Pity the business of no business

I was at SM Manila today wandering around and wondering aloud when the last hurrah of such establishments as Odyssey Records and Astroplus will be. There were absolutely no customers inside. I wonder, given the level of piracy on and off the Internet, how can record stores survive? Prices of pirated music is 80 – 90%  cheaper and over on the Internet, the music you get can be quantified as free. How do you compete with free?

I used to love going to record stores and still remember the time when Music One and Tower Records at least had a respectable number of customers and a wide range of music titles. When they first opened, I’d usually go over the foreign titles available. These days, I hardly have the time to visit them because I get tired traveling to Makati. So Odyssey is the next best thing.

Unfortunately with Odyssey, the salesladies are clueless about the titles they are selling. You can read one of my older posts on how a trip to Odyssey can be an odyssey in real comedy. Also, they don’t have as many titles as you’d wish them to have. It’s quite understandable because theirs isn’t a business that must stock much inventory.

I just hope stores like them continue to exist and persist even in the face of piracy.

If you’ve been to SM Manila, you will note that a restaurant called Kitaro is just across Odyssey. It was dinnertime when I was still at the mall and I noticed that Kitaro was the lone restaurant with no patrons. The waiters and even the cook was outside waiting for any patrons they could welcome.

I pity establishments that have no business. It must be the entrepreneur in me. Perhaps they don’t have any good food or good products to sell, or they have the wrong pricing, or lousy service, or whatever. The point is when I see stores that have no business, it can also mean that the economy is bad. In this instance, I think they just have the wrong proposition because other restaurants were filled with people.

I am actually sad when I see businesses that are not being patronized. (Of course, I am talking about legitimate businesses.) The reason? Lost jobs when the business closes down. No job means no money for the employee and his or her family. Tsktsk.

Batman 3.0

I always think of something interesting to write about when at the end of the day I realize I have nothing to muse or swoon about.  Today is one of those days so I figured I’d just write about my current favorite movie, The Dark Knight. The previous title was held by Transformers.

The Dark Knight is still making box office records two weeks into its release, Box Office Mojo is my favorite site for movie ticket sales (US & Worldwide Ex-US). They have this chart of all time top domestic (US only) grossers and  The Dark Knight has a Titanic battle if it wants to surpass that 3-hour long melodrama. What is interesting though is this comparison -

13 Day Total Domestic Gross

The Dark Knight – $ 343 M

Titanic                – $ 113 M

I also hope Bats trounces Iron Man’s iron hide. Go DC Comics!

In my Batman rabidness I searched the net for the latest news on the movie’s box office performance. It seems that every time I do a search on Google I find out that it keeps on breaking new records. Kudos to Chris Nolan (again). I also came upon some sites that held storyboard contests for a possible third installment into the Chris Nolan Batman Universe. I really hope Chris Nolan makes a third Batman movie, along with all the current cast members (well at least those that are still alive, either in reality or as their characters in the movie).

Reading the fan fiction made me want to write my own. I racked my brain to come up with what I wanted to see if there’d be a Batman 3. Batman 3 has to be more than what The Dark Knight is and was, and it has to pick up where it ends.

I don’t have it yet in my head but when I do, I’ll post it here.

Until then, have a great weekend and see you at my next post.

Will I don my mask again?