Day: September 2, 2004

Subscribing Miss Daisy

Writer guy

I’m a long term subscriber to Investor’s Business Daily who allowed his subscription lapse. For more than 6 years, 5 mornings a week a paper person delivered the current issue by 7am. Sometimes the paper landed on the lawn, other times the porch. For awhile one of the neighbors stole it. Let’s just say they stopped doing that.

It’s a good newspaper, and eventually I will renew. Why did I stop? Not because I don’t find the paper valuable – more because I’m curious to see how hard they’d fight for my renewal. Yep, I want to be wooed.

At 297 bucks a year and 6 years in, I figure I earned a little love. And boy has it come! Since the subscription lapsed every call from the CSR has included additional incentives.

I’m holding out for 2 years for the price of 1 which is the cost of the last renewal. Works for me.

So here’s what I learned today – refusing an offer can lead to better offers.

Resident Evil 2

Writer guy

Resident Evil – Apocalypse – is perfectly evil and it’s a good thing. Imagine a world where an all powerful corporation unleashes a virus that turns people into zombies. Now imagine that the only one who can stop this company is the former head of security for that corporation, whose own DNA was altered by their research experiments. Enter Alice – professional butt kicker. She’s Rambo, Arnold and Beatrix Kiddo all rolled into one, only much, much more charismatic.

For a movie based on a video game there’s sure a lot of story here, one that delivers non stop chills and thrills. I noticed many people playing shoot-em-up in the theater during the fight scenes. A pure adrenaline rush!

Things that rock about this movie:

1) Tight pacing

2) Excellent action sequences

3) A cliffhanger ending that works, rather than annoys.

4) Good use of narrative over dialog to convey story.

5) Three words – Milla Jovovich naked.

Things that need improvement:

1) When is Resident Evil 3 coming???

Verdict: like action? like explosions? like Milla ? SEE IT NOW!