Rich and bored? Try a $500-a-night home movie
“What would you do if you won Powerball?”
No, that’s not a news headline; it’s from an ad on The Times’ website. The Powerball lottery has come to California -- finally -- and though, with its lousy odds, that may not work out for most Californians, at least it means ad revenue (and perhaps job security) around here. So I’m for it.
But, in between worrying about North Korea and wondering what’s so hard about making background checks mandatory for all gun buyers, I admit it: I started to wonder just what I would do if I won Powerball.
And, fortunately for me, inspiration came from this story in my very own paper: “Now showing in rich people’s homes: first-run movies.”
Wow, and here I was feeling bad that I don’t have TiVo!
But now I know: If I win Powerball, I can run out and blow half a million or so on a home theater, just like Ken and Carol Schultz of Rancho Santa Fe (Ken didn’t win Powerball; he made his money in solar panels).
But wait! There’s more!
My colleague Daniel Miller wrote Tuesday about the Schultzes and other film buffs who not only have expensive home theater set-ups but take that a step further. With the purchase of a $35,000 device, they pay $500 a film (or $600 for 3-D) for 24-hour rentals of first-run movies.
Which really would, I suspect, solve the problem of people talking during the movie.
The Schultzes’ system was built by Prima Cinema Inc. of Carlsbad, Calif. It’s a new kid on the block -- it was founded in 2010 and began offering the movie service in 2012. But its chief executive, Jason Pang, sounds like he knows the key to success in the 1%/99% country that is the United States today.
“There are thousands of people out there, if not tens of thousands of people, that could buy this product. We found the secret sauce to make billionaires act like little giddy schoolchildren.”
See, you learn something new every day: Who knew that just being a billionaire is boring? Apparently, never having to worry about money grows old; you need a secret sauce. And we’re not talking McDonald’s.
So go ahead, lucky, and buy a Powerball ticket. If you’re going to be bored, you might as well be rich too.
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