Diablo Cody exposed; A Little Ecomonic Digression for You all

Diablo Cody has built a very successful life for herself through writing a blog about her time as a stripper.

I guess I made the wrong life choices - going to school, practicing my craft, looking for work in my chosen field...

When people are looking to have things written, there's a distinct prejudice against writers. Go figure.

My buddy works for Air Canada, and in the airline business, consumers have basically told the airline that the only thing that matters to them is price. Many people have tried to run an airline that caters only to business class (with higher ticket prices), but they all went under. Why? If someone raises the prices on a car, or a couch, or food (just slap the label organic on there) people will rush out to purchase this status symbol. But the same doesn't apply to airlines.

I've been thinking about that a lot. Obviously, the value people see in the flight lies with the arrival, not the actual trip. Pretty much everyone you talk to will tell you that life is about enjoying the journey, not the destination. And then they cram themselves into increasingly smaller economy seats and grumble about the price. Almost everyone who travels business class has someone else pay for it - like their company.

Does the same thing apply to movies and TV? There's a place called the Pacific Mall where whole stores sell nothing but illegal copies of DVDs. Most of my friends go in a frenzy of media buying. 20 for 10 bucks! I try to tell them they can get the same thing for free over the internet at home, but somehow free doesn't have the same enticing allure as cheap. There's a killer joke in there somewhere, but I'll save it for another blog.

They only buy movies or TV shows they actually want to see, but they feel they got excellent value. And in a sense, they did - it's the same movie as a 20 to 40 dollar non-stolen copy at a fraction of the price. And don't give me that bullshit about how little it costs to make a DVD, we all know we're not actually paying for the disc itself, we're paying for what is on the disc.

How many other things in life are there like that - where the only thing of perceived value is the destination? Books? Maybe, but I've seen a fair number of people on the subway with the prestige, adult (more expensive) Harry Potter. Trains? Sure, lump that in with air travel. TVs? Nope, bigger is better. Weddings? Ha, I'm only kidding. The whole point of weddings is spend as much as you can on every little element.

Oh, unless you're flying.

And when it comes to writers, it kinda works the same way. Where's the perceived value? What does the movie Juno have to do with the writer once being a stripper?

This comes full circle to my little post about James Frey the other day. The perceived value in his book was that it was true. And when it wasn't, people went apeshit.

What does that mean, apeshit? And is apeshit worse than batshit?

More on that another day.