The Triumphant Return of the Solitaire Update

After briefly pausing at our new base camp, our climb up Mount Everest has resumed.  Despite suffering through the setback of a 1 for 27 stretch, we ended up advancing our overall win percentage to 17.2%.  Winning at a 20% clip now seems like it is an obtainable goal.  To win 1 out of 5 hands of solitaire seems above average mean to me.  But then again, soon it will be quite average for me.  That is the greatness that is my solitaire mastery.

At the beginning of this exercise, I said I was going to start giving some names to the various aspects of the game so that I could more efficiently communicate my grand strategies.  I already introduced the term "gutter ball" to mean finishing a hand of solitaire with out being able to make a single card play.  Today we add another vocabulary word - "codon".  From hence forth, this word will be used to refer to the set of three cards you turn over from the deck (see picture below).  My word is law.

Day 48 – 2 of 8 (199.5, 4.01, 49.56)
Day 49 – 4 of 8 (201)

Day 50 – 0 of 6 (201, 4, 49.38)

Day 51 – 2 of 9 (201)

Day 52 – 1 of 1 (202, 4, 48.56)

Day 53 – 0 of 5 (200.5, 4, 48.33)

Day 54 – 0 of 10 (200.5, 4.04, 49.36)

Day 55 – 1 of 12 (200.5)

Day 56 – 3 of 7 (201)

Day 57 – 1 of 6 (201)

Day 58 – 1 of 4 (201)

Day 59 – 2 of 8 (201.5)

Total - 89 of 516 (17.2%)

The Sure to be Wrong Prediction of the Week

This week I am going to take a shot at predicting the first movie this year to break the $100 million mark.  Since none of the movies released so far this year stand a chance of reaching the century mark (Sorry wolf-punching Liam Neeson) this is truly a forward looking exercise.  In 4 out of the last 5 years, a movie released in January or February reached 100 mil.  So I am going to play the odds and say we are going to have our first century club member in hand before Rare Disease Day has passed.  By making that declaration, we dramatically limited the field.  So let's take a quick look at the remaining candidate.

There is no clear cut blockbuster in the February slate.  There are several recognizable names releasing films but none of them really are the type that carry big money makers.  The Rock, Ryan Reynolds, Denzel Washington, Drew Barrymore, Nic Cage, and Harry Potter all stand a good chance of getting a movie a $50 million gross but not much more.  We also have a couple of sequels on our hands but the original Journey and Ghost Rider movies barely made it to $100 million last time and no one seems to really be clamoring for another go around with these stories.  So what does that leave us with?

The three movies that I think have the best chance to go big time are Chronicle, This Means War, and Wanderlust.  Chronicle feels like a really interesting, decidedly dark take on the superhero trope and the found footage angle clearly still has legs.  It is hard to get a real feel for how interested people are for this because it is such a genre movie and the it features unknowns in an understated advertising campaign. There is a chance this could be another Cloverfield but in the end I just don't think there is enough critical mass behind this movie.

Next I will tackle Wanderlust.  This one actually does have a star that has shown she can deliver a $100 million dollar movie.  Jennifer Aniston has scored two $100 million comedies in a row.  But this movie seems fairly generic.  Another movie about harried professionals slowing down and learning to enjoy life.  Haven't seen that story in the theaters....since last month 6 months in a row.  Also, it is released the last week of February so all the other movie in front of it have to fall down in order for it to be first to the finish line.

That leaves us with This Means War.  Bane (an English national working for the CIA?) and Captain Kirk fight over Reese Witherspoon who every seems to have stopped caring about 10 years ago.  But it is a big budget action/comedy coming out around Valentine's Day.  That "holiday" has helped other movies break through to the rarefied air.  And has alot of the look and feel of Mr. and Mrs. Smith (the folks that made that movie made this one too), which was quite successful and really enjoyable.  So, I am going to put all my Monopoly money down on This Means War as the year's first $100 million movie.  (my hedge - I would not be surprised if this movie topped out at $75 million).

Bonus Prediction - This one isn't mine but I agree with the person who said it - Reese Witherspoon turns out to be a spy too.

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