The recession apparently hasn't trickled down to pre-teen girls and other fans of Taylor Swift.

The country singer's May 1 show at the RBC Center in Raleigh sold out within 30 minutes of tickets going on sale at 10 a.m. today, except for a few scattered single tickets.

Of course, tickets really went on sale earlier this week at Taylor Swift's Web site, so this morning's "official" start at Ticketmaster and the RBC Center box office was mostly for older folks who didn't know any better.

Blockbuster is putting more of its stores on the chopping block.

In a regulatory filing today, the struggling video-store chain with nearly two dozen Triangle locations, reported that it may close 960 stores by the end of next year.  

The Dallas-based chain operates about 3,650 company owned stores and franchisees run more than 600. Blockbuster wrote that 18 percent of its stores are unprofitable.

The owners of Napper Tandy's Irish Pub in Raleigh have bought Stool Pigeons, a bar and restaurant in the trendy Glenwood South area that closed earlier this week.

The new owners, cousins Robert and Daniel Stapleton, plan on making some improvements and reopening the location as the Downtown Sports Bar & Grill by the middle of next month. Terms of the deal weren't disclosed.

"We're going to give it a fresh look, a new atmosphere," said Robert Stapleton, who has owned Nappy Tandy's for about four years. "It's a great location."

The new owners plan on installing 30 plasma TVs next week. A new menu will feature food for mostly $10 or less.

"We're going to treat it like the recession and give people a decent deal," Stapleton said.

Roller-coaster fans, get ready to ride a few hours west.

Carowinds announced today that it will add a $23 million ride next season named after NASCAR legend Dale Earnhardt that will be “the Southeast's tallest, fastest and longest roller coaster.”

At 23 stories high at its tallest peak, “The Intimidator” will be Carowinds' tallest ride, The Charlotte Observer reported. It will have seven steep drops – one for each of Earnhardt's NASCAR championships – and travel at a maximum speed of 75 mph.

Carowinds says it will last more than three minutes and have the “intensity of a fast-paced NASCAR race.”

The amusement park, located about 15 minutes south of Charlotte, is adding attractions to lure visitors during the economic downturn.

In a farewell e-mail, the now-common way for workers to sign off in the modern age, some employees use famous quotes or literary references. So it's not a shock that a Raleigh TV executive borrowed from Carol Burnett.

Michael Munoz has been general manager of TV station Univision 40-WUVC in Raleigh for the past two years. He was recently promoted to vice president of client development for Univision Corp. and will be based out of Dallas.

This is his last week at the local station. Univision 40 and its low-power sister channel WTNC TeleFutura are still looking for a new GM to replace Munoz.

In a note he sent today to "colleagues, partners and friends of Univision 40," Munoz wrote about his accomplishments and thanked the TV station's staff -- all standard stuff for a classy farewell e-mail.

Kevin Flannery didn't exactly get eaten alive Sunday night, but close.

As Brooke Cain writes on our Happiness is a warm TV blog, the CEO of WiSpots pitched his Cary company to a panel of billionaire investors on ABC's "Shark Tank." The idea is to install wireless gadgets in physicians' offices for patients to use while they wait.

But the investors pointed out that many people already have phones and other devices with wireless Internet access. They also urged him to cut his losses and stop risking his family's future (and his financial well-being) on the venture.

Of course, there might be a bright side: The free publicity from the show could help Flannery find some cash anyway.

Can a Cary entrepreneur swim with the sharks?

Over at our TV blog, Brooke Cain writes about Kevin Flannery, founder and CEO of WiSpots, and his television debut.

On Sunday night at 9 p.m., Flannery will compete with other aspiring business types for the attention of investors on "Shark Tank."

WiSpots was founded in 2002, has 11 employees and sells Wi-Fi service for physicians' offices. Patients surf for free, and the company makes money through advertising.

The Triangle is getting a new choice for cheap movies.

Garner Towne Square 10 on Friday will stop showing the latest blockbusters and start screening second-run movies for $2.

There are only a handful of second-run movie theaters in this region, including Carmike Cinemas Blue Ridge 14 and the Raleighwood in Raleigh, and the Howell Theater in Smithfield.

The switch in Garner is partly a response to the recession. The 10-screen theater's business has suffered as competition increased and customers cut back on entertainment, said general manager Robert Hughes.

A new owner, Carolina Cinemas, took over in May and decided to try reduced prices to attract moviegoers.

"Garner is a blue-collar kind of community, where every penny matters even more," said Hope Branch, district manager for Carolina Cinemas. "If you get enough people through the door, that's a lot of $2 tickets."

A Triangle company is adapting another silver-screen plot for the video game crowd.

Merscom, a Chapel Hill-based video game publisher, is developing a game centered on “Shutter Island,” an upcoming Paramount Pictures film directed by Martin Scorsese and featuring actor Leonardo DiCaprio, executives said Tuesday. The game is due out Oct. 2.

Who needs a newspaper to answer that question?

In the age of cable and satellite TV, few people actually need the newspaper's guide to decide what to watch on a day-to-day basis. They look to the newspaper for stories about TV, TV celebrity gossip, occasional reviews and news of trends in television entertainment. In addition to print, we provide a TV blog that includes  short reviews, news and gossip tidbits and a forum to discuss TV shows.

But a significant number of people want their daily newspaper to provide a generous listing describing what's on the tube and at what time they need to be on the sofa. Some really want it. In fact, they demand it.

We knew this to be true even as we made the difficult decision to sharply reduce the one-page guide that we had printed six days a week for several years.

In recent years, TV viewing habits have changed drastically. Many people rarely watch a TV show when it is scheduled to air. They rely on DVR devices with generous capacity to record hours of programs. They can program the DVR to record all episodes of their favorite shows to view at their leisure. Some watch their favorite shows on their computer screens. Others have digital cable and satellite services with elaborate on-screen guides that can be sorted not only by time and channel but by genre.

Even people with basic cable have a TV guide channel. I've been hearing from cable subscribers who emphatically state that they know that they can get guide information from the TV screen, but they just don't want to. They want to lay out the paper and plan their viewing day.

Traditionally, the general interest newspaper has provided a wide variety of informaton. However, with revenue declining, we cannot continue to absorb the high costs of content that is not essential to our core mission of providing in-depth local news, and for which the audience is shrinking.

We now provide by subscription only a weekly guide to readers who get the paper at home and we have reduced the daily guide a quarter page.

In choosing the channels for the reduced guide, we gave priority to the local channels and listed what we had indications were the most popular basic cable channels.

Many of you are unhappy. We hear you and appreciate the depth of your disappointment at having something you personally valued taken away.

We cannot restore the full-page guide. Reducing the size of the type to include a lot more channels will hurt readabilty.

However, we are re-evaluating the mix of channels we offer. We may eliminate a few channels with content similiar to other channels on the list in order to add channels with a different type of content. We may be able to make a small adjustment in the type size to increase the number of channels to 30, from the current 29 channels.

Thanks for your responses.

Linda Williams

Senior Editor/News