the likes of Newt Gingrich or Donald Trump, I say knock yourself out.

Still, I couldn't help but find this story from ESPN amusing:

Dover International Speedway in Delaware is hoping to make race fans' experience a little more comfortable by widening seats in the track's outdoor grandstands.

The speedway announced Thursday that the process of increasing seats from 18 inches to 22 inches will start next year and will be complete by 2014.

Denis McGlynn, president and CEO of Dover Motorsports, says the widening comes in response to fans' suggestions. The change will reduce the capacity of the speedway from 140,000 to 113,000.

I could start making all kinds of tired, overused jokes about fat, lazy ass Americans here, but will refrain from doing so. Instead, I'll just point out the audacity of Dover Motorsports President Denis McGlynn trying to pass off the fact that he is shrinking his available product base by 27,000 and trying to pass it off as if he gives a shit whether the more bovine attendees at his auto races are able to wedge themselves into the seats or not. Fact is, if Dover Motorsports could still sell 140,000 tickets to their auto race, they would, and wider fan posteriors be damned.


Bonus: My personal favorite auto racing song

More Than Half a Trillion Dollars Needed to Fix America's Water and Sewer Systems

Though the rapid deterioration of the nation's roads and bridges gets more publicity, the similar situation involving our water and sewage systems may in fact be even more dire, as indicated by this rather sobering story from the Washington Post:

At first glance, the pizza-size hole that popped open when a heavy truck passed over a freshly paved District street seemed fairly minor.

Then city inspectors got on their bellies with a flashlight to peer into it. What they discovered has become far too common. A massive 19th-century brick sewer had silently eroded away, leaving a cavern beneath a street in Adams Morgan that could have swallowed most of a Metro bus.

It took three weeks and about a million dollars to repair the sewer, which was built in 1889.

Time and wear “had torn off all the bricks and sent them God knows where,” said George S. Hawkins, general manager of the District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority. “We have to find them and see if they’re plugging up the system somewhere farther down the line.”

Sadly, this isn't just a Washington story:

Although they are out of sight and out of mind except when they spring a leak, water and sewer systems are more vital to civilized society than any other aspect of infrastructure.

Rapidly deteriorating roads and bridges may stifle America’s economy and turn transportation headaches into nightmares, but if the nation’s water and sewer systems begin to fail, life as we know it will too. Without an ample supply of water, people don’t drink, toilets don’t flush, factories don’t operate, offices shut down and fires go unchecked. When sewage systems fail, cities can’t function and epidemics break out.

“All the big cities have these problems, and to me it’s the unseen catastrophe,” Hawkins said. “My humble view is that the industry we’re in is the bedrock of civilization because it’s not just an infrastructure that is a convenience, that allows you to get to work faster or slower. At least with bridges or a road, people have some idea of what it is because they drive on them and see them. ”

And just like roads and bridges, the vast majority of the country’s water systems are in urgent need of repair and replacement. At a Senate hearing last month, it was estimated that, on average, 25 percent of drinking water leaks from water system pipes before reaching the faucet. The same committee was told it will take $335 billion to resurrect water systems and $300 billion to fix sewer systems.

Kudos to the Washington Post for not understating what the risks are of this particular infrastructure crisis. And a crisis is what it is. For just about two-thirds of the cost of the Iraq War, America could have addressed this situation, which given the potential for a major epidemic outbreak is obviously a far greater threat to our national security than Saddam's Hussein's non-existant weapons of mass destruction ever were.

Probably, the most frightening part of this story came at the very end:

Firefighters are equipped with computerized cue sheets to tell them which of the 9,157 hydrants in the District have enough water pressure to put out a fire.

Someday, they are going to do that check and the answer is going to be "none." And then the city will really be in trouble.

But hey, didn't Rick Santorum say something stupid about gay marriage again on the campaign trail the other day? I guess all is well in the republic and this report can be safely dismissed as the ramblings of an unbalanced Cassandra.

