Chuck E. Cheese's is a right of passage for kids and their parents forced to go there for birthday parties, but there is a dark side...
The Wall Street Journal reports the pizza place is becoming known for something other than parties....fights among parents. Here's a snippet of the article:
Fights among guests are an issue for all restaurants, but security experts say they pose a particular problem for Chuck E. Cheese's, since it is designed to be a haven for children. Law-enforcement officials say alcohol, loud noise, thick crowds and the high emotions of children's birthday parties make the restaurants more prone to disputes than other family entertainment venues.
The environment also brings out what security experts call the "mama-bear instinct." A Chuck E. Cheese's can take on some of the dynamics of the animal kingdom, where beasts rush to protect their young when they sense a threat.
Luckily, my visits there are rare these days as my kids have grown older, but I've never really thought of Chuck E. Cheese's as a fun place for adults. Sure, it's fun watching your kids have fun, but it's hard to tolerate all that noise, screaming children, expensive pizza and the dancing rat for any length of time.
I wasn’t shocked to hear about Tribune Company filing for bankruptcy this week. It’s just more proof the industry is outdated and the business model no longer works.
Tribune owns a number of well-known newspapers, including the Chicago Tribune and the Los Angeles Times, along with a number of TV stations and the Chicago Cubs.
Do you still read the actual printed newspaper? Would you read it if your workplace didn’t supply it? If you answered “yes” to these questions, I’d bet you’re in the minority. I DO read the paper, but it’s practically delivered to my radio studio. This is not to say I don’t care what’s in the paper, I do. However, there are so many other choices than simply flipping pages.
Both of our local newspapers have decent online sites, at least in terms of content. The news is there, peppered with a bunch of ads that my mind doesn’t even register anymore, even though the actual websites are a bit clunky to navigate at times.
Speaking of ads...does anyone still read the newspaper classifieds the companies once relied on for revenue? People can post and read the ads for free on so many websites, such as craigslist, so why bother finding a newspaper?
Looking for a job? Go to a specialized website. Looking for a car? Go to a specialized website.
I think our brains are being re-programmed to skip all of the extraneous stuff forced on us by websites to generate money. I’m sure I see lots of ads everyday, but I ignore them. I co-own a business and I would never advertise on the web. We rely on word-of-mouth.
Did you even notice we at AZPM have (less-obtrusive) ads on this website? Sure, we call it “underwriting,” but they’re ads, plain and simple, and I bet you don’t even notice them.
What’s the answer for newspapers? I have no clue, but something needs to be done and they need to further evolve. Simply laying off people won’t work in the long-run, unless the goal is to go out of business.
I could go on about the future of radio and TV too, but I’m running out of space on this high-tech blog.
One of my favorite shows on KUAZ is Marketplace, which often makes difficult financial things easy to understand. Case in point...
The show's website has a special section describing things using the basic whiteboard and a dry erase marker. This brings back memories for me, as I was in the exact spot of the "set" during a recent visit to the L.A. area. Check out a sample below.
Is it Thursday already? I’ve lost track of time, what with all the deadlines I’ve had to meet (I know, losing track of time is not a good thing to do as deadlines approach … and recede). Yesterday alone, I cranked out three scripts for the Arizona Friends of Chamber Music radio series and a little 450-word magazine news item. Today all I really have to do is write a restaurant review, so I can surely find the time to direct you to my latest contribution to the Tucson Weekly:
Is it a sign of gay-rights progress that Arizona and California voters have denied homosexuals the right to marry?
It's progress if you consider that 20 years ago, the issue would not even have been placed on a statewide ballot. Now, it's an inescapable question, because--whether social conservatives like it or not--gays and lesbians are part of the American mainstream. They're so mainstream, in fact, that they're integrating their institutions: You no longer have to be gay to sing in a gay chorus.
Desert Voices is celebrating its 20th anniversary this season. It started out as a social activity for uncloseted Tucson gays and lesbians who didn't have many options beyond the bar scene. Today, it's a serious chorus that includes gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender members, and is even about 30 percent straight.
The promotional machine is gearing up here at AZPM to tout a new iPhone and iPod Touch application that allows you to listen to KUAZ on your cell phone. This sounds familiar...
Portable radio is really nothing new. Remember a thing once called the transistor radio, which Wikipedia says was first invented in the 1950s? Wireless, battery-powered radio? What a concept!
Sure, listening on a cell phone is new, but I'm not sure this really is a so-called killer app. You can listen to the radio just about anywhere these days, even on an inexpensive mp3 player. I have this feature on my non-iPod player and I NEVER use it.
I guess the rub here is that you can listen to KUAZ if you're out of town. Sure, you can do that on a computer, but forget about that. The station is really excited about this.
Oh yeah, if you don't have an iPhone, you can still listen to us on the go. Just make sure you have batteries in the boombox, or whatever your radio of choice is these days.
I love high-tech toys just like the next guy, but am I the only one who uses a cell phone simply to make a call?
Last Thursday I never got around to posting a link to my Tucson Weekly contribution, it being Thanksgiving and all, and since then I’ve just been too busy to blog, what with a whole lot of December 1 magazine deadlines hitting me, as well as a 400-page manuscript for a lizard field guide that I had to proofread for a publisher. Anyway, now that that long sentence is over, back to business as usual. This time, it’s a two-in-one review of holiday Christmas plays:
The first two holiday theatrical productions to hit the boards this year couldn't be more dissimilar: an affectionate, family-friendly comedy from Gaslight Theatre, and a subversive, dark comedy from the new Unlikely Theatre.
Take the kids to Gaslight, but don't let them anywhere near the other show; don't even let them read the review, because it contains naughty words that nobody wants to believe Santa and his reindeer could utter.
