All My Movies ~ By Bolide Software

It doesn't always have to be about travel does it? Families still like movie nights, we at least my family does.

I have recently come across a really cool piece of software for cataloging movie software and I want to share it with you.

All My Movies by Bolide

I'm a big movie geek. A couple years ago I started converting all my DVDs over to digital files. It saved a lot of space. My movies took up three or for full sized book cases in my home, so when I say it saved space I mean it saved a lot of space. 

The problem with digital files though is I used to be able to just look at my book case until a movie kind of struck my fancy. Hmmm, there's Armageddon, haven't seen that in a while.  It's a lot harder to do that when your staring at directories on a computer. This software will give you a virtual bookshelf of your movies, It uses the actual DVD art.

Not only that it links to IMDB (The Internet Movie Database). It will display all the movies information on the screen. You can find movies by actor, genre, year, title, just about any way you can imagine.

Virtual bookshelf on the left ~ Movie info from IMDB on the right

You can use it with DVDs or Blue Ray disc as a way to catalog what you have. You can even use it to track those movies if you loan then to friends. Both pretty useful features for those with hard copies of their movies.

For people like me who buy there movies in digital formats now the database will also link directly to files in your hard drive and you can use the virtual launcher to play the movie. To me that is the programs most awesome feature. Grab you soda and popcorn and then pick the movie you want from the virtual bookshelf and hit the play button to start the movie. 

It was exactly what I was looking for when I started looking for movie cataloging software. The only functionality I would add is the ability to export a movie or movies to a USB drive, Phone or Tablet, but that is a small caveat for such an awesome piece of software (Heck it might even do it and I just don't know how yet).

You can download a demo on their website here... BOLIDE SOFTWARE

Six Flags ~ Not as expensive as you might think.

We love Six Flags. If you read this blog for any amount of time you will probably be able to figure that out. But we are definitely  not made out of money so how do we keep the costs down and the fun up.

The prices listed in this blog are current as of 12/03/15.

Our first year at Six Flags we had memberships. For about $87.70 a month for the 5 of us we could go to either Texas Six Flags and it included the dining pass which gave us lunch and dinner at Six Flags Fiesta Texas, but not anywhere else. It also included standard parking free. If you go enough to make it worth your while it was a good deal. Average cost was about $1052 a year.

Memberships have gotten better though. Now with the combo gold membership you can go to any regular Six Flags park (although most of the dedicated water parks are still not included, only the closest one to your home park is part of the deal) and you can now eat at any park by upgrading to the combo gold dinning pass. You also still get free parking with either gold memberships or gold passes. A little more expensive but probably still worth it (when I priced it out it would have come to about $100 a month for the five of us. So about $1200 a year.)

It is a good deal of you can't come up with the money for passes but plan to make a lot of trips to Six Flags (like we do). If you go the membership route you do have to stay a member for a year. You can quit any time after that with a months notice (if you give notice in June you will have to pay for July, but then you would be done.)

If you can afford to pay it all at once however passes are definitely the best deal. 5 combo gold passes with 5 combo gold season dining passes came to $867.48. That comes out to $173.50 per person. If we go 10 times that would be Six Flags with lunch, dinner and a snack for $17.30 a visit.

A ticket bought online is $49.99 

Average for cost for a meal at the park is $11 

Average cost of a snack is $5

So a ticket, two meals and a snack would be $77

Oops, almost forgot, this year's combo gold dining passes and memberships come with an all you can drink beverage cup for free. That's going to be worth at least another $15 bucks a visit.

That's $92 a day. If you go twice that's $184 bucks. You just can't do it all in one day anyway. I tried, it doesn't work.

The Six Flags website says the dining pass pays for itself after four visits, but if you consider that sports bottle it makes that money back even quicker. 

2016 season passes are good now and last till the end of next year. So basically we are already saving money every visit.

Go on weekdays when Hotels are less expensive and the lines are not as long. We usually find a great Hotel with two queen beds and a sofa and with a full complimentary breakfast for about $60 a night in Dallas or San Antonio. We usually start two nights.

Don't Miss Out! See Today's Top Hotel Deals at TripAdvisor

Gas is cheap right now. Less then $50 each way and we are 5 hours a way. Our average trip is less then $300 bucks.

Heck if I lived in Dallas or San Antonio it would be an even better deal. We'd go to Six Flags just to eat.