Welcome to the Fifth Year of The Long Emergency

Let me start my first long post of the New Year off with an admission. Four years ago at the beginning of 2008, when I first became aware of peak oil and really began to understand the dire implications for our modern industrial society, I never would have expected to be sitting here four years later writing about how amazing it is that somehow business as usual continues to hold together. Back then, if you’ll recall, oil prices were just hitting triple digits for the first time, and dire prognostications abounded claiming that very shortly oil would surpass $150 or $200 or even $300. Ten dollar a gallon gasoline was said to be just around the corner, and with it would come the very quick collapse of our consumer economy.

As we all know now, the more extreme scaremongering predictions did not come to pass. The closest we came to a fast collapse was in September 2008 with the demise of Lehman Brothers and a stealth worldwide electronic bank run. The powers that be apparently acted just in time to “save” the system, and since then have been doing everything they can to prop up the façade of business as usual. As it turned out, author James Howard Kunstler was very astute to label the crisis, “The LONG Emergency.”

It is pretty clear looking back with hindsight that whatever pressures were building up before then, The Long Emergency really began with the start of the Great Recession at the beginning of 2008. As such, we are now entering the fifth year of a peak oil crisis that I expect will take at least a generation to fully play out. It is helpful, I think, to look back on the events of the past four years so that we might better develop an understanding of where we are headed and when. In that spirit, I have put together a brief summary with labels for each year as it has played out. Some might say that a calendar year is an arbitrary measurement of time and giving each one a label is superficial, but I’ll have to beg your indulgence on that one.

So without further ado:

2008 – The Year of the Crash: Most people when they think of 2008 from an economic standpoint think of the stock market crash of that year which was triggered in part due to the skyrocketing of oil prices to $147 a barrel in July. The resulting financial crisis was the first huge peak oil related shock wave to hit the global economy, signaling to America and the world that we are collectively approaching the point in which natural limits are going to make continued real economic growth impossible. Of course, the message went unheeded, partly because oil prices crashed even more dramatically than the stock market did, returning briefly to the $30 range early the following year as the Great Recession wreaked widespread havoc.

2009 – The Year of the Bailouts: The massive response of the elites to the crash of 2008 was, of course, to bail out the “too big to fail” financial institutions worldwide and to have central banks pump as much liquidity into the system as possible. The strategy “worked” in so much as it arrested the free fall of the economy. After bottoming out in March, the stock market began to rapidly bounce back. The massive hemorrhaging of jobs, which peaked around the time of the stock market low that year, continued for quite a bit longer, creating an historic drop in employment which would bedevil the economy for many years to come even if peak oil were not an issue. Bailouts were also given to more traditional businesses like the automobile industry, and the federal government ramped up spending for Obama’s stimulus package, among other expensive programs, to the point where the annual federal budget deficit tripled from its previous all time high set just the year before.

2010 – The Year of the “Green Shoots”: As Obama entered his second year in office, the economy had at least stabilized to the point where politicos and members of the mainstream media could plausibly go on teevee and proclaim that there were “green shoots” springing up that represented the beginnings of a real economic recovery. Obama and the Democrats, in fact, felt confident enough to enact the massive corporate giveaway program known as Obamacare. The stock market continued its rebound, fueled by the zero interest rate and quantitative easing policies of the Federal Reserve. The employment situation also stabilized after two full years of relentless job losses. All was not well, however, as the Tea Party protests rose to a crescendo that summer and Obama and the Democrats suffered a massive defeat in the mid-term elections due to continued economic stress being felt by average Americans, and an “enthusiasm gap” felt by many of his supporters who felt he had rescued Wall Street and the big banks at their expense.

2011 – The Year of the Protests: Sure enough, the discontent with the economy finally exploded not just in the United States, but all over the world. Rising food and energy prices, caused in part by loose central bank monetary policies, particularly those of the Federal Reserve, helped touch off protests throughout the Middle East early in the year that toppled long standing autocratic regimes in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya. By September the protests had spread to America with the rapid explosion of the Occupy movement, fueled by the discontent of young adults who felt they had been robbed of their futures during the crisis. Oil prices shot back up into the triple-digit danger zone, once again threatening the consumer economy. Meanwhile, Europe lurched from crisis to crisis as a number of countries, led by Greece, slowly drowned in an ocean of sovereign debt. Back in the U.S. the political system showed signs of coming completely unglued, with repeated government shutdown threats, the threat of a politically motivated sovereign default and a Republican presidential campaign field full of candidates who seemed completely detached from any kind of reality.

