12 Years a Slave

On Tuesday, November 26, 2013, I went to see the movie 12 Years a Slave.

Nothing special...  Just like any other movie about slavery...  Slavery bad.  Black people good, white people bad.

About Time

On Tuesday, November 19, 2013, I went to see the movie About Time, featuring Rachel McAdams, Bill Nighy and and Domhall Gleeson.

The movie is about Tim, who discovers on his 21st birthday, that he, like all the other men in the family, have the ability to travel back in time.  Initially, he thinks it is a joke, but he realizes that it is not.

So, upon learning that he has this wonderful gift, he decides that he would use it to try and make his life better...  And to get a girlfriend.  And throughout, he also uses it to help some people.  And sometimes, he comes across a few stumbles, because of a divergence of path or something.

He eventually meets Mary, his girlfriend, who also bares the name of his mother.  Things get complicated however, when Tim's father is diagnosed with cancer.

What happens in the rest of the film?  You'll have to watch it to find out.

Gravity

On Tuesday, November 12, 2013, I went to see the movie Gravity featuring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney.

This story is about Dr. Ryan Stone, played by Sandra Bullock, who's on a crew with Matt Kowalski, played by George Clooney, and another person named Shariff.  They are working on something on the space shuttle when all of a sudden mission control tells them to abort everything and get into the space station to escape, because the Russians have destroyed a satellite and the debris from that is causing a chain reaction of debris destroyed other various satellites and space stations.

After the initial impact, only Bullock and Clooney's characters survive and they are trying to get back to Earth while holding onto each other.

What happens?  You'll have to watch the movie to find out.  However, anything that can go wrong, does go wrong, so the classic Murphy's Law completely applies.

Froyo? Yeh!!! But it's too cold...

Today, I went to Yeh! Frozen Yogurt situated at 1651 Sainte-Catherine West.  This is the Yeh! Concordia location.

Now, I don't know about you, but in my part of the world, it is starting to get into the winter temperatures...  And even though I like ice cream and frozen yogurt, I tend to get it less when it is freezing outside, than when it is sizzling outside, when it is summer.

I am no economist, but my experience is that when the weather is cold outside, there are fewer sales of ice cream and frozen yogurt.  The demand is just not there...

The incident occurred today at this location.  A few months ago, they got rid of their iPod loyalty program, which was a program where people would put in their cell number and accumulate loyalty through the number of visits.  They replaced this with a card loyalty system.  First of all, we are now killing trees, which I don't appreciate and secondly, this was started because certain owners of Yeh! are whining about how with this old system, clients could spend money at one location, gather their stamps and then redeem them at another location, so this would be unfair to the owner who ran the other location.

So today, I got some frozen yogurt.  Since it was windy outside and a tad cold, I got a little bit off frozen yogurt as a dessert.  When I inquired about the stamp for the loyalty program, I was informed that apparently this stamp would only be given for purchases of $3 or more.  This was news to me, as I have bought from other locations, and possibly even this one, for less than $3 and gotten a stamp.

The way that the new loyalty program works is that you have to buy frozen yogurt ten times before you can redeem it for a $5 coupon.  Let us do a bit of math:

10 purchases of $3 (min.) each = $30 spent before you could redeem $5 on your next purchase - where you don't get that as a stamp.

For the store to break even, let's try to figure out how much of a purchase would be required...

$5/10 purchases = $0.50 (or 50 cents) each.

So, theoretically, at 50 cents/purchase, they would break even.  This is of course excluding the fact that the price that is being charged to the client already includes a huge markup...  Do you know what Yeh! charges for their product?  They charge by mass...  At 59 cents an ounce of yogurt, which does not include tax.

The point I am trying to make is that there's a point where I don't agree with businesses being greedy and screwing out their clients.  I mean, sure, they don't have to offer a loyalty program, but putting a minimum charge for customers to spend before they get a stamp?  That's just plain greedy and pretty low.

So, I am happy to say...  Yeh!  I won't be heading to this particular location anytime soon.  I would encourage others to try other alternatives to frozen yogurt out there...  The quality of Yeh!'s yogurt is not what it used to be.  I feel that it has been going downhill, especially this location, and that this location is getting too greedy, too uppity and too big for its breeches.

The Counselor

On Tuesday, November 5, 2013, I went to see the movie The Counselor, featuring Michael Fassbender, Penelope Cruz, Javier Bardem, Cameron Diaz and Brad Pitt.  There were other smaller stars, but I won't list them all.

This movie is about Michael Fassbender's character, throughout the film referred to as The Counselor, who falls in love with Penelope Cruz's character, Laura.  The Counselor is friends with Reiner, played by Javier Bardem, who is in love with Malkina, played by Diaz.  We learn very early on that Reiner and Malkina are drug traffickers and The Counselor gets greedy, so he wants in on this.

Then the movie is back and forth about the shipment of the cocaine and different people trying to get their hands on it...  Through a series of consequences, we see that The Counselor might be dragged down because of bailing out a kid who's the son of one of his court-appointed clients.

What happens?  You'll have to watch it to find out.  This was directed by Ridley Scott.