Like most Charlie Rose fans and PBS supporters I’m also a huge fan of “The Simpsons”, but I’m watching the season premier right now and it’s one of the worst Simpson’s I’ve ever seen – just terrible. It feels like some sort of writer’s strike is going on and they brought in the 4th string team. Odd, and sad.
I’ve seen Amusement World quoted twice now indicating that Walt Disney World’s four main parks see a combined attendance of about 40 million people per year. Las Vegas reports about the same number of annual visitors. This seems incredible, as Las Vegas has dozens of huge resorts and it would seem represents a much greater total investment. Perhaps it does but the per person spending is much greater, justifying the bigger investment? Perhaps Disney is counting people twice if they go to more than one of their parks in the same visit?
More research needed.
Hey, here are some fun Las Vegas Statistics I like the fact that the Shrimp Cocktails at the Golden Gate have zero inflation.
PBS, which I tend to think of as a good filter to screen out hype, is pushing the “Ultrametabolism” book and CD by Dr. Hyman. I like his scientific approach, which assumes the obvious – humans are primates who evolved to thrive on natural rather than processed foods.
However he seems far too confident that natural foods nutrition and some excercise are a panacea for health and WAY too concerned about all the “toxics” in the environment, especially when he adds sugar to the list of toxins. I’d like to ask him why early peoples who ate NO fast food or processed food and had no modern “toxins” in their environment suffered such low life expectancies.
Maybe I’m just feeling guillty about the ham sandwich and coffee I just ate for breakfast.
This notable marketing stat from the UltraMetabolism website:
The food industry spends more than $33 billion annually on marketing; 70% of those dollars go to pushing fast food, convenience foods, candy, snacks, soft drinks, alcoholic beverages and dessert.
33 Billion is just over $100 per year per person. Can I just have a rebate please?
Joe Duck 