And that brings us to the present day in which the world economy seems to be once again teetering on the brink, and the threat of massive widespread unrest and even resource wars are omnipresent. When we look back a year from now at the 2012 just unfolded, what will we say was the dominant theme of year five of The Long Emergency? Might it be the Year of the Default as the Eurozone finally implodes? Or perhaps it will be the Year of the Street Violence as the rage fueling the protests in America finally begins to resemble genuine mayhem that occurred in so many U.S. cities in the late1960s. Or perhaps it will be something else entirely that few if any of us are currently anticipating, like the worldwide protests that were about to break out starting at this time last year.

Whatever happens, it’s already been a long, strange trip four years into The Long Emergency.


Bonus: Okay, I keep quoting from this song so it's time I finally posted it

Bankrupt Chain Restaurants Are Still Holding On

I've posited the theory previously on this blog that there are a lot of companies out there, particularly in the consumer portion of the economy, that are just hanging on by the skin of their teeth hoping that a real economic recovery will take place soon and allow them to survive. All it will take to kill many of these concerns is another major economic shock wave. Well, more evidence of this phenomena was reported last week by CNBC in a story about how many bankrupt restaurant chains are so far refusing to go under:

You see them all across the country, in shopping malls and street corners, suburban towns and city centers: zombie restaurants.

Many of the undead are part of familiar chains that filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection this year: Friendly’s, Chevys, Sbarro, Perkins. The zombie restaurants, barely bringing in enough cash to cover basic expenses, always seem to be one sizzling fajita or glazed chicken skewer away from a merciful end, but somehow keep hanging on — leaving too many restaurants chasing after scarce dining dollars.

“There’s a lot of walking dead,” said Bob Goldin, executive vice president for Technomic, a consulting firm that works with restaurant companies. “A lot of chains, they hang in there and they’re hard to kill off.”

Consumers, who have generally cut back on the number of meals out since the recession [cnbc explains] began, are benefiting from the proliferation of zombies. Healthy and failing restaurants alike have been forced to discount relentlessly to lure diners. But for the restaurants, particularly small independent operators, the competition from the undead is a nightmare that just won’t end.

Heh - given how many times I've used the term "zombie economy" on this blog, I love that CNBC is now using the same metaphor.

So who are some of the walking dead?

When Friendly’s Ice Cream, the chain based in Massachusetts, filed for bankruptcy protection in October, it said it would close 63 underperforming restaurants. But the company said it would continue to operate 420 stores, and a spokesman said it was making plans to expand again.

In California, Real Mex Restaurants, which owns several chains, including the midprice Chevys Fresh Mex, closed just 30 outlets after it filed for bankruptcy in October. It continues to operate 156 restaurants.

After Sbarro, the Italian fast-food chain, filed for bankruptcy in April, it closed 31 stores in the United States, but kept the doors open on 429.

Some chains are even trying to make a comeback:

The imbalance does not seem likely to end soon. Indeed, one midprice chain that everyone thought was dead and buried — Bennigan’s — is now coming back from the crypt.

Bennigan’s declared bankruptcy in 2008 and abruptly shut down the approximately 240 restaurants operated by the company, though some franchise-run Bennigan’s restaurants stayed in business.

Now, a group of investors has resurrected the franchising company and plans to open a small number of company-owned restaurants and dozens of new franchised outlets over the next five years. Paul M. Mangiamele, chief executive of Bennigan’s Franchising, said he had come up with a new design for stores and a revamped menu that would inject new life into the brand.

This is what the past three years of insane federal deficit spending has bought us, a temporary reprieve from the crash in which the dimwitted continue to make plans as if nothing has changed. Just more sheep for the slaughterhouse when the next big leg of the downturn finally begins.


