I don’t know if the theaters in your hometown do this, but at every theater I got to, I am bombarded by STUPID, LOCAL ADVERTISEMENTS! This annoys me to no end because I like to get to the theater early so as not to miss any previews. If you get there too early, being subjected to these ads is the equivalent to Chinese water torture.

In the theater, these ads are placed into a slide projector that automatically forwards. There is usually a mix between local ads and those for Coca-Cola (who has obviously sunk a lot of cash into sponsoring this subtle invasion of privacy). I don’t know whose ads offend me more – the shoddily designed local spots that aggravate my keen sense of composition and information hierarchy. Or the Coca-Cola ads – who’s lame trivia and “fun” games insult my intelligence.

Of course, to top it all off, they’ve got “Movie Tunes” blaring over the PA system before the start of the show. Movie Tunes masquerades itself as a radio station with one of the world’s largest listener-ship. Yeah, you’d have a pretty large listener-ship too if the audience was held captive. That’s like saying Saddam Hussien is the world’s most convincing public speaker.

Does anyone remember a time when you could go into a theater before a movie started and have a nice conversation? To hell with that!

A few things I’ll mention:

I want to give a shout out to Ctrl+Alt+Del. This strip has been getting a lot of attention lately and it’s well deserved. The drawing of this toon is excellent. It’s shaded and colored and looks like an animated short, or something. And the writing is top shelf to boot.

I also got an e-mail from my friend Nick who sent me a really funny short essay about working as a movie-theater projectionist which I will be posting to the site sometime later today. Nick and I are college buddies and he’s been in a couple of strips on the site. Nick graduated an English major, so soon you will be treated to the wonders of correct grammar, spelling and punctuation!

Sometimes I think I spoil you.