"Netflix streaming now accounts for 20% of all landline Internet usage during peak hours in America. A massive amount of people are watching movies for free now." But the thing is, Netflix is not free. People are paying a lower rate than they would have if they purchased a DVD, but they are not stealing, they are paying $15/$20 for their subscriptions.
Is the same analogy to the music industry; people were being ripped off with $22 CDs, then Napster killed everyone with their "share' model, but then Apple was able to open people's wallets with their 99¢ a track model, which is better than "free" but not as good as $22 for basically the 2 tracks you wanted on an album. The profits are always contingent on the costs and overhead, so the digital revolution is basically shrinking budgets/profits, but that may not be a horrible thing for film.

I love 5 Second Films.
Great concept, great execution, way better than Avatar.

Why did you leave Kate from "Lost" out?
The only thing that can explain Kate is that the writers had like 9 great dude characters already (Sayid, Locke, Sawyer, Charlie, Hurley, Desmond, Michael, Walter and even Jack when he is not crying), and then someone said "We need to fill our female quota for the union!" Then they watched soap operas so they could get a peek into the female mind and what they got back is "lost little girl, can't make up her mind, won't ever listen to reason".
They realized what a shit job they did with Kate, so to atone, in season 2 they wrote in Juliet, which is everything Kate could have been but is not.

Well played Mr. Mike. And well played to the team for making it happen.
I wish there was video of this night.

$200? For a header/logo design, the original Wordpress set up (if you use a hosting package), the code clean up and a tutorial which may includes telling people the difference between domain name and hosting, Twitter vs. Facebbok, or how to upload a photo because they have never done it before?
I think $500 is a more realistic price. It's still a bargain and you get great looking stuff that is functional and works everytime. This compared to the basic professional/good looking website of $3k. And don't get me started on any of those great looking and filled with cool features (video galleries, social network integration, live updates, forms, e-commerce, etc...) great band websites you see, they are all on the $10k and up range.

I've seen the "we are angry while driving around and refuse to talk to each other for 3 eternal minutes" scene variation a few times, and always ask myself the same question, "Why am I watching 2 people sit in silence on stage while they are not looking at each other?"
As a non-improvisor, I've heard the "it's not supposed to be funny" line/excuse a few times.
Thanks for clearing that up.

Here is a picture of what it looked like....

You raise a good point.
As a young musician I played in an "industrial" band.
One of the reasons why "industrial" music never reached the mainstream (except Nine Inch Nails and Marilyn Manson, the exceptions that proved the rule) is because "industrial" music is not really a music genre, it's actually a production technique. Good industrial music is good pop songs with distorted vocals, loud guitars & thumping drum machine beats. But if the song sucks then there is not enough distortion in the world to save it.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of "industrial" purists that would get up onstage, bang a hammer on a piece of sheet metal while screaming like a banshee, and then wonder why people weren't coming to the shows more than once.
How does this relate to your post about improv?
I think improv is a performing technique that uses the strengths of both improv comedy (in the true sense of the word, making funny stuff up on the spot) and scripted theater (characters & plot).
The difficult part of getting this across to the average audience is that most people come in expecting to see "funny" (the pop song structure) and if all goes well they'll enjoy the characters and plot (the distortion & electronics). But it can also a bit of bait & switch to them because in many cases the audience is not expecting two characters to be sitting on the stage emoting "silent rage" at each other for 2 minutes. To the audience it looks like dead air on a show, but to the performers it's dramatic gold and a chance to work on their trust issues and their dominion over the fabric of time & space, blah, blah, blah...
Kind of like the industrial musician banging on metal with a hammer - he thinks he is illustrating man's rage against the machine, but to us he looks like a moron banging on sheet metal.
In the end, mainstream music adopted many of the industrial techniques (U2's distorted vocals on "Achtung Baby", David Bowie's "Outside", the thumping drumbeats in today's Timbaland produced pop, etc...) even when the genre was never fully adopted by the mainstream. Yet many of the industrial acts continue to tour to the same small but dedicated audiences that they've been playing for since 1989.
Much like to the world of improv, where the people that achieve mass success are the people that use the techniques of improv theater outside of the confines of the improv theater. Borat & Bruno are basically improvised movies, but the word "improv" is never mentioned when referencing either movie. All the smash TV shows are heavily populated with performers and writers from the improv world, yet the mainstream public is not aware that the improv world is where all their stars come from and could have seem them live for $5 the year before. With the exception of Drew Carey, and I guess that makes Drew Carey the Marilyn Manson of the improv world.

I guess all I can say is that loving improv & industrial music are very alike for me. And that I feel your pain.
Feel free to thrash my argument.

Great post and I fully agree with your idea of making up your own superstitions, since they are all made up anyways.
Here is one superstition my band made up while on tour:
"If you sleep on someone else's pillow you will dream their dreams.
If you flip it over you will have their nightmares.
This does not apply to hotel pillows, as no one uses them long enough
to leave a soul imprint."

This is awesome, congratulations Riki!
I read the "Flashforward" book recently and I think it has the potential of becoming my second favorite show, after Lost, of course.