Bonus: Welcome to Zombieland

December Blogging Statistics: TDS Really Takes Off

However much I might have expected a slowdown in the number of page views received by TDS blog during the holiday season, the exact opposite actually occurred. The number of page views actually exploded upward from just over 27,000 in November to more than 41,000 this past month. I am gratified and humbled to have received that kind of support. The comments have also been mostly fantastic, even if not always in agreement with me.

So once again, I'll put it out there as I do every month. If you know someone who might just be waking up to the new economic realities who might get something out of this blog, please pass it along to them. If nothing else, it's free!


Bonus: "He must have clearance...right?"

Maybe the World Really IS Going to End in 2012

image: it's a little known fact the the picture above originally appeared on the last monthly page of the famous Mayan calendar

New Year's Eve, which I spent with my in-laws and a small army of nieces and nephews, was the last of three family gatherings for me this holiday season. All things considered, I made it through relatively unscathed. No major family arguments broke out and nobody got too wasted or acted in an overly inappropriate manner.

For me, the worst part was having to greet the new year by suffering through a couple of hour's worth of the most grueling of all the many cultural train wrecks on television these days, Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve, which my relatives insist upon watching every year. The producers of this hideous annual spectacle could hardly have done a better job were they TRYING to put together a lineup guaranteed to make me desperately wish for large pile of sharp objects with which I could poke out my own eyeballs, puncture my eardrums and then end the agony with an emphatic self-disembowelment. When about the least offensive person to appear on the screen the whole night is an American Idol host, you KNOW you're in for a long evening.

It's bad enough that they resurrect the mummified corpse of the eponymous host and prop him up in front of the camera every year. For about half a decade now, each time I've seen Dick Clark's decrepit form I keep saying this has GOT to be his last year doing the show. And yet the following year there he is again, looking ever more like his own caricature as designed by makers of the Spitting Image puppets from the rock band Genesis' famous "Land of Confusion" music video back in the mid-1980s.

This year we turned on the broadcast just in time to see Ryan Seacrest interviewing billionaire New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Bloomberg was in full "I'm just a regular guy" mode, wearing a cheesy white sweater with an American Flag embroidered on the front instead of the Brioni suit, Rolex watch and Testoni shoes you know the sonovabitch normally prefers to wear. Bloomberg, of course, is trying to repair his image after the (ahem) beating it took from siccing Officer Tony Baloney and his thuggish cohorts on the Occupy Wall Street protesters. But sacrifices have to be made, and forcing himself to dress up like one of the unwashed masses was just the first one Bloomberg would make on this particular winter evening.

Seacrest then threw the proceedings over to Jenny McCarthy for some totally insipid street level interviews with various clods who had been wasting their lives standing around Times Square the whole day waiting for their fifteen seconds of camera time. McCarthy, of course, is a former Playboy playmate who somehow thinks that getting famous by taking her clothes off means she knows more about medical science than the legions of physicians who have actually studied in the field. I wouldn't begrudge McCarthy for her persistent ignorance about the benefits of childhood vaccinations, but for the fact that she has somehow managed to convince a large number of other dimwitted Americans that she actually knows what she's talking about. How did Mike Judge ever manage to avoid casting her in the movie, Idiocracy, anyway?

As midnight approached, all of the "musicians," that had been playing in Times Square earlier in the evening joined Seacrest on the main stage for some inane blather about what the new year's celebration meant to them. I put the word musicians in quotes because other than utter has been Carlos Santana, none of the rest merited having the word attached to what it is they do for a living, particularly that little cougar-bait twerp, Justin Bieber. The highlight of this portion of the show was a "song" performed by the culturally omnipotent Lady Gaga, wearing some absurdly hideous costume that made her look like a mentally challenged space alien, and was, I gather, meant to detract the listener's attention away from the utter vacuousness of her actual performance.

But the highlight of the evening, or the lowlight if you prefer, came with the inevitable dropping of the big ball. Not that ringing in the new year itself is so bad, but did we really need to be treated to the nausea-inducing sight of Ms. Space Alien and Mayor One-Percenter in full lip lock? I know it was late, and all, but this was supposed to be a family show and we had impressionable young children in the room with us.

