walls.corpus

By Nathan L. Walls

  • Sunset, Jan. 2, 2021/Williams Township
  • On Bougher Hill/Williams Township
  • Sunrise, Dec. 19, 2020/Williams Township
  • Sunset, Dec. 27, 2020

Articles tagged “money”

Links for Dec. 6, 2009

Is Money Tainting the Plasma Supply?

NYT piece on plasma centers in Texas and the economic attraction of plasma donation, particularly to Mexican factory workers.

Interesting figure: The average $30 donation payment results in $300 worth of product. Also, a Michigan blood center is seeing some whole-blood volunteer donors shifting to being paid for plasma elsewhere.

What’s Going to Happen to Textbooks?

With some college texts running over $200, and tuition costs increasing, there’s a bit of curiosity about the future of textbooks and how they might live on ebook readers like the Kindle or Nook. The Atlantic Wire collects some links. (Disclosure: My daytime employer, WebAssign, does business with universities and college textbook publishers)

Cancer from the kitchen?

New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof looks into whether what we cook with and store our food in impacts our health.

Raleigh movie-going and budgeting

I posted briefly earlier today about using our movie season pass, and while many of my contacts know, a few may not, so I’m providing further details here.

My friend Steve Burnett introduced me to the Ambassador Entertainment annual pass a few years ago. He’s long subscribed and kept track of his pass movie going. Inspired by his example, and a desire to save some money, 5x5 and I bought the 2008 annual pass and renewed in 2009.

The concept works like this:

  • Any movie at the Colony or the Rialto (apart from a monthly art series or special revivals) is free with the pass.
  • Any new release film at Mission Valley Cinema is free after two weeks of release.
  • The pass is good for two adult admissions.
  • Passes are available annually in December and are good for the following calendar year.

For 2009, the cost for all three theaters was $220. We budget for it and it’s a bit nicer than deciding at a screening if we want to cough up $15. Instead, the decision is largely based on, “do I want to spend my time watching this?” For two people, the break-even point is 15 films, or one about every three weeks. In 2008, the break-even was 14 films, but we saw 27. What would have ordinarily cost us $405 instead ran $200.

This year, we’re on a slower pace. As of last night, we’ve seen eight films:

1. Gran Torino 2/7/09
2. Taken 2/15/09
3. Watchmen 3/20/09
4. The Reader 3/31/09
5. Sunshine Cleaning 4/14/09
6. Fast and Furious 4/17/09
7. Star Trek 5/22/09
8. The Soloist 5/23/09

I haven’t yet dug into reviewing each film, as Steve does, but every film except Fast and Furious1 was worth our time.

The pass does take planning to use, particularly with general audience films. Some caveats:

  • There is no guarantee a film we want to see will be at Mission Valley for two weeks before we can use the pass. That means ignoring some blog posts and water-cooler discussion from big opening weekend releases and generally, we’re not seeing “event” films with friends.
  • Not every independent film will make the Rialto or Colony. The films that do are not guaranteed to have a run that’s convenient for us. Some only run a week, or less.

Those caveats are OK with us and I like that we’re supporting a local cinema group. I’ll grant the infrequent bad experience and the fact that these theaters are older than Raleighwood, North Hills or the Cary 20 2. But, we’re not battling large crowds and there’s none of the 20 to 30 minute ad and preview nonsense at any of those other theaters. This year, all the movies we’ve seen have had three trailers or less. No ads.

Set a to-do for December to drop by any of the three theaters and ask for a season pass application.

  1. Fast and Furious was, “leave the theater,” awful for 5x5. It’s in the, “won’t watch that again,” class for me.
  2. By which I mean, less likelihood of cup-holders and less seat rake. Conversely, there are fewer in-movie cell-phone users.

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