A few weeks ago, a story appeared on The Big Screen about a “critic” who couldn’t manage to make it through a screening without texting. It was greeted with a tidal wave of sympathetic comments and one serious solution to transforming your favorite multiplex into a dead signal zone.
“This is the solution to annoying people on smartphones in venues such as theaters,” writes Reader epistler Ponzi. “It’s a phone jammer. I bought one from a company in Israel.”
You gotta’ love the Jews.
The TITAN all-in-one portable jamming solution will silence the madness. The gadget weighs a little over a pound and fits snugly in pocket or purse. You go out and hammer nails with it all day, come back and it will zap electronic apparatus within a radius of 82-feet every time. Ain’t that a little honey?
One tingles at the thought of looking on from a back row perspective as one after another of the obstreperous zombies’ quest to puncture the darkness is met with a cellular device that’s deader than their soul. If nothing else, it’s bound to be more diverting than 90 percent of what passes for entertainment at the multiplex.
Ponzi goes on to caution, “It is illegal to use them in the U.S. The FCC claims public safety as the reason. But they are used in prisons and other government facilities. Unless you get fingered by an angry mob of text-deprived millennials, you have little to worry about.”
Illegal, schmegal. Let them throw me in aesthetic jail.
To quote Marley’s ghost in Dickens’s’ yuletide classic, “Every day we pay the price, with a little sacrifice, jammin’ till the jam is through.” As much as we’d like to be jammin’, the price of silence doesn’t come cheap. The tchotchke runs $640. Don’t get me wrong. The uninterrupted joy it emits is worth ten times that. Unfortunately, I blew all my surplus holiday cash on tube socks and underwear at the Dollar Tree.
I want a TITAN for Christmas! The thought of asking the boss to toss one in my holiday stocking had crossed my mind, but who wants to come across as an ingrate, particularly in light of this year’s Christmas bonus, a Rolex Daytona.
That leaves it up to one of you. What do you say? An investment of $640 will translate into a few years’ worth of hilarious columns. And I’ll even arrange to be in the audience with you for at least a dozen opening-night performances.
Together we can zap the little buggers to oblivion and enjoy movies the way God intended them. You know where to find me. Now if only there was a button to push that would silence crying babies.
A few weeks ago, a story appeared on The Big Screen about a “critic” who couldn’t manage to make it through a screening without texting. It was greeted with a tidal wave of sympathetic comments and one serious solution to transforming your favorite multiplex into a dead signal zone.
“This is the solution to annoying people on smartphones in venues such as theaters,” writes Reader epistler Ponzi. “It’s a phone jammer. I bought one from a company in Israel.”
You gotta’ love the Jews.
The TITAN all-in-one portable jamming solution will silence the madness. The gadget weighs a little over a pound and fits snugly in pocket or purse. You go out and hammer nails with it all day, come back and it will zap electronic apparatus within a radius of 82-feet every time. Ain’t that a little honey?
One tingles at the thought of looking on from a back row perspective as one after another of the obstreperous zombies’ quest to puncture the darkness is met with a cellular device that’s deader than their soul. If nothing else, it’s bound to be more diverting than 90 percent of what passes for entertainment at the multiplex.
Ponzi goes on to caution, “It is illegal to use them in the U.S. The FCC claims public safety as the reason. But they are used in prisons and other government facilities. Unless you get fingered by an angry mob of text-deprived millennials, you have little to worry about.”
Illegal, schmegal. Let them throw me in aesthetic jail.
To quote Marley’s ghost in Dickens’s’ yuletide classic, “Every day we pay the price, with a little sacrifice, jammin’ till the jam is through.” As much as we’d like to be jammin’, the price of silence doesn’t come cheap. The tchotchke runs $640. Don’t get me wrong. The uninterrupted joy it emits is worth ten times that. Unfortunately, I blew all my surplus holiday cash on tube socks and underwear at the Dollar Tree.
I want a TITAN for Christmas! The thought of asking the boss to toss one in my holiday stocking had crossed my mind, but who wants to come across as an ingrate, particularly in light of this year’s Christmas bonus, a Rolex Daytona.
That leaves it up to one of you. What do you say? An investment of $640 will translate into a few years’ worth of hilarious columns. And I’ll even arrange to be in the audience with you for at least a dozen opening-night performances.
Together we can zap the little buggers to oblivion and enjoy movies the way God intended them. You know where to find me. Now if only there was a button to push that would silence crying babies.
Scott, it would be wrong to finance a WMD for the Reader's movie critic, though I wouldn't mind personally tasing the management at Landmark.
Landmark's latest travesty since closing the UCSD-adjacent La Jolla Village site is the cockamamie Hillcrest cinemas' "remodel." The once-serviceable Hillcrest theater now sells tickets inside its small lobby instead of outside where patrons easily used to queue up. (They also got rid of the outside bench where people used to wait for companions.) Parking garage chits are validated only after a second wait at the separate concession stand line -- not at the time of ticket purchase. (Why not just require an upfront Raisinets surtax?)
Finally, the number of seats in each theater has been drastically reduced by replacing them with giant recliners. Now you can pay more for a ticket online in advance, but there is no seat reservation system, so it's possible to end up sitting in the neck-breaking first row. Alternatively, you still can schlep to Hillcrest to buy a ticket in person five minutes before screen-time and risk being told the theater is full. I don't know what happens to the parking garage fee in that case, but I do know I won't be going there anymore under these conditions.
Not sure why they did away with outside ticketing. It's not like patrons were asked to stand in a frigid Chicago-ish line. And I've spent the past year or so scratching my head at theatres cutting their seating capacity in half to accommodate La-Z-Boy recliners. Are people that afraid to leave to comfort of their living rooms? It seems bad for business, but what do I know? One point of disagreement is over assigned seating. This isn't a roadshow presentation in Cinerama. Ever stand behind a clueless schmo holding up the line while trying to pick a seat? It's a movie, not jewelry at Tiffany's. First come, first served and if that means getting to the theatre early, so be it.
Because old-fashioned theaters where everyone is crammed in to sit in an airplane seat SUCK! I only go to Cinépolis Luxury Theaters now... I cheerfully pay more to pick my seat online, buy my ticket, show up to no lines, relax, and watch a movie with a cocktail and a nice snack. Bad for business? It's GOOD for business! You will never have to worry about me standing in a line ahead of you ;-)
Cinepolis? Isn't that a restaurant that shows movies? I was there once. Never again. And that goes double for the Lot.
If we can pick our friends, pick fruit trees and pick our noses, there should be a Constitutional amendment guaranteeing that we can pick our seats!
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