Almost as bad was the subsequent image of the aforementioned over-the-hill centerfold for some bizarre reason playing tonsil hockey with a recent New York City police academy graduate. I half expected McCarthy to say, "That was just a reminder, Big Boy, of what exactly it is you'll be protecting the first time Boss Bloomberg calls you out to put a few uppity Occupy protesters in their proper place. Oooh, hey, is that your retractable baton right there, or are you just happy to see me?"

A few minutes after midnight, a collection of talent-free cretins called LMFAO then took the stage. When the live audience didn't take their band name literally and actually started to get into the alleged music, I excused myself for the evening and went upstairs to hit the rack. As I did I reflected on the fact that the only good thing about starting off the new year by observing such an awful spectacle is now it really has nowhere to go but up.


Bonus: "Because this is the world we live in...and these are the hands we're given"

Hollywood Blues: 2011 Was the Worst Year at the Box Office Since 1995

In yet another sign that consumers have less money to spend, there was a steep drop in tickets sales for movies this past year, as reported by the Atlantic Wire:

The numbers are in, and they show what studio execs likely feared and movie-goers likely suspected all along: Not a lot of people went to the movies this year. Box-office tracker Hollywood.com says that "an estimated 1.275 billion tickets sold" in 2011, a 4.8 percent decrease from 2010 making for "the smallest movie audience since 1995," reports the AP. A hodgepodge of reasons for the sour showing were cited in the AP and ABC News reports. Among them: Too many sequels, too many kids movies, too many distracting gadgets, the bad economy, high ticket prices, and, something being called an "'Avatar' hangover" from 2010.

Conspicuously absent from the list was the fact that most of the movies released in 2011 sucked balls.


Bonus: Cue, Billy Joel

Peak NFL: Dallas Cowboys' Attendance Steadily Dropping

As the final regular season Sunday of the NFL season kicks off, here is a story from CBS Sports about the former America's Team that might better explain why the league took its lockout of the players to the very brink this past summer:

In the stadium’s first year, the team drew an average of 89,700 fans. Even last year’s 6-10 team managed to attract 87,000 fans. But this year, the fan attendance number dropped to just 85,000 fans – despite the fact that Cowboys have a chance to win their division this weekend.

RJ Choppy with 105.3 The Fan analyzed the attendance drop from a few different angles, but does not see it as a huge problem. “The Cowboys have been sort of mediocre and the economy has been in the tank,” he said. “I don’t really think it should be such a long-term problem, but in the short-term, it certainly is a little bit of a concern.”

If the team starts winning consistently again, Choppy predicts that the attendance will go up again. “So much of it is economics,” he said. “You have to pick things that you want to cut from your life and, unfortunately, one of the first things that go are recreational.

”Adding to the attendance concern is the sheer size of Cowboys Stadium. While other NFL teams have been building smaller arenas, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones bucked the trend and went bigger. “Everyone who builds these new stadiums, they’re going smaller, more intimate, more quaint,” Choppy said. “I think the natural feeling that, well, that Cowboys Stadium is so big. It’s almost to the point where it’s not practical.”

They can try to spin this story all they want. The fact is that not too long ago many NFL teams had years long waiting lists for people who wanted to buy season tickets. Nowadays, a lot of NFL games don't even sell out anymore. Given the league's prominence at the top of the heap of the sporting world in America, that is pretty significant.

As for me, I was an NFL season ticket holder for 13 years until I sold my personal seat licenses for a tidy little profit prior to the 2010 season. I have to admit that I don't at all miss going to the games at the prices they charge for tickets these days.


Bonus: Sorry Josh, but I think soon you MAY be the only cowboy

Happy New Year!

Well, here we go again with yet another year. The optimists will cling to the irrational hope that this year will be better than last year, while we pessimists realists know the truth, that the best we can hope for is that the decline will merely continue at a snail's pace.

In looking around for an appropriate video to mark the beginning of the new year, I found this outstanding old Louis CK bit on Being Broke, and other related stuff.

Enjoy!