So I’m on a business trip in Beijing, living pretty comfortably in a tidy 4-star hotel (actually, it’s a “Green” hotel, with its so-called dedication to the environment, meaning they won’t change your bedding until you tell them). I have all the typical modern (aka “Western”) features you’d find back home in say, a Best Western or Hampton Inn: a/c, comfy beds (though a tad stiff), multiple pillows, thirsty towels, color TV with BBC, CNN International, and even free HBO, though the movies are a little low-rent, or “so 2000 and late”, as Fergie says. As I write this, I am trying to feign interest in “Prom Night 2”. OK, it’s either this or the 50 or so Chinese channels where I don’t understand a word. Read the rest of this entry »

Isn’t it a coincidence that on the day that Yahoo! had a screaming news story declaring that Sandra Bullock’s enormous smash “The Blind Side” just passed the $200 million domestic gross mark –an impressive feat never before done by any other major actress—we have a magical piece of news from two corporations that don’t normally like each other: Warner Brothers and Netflix.

28 Days Later

In a press release today, both companies agreed to essentially force Netflix and its customers to wait out a 28-day period before Warner Bros. distributes its new releases to them. Read the rest of this entry »

The former Jordan Roseman, raised in rural Iowa and schooled on a diet of 70s disco and 80s Depeche Mode and OMD that he tried to crank out on his Apple II computer, probably should prepare himself for some much-deserved fame right about now. He might also think about leaving his job as DJ at many of the hot locations in the city. Read the rest of this entry »