I’m a huge theater buff. Even with a few shitty experiences here and there throughout the years, I still love going to the movie theater to enjoy a good flick with a crowd of interesting and often strange individuals (oh, and some friends too I suppose). A good comedy just seems so much funnier when you can laugh at it with a darkened room full of complete strangers, and the excitement and suspense of a good adventure flick simply feels heightened when you can oogle everything on a seventy-foot screen. So, let’s just say I spend many of my Friday nights enjoying the smell of popcorn and the bright glow of a movie screen.
This leads me to the main point of my little story here. I go to a ton of movies… and out of a somewhat compulsive habit, I’ve never purposefully thrown away a movie ticket stub. I save them… all of them. And I’ve been doing this for nearly 11 years. Now, some may say that this is an insane thing to do. “Why would you save those?” these visionless people would say. “What will you do with them? What’s the point?” Well, this weekend I realized exactly what the point of my strange addiction is.
I’m currently working to compile a list containing the name, date, time and price of every movie ticket in my collection? Why, you ask? To find out exactly how much of my hard-earned money I’ve spent on the theater in the last decade, of course! Not to mention plot the increase of ticket prices over the last 11 years or so using real world data and oh so much more!
So check back soon for an interesting look into where much of my monthly paycheck goes! And if I’m not the only one with this ticket-packrat mentality, feel free to let me know in the comments.
EDIT (07-10-08): I’ve decided to add runtimes for each movie as well (as listed by IMDB) to see how much time I’ve spent in a theater absorbing the warm, soothing glow of a movie screen.
UPDATE (07-12-08): My list has been completed and I’ll be posting the results shortly!
UPDATE (07-24-08): Holy shit, the results have been posted! Check ‘em out here.
Danish metallers Pyramaze are currently one of my favorite bands. Their style of aggresive, often progressive power metal makes for quite a few interesting and epic tunes that never cease to get my head banging and the devil horns waving. The songs “Mighty Abyss” and “What Lies Beyond” are a couple of my all time favorite tunes and really show Pyramaze’s talent at constructing well-crafted and catchy material. With their newest release, Immortal, they tapped ex-Iced Earth frontman Matt Barlow to fill the band’s vacant vocalist slot. Barlow had long been working as police officer in Delaware after retiring from the music industry in 2003, and I couldn’t have been happier to hear he had seemingly returned to his true calling after 5 years of silence. Since my ears were first blessed with Barlow’s diverse, powerful voice, I’ve been a huge fan and I was happy to see I’d be able to rock out to some new tunes fronted by the man himself.
