Sunday, November 02, 2008

Remember Blockbuster?



I just went to Blockbuster for the first time in at least 5-6 years. Since my not-yet four year-old son recently started watching R-rated movies I figured it was time to renew our membership.

Having had his interest piqued by The Clone Wars, LittleC-Nut recently saw the original Star Wars at his grandparents house (2 or 3 times). So tonight we rented the next chapter, The Empire Strikes Back.

It cost $5.44!

I couldn't believe it. Boy am I out-of-touch. Can't you buy these movies outright for something like $15?

I remember first renting movies in 1985 for $2 a piece.

Solving 2*(1+x)23 = 5.44 for x tells me that my video rental cost has inflated at a 4.46% annualized rate for the past 23 years.

I guess that's not too crazy.

They told me I could keep the flick for 8 days AND then there was another 7 day grace period. Wow.

In case you didn't know, Blockbuster is flailing - ravaged by Netflix, On-Demand cable movies, Hollywood's sh*tty output over the past decade, overexpansion(?), and an infinite variety of web entertainment (e.g. YouTube, FaceBook, and MySpace).



Crap, the stock is down to a measly $1.52 per share and STILL, 25% of its float is sold short.

That means not even a Jedi Knight could save it from meeting its destiny....

ZERO!

3 comments:

Funny Circus Bears said...

Just get Netflix and be done with it. You'll never have to search around in a video rental store again.

Rip and burn the keepers for the little critters to watch over and over.

Anonymous said...

Better not use 5.44 as your X-factor, or stuff will be quite f-ed-up. Perhaps 0.0544 is better for the X?

I guess I know what you mean. I just wanted to get a rare dig in when I could.

Your arithmetic is pretty solid. Screw Josh Weintraub and his questions about arithmetic. (See your post of many months ago about how he asked you arithmetic questions . . .)

DA

CaptiousNut said...

fcb,

I've tried to get Netflix but every time I go to their site I am underwhelmed by the movie selection. It ain't their fault that Hollywood has gone into super LCD (i.e. least common denominator) production mode over the past decade or so.

Plus I would never watch 4 movies a month. I read, blog, and watch a few shows on my color TV. Mi tiempo is scarce.

DA,

Are you checking my math? Well, you didn't find my mistake (since corrected) in that Rush Limbaugh post!