Well, I promised I'd do another one, and this one stayed fresh in my head from yesterday, so I thought I'd blog about something else that's been irking me recently.
Going to the cinema
Now obviously as I mentioned before, cinema is my job, so it goes without saying that I'm not talking about work-related cinema trips. I'm talking about the rare occasions when I'm out and find myself wanting to see a film. The only reason it's rare, incidentally, is because I generally prefer to spend my time on video games. Why? Because:
A: They're longer.
B: There have actually been quite a few decent film-game conversions. Can the same be said in reverse? Didn't think so.
As soon as I buy the tickets, I'm in for a nightmare experience. It's not that the cinema staff are unhelpful; From experience I can tell you that they're not paid to be anything but vague. It's not even that the food isn't great quality. It's the other people in the screen. The economic repercussions of the credit crunch have been attributed to many things, but I can venture forth a reasonably credible guess as to part of the problem:
Flat-screen televisions.
Seriously, how often are you shown round your mate's new home-theater system, complete with 50" TV to compensate for a 4" penis, 5.1 Surround and 4.3 brain cells operating the whole fucking thing? Anyone who has ever heard someone open a sentence with a strained "it's a *little* out of my price range, but..." will know the pain from which I draw as I hammer out these keys solely using rage.
See, the problem is that these cinema-like experiences have also made people complete arseholes when attending a public cinema. Not even B&Q make a tool bigger than some of these people. Not only do they then consider themselves experts on the ideal setup (I actually had someone saying that his action film was too loud and that his system at home was much more about "subtlety of movement"...What?), but they also seem to think that if they're watching a screen with inches in the hundreds with cinema-quality sound, they're obviously at home and as such can do whatever the fuck they want.
If it isn't one thing in a screen it's another. As an employee of the cinema industry, nuisance customers come in all shapes and sizes. Most of the problems relating to customers in a screen are the standard fare (phone on, talking too loudly etc), but here are some of the other things I have to deal with:
People kicking the seats in front of them - The sad thing is that if I was to kidney-punch the chavvy slut they're seeing the movie with, I'd be the one who got in trouble. No justice, eh?
People throwing food towards the screen - Anytime you see the evolutionary scale from prehistoric man to civilised man, remember that cinema patrons rank somewhere in the middle.
People sitting in the wrong seats, despite the row letter and seat number being printed on their tickets - I can live with people not liking subtitles, although I don't see what the big problem is about reading *and* looking. However, a letter and number is *not* an entire film. It's two, maybe three characters at maximum.
That's about all the irritations I suffer as an employee. As a customer, I find the main irritation leads me to the following set of Cinema Customer Rules.
1: Unwrap ALL your fucking sweets before you enter the screen.
2: If you receive a text message during a screening of a film, do yourself and the sender a favour. Give it your full attention - *outside* the screen, *after* the film.
3: If you recognise someone from the film, I promise I will load up IMDB after the film and fucking research his/her entire career myself if you promise not to think or talk about it until the film's over.
4: If the cinema in which you find yourself is part of a large shopping mall, for fuck's sake leave your shopping in the car. Alternatively, take it for granted that nobody has rooted through your GAP bag during the film, because it's been gripped tightly by your stupid fat hands.
Going to the cinema
Now obviously as I mentioned before, cinema is my job, so it goes without saying that I'm not talking about work-related cinema trips. I'm talking about the rare occasions when I'm out and find myself wanting to see a film. The only reason it's rare, incidentally, is because I generally prefer to spend my time on video games. Why? Because:
A: They're longer.
B: There have actually been quite a few decent film-game conversions. Can the same be said in reverse? Didn't think so.
As soon as I buy the tickets, I'm in for a nightmare experience. It's not that the cinema staff are unhelpful; From experience I can tell you that they're not paid to be anything but vague. It's not even that the food isn't great quality. It's the other people in the screen. The economic repercussions of the credit crunch have been attributed to many things, but I can venture forth a reasonably credible guess as to part of the problem:
Flat-screen televisions.
Seriously, how often are you shown round your mate's new home-theater system, complete with 50" TV to compensate for a 4" penis, 5.1 Surround and 4.3 brain cells operating the whole fucking thing? Anyone who has ever heard someone open a sentence with a strained "it's a *little* out of my price range, but..." will know the pain from which I draw as I hammer out these keys solely using rage.
See, the problem is that these cinema-like experiences have also made people complete arseholes when attending a public cinema. Not even B&Q make a tool bigger than some of these people. Not only do they then consider themselves experts on the ideal setup (I actually had someone saying that his action film was too loud and that his system at home was much more about "subtlety of movement"...What?), but they also seem to think that if they're watching a screen with inches in the hundreds with cinema-quality sound, they're obviously at home and as such can do whatever the fuck they want.
If it isn't one thing in a screen it's another. As an employee of the cinema industry, nuisance customers come in all shapes and sizes. Most of the problems relating to customers in a screen are the standard fare (phone on, talking too loudly etc), but here are some of the other things I have to deal with:
People kicking the seats in front of them - The sad thing is that if I was to kidney-punch the chavvy slut they're seeing the movie with, I'd be the one who got in trouble. No justice, eh?
People throwing food towards the screen - Anytime you see the evolutionary scale from prehistoric man to civilised man, remember that cinema patrons rank somewhere in the middle.
People sitting in the wrong seats, despite the row letter and seat number being printed on their tickets - I can live with people not liking subtitles, although I don't see what the big problem is about reading *and* looking. However, a letter and number is *not* an entire film. It's two, maybe three characters at maximum.
That's about all the irritations I suffer as an employee. As a customer, I find the main irritation leads me to the following set of Cinema Customer Rules.
1: Unwrap ALL your fucking sweets before you enter the screen.
2: If you receive a text message during a screening of a film, do yourself and the sender a favour. Give it your full attention - *outside* the screen, *after* the film.
3: If you recognise someone from the film, I promise I will load up IMDB after the film and fucking research his/her entire career myself if you promise not to think or talk about it until the film's over.
4: If the cinema in which you find yourself is part of a large shopping mall, for fuck's sake leave your shopping in the car. Alternatively, take it for granted that nobody has rooted through your GAP bag during the film, because it's been gripped tightly by your stupid fat hands.
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