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Thursday, December 25, 2008

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

New Travel Options for Atlantic City

There are 2 new travel options for getting to Atlantic City that might help make Atlantic City continue its desired transformation into Las Vegas East.

Beginning on Feb 6 will be weekend train service between New York’s Penn Station and Atlantic City. The service is called ACES, Atlantic City Express Service. It will offer leather seating, a lounge and food and beverage options. Their will also be a first-class section. Upon arrival in Atlantic City, there is complimentary shuttle service to Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa, Caesars Atlantic City and Harrah's Resort, the three casinos’s underwriting this service. The trip is expected to take 2 and ½ hours. You might say, why pay for the train when it takes the same amount of time to drive down? Well, as long as the schedule fits, you can relax on the way down, or start your party early. If you are going down with the boys or the girls for a weekend party, what better way to get it started? Make friends on the way down, and …hey you never know. On the way back, you don’t have to worry about driving back with that raging hangover. This will definitely bring in the younger, disposable income crowd from NYC that three casinos mentioned would LOVE to come and spend, spend, spend. They party and spend in Vegas, now they might try AC a little more.

If you are in Boston, you can now fly to AC on Sprit Airlines. Starting May 1, Spirit will have one fight a day in each direction. The flight will take 90 minutes. Just in time for the summer peak season.

With AC casino revenues down for the year, they need all available options to bring in new people. What better way than to offer new modes of transportation that will probably be utilized more by the hip, younger crowd, so AC can move away from the Grey Haired day tripper set to a younger free spending, over night tourist.

Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Blog Surfing

I ran across an article on the DealBook blog on nytimes.com. It was about Joshua Perskey. He made some news during the summer, when out of work for a period of time, decided to take a different approach to his job search. He stood on Park Ave in New York City for a week, handing out resumes while wearing a sandwich board that said “Experienced MIT Grad for Hire”. Well, he landed a job. It seems that this stunt attracted world wide attention, and he created a blog to document his experience. A recruiter showed a contact the blog, and eventually Joshua landed a job doing valuation work.

This just goes to show you that in this environment, do whatever you can to get noticed. He was interviewed by MSNBC and Fox, which lead to requests for updates on his search, thus the creation of his blog and the opportunities it brought his way, namely his new job and new popularity.

While reading his blog, I came across a link for a blog titled I’m on Linkedin, now what. This blog is an invaluable resource to learn about the many options and features available to LinkedIn members. I did not know all that is available to use on your profile. For instance, you can have your blog entries streamed to your profile, and have slide show presentations on there as well. You can use the slide show as another way to advertise yourself, if you are job hunting, or use it to promote your accomplishments.

I know it is simple and common sense, but it is amazing what you can find on the net just reading others blogs, clicking the links or linking to commenter’s web pages.

Monday, December 1, 2008

Movie Review – Quantum of Solace (2008)

My first movie review. Probably won’t be too often because I have two young children and my wife and I don’t have time to go to the movies often, We did go out last night, however, to see the new James Bond flick, “Quantum of Solace”. Since this is my first crack at a review, if I gave away any critical plotlines, please forgive.

“Quantum of Solace” is moodier and darker than its predecessor, “Casino Royale”. Daniel Craig reprises his role as James Bond. His gives Bond a harder edge, rough looking, ruthless character than the previous Bonds incarnations, but stills looks suave and debonair in his custom suits. Craig brings the series into the realm of the current spy offerings, such as the Bourne series, with quick over the top action sequences and minus the campiness of the previous Bond offerings. In “Quantum of Solace”, Bond struggles with an inner conflict of revenge for the killing of Vesper, his love interest from “Casino Royale” versus performing his job in the manner which he is supposed to, completely detached from emotions. This conflict takes a toll on Bond, as he doesn’t sleep too much and all his adversaries end up dyeing by his hand. The movies picks up immediately after the end of “Casino Royale”. It opens with a car chase through the Italian town of Siena, with his Aston Martin DBS taking a beating again, and ends with a chase across the rooftops as the Palio di Siena, a horse race around the Piazza del Campo, takes place below. All very unbelievable, but very entertaining, never the less.

The villain, Dominic Greene (Mathieu Amalric) is an environmental CEO whose true motives are more economical. He is part of a secretive worldwide organization that has people in high levels of all governments, and who can overthrow and install new political regimes.

Returning from “Casino Royale”, in smaller roles, are Mathis (Giancarlo Giannini) and Felix Leiter (Jeffrey Wright). The Bond Girls, typically, are stunning. Agent Fields (Gemma Arterton), looking like she just stepped off a Burberry catwalk, is a dispatch from the British consulate in Bolivia who is no match for the smooth Bond. Within 10 minutes of arriving at their 5 star hotel, they are in bed together. More intriguing is Camille (Olga Kurylenko), a feisty vixen who is driven by her own desire for revenge. This shared inner rage is the connection between her and Bond, though it does not lead to any sexual liaison between the two.

The plotline takes the movie to many exotic locales, from Italy and Haiti, to the Bolivian desert, to name a few. It also lends itself to continue into the next installment of the series. The secret organization is not yet exposed and the key players of it are still at large.

All in all, an enjoyable movie, with plenty of action and a decent plotline. So does Bond get rid of his inner demons? Let’s just say that he should not have any trouble sleeping at night any longer.