- Was it a good weekend at the movies? A corny Warner Bros. movie about a dolphin with a mechanical tail was the top movie at the box office, so what do you think? That’s right, Dolphin Tale leapt into the top spot with a scrawny $14.2 million effort and that was more than enough for the win. After two weeks in theaters, Dolphin Tale has $37.5 million in domestic earnings. It held off fellow second-week film Moneyball, which came in second with $12.5 million and has garnered $38.5 million domestically in two workmanlike weekends of release. Last weekend’s top film declined to third for this frame as The Lion King (in 3-D) finally lost its mojo and dropped two spots with $11 million in earnings to boost its cumulative tally to $79.6 million for three weeks. Newcomer 50/50, starring Joseph Gordon Levitt and Seth Rogan, was the top new film of the weekend and the fourth-highest earner overall, chugging along to the tune of $8.9 million. Right on its tail was fellow newbie Courageous, which scored $8.8 million in its debut. The bottom half of the top 10 contained a couple of new films as well and consisted of: newcomer Dream House (No. 6 in its opening weekend with $8.2 million), Abduction (No. 7 and continuing to prove that Taylor Lautner a) can’t act and b) isn't appealing to moviegoers unless he’s playing a hunky teen vampire by making $5.7 million), What’s Your Number? (No. 8 in its opening weekend with $5.6 million), Contagion (No. 9 and continuing a sharp downturn by losing 40 percent of its earnings from last weekend with a $5 million haul that gave it $64.7 million domestically in its first month of release) and Killer Elite (No. 10 and surprisingly failing to capitalize on the usual action star draw of Jason Statham, along with the name value of Robert DeNiro, making just $4.9 million in domestic earnings). Films that dropped out of the top 10 from last weekend included Drive (No. 11), The Help (No. 12) and I Don't Know How She Does It (No. 17)…………
- Riot Watch! Riot Watch! Folks, when enjoying the world’s favorite overview of social dissidence and uprisings around the globe, it is vital always to remember that those rising up need not be right, sane or intelligent for the rest of us to enjoy their efforts. Any band of kooks can gather, rally around a cause and create mayhem. There is no better illustration of this point than the ongoing "Occupy Wall Street" movement, wherein Americans disgruntled with the sad state of their country’s economy stage protests around New York City (and theoretically, Wall Street) to voice their displeasure with the way the nation’s financial leaders are going about their business. Saturday marked the latest uprising and saw the “Occupy Wall Street” kooks extend their rally to Brooklyn Bridge, where they were cited for blocking the roadway, authorities said late Saturday. Either the Brooklyn Bridge is the new financial epicenter of New York City or these fools have no sense of geography, because Wall Street could not have been less impacted by the demonstration. The protestors made plenty of noise, banging drums and chanting, "The whole world is watching," as police moved in. The day ended with lots of citations being handed out and very little actual impact made - other than the one made by the New York City Police Department. “Over 700 summonses and desk appearance tickets have been issued in connection with the demonstration on the Brooklyn Bridge ... after multiple warnings by police were given to protesters to stay on the pedestrian walkway," said Paul J. Browne, deputy commissioner for the NYPD. One thing protestors must be given credit for is sticking to their plan ever after authorities warned them that they would be arrested if they occupied the roadway. A few cowards tucked tail and left via the bridge’s exterior walkway, but most protesters stood strong. They were able to shut down bridge traffic heading to Brooklyn from Manhattan for several hours. One of the more bizarre aspects of the movement has been organizers insisting they take their inspiration from the Arab Spring protests that swept through Africa and the Middle East this year. If nothing else, the sight of thousands of poor or middle-class individuals with nothing better to do than camp out in the park in New York's financial district trying a live-in to convince wealthy Wall Street types to mend their dishonest ways should be amusing. What began as a simple campaign website calling for a march and a sit-in at the New York Stock Exchange has grown to include demonstrations addressing various issues, including police brutality, union busting and the economy. For that, it’s time to say, “Thanks for the amusement, “Occupy Wall Street” participants………..
