May, 22, 2004 archives

speaker for the dead by orson scott card is a very polarizing book, as you can tell from the user reviews at amazon. i definitely come down on the side of those who see it as a vastly superior work to the first book in the series, ender’s game. but it almost isn’t fair to make the comparison, because they are really totally different flavors of book. where ender’s game is heavily action-driven, with the a thin layer of philosophical thinking bubbling on the surface, speaker for the dead is almost exactly the opposite. the cast of characters is much deeper, and more richly developed, than in the first novel, although each character does hew pretty closely to a single core characteristic.

cddvdliquidation.com sells bulk lots of dvds, either just mixed assortments or by genre.

of course, a google search for wholesale dvd turns up lots more.

i've probably mentioned this before, but i love the ceiling at the hollywood and vine subway station. it gives me ideas.

• ingram entertainment
• wax works
• video products distributors
• baker & taylor
• video group distributors
• newtown video
• first video exchange
• microcinema international (indie stuff)
• rentrak ppt (a leasing program, you have to be using pos software from one of their affiliated vendors)
• directory of distributors and wholesales at business.com

bonus, two trade mags:

• video business
• video store magazine

according to this september 2003 profile of the downtown los angeles retail rental market, the average rental rate is $22.23 per square foot (per annum).

vomit (the video store management interface) is an open-source pos system for video stores, it uses php and mysql.

i’ve been extremely slack in watching netflix movies lately, basically since i moved downtown (and got directv). i finally watched a better tomorrow ii. i don’t think the film has aged particularly well (since it was released, not since netflix shipped it to me), but the bodycount in the final portion of the movie is impressive.

i will cancel my netflix membership soon. i just haven’t been watching the movies. i would be quicker to cancel it if there were a video store nearby. (actually, there appear to be a couple in little tokyo, which is not terribly far away. i should probably check those out.)