Links of the Day

Weekend Box Office - After last week’s bonzo box office thanks to Fast and Furious, this week was decent and more the norm for April. Hannah Montana debuted to a sadly impressive $34M showing that Disney Channel adaptations continue to be cash cows. Fast & Furious took a 59% dive to a still impressive $28.8M take. Monsters vs. Aliens is number 3 with $22.6M. Observe and Report launched with $11.1M proving that Seth Rogen is not yet a headliner. Good reviews from critics combined with bad reviews from crowds probably didn't help (friends’ opinions trumps "experts" anytime). Knowing is 5th with $6.7M. To the surprise of no one, Dragonball: Evolution absolutely tanked with a pathetic $4.7M take thanks to crappy trailers and bad reviews from pretty much everyone (audience and critics alike). No surprise since they took a property that should have been a blast to take to life action (think Matrix fights) and instead of keeping the fights they kept the crap (costumes, humor, design).

Captain Rescued By Navy Snipers - It took a while but the US Navy was able to free the captain taken hostage by pirates by killing three of them with sniper hits. Richard Phillips was unharmed and doing well. Hopefully this is the beginning of a no nonsense approach with the pirates. At the end of the day their goal is wealth by taking it from others and like most criminals there wiliness to engage ends with risk to their lives. Kill enough of them and maybe they either stop or at the very least they learn to not mess with any ship waving a US flag.

Colbert: He Did It - After a campaign on his show The Colbert Report, Stephen Colbert won a NASA poll to get a new room (module) at the US Space Station named after him. NASA delayed announcing what name they had decided upon but the AP is reporting that Astronaut Sunita Williams will be on the program Tuesday to announce that NASA has chosen "Colbert" as the official name.

Polar Bear Attacks Woman - At the Berlin Zoo on Friday, a woman was attacked by a polar bear and bitten several times. The caveat on this though is she chose to climb the fence and jumped into the bear's habitat during feeding time. Intruder plus hunger equals expected results. It is unknown what the woman was thinking.

Best Buy Reorgs - In an attempt to cut costs (mostly through demotions); the company has reconfigured the stores hierarchy to decrease the number of floor supervisors. On the plus side, the reorganization isn't expected to lead to layoffs. I would say there is a bad side but nor of a neutral side since I expect service to remain at its lackluster level and the continued incompetence in such areas as Geek Squad (where the staff is mostly salespeople not techs) to continue unabated.