- The downward spiral is alive and well - unlike the product itself - for Microsoft’s über-crappy Internet Explorer browser. Last month was another bad one for IE, which lost its largest chunk of share since December 2010. After losing an additional nine-tenths of a percentage point of share to slip to 54.4 percent, Internet Explorer now has its lowest market share ever. September’s decline also marked the seventh straight month of loss for the browser and competitors are quickly elbowing their way into the fray to snatch up the percentage points Microsoft is hemorrhaging. Google’s Chrome Browser saw the biggest gain, growing its share by seven-tenths of a point, while Apple's Safari gained four-tenths of a percentage point. Chrome currently holds down 16.2 percent of the browser market, while Safari accounts for five percent of all browsers used worldwide. What has Microsoft’s response been to seeing the gradual, irreversible decline of the worst browser available today? To tout the supposedly bright future of the its latest version, of course! Roger Capriotti, the head of IE's marketing, sifted through the negative numbers and was able to twist them in a way that made it appear - from his point of view behind nuclear-powered, rose-colored shades - that Internet Explorer 9 on Windows 7 was the shiz-nitz. Capriotti hailed IE9’s 21 percent share of browsers running on Windows 7, an increase of seven-tenths of a point, as evidence that the browser isn't dead yet. Of course, the company has bet nearly everything it has, browser-wise, on IE9 and has never presented a backup plan for stopping the inevitable wave of IE defections. The result of that strategy to this point has been a loss of four percentage points of share. The severity of IE’s losses can be seen by digging past the data for only its most recent version and seeing the loss of all previous versions, nearly twice that of IE9. Ironically, Microsoft itself has been diligently working to kill off IE6 for more than two years (insert your own joke here about Microsoft’s propensity for doing this sort of thing without having to try) and has gone so far as to track the decline of IE6 on a deathwatch-style website for the last six months. The chief competitor for IE has changed on a semi-regular basis since late 2009, when Mozilla Firefox stopped making gains and saw Chrome rising fast in its rearview mirror. Safari is the only other major player on the market and it is obviously limited because it is only used on Apple computers. But regardless of who is seizing market share from Internet Explorer, there is no question its days at the top are limited…………
- Have you forgotten just why the world in general loves Australians and why any group of Aussies on the movie basically become a mobile party? Look no further than Australia's Surfers Paradise Beach on Sunday for the perfect example of why Australia is the world’s best party nation. A lovely parade of 350 bikini-clad women strutted their stuff along the beach and although their gathering was for the asinine purpose of attempting to break the Guinness World Record for largest bikini parade, the question remains: If more than 350 (mostly) hot women want to line up and march down a beach - any beach - does it matter why? The number of hotties on parade was actually higher than 350, but not all of them counted toward the record-setting effort. "Today, 361 girls walked through the counter, but there had to be a few disqualifications because they were not wearing bikinis," Australian Guinness World Record adjudicator Chris Sheedy. One has to admire Sheedy for his hard work in such a thankless, unpleasant job and he undoubtedly scrutinized every last entrant closely to ensure that they were, in fact, wearing a bikini and not some other variant thereof. When all of the entrants were counted and verified, there were 357 of them and that was more than enough to beat the record of 331 set last year in the Cayman Islands. Thankfully, at least one local political leader took the right perspective on the event and didn’t do something small-minded and femi-Nazi like railing against the objectification of women or say that the parade set an entire gender back decades by turning women into nothing more than something to be ogled. "It shows off that we have beautiful beaches, we've got a great foreshore and got healthy young women and a sense of fun," local councilor Susie Douglas said of the event. Well said, Susie, well said…………
- The NBA lockout has been tougher on some players than others. Lakers star Kobe Bryant is a give-time champion with scores of endorsements and won’t be hurting for money no matter how long the work stoppage lasts. Bryant recently offered to loan money to other players who might struggle during the lockout, underscoring the disparity between the haves and have-nots among players. Free agent guard Delonte West could end up as one of the players in need of a helping hand, but he is (supposedly) doing everything in his power to avoid having it come to that. Other players have signed to play overseas during the lockout to have a steady income, but West is thinking much closer to home for his lockout gig. His search for gainful employment (allegedly) began back in August, when he tweeted that he was applying for a job at Home Depot. His application must have been rejected due to a lack of experience disappearing into the break room and leaving customers in need of assistance waiting in vain because later in the month, he said in an interview that he had applied for a job at large-scale wholesale outfit Sam’s Club. For some odd reason, Sam’s Club didn’t want West either and he has kept his search going with an application at Regency Furniture Showrooms. He walked his Twitter followers through the application process by tweeting pictures of his application, on which he replied, “Yesterday” when asked what date he was available to begin and “Yes” when queried on his availability to work nights and weekends. For the all-important question of whether he had ever been convicted of a crime, West checked “Yes.” The crime in question, of course, is being arrested for a traffic infraction on Sept. 17, 2009 and being found to have a guitar case loaded with three high-powered guns. In the box asking for an explanation of any convictions, West simply answered with, "Misunderstanding." He pleaded guilty to traffic and weapons charges in July 2010, but was still able to find an opening at Regency. He was hired and posted a series of pictures on his Twitter account of his first day at Regency last week. His new job appears to be working in stock area, moving and loading furniture. Not exactly where you would expect to find a seven-year NBA veteran who is still active in the league and appeared in 24 games for a playoff team last season, but Delonte has never been a normal dude and these are most definitely not normal circumstances for NBA players…………
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